May 13, 2018
Just days after a gunman shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida in February, Shreya Nallapati, a 17-year old high school senior from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, declared “a technological revolution against mass shootings, specifically in schools.”
Fed up with the lack of action being taken by government officials and leaders to end mass shootings, Nallapati decided to take what she knew best– technology — and apply it in a way that would make a lasting impact.
“I was tired of people posting condolences on Facebook and then forgetting about the incident,” Nallapati explains. “I want to use my knowledge of artificial intelligence to bring people together to solve a problem that is prevailing in society.”
Nallapati put a call out to her network of young women technologists, the Aspirations in Computing community, to join the effort. Together, they created a platform called #NeverAgainTech that uses predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to minimize gun violence and potentially prevent the next mass shooting. #NeverAgainTech is led by teenage girls, a welcome anomaly in a tech world dominated by men.