For many school-going kids, bullying leaves numerous emotional scars which often remain hidden behind forced smiles and silent suffering. A teenager from Mumbai, Agastya Desai (16), shared the same saga.

Enrolled in the city’s Jamnabai Narsee International School, his painful experiences induced by bullying became the driving force behind an innovative solution that is now helping children rendered helpless due to the same.

Agastya fell prey to bullying due to obesity

Agastya recalls dreadful experiences of going to the school each day, as classmates mocked him with hurtful names due to his weight, leaving him ostracized and emotionally drained. Fear prevented him from confiding in his guardians, while the lack of a reliable support system at school compelled him to endure the harassment in silence for months.

Rather than allowing those experiences to define him, the 16-year-old channelled them into creating ‘Unburden,’ an Artificial Intelligence (AI)- power cell phone application to offer emotional support, guidance and early intervention for bullying-stricken kids.

Agastya told media-persons, “It was really horrifying. I had no one to talk to,” while spilling the beans on the predicament which inspired his project.

Teen stumbles across idea a year ago

Detailing on the app’s ideation, Agastya said the idea for Unburden took shape over a year ago after he attended a programme centred on cyber-bullying. Having spent as many as five years learning coding, he decided to leverage technology to address an issue inflicting harm on thousands of school-going children.

Initially conceived as a website, the project gradually transformed into a fully-functional cell phone app.

Features of the app

Notably, the app enables users to create anonymous profiles and interact with an AI chatbot specifically trained to respond to bullying-related concerns. To access the app’s all features, users are required to provide the contact details of a trustworthy adult, such as a parent or a guardian, employed as a safeguard aimed at enabling intervention whenever professional support may be required.

Once the signing up process is over, students complete a 10-question assessment designed to identify signs of bullying. On the basis of results, the app recommends suitable support options, such as therapy referrals and guided self-help resources.

“Talk to the chair” feature the highlight of the app

The most noteworthy feature of the app is the “Talk to the Chair” one, an exercise encouraging kids to imagine their bully sitting opposite them and openly express their emotions they have been suppressing. Registered users can later delete those recordings or shape them into written journal entries.

The AI-powered journaling tool also monitors entries for indicators of severe emotional distress. If it detects references suggesting self-harm or suicide-related thoughts, the system immediately notifies about it to the user’s nominated trusted adult.

Before being launched, Unburden was tested through three non-governmental organisations (NGOs), with the consent of both children and their respective parents. According to Agastya, the chatbot received particularly enthusiastic feedback from users.

Agastya bags Gold medal at fair for app’s development

The teen prodigy’s efforts earned him a gold medal at the IRIS National Fair, and he later advanced through mentorship programmes, to secure a spot later at the prestigious International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the United States.

Looking ahead, the young innovator hopes to pursue his studies in Computer Science overseas while expanding Unburden to schools and NGOs worldwide.