Brothers create app to tackle gun violence

Alarmed by a recent CAP analysis, which reported that there were more than 1,100 threats of gun violence from the past 10 years, an unassuming duo put their heads together to formulate a solution. Reconciling one’s prowess in coding with another’s intrinsic drive, the two worked endlessly over the summer to combat the issue. The end result? An award-winning app with more than 20 features.

Two brothers — senior Adi Dora and sophomore Mike Dora — designed iHearU, an app that detects common phrases, such as “stop hurting me” or “just let me go,” signaling if the user is in danger. When the key phrase is voiced aloud, the app immediately sends emails to pre-inserted emergency contacts. The messages alert those sources to bring the user to safety.

“Our app is different (from other apps) because it has voice recognition. If your phone is (turned) off, and you say a key phrase, it can (still) recognize it,” Adi Dora said.

To receive an evaluation of their skills, the brothers presented their creation in several competitions. Ultimately, in March, they won first place in the Congressional App Challenge, a competition where each participating member of Congress selects a winning app from their respective districts. According to Adi Dora, after Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan selected their app, their reaction to winning was priceless.

“I got an email when I was sitting at the lunch table with my friends,” Adi Dora said. “I opened the email, and I just showed it to the person sitting next to me. He was like, ‘Yo, congrats!’ When Mike walked into the lunch room, I literally ran up to him. We were just really excited.”

Mike Dora partly attributes their success to the brotherhood, which allowed them to easily delegate each other tasks without argument. Mike created the app’s design and Adi coded many of its features. For them, nuisances of working in a team, particularly accountability, were absent because of their relationship.

“We literally sleep right next to each other,” Mike Dora said. “We can easily walk into each other’s room and yell at each other to get the work done.”

Despite their success, both brothers see room for improvement in their app. Changing the app’s outer appearance and avoiding false alarms (where a person may use a trigger phrase as part of everyday language, for example) are some aspects they wish to perfect before advancing to the next step: releasing their apps on different platforms, such as the Google Play Store.

“I was able to see it go from just a blank screen on the phone to an actual app network that had like 20 different parts all working together,” Adi Dora said. “It was just a nice combination of everything that we’ve been working for.”