A desire to help his younger cousin communicate more effectively inspired a New Jersey teenager to teach himself machine learning and develop an artificial intelligence-powered app designed to help families better understand children with autism. Shashank Madala was 15 when he began learning machine learning after watching family members struggle to understand his younger cousin’s emotional cues and needs.
During family gatherings, adults often tried to guess why the boy was upset. They wondered whether he was hungry, tired or overwhelmed by noise. But their assumptions were frequently wrong, and Madala noticed that his cousin eventually became less willing to communicate.Rather than accepting that communication gap, Madala decided to see whether technology could help. With only one computer science class behind him, he taught himself machine learning and began developing an app called Kora.
The free application is designed to help parents, teachers and caregivers interpret possible emotional cues from autistic children. Using a smartphone camera, caregivers can receive several possible interpretations of a child’s expression, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear and neutrality. The app also offers suggestions for how adults might respond. However, Madala realized during development that providing one definitive answer could create another problem. An app that confidently tells someone what a child is feeling could lead adults to make the same assumptions that originally inspired the project.
He redesigned Kora to offer multiple possibilities and acknowledge when it is uncertain, leaving the final interpretation to the adults who know the child best. In an October report, Madala explained that the goal was to help adults become more attentive rather than expecting autistic children to change to accommodate them. Kora is not intended to diagnose autism or replace professional guidance. The project has received national recognition. In December 2025, Kora won first place in the Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District. The application was subsequently displayed at the U.S. Capitol, and Madala received recognition from Congress.
A 2026 joint legislative resolution from the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly also recognized his achievement. The application now has more than 700 users across 12 countries, with families accessing it through autism therapy centers. Madala continues to develop the technology with three other students and hopes to expand its availability to more schools, therapy centers and families while keeping it free.
His interest in artificial intelligence has also extended into academic research. Madala works with researchers at Yale University’s Child Study Center, examining artificial intelligence applications related to autism and communication. For Madala, however, the project began with something much simpler than technology or research: wanting to better understand someone in his own family. The experience helped shape his belief that technology can be most useful when it encourages people to pay closer attention to one another. As Kora continues reaching families around the world, the project remains rooted in the same idea that inspired it when Madala was just 15 years old — helping people understand what someone else may be trying to communicate.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “It’s great news. It’s a great story, and this is why sometimes kids and with technology they’re more equipped than the adults to to think about these things. Autism has continued, of course, to be a problem in the U.S. Really all over the world. But what’s interesting about his idea here is he approached it from what’s the perspective of the child that has autism to try to give an adult here’s how the child might perceive or or feel what’s going on in their environment, and that’s what makes this so unique. It’ll be very successful, no doubt, that people all over the world that have an autism child within their environment, you could see them quickly latching on or subscribing to this kind of service.”
