Dubai teenager wins Diana Award for helping girls to learn coding

Kyra Anand is one of 20 to win prestigious award established in memory of Princess Diana

Kyra Anand, right, learnt coding by watching YouTube videos. Photo: Cherry Pachisia

A Dubai teenager who has inspired girls in the UAE and India to learn coding has been honoured with the prestigious Diana Award.

Kyra Anand, 13, was one of 20 pupils in the UAE who were honoured for their outstanding social and humanitarian contributions in their daily life to create and sustain positive change.

The Diana Award, established in memory of Princess Diana, celebrates young individuals who go above and beyond in their efforts to create positive change in their communities.

This honour is bestowed upon young people who embody Princess Diana's values of compassion, kindness and service to others.

Kyra, an Indian pupil at Jumeirah College, was 10 when she learnt Scratch and Python coding languages by watching videos on YouTube.

She started the initiative Girls Do Code to teach girls coding languages locally, which has grown to educating pupils in India through a non-government organisation.

“I have a passion for technology and gained knowledge of coding during Covid-19 lockdown. I wanted to teach and help people about coding languages,” Kyra told The National.

“I started teaching girls in the UAE and then at an NGO in India. I believe that coding is a life skill which develops logical, structured thinking that can help everyone.”

Recognising the digital divide faced by students in India, especially in underprivileged communities, Kyra decided to take matters into her own hands with help from Harmony House, a charitable organisation for street children in India.

“I noticed the lack of resources and opportunities for young students to learn coding in India and decided to make a difference,” she added.

Her mother told her about Harmony House, which helps underprivileged children, and she dedicated part of her time with Girls Do Code to teach them coding.

“Despite the physical distance between the UAE and India, I used the power of technology to teach coding to students in India via Zoom,” Kyra said.

With the support of her family, school and the organisation, Kyra set up regular coding classes every Friday for pupils in India.

She has taught 29 pupils and created an offshoot project – Code to Care – that encourages more people to get involved and teach coding to others.

“I encouraged my friends to teach coding and now I have other volunteers working with me in teaching others,” Kyra said.

Kyra was nominated by Harmony House for the Diana Award.

“I'm honoured to carry this award. It will motivate me to work even harder to pursue my cause. I'm planning to study computer science in college,” Kyra said.

Other winners of the Diana Award include Himakshi Shastri, 16, who was recognised for her social action and humanitarian efforts.

She has been running a hair-donation campaign for cancer patients for five years and has collected more than 3,000 hair donations internationally.

Himakshi is also a climate activist and has launched a sustainable stationery start-up, Sustainery Co.

Shreyas Krishna, 14, a pupil at Delhi Private School, Sharjah, also won a Diana Award.

He established the Ignite-Young-Minds initiative in 2019 to enhance the quality of education for hundreds of underprivileged children in India.

Shreyas designed an online platform – BookBank – to provide free educational books to poor children, benefiting about 20,000 children.