*What started with video tutorials for her grandparents during Covid-19 has blossomed into ‘DIVE,’ a global initiative teaching essential digital skills to the elderly, including those with Alzheimer’s.*
DUBAI: While many of her peers were focused solely on academics, Divyana Maheshwari, a Grade 12 student at Dubai International Academy, was building a digital bridge for senior citizens. Her initiative, DIVE, is empowering older generations across 12 countries to overcome technological barriers and combat loneliness by mastering essential digital skills.
The spark for DIVE ignited in 2019 when Divyana saw her own grandparents struggling with the fast-paced shift to digital communication during the pandemic. “They felt dependent and lonely,” she recalls. She began creating simple, screen-recorded video tutorials on tasks like sending voice messages and connecting to WiFi.
“I felt that if they are facing these issues, there must be thousands of other senior citizens in the same situation,” Divyana said.
From Simple Videos to a Global Movement
What began as a family project quickly expanded. Divyana launched a YouTube channel and distributed her tutorials through WhatsApp, creating a library of 235 specific guides. She soon supplemented the videos with physical pocket guides and began conducting in-person sessions with NGOs and old-age homes in Dubai.
To date, DIVE has:
- Taught over 3,000 seniors across more than 12 countries.
- Built WhatsApp communities for daily tech support.
- Distributed over 1,500 easy-to-use digital reference booklets.
- Conducted 14 in-person activations in Dubai.
The initiative has now expanded to support seniors with Alzheimer’s and cognitive disorders through partnerships with NGOs like ‘Forget Me Not’ and ‘Elderly Square’.
The Challenge of Simplifying Complexity
The journey hasn’t been without challenges. Divyana, who started at just 12 years old, had to learn how to communicate complex features in “extremely simple language.”
“It took a lot of character development to understand how to communicate effectively,” she reflects, noting that each tutorial required 7-8 trial runs with her grandparents to ensure clarity. “They are childlike in how they comprehend information, so the tutorials had to be tailored to that.”
Looking to the Future: AI and Greater Impact
Despite plans to pursue Data Science, Divyana is committed to growing DIVE. Future goals include dubbing tutorials into more languages and creating guides for AI tools like ChatGPT.
“These are such powerful tools that senior people must know how to use them,” she says. “It will be a companion for them, and they won’t need to feel dependent on anyone.”
Firmly a social cause rather than a business, DIVE’s long-term vision is to increase global tech literacy for seniors, with aspirations to someday collaborate with the United Nations. For now, this Dubai teen continues to balance school with her passion, proving that the drive to make a difference has no age limit.
