At 15, Eva Barker is still juggling Year 10 classes, school commitments and the usual demands of teenage life.
She is also building a women’s health app, teaching herself about technology and data privacy and, most recently, taking her ideas to Canberra, where she connected with Australia’s Chief of Army and representatives from the US and UK embassies.
It is a remarkable trajectory for the Pacific Lutheran College student, whose privacy-first period and cycle companion, ‘Dotti’, began with a much more personal problem. When Eva got her first period, she went looking for an app she felt comfortable using. She couldn’t find one.
“The apps out there were inappropriate, confusing and honestly … ugly,” Eva says.
“None of them supported my faith and none felt like they were made for girls like me. I wanted to build something women of all ages would actually use.”
So, she decided to create her own.
Dotti is designed as a period, cycle, pregnancy and wellbeing companion that keeps users’ health information on their own device rather than in a central database. An on-device AI companion is designed to learn patterns over time, while users can track symptoms and cycles and prepare notes to take to medical appointments.
For Eva, however, the technology is only part of the point.
“Dotti proves that women deserve technology that respects them,” she says.
“Your cycle data is some of the most intimate information you have – and it should never be sold, shared or used against you.”
The issue of privacy in period-tracking technology has attracted considerable international attention in recent years.
Most recently, global women’s health app Flo Health and Google have agreed to pay a combined $US56million to settle a US class action involving allegations over the handling of Flo users’ reproductive health data, with Flo contributing $US8million and Google $US48million. The companies deny wrongdoing and the settlement received preliminary court approval in April.
These issues are something Eva says strengthened her determination to build privacy into Dotti from the outset.
“Women are pushing back. Privacy is not a luxury, it’s the baseline,” she says.
“Dotti exists because women deserve to track their health without fear.”
That thinking has now taken the Sunshine Coast teenager well beyond the classroom. Eva was nominated for the Rising Woman in Cyber Award at the International Women in Cyber Day Awards in Canberra and travelled to the capital for the September event.
There, she had the opportunity to connect with some of the country’s most senior figures in defence and cyber, including the Chief of Army Lieutenant General Susan Coyle, as well as representatives from the US and UK embassies. The Canberra Cyber Hub is also supporting the young developer by featuring Dotti through its own channels.
It is impressive territory for someone who has not yet finished Secondary school, but Eva’s entrepreneurial streak started much earlier.
“When I was five, I sold paper planes to neighbours. At eight, I made perfumes in the school playground. At 13, I sold jewellery at markets,” she says.
“Every one of those experiences taught me how to create things people care about.”
Pacific Lutheran College head of Middle College learning Jo Belchamber says the project demonstrates what young people can achieve when they are encouraged to think critically about the world around them.
“What Eva has built in her own time, without being asked, is remarkable,” she says.
“She demonstrates that young people can create meaningful change when they think critically and act with purpose.”
Mrs Belchamber says Eva has balanced the project with the demands of her Year 10 academic program and her wider involvement in college life. For Eva, that balancing act has been demanding, but worthwhile.
“I’m proud that I’ve built this while managing school and commitments seven days a week,” she says.
“The workload is huge, but every challenge is part of the learning journey. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Dotti is being developed for women and girls through different stages of life – from first periods through to pregnancy and perimenopause – with features also intended to help users document symptoms associated with conditions including endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.
Visit dotti.life
