A 15-year-old built an app helping families understand autistic kids

Shashank Madala was 15, with a single computer science class behind him, when he built Kora, a free app that helps parents read the emotional cues of autistic children. It now has more than 700 users across 12 countries, reaching families through autism therapy centers. The New Jersey high schooler started after watching relatives crowd around his younger autistic cousin at family gatherings, guessing out loud whether he was hungry or whether the room was too loud. They were often wrong. Over time, the boy stopped trying to tell them. A caregiver points a phone camera at the child, and Kora offers several possible readings, with bars for happy, sad, angry and afraid, plus suggestions for how to respond. Early versions gave one confident answer, which Madala realized repeated his family's mistake, so he rebuilt it to slow adults down and flag when it is unsure. In December 2025, Kora won first place in the Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey's 10th District, out of some 4,600 participants.