# About MyChild Engine > How a 9-year misdiagnosis turned into an open-source developmental screening engine used across 100+ countries. Built by Harsh Songra and Aafreen Ansari. Canonical HTML page: https://www.mychildapp.in/about ## The story In 2015, Aafreen Ansari and Harsh Songra raised $100K from 500 Startups and angel investors to build MyChild App. Parents in over 100 countries used it to screen their kids for developmental delays. Sheryl Sandberg wrote about it; Forbes put both founders on 30 Under 30 lists. The startup eventually wound down, but the core problem didn't go anywhere. Ten years later, the engine is open source — the rules, the question bank, the scoring logic. All of it. ## Where this started Harsh was diagnosed with dyspraxia at 11. It took 9 years for anyone to figure out what was going on — years between "something feels off" and "here's what it actually is." At 18 he built the first version of MyChild App; at 19, he and Aafreen dropped out of college to go full-time. The idea was never to replace doctors — it was to give parents a way to notice patterns early enough that the 9-year gap stops happening to other kids. ## Who we are ### Harsh Songra — Creator & Lead Engineer Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 11 after 9 years of nobody catching it. Built the first MyChild App at 18. Raised $100K from 500 Startups and angels, spoke at TEDx twice, named Forbes 30 Under 30 in India and Asia. - Forbes 30 Under 30 (India & Asia): https://www.forbesindia.com/article/30-under-30/30-under-30-harsh-songra-transforming-lives-of-children/42255/1 - TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/harsh_songra_why_do_we_fail_to_understand_people_with_disabilities - WEF Agenda contributor: https://www.weforum.org/stories/authors/harsh-songra/ - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/harshsongra · Website: https://harshsongra.com ### Aafreen Ansari — Co-founder & Content / UX Lead Dropped out of college at 19 to co-found MyChild App. As COO she shaped every word parents read and every screen they touched, raised seed funding from 500 Startups and Singapore Angel Network, spoke at TEDx, made Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, and later co-founded We, Included, a mental health awareness platform. - Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2017: https://www.forbes.com/pictures/58e7adec31358e58f07a36e9/songra--aafreen-ansari-20/ - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/aafreen-ansari-8a4265112 ## Why open source, why now The 131 questions, the evidence weights, the scoring logic, the age-band calibrations — that's years of real work and it shouldn't sit in a dead repo. Developmental screening shouldn't be locked behind expensive licenses. Open-sourcing the engine means any developer can put this in a clinic, a school, or a parent's phone. One developer, one weekend — that's the barrier now. ## Where we are now The engine has been verified against 108 synthetic developmental scenarios (98.6% agreement across 294 hand-labeled observations, Cohen's kappa 0.971) and stress-tested with 71,939 synthetic profiles. It's a software verification study, not clinical validation. The question bank is mapped against India's RBSK national screening program. Next: adaptive questioning, NLP for free-text parent answers, and longitudinal regression detection. ## The people behind this Investors: 500 Startups, Singapore Angel Network, Amit Gupta (InMobi), Arihant Patni, Anisha Mittal, Pallav Nadhani, Dr. Ritesh Malik, Lalit Mangal (Commonfloor). Mentor: Samir Bangara (1977–2021) — "He taught me empathy and emotional intelligence. Always available. Always there to pick you up when you fall." Always there: Luis & Fiona Miranda. --- Pages: [Home](/index.md) · [About](/about.md) · [Study](/study.md) · [Study Data](/study-data.md) · [Docs](/docs.md) · [RBSK](/rbsk.md) · [Privacy](/privacy.md) · [Terms](/terms.md) · [Contact](/contact.md)