a smartphone app developed by three indian girls two of whom are from a shelter home for destitute children in chennai has won the first prize of 12000 at a prestigious international competition that invites allgirls teams to tackle realworld problems the threemember team which includes stella ishwarya and akshara all between 10 and 14 years old won the prize at technovation girls an annual competition hosted by technovation a nonprofit in the us for their app baton which provides a collaborative platform for social work initiatives an ecstatic akshara said i feel great about this technovation challenge is a great opportunity for girls around the world the prize money will help us develop our app furtherthis year 7200 girls from 57 countries were tasked to develop a mobile application to solve an issue theyve identified in their communitythe baton team won the first place in the junior category on friday overcoming stiff competition from apps such as canadas cloud 9 that helps children address social anxiety with help of a friendly digital dog and virtual therapist among othersbaton is designed to maximise the social impact of initiatives started by social work interns or students in underserved communities baton hands over incomplete social work initiatives from one intern to another collaborating with ngos institutions and corporations just like in a relay race a baton is handed from one athlete to another our app hands over the social work initiatives started by a social worker to the next and this continues until social impact is achieved the girls saidwhile ishwarya and stella stay in a home run by ngo paadhai akshara is a class 6 student the trio came together to form team social relay which they say is a team for equality and inclusiveness tara chklovski ceo founder technovation told toi that the baton app developed by team social relay exceeded the expectations of the judges the judges were impressed with the design of the application noting it was very well thought out with a sophisticated workflow that was well beyond their expectations they felt the girls addressed a very adult topic in a smart and caring waythe girls were mentored by tanya elizabeth ken a class 11 student who herself was a finalist at the technovation challenge in 2017 this year social relay wasnt the only indian team that cut through intense competition an app maitri that fights loneliness in the elderly by connecting orphanages to oldage homes was also among the top six finalists in the senior division the fivemember maitri team was flown to a fullysponsored world pitch summit in santa clara to showcase their app to angel investorsthe idea for the app was born when ananya grover lost her grandmother to cancer in 2018 and saw her grandfathers long battle with loneliness after that i wanted to do something for senior care having experienced how loneliness can affect people i kept thinking of elders abandoned at oldage homes feeling unloved and