By Ritu Jha-
What started as a way to help his grandparents use mobile apps during COVID-19 has become a life-changing passion for an Indian American high schooler.
Ishan Dave, a senior at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose, has founded Aionix, a nonprofit organization aimed at helping seniors upscale their skills in digital technology, from artificial intelligence to social media. Dave also is designing an app to help senior citizens assess their susceptibility to Parkinson’s disease.
Striving to educate people on how they can improve their daily lives with AI, smart speakers and other digital tools, Dave and his friends provide online classes and make in-person visits to Bay Area senior homes.
Dave says it all started with his grandparents during COVID-19 when the need for digital technology was suddenly acute.
“I saw my grandparents struggling to use their phones and other devices,” he said. “I saw them go through a lot of trouble when they had to use their devices just for basic things like ordering groceries, talking to their friends, or navigating through social media platforms. And then on top of that came the rise of AI, especially with ChatGPT and all these large models publicly available for free.”
So far Aionix has reached over 750 seniors.
“Students like us learn these fairly quickly because we’ve been on technology our whole lives. However, I noticed it was hard for my grandparents, and I realized many more seniors struggle with this.”
Online attendees have included a large group in India. The sessions are geared toward seniors but people of all ages can join.
Aionix offers its one-hour sessions for free but gladly accepts donations and has raised money whenever possible to further its mission.
“I knew that we could start making a bigger impact with this by raising money and supporting the senior homes that we visit in the Bay Area, and support other causes like Aim for Seva.”
Founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, All India Movement for Seva (AIM for Seva), is a nonprofit that provides means for education to underprivileged children and runs 94 chatralayas (student hostels) in 17 states of India. Dave said Aionix has raised $5,000 for AIM for Seva.
Because smartphones can do seemingly anything, Dave said he quickly realized the need to “narrow down” ways that digital tools could be useful for seniors.
They determined that’s probably a working knowledge of messaging and delivery apps, along with AI tools like ChatGPT. They realized that different people needed help with different things, so they offered one-on-one support on top of the lessons.
They held webinars on how ChatGPT can help in a senior’s daily life.
The five-member Aionix team conducts bi-weekly webinars on Zoom where anyone can join. Topics vary weekly. A person visits senior homes or cultural homes and provides tech support. They visit the PARS Equality Center and local gurudwaras. They’re looking to partner with larger cultural homes.
Of course, offering the service for free makes operations challenging. After hosting webinars, Dave says Aionix makes a donations pitch.
“After hosting webinars, we let seniors know that these are free webinars, and all the services
we offer are going to be free forever, but if they would like to support the causes that we support, for example, Aim for Seva or senior digital literacy, then they can donate,” Dave said.
Some of the biggest support has come from his grandparents.
“My parents and my grandparents had a large circle of seniors who were readily willing to
support the cause. So just a culmination of all these things led us to raise $16,000, and I’m glad that I’m able to give a good portion of it to Aim for Seva.”
Beyond Aionix, Dave, who wishes to pursue a career in AI Healthcare solutions, is also working on NeuroSketch Analyzer, a project to help seniors detect early onset of Parkinson’s disease.
Through Aionix, he conducted research into implementing an AI machine-learning algorithm to detect Parkinson’s disease based on handwriting and spiral drawings uploaded by
seniors from home.
“I wanted to make an impact with such a project. And Aionix is the best way for me to list this project. I want to continue working on Parkinson’s disease because this is something that directly affects the seniors and the senior community.”
To do the test, the senior draws a spiral on a piece of paper. They can then take a picture of this and upload this image to the image classification model Dave trained. That model will detect whether there are any tremors or shakiness in the spiral drawing.
Based on that, it can give you a prediction, with a 91% accuracy rate, of whether you may have Parkinson’s disease. For now it’s just a proof of concept but he hopes to get it commercialized.
If that all sounds like a lot to handle for a teenager, it is, but Dave says it doesn’t bother him. He couldn’t readily say how much time he spends on his pursuits outside of school.
“It’s hard to track hours when you’re really passionate about something,” he said. “I don’t categorize this with homework or academic work. This is something I’m passionate about
and I’m doing this all the time. Whether it’s research or Aionix, it doesn’t matter, I’ve made it a part of me and something I’m super passionate about.”
Dave said the joy he felt helping his grandparents better use their phones during Covid is what’s driving him now.
“I’m reward-based, and that was a reward to me, seeing my grandparents succeed with their
phones. So, every time I see another senior learn something new, gain a new skill, or learn how to use a new app, it’s rewarding for me. That keeps me going, and that’s always going to keep me going.”
