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in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, M ay 24 ,2 01 8 | 22 Thanks to the incredible generosity of everyone who donated to the Perspective Marketing "Buy a Brick" Campaign for Ultrasound Unit, District A -711 and the Lions Clubs International Foundation for your generous Matching Grant. Together, we have raised $93,000 for a new Ultrasound Unit in Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital's Ophthalmology Department. On behalf of the Caregivers and patients at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital we also wish to express our gratitude towards Lion Surinder Sharma, Governor of District A-711 and his Cabinet, and Pravin Sharma of Oakville Hospital Foundation and Steve Montague of Perspective Marketing for their strong leadership and commitment in the Ultrasound Campaign. Thank you Want to know who yourWant to know who yourW local candidates are for the upcoming provincial elec- tion? Thanks to an Oakville youth- there's an app for that. Abbey Park High School student Yashvard- han Mulki has developed an iPhone app that lets res- idents provide their loca- tion and immediately re- ceive information on up- coming elections and the local candidates partici- pating. The 15-year-old said he created the app because he was disturbed by the low voter turnout in previous elections. He also found that in conversations with people he knows very few were aware of who their MP,aware of who their MP,a MPP or ward councillors were. "I think things work best if everyone actually goes out and votes and makes their opinion heard," said Mulki. "I thought it would be interesting to see if I could make an app. Everyone us- es a phone these days, peo- ple use it all the time- so I thought this would be a great way to communicate this information." Mulki, whose program- ming skills have previous- ly netted him free trips to attend the Apple World- wide Developers Confer- ence in San Jose, spent three to four months devel- oping and testing the app. The app titled 'Canada Votes' is now available atVotes' is now available atV the App Store for free. Besides letting users know who is running for office in a specific area the app also provides candi- date information and even contact details if the candi- date has provided them. It also links users to Elections Ontario and Elections Canada so they can learn where they can register, find polling sta- tion information and more. In addition users can check the app to find out who their federal, provin- cial and municipal repre- sentatives currently are. "The biggest challenge was figuring out how I was going to get all this infor- mation because it is not very centralized," said Mulki. "Then I found a non- profit in Montreal called Open North. They had built a platform where you could get a lot of this infor- mation from and pull it in. So that was really helpful." With so much work put in to helping others vote, Mulki says it's a little frus- trating that he himself can- not. While the interests of some youths his age may be more toward video games Mulki says he has always had an interest in politics and history. He is currently reading a book about Soviet dicta- tor Joseph Stalin and en- joys debate club at school and swimming. Mulki also enjoys hang- ing out with his friends, noting they are currently in the process of building a miniature tank, which can be controlled with an iPhone. His goals currently in- clude getting his bachelor's in computer science and ultimately working in the fields of machine learningfields of machine learningf and artificial intelligence. NEWS Oakville youth who can't vote develops app to fight low voter turnout App gives easy access to info about local candidates DAVID LEA dlea@metroland.com Yashvardhan Mulki, 15, shows off the Canada Votes app he has developed to help people find out about candidates running for office in their area. David Lea/Metroland photo