by Noura, 16

Generation Z is quickly becoming the most entrepreneurial generation ever seen with 62% that have started or intending to start their own business as stated on Worth.com. Deeming themselves as ‘Creators of change’ while the oldest member of them is only 24 years old. They are a unique generation as they have an enormous potential and a creative mindset that would make the world a better place.

How distinctive is Gen Z?

The passion and eagerness within Gen Z have empowered them to work hard and to be significant. Microsoft survey claimed that Gen Z small business owners are redefining the workplace hustle as 91% of them work unconventional hours outside of 9 A.M.-5 P.M., and 81% of them work on vacation, compared to 62% of small business owners overall. And our team is an example of an eager and creative Gen Z.

Five young minds passionate about change

“The Guess What” was the name of the team we formed at TeensInAI Hackathon 2021 hosted by AI Club. We were just 5 normal teenagers and our passion to make a difference and our potential to learn only needed a place to grow. This hackathon was a striking step for us thanks to the mentors who inspired and helped us to empower team work and pushed our passion for AI and tech further. We experienced lots of obstacles during the developing phases such as balancing between work and school, slight arguments and losing motivation to commit to working on the project. It was really stressful and overwhelming most of the time but we supported each other, kept reminding each other why we started it in the first place to regain our motivation.

What inspired us?

The problem of the late arrival of emergency services, to remote areas in the city of Lattakia, to people in dangerous situations (such as car crashes and gunshots) drew our attention. The physical and psychological effects of these accidents -which can be fatal sometimes- (like anxiety and spreading insecurity in society) were what inspired us to work. Furthermore, car crash injuries are estimated to be the 8th leading cause of death globally. To tackle this problem, we decided to come up with a way to ensure the arrival of emergency services within 8 minutes max.

How did we precede Apple’s idea?

Our goal was to help achieve the 16th Sustainable Development Goal (Peace, justice, and strong institutions). Subsequently, we started developing “Safety Partner”, which is an application that uses AI to classify the sound and sort it out into accidents or gunfire sounds then inform the emergency services if the user is in danger. It is similar to Apple’s new car crash detection feature in the new iPhone 14.

Winning 3rd place in the Teens In AI hackathon motivated us to keep working on the project and developing in the weekends. Later on, we heard of Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge that could help us boost the project and perhaps fund it. We applied to the challenge then got to be one of the 20 qualified teams to participate with their projects. We improved the project with the help of our mentors in addition to the hard work we put together. In the finals we got to be one of the top 10 teams in addition to the fact that we were the youngest team.

I would like to conclude this story by stating that one of the most important reasons for our success was the chemistry between us, and everyone knowing their role; we worked together and helped each other without selfishness or negativity and always be more open to new ideas and not getting attached to the first idea the feels good, that way you might find even better ideas and maintain updating the project. Trying to make a change by inspiring the young people who could also make this world blossom and evolve was another essential reason to our success.

I believe that one small step will pave the way for next generations to lead and achieve greater and bigger success. We’re not only doing it for safety, we’re doing it to inspire other teens to shine, and feel the urge to do more in life. Doing the impossible is being realistic and that’s what we live by. So, we call all teens from all over the world to do their best and use our energy and intelligence to build what wasn’t built yet, and to create a safer community for all the generations ahead.