Sophomore Derek Sha recently launched his app, MemoLens, on the App Store after a year of persistent work. His app focuses on community sharing and safety, especially within Sage.
Sha originally embarked on his app journey near the end of freshman year, or March of 2024. His hopes were to create an app where students of Sage Hill can upload photos with their friends throughout the year, and by the end, the app (via an AI face detection system) will create a mini yearbook with any pictures that involve the person. The app also uses AI to filter out any inappropriate images prior to being uploaded, helping with security.
“A lot of people post on Instagram or Snap, but many of those photos are easily lost, as you don’t often look back to a story after swiping. Sage Hill is a very connected community. I want to help preserve these memories and create a sense of nostalgia within the school,” said Sha.
Though Sha was eventually able to successfully launch the app, there were many obstacles to overcome in the process of developing it.
“Creating the AI systems were the main challenges,” said Sha.
Training the data set for the facial recognition system and creating a large dataset for the moderation system were especially difficult. Getting the app approved to even launch on the App Store provided challenges as well.
“Every time I would submit the app for review, they would take a long time to get back, and my app was rejected at least 5 times,” said Sha. Furthermore, Sha developed MemoLens by himself, learning how to code from outside classes, self-studying and utilizing knowledge from past project mistakes.
As for future direction, Sha is looking into making datasets larger to accommodate more photos, as well as potentially expanding versions of the app for Sage faculty and other schools.
Overall, creating MemoLens helped Sha gain valuable experience and knowledge on the topics of innovation, machine learning, and community.
“Most importantly, I hope MemoLens helps students step out of their boundaries and share/preserve photos of their high school years in a safer, community-centered app, helping them connect with their peers and feel included,” said Sha.
