Thirteen-year-old Zhou Shuhan has attracted public attention for her ability to earn money and generate ideas. In just three days, she managed to earn an income of about 18,000 yuan, equivalent to approximately 2.5 million Russian rubles. Notably, she did not need to create a large company, nor does she possess programming skills; instead, she utilized artificial intelligence (AI) to develop and sell an application that monitors children's learning process.
According to the South China Morning Post, Shuhan is a second-grade student at a Shanghai middle school. She only began applying AI technologies last year, which is a significant achievement considering how long it takes many people to master this field. It was through this technology that she was able to create her product.
From August 21 to 23 in Hangzhou, China, a national competition for AI product marketing was held, involving over 50 participants. Shuhan placed third in this competition and received a prize of 5,000 yuan. A unique aspect of this contest was that winners were determined not by the technical capabilities of the AI-generated applications, but by the revenue those applications generated in three days. Shuhan's application, named 'Zai Chang,' secured 90 orders in three days, generating a total income of 18,000 yuan, which was the basis for her third-place finish.
The application developed by Shuhan is designed to help parents monitor their children's academic performance during study sessions. Parents first upload a photo of themselves into the app, after which it assumes the role of a virtual or 'digital parent' based on that photograph. When the child is doing homework, the camera tracks their actions. If the child gets distracted by a mobile phone or stands up from their spot, the virtual parent displayed on the screen reminds them to study via voice. After completing homework, the application also generates a 'concentration report' for the child, allowing parents to see how focused the child was during the session.
The idea for creating this application stemmed from Shuhan's personal experiences. She shared that her parents were often very busy and could not dedicate time to monitoring her studies. According to her, under such circumstances, her attention easily wandered, and she would unknowingly start using her mobile phone. This problem was similar to that of many of her friends. This experience prompted her to consider creating such a digital parent who could remind children to concentrate on their studies. She aimed to create a kind of 'clone of a digital parent.'
The most striking aspect is that Shuhan had no prior programming experience. However, she overcame this deficiency with the help of AI. She described her idea in simple language to a large language model (LLM), and then the AI helped her prepare the code for the application. The work on the design and core functions of the application was completed by her in only three or four days. Where programming skills and technical expertise are usually required to build an application, Shuhan resolved her technical difficulties by turning to AI tools and gradually finished the development.
Shuhan tried to make the application not just a monitoring tool, but a gentler assistant for children. The initial design of the application included a feature called 'mother's anger,' which was supposed to notify parents if the child was distracting themselves too often from studying. Nevertheless, Shuhan later decided to remove this feature. She explained this by saying she dislikes 'gossips'; she wanted her application to treat children gently and provide them with an opportunity for self-improvement.
The first user was her younger brother
The application created by Shuhan is not limited to participation in the competition. Its first user was her younger brother, who is in the first grade of primary school. Shuhan noted that after using the application, her brother started studying more diligently than before. She plans to make this application available to a larger number of people at a lower price in the future. Shuhan stated that she will continue to develop it if a large number of people are willing to pay for its use.