This Delhi schoolboy designed a mobile app to calculate attendance

The app— called “Attendx”— is the first of its kind to cater to students without requiring permissions of teachers and parents.

When it comes to innovation, we have many examples of engineering students coming up with interesting inventions. Anirudh Goyal, however, beat the odds by designing a mobile application while studying in class 12.

A bright student who had secured 9.4 CGPA in class 10 exams, Goyal had faced a hurdle with attendance. He needed to take sick leaves when he got tonsils and preparatory leaves before exams, which resulted in a drop in his attendance and lead to numerous questions from school authorities. To combat the issue of students being unable to calculate attendance in the long run, he designed an app that would do the calculations for them.

“The app asks you to input your current attendance and how much minimum attendance you need to achieve. Using this information, it will let you know how many days you need to attend classes, how many days you can take off and will give you a warning if your attendance is dropping so you can compensate for the same on time,” says Goyal, adding that the app caters to students of various schools as it takes into account different schedules.

The app— called “Attendx”— is the first of its kind to cater to students without requiring permissions of teachers and parents. It is also unique as it has been customised to “the peculiarities that present-day school students face”.

“I learnt C++ at school but a majority of the coding I know was learnt online through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs),” says Goyal. He had started developing the app during his summer vacations as he had a passion for technology and believed there was a solution to his attendance issues. Goyal notes that he was motivated by watching the innovative works of his seniors in the technology club called “Exun Clan” at his school.

Though it was tricky to balance time for school, tuition and developing the app, he managed to do so by catering late evenings and nights to the app and focusing on his studies when exams neared.

“I’ve always been a quick learner so I could catch up easily if I fell behind. I score well but I don’t aim for academic heights like topping in class. I rather wish to pursue computer science in the long run and am looking at universities abroad for the same,” he says.

In his free time, Goyal commented that he plays cricket and watches shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. He is also the author of a book on logo designs for beginners which he will soon publish and he even has his own YouTube channel.