BENGALURU: It is not your typical tech city. It does not have any multi-storeyed posh glass buildings like those in Silicon Valley or Bangalore. Moreover, a person living here doesn’t even have access to proper sanitation or clear water. Yet, it houses some of the brilliant young minds who might be tomorrow’s Sheryl Sandberg or Virginia Rometti. Welcome to the new Dharavi! The Dharavi of gifted young girls aged eight to sixteen who are reshaping the outlook of India’s largest slum; slowly but surely.

In Dharavi’s Naya Nagar neighbourhood, young girls, armed with laptops and smartphones, are churning out mobile apps to address some of the major issues within the slum or even beyond Mumbai itself. The architect behind ­the venture is Nawneet Ranjan, a charity filmmaker, who after plying his trade in the US, came back to Mumbai. Back in 2010, he made a documentary–Dharavi Diary–depicting the slum’s grueling obstacles and wretched living conditions. The success of the documentary stirred a feeling in Ranjan to “give back” something to the community. The stirring eventually led him to establish the Slum Innovation Project in 2014. The project which started with 15 girls now has over 200 members including mothers and young boys.

Under the project, girls in groups of four each use the open source tool MIT App Inventor to design and build apps on the various issues they encounter each passing day. Women Fight Back, an app designed by 15-year old Ansuja Madiwal, helps women in distress within the slum or afar. The app provides emergency phone calls, SMS alerts, and distress alarms in case of a crisis. So far, the app has over 100 downloads in Google Play Store, says proud Ansuja. 14-year old Fauzia Aslam Ansari has built an app called Pani hai Jeevan which alerts people when it’s their turn for collecting water. Clean and Green, Padhai are some of the other ambitious apps which are in the pipeline. Ranjan believes that the endeavors of these young girls will one day transform Dharavi from a grubby slum into a beautiful suburb.

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