Tim Cook Praises 9-Year-Old Malayali Kid For Developing Storytelling App
Nine-year-old Hana Mohammed Rafeeq has caught the world's attention with recognition from Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, for her app called Hanas, a storytelling app that allows parents to record stories for their kids in their own voice.
According to the Khaleej Times, when Hana was sleeping, her father woke up to the reply from Cook. " I woke her up and conveyed the news to her. She immediately sat up and ran to the washroom. Usually, it takes several minutes to wake her up,” Mohammed Rafeeq, Hana's father, told Khaleej Times.
“I felt like a magnet was pulling me up,” an excited Hana told Khaleej Times.
With this, Hana becomes the youngest iOS app developer. The young girl wrote to Apple's CEO about her app and achievement once she was done.
Cook commended Hana for her outstanding accomplishments for someone so young. He informed the young girl that he believes in her and is confident that she would do great things in the future if she just stayed consistent.
“Congratulations on all of your impressive achievements at such a young age. Keep at it, and you will do amazing things in the future,” Cook wrote in his response.
Hana's software was built using 10,000 lines of code.
“In case parents are busy with work, they can record stories so that children can listen to it before going to sleep. This will help build the bond between parents and their children,” Hana told Khaleej Times.
Mohammed claims that Hana, and her sister Leena, age 10, are both self-taught proficient programmers. The daughters looked up to their parents, who both worked in tech. While discussing his daughter's upbringing, Hana's dad mentioned that he had his own fintech startup in 2018 and had urged his wife to begin taking coding classes. Leena, around age six at the time, developed an interest in coding. Her father, realising that she was still a youngster, handed her a mini-laptop on which to learn HTML and CSS.
Leena, Hana's older sister, created Lehnas, a website that teaches kids about new animals, colours, and phrases. As Leena's home state of Kerala was experiencing devastating floods, she posted a link to the Chief Minister's relief fund. This is when they saw the potential in their daughters. Rafeeq acknowledged that they chose to homeschool the daughters because they felt their skills were not valued at school.
The ladies study a wide range of languages, including their native Malayalam and computer languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, German, and Hindi.