Prosocial Apps
Free apps for the public good, paid for by donations. The apps carry no adverts, no tracking, and nothing leaves your device unless it is absolutely necessary. The code is public and auditable.
Where this starts, and where it goes
My background was in mental health and psychoeducation on the neuroscience of process addictions, screen use, and related subjects, and at some point I pivoted to working in I.T. Now, with the help of A.I. tools, I am building the apps and tools I wish had existed, and using this as an experiment in demonstrating the use of A.I. towards prosocial rather than extractive ends.
I am starting off with building apps for the education of young children, and rubrics for grading these apps on how well they avoid exploitive or damaging design patterns (endless scrolling, tokens and rewards, notifications and reminders to drive 'engagement', and so on) and on how well they incorporate protective design elements, such as including clocks with all games and apps to help avoid time blindness.
Currently there are two astronomy apps. The plan is to add nature, biology, anatomy, history and so on, steadily. Beyond that I am open to community feedback for executing on app ideas, where having a public app would aid advocacy, civics, and the like. Anything that educates, or brings people together, or facilitates organization towards the public good or the tackling of social ills.
The rubrics
The rubrics are checklists for grading an app on how it treats the person using it. A parent can go through one on any app, mine or anyone else's, without knowing anything about code.
These two are for games and learning apps. Other kinds of apps will get their own as I build them.
- The standard — twelve questions on how an app treats the child using it.
- The protective rubric — six measures of what an app should include.
- The research behind both.
A cost rubric is next: what each app cost to build, what it costs to run each month, and where the money came from.
Copyright 2026 Girish Kumar Krishnan. All rights reserved — this one is a personal statement and is not licensed for reuse. The apps and the rubrics are, on different terms; see LICENSE.md.
The apps
How Far?
Out from the Sun one stop at a time, to scale, all the way to the nearest star.
The Long Way Round
The orbits in three dimensions. Turn them side-on and see that it is all one flat sheet.
Who Could Call?
The telephone from Bell's first sentence to the newest phones, and at every step, how many people could call, out of everyone alive.