Teen develops app that reminds senior citizens to take their medicines

From being someone who wasn’t much of a tech buff, to now being the founder of one of the most user-friendly apps this generation has seen, Aryaman Kunzru has certainly come a long way. It all started with a personal dilemma – his grandmother’s irregularities in taking her medication, which he was desperate to put an end to.

After more than a year of online courses, Aryaman successfully designed ‘Dawai Dost’, an app that reminds senior citizens to take their medications on time. The first version is developed to be Android compatible, and he tested it on his family and friends to identify any glitches. He also conducted a trial run with HelpAge India.

Given the fact that not all senior citizens are tech-savvy, and not all are adept at handling a smartphone, the app works via voice notifications. It is also available in Hindi and Tamil languages. Aryaman is a 12^th grade student at Canadian International School in Hong Kong, and conducted extensive research to find apps of the same nature. His findings were all related to health and wellness, and all highly advanced. “This is certainly a blessing for the senior citizens who may not be well-versed with English or are more comfortable with the native tongue. There are helpful audio tutorials for many of the screens, so that the users have an easy voice-based instruction on what needs to be done at each stage of the date entry”, the 17- year old told DNA.

How it works is that the user takes a photo of the medicine packet, or he can feed in the information manually. You can also feed in the time at which the medication has to be consumed. The app will also remind the user when the medicines are approaching their expiry date, via text message or audio notification.

The app is now available on Google PlayStore.