Meet the 5 Indian school girls who walked away with a gold medal and $15k at US tech challenge

Creating history, a team of five young girls from India has won a gold medal at the Technovation World Challenge in California. It also walked away with a $15,000 cash award. This is the first time the country had its presence in the event at Technovation.

The team 'Cantavits' is made up of five young girls from Vishwa Bharati Public School, Noida. They include Aditi Jain (Class IX), who is also the team leader, Sneha Agarwal (Class IX), Shraddha Chugh (Class XII), Shriya Shukla (Class IX) and Kritika Sharma (Class XII), all from the same school. The students spent eight months researching and developing an Android application called 'EEDO', which provides an end-to-end connection between e-waste producers and authorised recyclers who recycle e-waste in an eco-friendly manner without harming the environment and the health of those who recycle it. The team was coached by Archana Jain and mentored by Prajwal Shetty and Bhavesh Rawal.

The team defeated representatives of other tech giants from the US, Mexico, Spain, Egypt, China, and the State of Palestine to clinch the winning title. Technovation Challenge is a technology entrepreneurship programme and competition for young girls. Every year, they invite teams of girls from all over the world to learn and apply skills to solve real-world problems through technology. This year they received 20,000 registrations from 120 countries, of which only 12 teams made it to the finale.

"The idea was inspired by Prime Minister Modi's speech where he pointed out the rise of e-waste, and that motivated us to develop this application for eradicating this problem from the root, from India," said one of the representatives, in a conversation with YourStory.

The team intends to take their project to the next level where the disposal of e-waste is done through an app and there is less damage to the environment. The students are also collaborating with the government to have a faster implementation in India. They wish to use the money earned through the app for charitable purposes.

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