Tech with Heart: A Student’s Nationally Recognized App Supports Individuals with Memory Loss
When Colonial Forge High School student, Pranav Vedula, set out to design his first iOS app, he wasn’t only chasing prizes—he was looking for solutions. His creation, ReCheck, recently earned top honors in the Congressional App Challenge for its thoughtful and accessible approach to supporting individuals with memory loss.
For Pranav, this project was deeply personal. “The inspiration behind the app was my personal experience with my relatives, specifically my grandpa,” he recalled, “I know that my experience is far from unique.” Hoping to create a resource that could help the millions of families who support individuals with memory loss and symptoms of dementia, ReCheck was made to help those experiencing memory loss maintain independence using structured, gamified reminders for caregivers and their loved ones.
This empathy-driven idea became the foundation for ReCheck, which blends practicality with creativity in its design. “There are three main aspects of ReCheck,” Pranav said: “the Routine Builder, the Task Checker, and the Memory Game.” The Routine Builder helps users create daily to-do lists, allowing them to add reminders for tasks like taking medication or going for a walk. The Task Checker lets users check off their tasks as they complete them throughout the day. Lastly, the Memory Game scrambles the user’s task list and challenges them to reorder it from memory. All of these features use reinforcement learning to help individuals take a structured approach to learning and decision-making, enabling them to learn from the consequences and outcomes of their actions.
Naturally, building a memory consolidation app didn’t come without its challenges. “The biggest challenge for me was learning Swift and SwiftUI, the programming languages that ReCheck is built from,” Pranav said. Before he began working on ReCheck, Pranav was still new to iOS app development. Because of this, he spent hours watching tutorials and reading instruction manuals to resolve app issues and bugs.
Through perseverance and passion, Pranav transformed an idea into a working tool that makes life easier. “The biggest goal with ReCheck is to restore some degree of independence to people experiencing memory loss,” Pranav notes. “It’s difficult having to rely on others for simple day-to-day tasks, so ReCheck is designed around telling someone experiencing memory loss what tasks they do (through the Task Checker) and helping them remember their daily tasks even without the app (through the Memory Game).” The potential impact of ReCheck extends beyond his own family, sparking opportunities to change lives with the simple implementation of an app in their daily lives.
Despite his successes, Pranav remains curious and driven as ever. “I’m fascinated by the intersection of computer science and business, and I hope to use the two principles in college—and beyond—to develop and distribute software/AI-based solutions to real-world problems!” he excitedly remarked. With ReCheck, Pranav demonstrated his impressive technical development skills and showed how compassion and innovation can join to create meaningful change, pointing towards a brighter future for families supporting individuals with memory loss and the development of further helpful devices globally.
