New Bedford High School senior Nivaldo Rocha hopes to inspire others with creation of high school app

“My name is Nivaldo Rocha I’m a senior at NBHS and I made a school app and would like to share with the NBG because I really like the page and the work that you guys do.

I was the first student to create an app for NBHS. I started the concept when I was in my sophomore year – the school had only the website by the time I was a junior so I started designing and prototyping the project without knowing much.

I had to learn most of the things by my own like coding & basics of prototype U. I/U. X, I also took as many classes as I could that involve technology, i.e. hardware, software. I remember that I would go to sleep at 5 am, sleep for an hour and then get ready to go back again.

One day I remembered to laugh at myself – I said to myself “You’ve got to be crazy! Why are you taking on all this responsibility, instead of partying with the boys or something else?” I had the opportunity to be with the top principal of the school for meetings about the project and also able to participate in “Hackathon” where you compete for the best app – I won second place in the 2° as “Education Project” and also won “Top App” in my class of intro programming.

I was just a normal kid who had a big goal in mind to solve a problem that students, parents and teachers had at the time. That’s why I addressed the problem. Things like academics, virtual pass & ID in case you forgot at home or you lost it. You could also get quick facts about a specific teacher like their email, subject, classroom number, teacher name just by scanning a bar code. Another big feature was getting notifications about sports, events, storms, days off, et al, all in one app plus other features.

I never gave up on what I had in mind. It all started as a concept to a project. Dedication and motivation were all I had, that is why I’m here now, but this time as a senior. Unfortunately after months of meetings with the “IT department“ and I am still trying hard to get a “Yes” approval from the company that services NBHS.

The company then created a trash app and released it to the Play Store instead of notifying me, but it is what it is. I keep moving forward because life isn’t over this – it is just the beginning of what I had set in mind. It’s a privilege to be where I was at and I thank God, friends, teachers, NBHS who believed in me. Big things are to come!

I have another big project coming up where I want to teach kids, homeless people everyone who is interested to learn to code at NBHS. That’s my goal. I feel like I have to share my story because I like to incentive others to do better than me!”