A pandemic upended their communities, so these teen inventors built apps to make life easier

CNN — Riya Shah walked into her high school without knowing it would be her last day in person. Saan Cern Yong “I stayed at home for quite some time, and I found a lot of things that I didn’t need, like some plates or some food that are too much,” Yong said. Before Covid-19, Yong said he was creating apps that addressed “small-scale problems that really hadn’t much impact.” “Covid-19 really pushed me harder to make different kind of apps that help people … to think outside the box, that I really need to innovate and try to help the world.” AlGIRLithm When San Francisco became one of the first US cities to go on lockdown, a group of five young women began forming a plan. “But here I think it was really amazing we could … see an obstacle and not hope that it doesn’t hurt when it hits you, but try to deter it or see it as a challenge, and knowing that it could help people.” Anuhea Toa, Athena Jiang-Qin, Elsa Bosemark, Luna Jiang-Qin and Selene Jiang-Qin of the all-girl coding team AlGIRLithm. “When we started this hackathon, it was like, ‘Oh, we want to do something to actually help our communities and do something impactful we’re actually passionate about,’” Tao said.