Shashank Madala stands with his Congressional recognition – credit, courtesy of Shashank Madala
Watching adults misunderstand the cues of his autistic cousin, a teen taught himself machine learning to build technology that could help them.
His solution has more than 700 users in 12 countries, reaching families through autism therapy centers—all while remaining free.
Kora, a free app that helps parents and caregivers read the emotional cues of autistic children. The app will offer several possible readings of what an autistic child may be feeling without any scores, diagnoses, or judgements.
The story begins with the younger cousin of New Jersey high schooler Shashank Madala, who would on occasion get upset at family gatherings. The adults who loved him most would gather around and guess out loud about whether he was hungry or whether the room was too loud.
They were often wrong, Madala writes, and over time the boy stopped trying to tell them. Madala was just 15, with a single computer science class behind him, but nevertheless decided to take action.
Madala’s early versions of Kora gave caregivers one fast, confident answer, and he came to see that this repeated the very mistake his family had made with his cousin. He rebuilt the app to slow adults down, offering more than one possible reading and surfacing what it is least sure about.
The philosophy behind his work was that technology aimed at autistic children is often built to change the child. His aim was to flip that script.
“A tool that announces that a child is angry invites the adult to stop looking at the child,” he wrote in Autism Spectrum News in August.
A caregiver points a phone camera at the child, and Kora offers several possible readings of what the child may be feeling, with bars for happy, sad, angry, afraid, and neutral, along with suggestions for how to respond.
In a display of responsible use of AI beyond his years, Madala also programmed Kora to now flag when it is unsure, leaving the final judgment to the adult who knows the child.
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The fruits of his labors won him major national award, and he’s since been recognized by Congress. In December 2025, Kora won first place in the Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District which included some 4,600 participants.
Kora was displayed in the US Capitol, and in 2026, a Joint Legislative Resolution of the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly lauded Madala for the victory.
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Madala continues to lead the app’s development with a team of 3 colleagues and hopes to bring it to more therapy centers, schools, and families.
“The most useful thing I have ever built came out of paying close attention to one person,” he said. “If you are looking for something that matters, it is probably already in your house.”
WATCH a demonstration below…
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