Student-Built, Community-Tested: The AI App Connecting North Carolinians to Critical Resources
Season 3, Episode 34 of Kinwise Conversations · Hit play or read the transcript
Student-Built, Community-Tested: The AI App Connecting North Carolinians to Critical Resources
Episode Summary: What happens when two high school students watch their own families struggle to find help and decide to build the solution themselves? In this second episode of Kinwise's special series on the NC AI Solve-a-Thon, host Lydia Kumar sits down with Satviki and Anwita, the first-place winning team from Cox Mill High School in Cabarrus County, and their coach Nina Darnell, Spark Lab leader for Cabarrus County Schools. Together they built NC Connect Link, an AI-powered app that helps people across North Carolina find jobs, housing, food, healthcare, and legal aid in one place.
Their process wasn't just impressive for students. It was impressive, full stop. They built a feedback loop, tested with real users across counties, iterated based on what they heard, and are already planning their App Store launch. This conversation is a proof point that the debate about whether students are ready for AI is already over.
Key Takeaways for Superintendents, K-12 Leaders & Mission-Driven Educators
Start with the human problem, not the tech. Satviki and Anwita didn't begin with a cool app idea. They started with a problem that had touched their own families and built outward from there. That human-first framing shaped every design decision they made.
Real feedback loops are a learnable skill. Before the competition, the team reached out to libraries, local organizations, school administrators, and community members to test their app, then implemented what they heard. Customer discovery isn't just for startups.
AI was a teammate, not a replacement. They used Claude and ChatGPT to debug code, explore ideas, and pressure-test their thinking. Satviki handled the backend herself; AI helped her go further faster.
Designing for stress changes everything. Because NC Connect Link was built for people in crisis, the team prioritized natural language input, typo handling, multilingual support, and speed. Simplicity was a deliberate, empathetic choice.
Students don't have to wait. As Satviki put it: "We don't have to wait until we're older to make a real difference. We can start whenever our curiosity begins."
What Problem Were You Trying to Solve?
Lydia: What sparked your interest in the problem that your team decided to solve?
Satviki: I really love solving real-world problems with technology. While we were brainstorming, we were thinking about all the problems in our community right now. The biggest one, and I think most people just overlook it, is joblessness. When people don't have jobs, that leads to not having housing, food, or shelter. There are resources out there, but people have to go to different websites for different needs. If you need jobs, you go here. If you need shelter, you go somewhere else. There's no single place with everything in one spot. And the existing tools: government websites, Google, ChatGPT, sometimes give wrong information or just long lists of links. If you're already stressed, you don't have time to go through 50 different links. So we thought: what if they could just ask a chatbot one question and get a reliable answer in five seconds?
Lydia: You said this is a problem a lot of people overlook. What gave you the perspective to recognize it?
Satviki: Everybody goes through this problem. Even our parents went through this problem. We've seen them go through stress, not being able to find resources on time. They eventually did, but it took a long time. We went online, did some research, and thought. Okay, this is a problem not only for parents but for everyone.
Anwita: Our inspiration really came from seeing our own parents struggle to find the resources and support they needed most. We realized a lot of people in our community face similar challenges, whether it's food, healthcare, or legal aid, and there wasn't an easy way to connect people to help. That's why we wanted to build a solution that makes a real difference.
Building the App
Lydia: Walk me through how you actually created NC Connect Link. What did the process look like?
Anwita: I was really surprised by how AI can help you think creatively and strategically, not just give answers. It helped us organize information, explore ideas, and even suggest solutions we hadn't thought of. It felt like having a teammate who could really support us.
Satviki: AI was a really important part of how we built the app. I did most of the backend, and we made sure the AI worked as intended by not collecting personal data, not giving wrong information. We used Claude and ChatGPT mainly for debugging. When we write code and it doesn't work, we don't have many people to turn to. AI was mostly right, and it helped us move forward. But we did the main coding ourselves.
Lydia: How long did it take to build?
Satviki: About a month to a month and a half. The first version we built for the Solve-a-Thon wasn't that advanced. When we became finalists, we improved it, sent it out for feedback, and kept editing until the very last minute. Even now we're taking it further. We're entering another competition and planning to make it fully functional and put it in the Play Store and App Store.
The Feedback Loop That Made Them Stand Out
Lydia: Was there a moment where it went from an idea to something that felt really real?
Satviki: When we started testing the app with real people across different counties and cities in NC. We made a feedback form and sent it to Ms. Darnell, who sent it to the people she knows. We also personally reached out to local organizations, libraries, schools, and administrators. When people started saying "this is actually really helpful, "and some said "if this really existed, it could help millions of people in North Carolina,” that's when we realized this was something impactful.
Nina Darnell: I felt like they needed different eyes on it. As their coach, I know their process from start to wherever we are. But fresh eyes see things differently. I sent out their feedback forms with the app attached so people could actually use it and see if it did what we intended. The other piece was getting them ready for their pitch, taking that feedback, applying it, and being able to say: here's what we heard, here's what we changed. I think that really made them stand out.
What Was Most Challenging?
Lydia: What was the hardest part of building your solution?
Satviki: Making sure the app responded correctly in different situations. Humans aren't robots. They don't type the way you expect. Different people type differently, and some type with a lot of typos or unclear phrasing. I wanted the app to work smoothly no matter how someone typed. We added typo handling based on user feedback, before that, the app would fail on plain human language. We also started with only major urban cities in NC. People told us it wasn't working for other cities, so we added all of them. Now, after the Solve-a-Thon, we've included rural and urban areas across all of NC.
Anwita: For me it was figuring out how to design the app to be simple and easy to use for everyone. Since our goal was to help people find quick resources, we had to think about accessibility and clarity. Making something that works well and is easy to understand was definitely a challenge.
Skills Beyond the Classroom
Lydia: What skills did you develop during the Solve-a-Thon that you don't usually get to develop in school?
Anwita: This project really taught me how to approach problems critically and communicate clearly. I learned how to think from other people's perspectives, really considering what they need and how our solution could help them. Using technology to create real-world solutions is a skill I hadn't explored before, and it's something I'll carry forward.
Satviki: In school, all I do is create normal projects. I haven't been involved in tech-heavy courses yet. Everything I went through on this project was really different from school. I'm really interested in tech and I want to build solutions that actually help people, but I don't get to do that in school. It doesn't have the courses for it. That's actually the main reason I got into SparkNC: to learn the tech skills I need to pursue my passion. I combined all of those skills and built this project.
Nina Darnell: Collaboration. Working as a team. They did a really great job. And listening to understand, so you can make an informed decision after you've taken in all the information. They definitely gained those skills.
What This Taught Them About What Students Can Do
Lydia: When you think about this experience, identifying a real problem, building an AI solution, what did it teach you about what students your age are capable of?
Satviki: It really showed me that students our age are capable of way more than we usually think. If we're given the chance to work on real problems, not just regular school assignments, we can actually build things that have real impact. This project wasn't just about coding. It was about understanding a problem, working as a team, and creating something meaningful. It made me realize we don't have to wait until we're older to make a real difference. We can start whenever our curiosity begins.
Anwita: Before this, I didn't realize how much we could do as students. Working on this app showed me how to tackle serious challenges, use technology to help others, and put our ideas into the world. It made me feel proud of what we can accomplish when we try our best.
Nina Darnell: High school students can accomplish so much. A lot of times things get in the way because they think it's more difficult than it actually is. When you're able to show them it's really not that hard, just follow these steps, you see the light bulbs go off. And that opens them up to so many other possibilities. The openness to try more. That's the really cool part.
"We don't have to wait until we're older to make a real difference. We can start whenever our curiosity begins." — Satviki, 10th grade, Cox Mill High School
What's Next for NC Connect Link
NC Connect Link is currently available via a public sharing link. Find it in the show notes. The team is actively competing in Ready Set App, a mobile app competition focused on community problem-solving, with finalist decisions expected soon. Their goal is to launch on Google Play and the Apple App Store by the end of summer.
If you're a developer, educator, or tech professional who can help them navigate the App Store publishing process, reach out to Lydia at kinwise.ai and she'll connect you with the team.
Guest Bios
Nina Darnell is the Spark Lab leader for Cabarrus County Schools, where she coordinates SparkNC programming across the entire district. She brings a background spanning nearly nine years in higher education at Ferris State University, nonprofit leadership, and a master's degree in education technology and channels all of it into creating hands-on learning opportunities for students.
Satviki is a tenth grader at Cox Mill High School in Cabarrus County with a passion for technology and math. She handled the backend development of NC Connect Link and hopes to one day launch her own tech company focused on building solutions that improve people's everyday lives.
Anwita is a ninth grader at Cox Mill High School in Cabarrus County who loves reading, building projects, and solving real-world problems with technology. She has her sights set on universities like Harvard and hopes to continue developing solutions that make a meaningful difference in communities.
Connect with Nina Darnell: [Insert LinkedIn]
Resources Mentioned & Related Concepts
NC Connect Link — The AI-powered app built by Future Minds to help North Carolinians find critical resources including jobs, housing, food, healthcare, and legal aid.
SparkNC — North Carolina's statewide program for student innovation and entrepreneurship, coordinated locally by coaches like Nina Darnell
Ready Set App — The next competition Future Minds is entering; a mobile app competition focused on solving community problems
Claude and ChatGPT — AI tools the team used for debugging, ideation, and understanding their codebase
Replit — The platform used to build and host NC Connect Link during the competition phase
Connect with Coach Nina Darnell on LinkedIn
