Imagine opening an app, holding your phone to your chest, and – within seven seconds – getting a warning if your heart rhythm looks abnormal. That’s the breakthrough created by 14-year-old Siddarth Nandyala. After eight months of coding, he built CircadiaV, an innovative smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence to detect early signs of heart disease.
Heart disease is the world’s leading cause of death, but early symptoms often go unnoticed. Nandyala’s idea was to turn a phone’s microphone into a digital stethoscope to allow the average person to catch these signs at home. By collecting thousands of heartbeat recordings from hospitals in the U.S. and India, he trained a cloud-based machine-learning model to detect patterns linked to arrhythmias, valve issues, and early heart failure.
CircadiaV’s trials have impressed medical professionals. During a test in India, the app flagged over 40 patients in under a minute, later confirmed by hospital scans. Across 18,000 tests worldwide, it has achieved around 96% accuracy. While not a replacement for ECGs or ultrasounds, the app is an effective early warning tool, urging users to seek medical care when something sounds off.
This app isn’t Nandyala’s first innovation. At age 12, he created an affordable prosthetic arm, and by 13, he launched STEM IT, selling hands-on science kits to students. His next goals are gaining regulatory approval to use the app in low-resource clinics and releasing an open-source version for global student collaboration and improvement on the tool. He’s also working on adapting the technology to detect lung conditions like pneumonia and pulmonary embolism.
Starting university this fall, Nandyala is already living his dream – combining coding with compassion to solve real-world problems. His story is a powerful reminder that, with curiosity and dedication, even teenagers can change the world.