There are verses in the Bible that say you must utilize your talents well. In academic institutions, when students already know how to code, they will create apps and programs for what, evil? Well, not for these students in Michigan. They thought of creating an app inspired by Uber Eats, but catering to farmers.
A certain Krishna Mano, junior student at City High School in Grand Rapids, thought of creating an app called Krishi, aiming to help local farmers easily sell their produce from their farms online, without having to compete with other sellers on online platforms, since on Amazon, for instance, you can sell fruits, but there are other sellers around, several of them.
“I decided to combine my passion for coding and technology with my will to, you know, make the world better and have an impact in the community,” the student said.
This project of his wasn’t to impress others. As a matter of fact, he started the project due to his personal connection with real farming. The father of his dad purchased a farm in the 1930s in India, which his family is maintaining now, just like Stardew Valley turned real.
He has been exposed to farming for most of his life, and he realized that, like farmers in other parts of the globe, farmers in the United States are not getting the same level of credit. He is particular about this because of his passion for agriculture, which his family instilled in him.
The project of creating the Uber Eats-inspired app for farmers started his sophomore year when he started building the app that could change the farming landscape.
But, beyond his personal experience in farming, he also made sure to get insights from other farmers when he spoke with local farmers at the Fulton Street Farmers Market in 2024. He has been told that while the farmers can produce goods with top-notch quality, they find it challenging to sell them, so they have no choice but to trash those unsold crops.
“They were all telling me that their main problem that they face is that they’re not able to sell all their produce in time. So I was looking for a solution to, you know, make that easier for them,” Mano told the media, stating the obvious reason.
Via the Krishi platform, customers can see farms within their 20-mile radius and order produce directly from farmers, just like Uber Eats, but they won’t look for restaurants, but rather farmers.
Then, they place an order, and both the farmer and delivery driver can see the order and prepare it to bring to the customer’s location.
Even Mano’s teachers had input about his idea. They encouraged him to take it a stel further, so he submitted it for the ongressional App Challenge and ended up winning for Representative Hillary Scolton’s district in Michigan. But, of course, the app is already accessible. This was just for further publicity.
Because of this triumph, Mano toured Washington, D.C. last March to meet with tech leaders from companies, such as those as huge as Snapchat, where he got the chance to demo the app and receive feedback live. Mano also thanked his family and teachers.
“I’m still, you know, working out the minor fixes that we have right now, and I’m hoping for it to become an actual app that people can use,” he said.
The website where you can access the app has a free WordPress URL, so he will need more funds to build his own website. Google Play and Apple Store, let Mano be.