Three Teens Are Connecting Seniors and Students to Fight Loneliness | Curious Kids and Bold Teens
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In this episode of Gen Next, Ms. Cam sits down with Olivia, Sophie, and Le Anne, the three teens behind LinkAge, an award-winning app designed to connect youth with lonely seniors through shared interests.
What started with observations in their own families (with their grandparents), curiosity and care turned into interviews and testing in retirement homes to learning how to code and building a prototype for their app. Along the way, these young builders learned that meaningful impact doesn’t require being an adult, having perfect skills, or knowing all the answers. They know that it starts with noticing a problem and taking one small step.
Together, they share:
- How the idea for LinkAge began
- What surprised them when they met and worked with seniors
- What it felt like to see someone use their app for the first time
- How the experience shaped their confidence, skills, and dreams
- What they’re working on now and what they hope to build next
This episode is a powerful reminder that young people don’t have to wait to contribute. They can build, connect, and create change right now.
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Speaker 0
Hey there, and welcome to Gen Next, the podcast for curious kids, both teens, and anyone who believes in the power of young people. Every episode, you'll hear real stories from young creators and problem solvers, plus you'll get simple tips and challenges that you can try in your own life. So let's jump in, get curious, and start making cool things together. Today's episode is about building something that truly matters. And here's the cool thing. You don't have to be an adult to do that. Building something meaningful doesn't start with money or skills. It starts with noticing a problem, caring about it, and then doing something about it. That's exactly what our guest today did. Speaker 1
So let's meet Olivia, Sophie, and Leanne who created an award winning app called LinkAge, Speaker 0
a tool that connects teens with lonely seniors through shared interests. They saw loneliness and asked, hey, maybe we can do something about it, and they did. So in this episode, we'll let them tell us about it. And first, we'll let them introduce themselves. Speaker 2
Okay. So hi. I'm Sophie Bruce, and I'm a grade ten and fifteen years old. A fun fact about me is that I'm a competitive swimmer. Speaker 3
Hi. My name is Lianne. I'm a grade eleven student, and a fun fact about me is I like to sing karaoke. Speaker 4
Hi. My name is Olivia. I'm also a grade eleven student. I also swim competitively, and a fun fact about me is I love snowboarding. Oh, very cool. Speaker 0
Snowboarding. It's it's something I'd like to learn but a bit scary. Yeah. Speaker 1
So let's dive right into the questions. So tell us Speaker 0
a bit about you before this project. How did you grow as neat? How did you start kind of working together? Speaker 2
Right. So we're all competitive swimmers at the same club, so we were really close before this even started. And we all kind of had like our individual interests in the field of STEM, And we kind of pursued projects like within the science fair and did some things like math competitions and coding practices. And then me and Olivia actually competed together in Technovation Girls the year before. So that was a really cool experience. And we invited Lianne to join us this year with a new project. So yeah. Speaker 1
Great influence. Good friends, Lianne. Speaker 0
Very cool. So what first prompted your interest in seniors and loneliness and the the topic you ended up approaching at the end? Speaker 4
So because of Technovation Girls, we were given opportunity to pursue an idea that we had. And Technovation encouraged us to, look at the United Nations sustainable development goals. So and they also encourage us to look around our community to see what problems we could try to solve. And so basically, we started by interviewing family members, asking friends, and we noticed one common theme, especially throughout our grandparents, was loneliness, especially after their significant other died. So for me, my spark was, my grandpa passed away recently. So my grandma had was, like, trying to manage her grief, and one of the main ways she did this was through relationships with her high school friends. But we recognized that not everyone has access to such vital connections, so we decided to create an app that connects, people who need support through these connections with teenagers who also could use some support in today's society. Speaker 1
Wow, that is wonderful. I'm curious Speaker 0
what did what did your grandma think about your, your app and the Speaker 4
work you've been doing? So my grandma thinks it's really cool. Like any, not like every senior, but she is also a part of the majority of the population that doesn't really understand technology. So she just thought it was a really cool thing and she really liked our idea and she supported us throughout the entire journey. Speaker 1
That's awesome. Is she your advisors? Speaker 0
Do you do you, include your grandparents in this? Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. For sure. They've definitely been like testing our op and stuff like that as well. Speaker 0
Oh, that is such a cool way to to bring in, your grandparents. That's awesome. Okay. So, Speaker 1
let's dive right into the whole Speaker 0
sort of process of building the app and and and putting things together. So can one of you tell us about the first time you met with seniors, at the seniors home? What stood out? What type of conversations you had? Speaker 3
Yeah. So we reached out to many local retirement homes in our area and ended up just choosing the one that was closest to me and Olivia's high school. Basically, our first time interviewing them we just asked them about their lifestyle and mostly just the challenges they faced and what stood out to me personally was just learning about like how they were brought up because like in our society now we have lots of technology but obviously when they were younger they didn't and just so much like societal differences as well as just like lifestyle differences. I was able to learn a lot about their perspectives and just the challenges they've all been through and since at their age like they've already experienced so much. Like they've actually had so many challenges in their lives and just learning about how they overcame these obstacles is just so like empowering. Speaker 0
That's awesome. So you found inspiration in these conversations. Speaker 4
Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Speaker 0
That's so cool. And I mean you're giving other young people the opportunity to be inspired by previous generations too. Yeah. That's the goal. But That's so cool. I love that. Speaker 1
My other question Speaker 0
is about the app. So when did you first think about building the app? Because you could have, you know, that what you're doing is connecting sort of two generations. It didn't have to be an app. How come you thought of, hey, an app would be a cool way to do what we want to do? Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, so this was pretty much like we got the we started up developing this for the Technovation Girls competition. Mhmm. And they kind of want some sort of technology, like I think it can be an app, like a website or different things. But we just thought maybe like an app would be the best way to do it since we already knew it was gonna be something like technology related. But yeah. Speaker 0
That's awesome. Great. So what would you say was the most challenging part in in, you know, building the app, your conversations that you had with seniors or anywhere along the way? What what would be some challenges that you've you've faced? Speaker 2
Well, I definitely say like the most challenging part was trying to adapt like our app, our features, our interface so that it was actually usable by seniors, but still was like engaging enough for the youth to use because there is like a huge, difference in the capabilities of technology within these two groups. Mhmm. So we made so many trips back to the retirement home just to see what kind of features the our elderly group could use, what they couldn't use. It was a little bit surprising that some of our even more basic features, there was still a lot of, like, struggle to use, which makes sense. Technology is still relatively new. Mhmm. So, yeah, just, like, coming back to the development process, trying to refine these features, that was pretty challenging for us. Speaker 0
Awesome. And what about you, ladies? Did you face any challenges that you found particularly difficult for yourself? Or would you say that was a problem? Speaker 3
I would say for me, just like the coding, again, with, like, the UI, but also just finding, like, the small errors and bugs that we didn't understand because we're also actually pretty relatively new to coding. This was kind of like one of our first experiences ever like coding an app and so there were just so many problems arising. We didn't know we didn't understand how to like fix it. And it took a lot of time to just, like, debug everything. Awesome. Speaker 4
Yeah. I mainly agree with those, what Sophie and Leanne said. Like, a lot of our time spent was debugging and creating the user interface and just amending it to work and doing it again and again and again until it finally works. Yeah. Speaker 1
Speaking about coding and debugging and all this stuff, Speaker 0
Technovation obviously played a big role in this whole thing. So do you want to, tell listeners a little bit about, Technovation and the competition and, how how you got involved with it and how it works in general? Speaker 2
Yeah. Sure. So we actually heard about Technovation through well, I think different ways. For me, my mom found about it out about it. She's a teacher, so one of her students, like, brought it up. And yeah. It was honestly it's been such an amazing experience competing in the past two years. It's pretty much a competition that encourages young girls to develop an app, because there is that gap between women and then in the field of STEM. So yeah, it's it encourages girls to develop an app. It teaches some basics of coding, pitching, interviewing, like all these so like such important skills. And yeah, it's just been really amazing competing. Speaker 0
Very cool. So it's something you recommend to, other young girls out there? Speaker 4
Of course. Like a hundred percent. If you have time and you're, like, you have the resources to do it, like I would completely, like, I would actually do it. Speaker 0
Okay. So what's the time commitment roughly? Just to give people an idea. So when does it start? When does it end? Is it January? Speaker 2
I think the season starts in January, and then we pitch in May. And there is no real, like, time requirement, I would say, like, on the day to day, but it is if you it's just more what you put in, you get out of it. So the more time you spend coding and working, obviously, the better result you'll get. So yeah. Just let's see how serious you wanna take it. Speaker 0
That's right. Speaker 1
Okay. Moving forward, tell us about your app right now. Speaker 0
What stage are you in? What's happening? Speaker 2
So right now, we're actually in the stage where we are kinda just working on adding some new features and refining our app. Recently, we've got an opportunity to pitch to the company Olivia was talking about, PointClickCare. It's actually a company that kind of works in the same sort of field that we're in. It's for kind of skilled nurses in retirement homes that, interact with elderly people. So, yeah, we were so grateful to get the opportunity to go to their company and pitch there. They gave us so much just feedback and things to work on. And we actually got the invitation to go through their company because well, actually, we did have a connection through our club and they saw an article that was written by the University of Waterloo News about us. And, yeah. It just, like, kind of showed us that one, like, thing can snowball into another. Like, for example, we got the article written about us and we did get some interest from other companies, which just, like, opened up so many new opportunities for us, which is amazing. Speaker 0
That's fantastic. So great to hear. Yeah. I read I read the article. I thought it was a great article. And, yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm proud of you ladies. That's amazing. Inspirational. As a mother of a daughter, I hope she learns a little bit from you today. Right? Speaker 1
Okay. So Speaker 0
you're in high school. Other people in high school are going to listen to this, and they're probably gonna think like, woah. What these girls did was amazing. There's no way I could do that. What advice do you have for for students in high school who Speaker 1
maybe have an idea, Speaker 0
and maybe they're feeling shy or they don't know where to start or, you know, what advice do you have them to sort of just get them going? Sorry do you have for them? Speaker 3
I think there are a lot of programs near us especially with like UW's facilities. There are also many other competitions that we're planning on joining that are all very similar to Technovation. I think for me, I think we probably all have different opinions, but I think it's finding kind of like a group of people that will help support this idea because a lot of people do have like passing ideas that they think oh this could end up becoming like a big project, but they need to find the people to really like help them and also help them develop the idea also. Because like if I were to do this whole thing by myself I don't think I would have like made it this far. Speaker 0
That's right. It's nice to have your support group here and outside. Mhmm. Anything else you wanted to add or Speaker 2
Well, just really like we went into this and, speaking for myself, I know Olivia and Lianne also didn't like, we didn't have huge skills in coding or we didn't have a lot of experience in making an app. This was our first time, maybe second time making like an an actual app. So you don't need to have all the skills, be a master of everything just to start. You just need to start planning something, start somewhere, and it can, as I said, like, snowball into something bigger. Speaker 1
That's fantastic. Thank you for all Speaker 0
that advice. And, hopefully that, hopefully the listeners out there, that are thinking about something, they they follow through and and kinda follow in your footsteps a little bit. Okay. So, what's one thing outside of tech that you, like, you told me about swimming or and snowboarding, karaoke ing, anything else? Speaker 3
Well, recently me and my friends as well as my family, we've like started this small band which is pretty exciting. Yeah. I'm looking to start performing in Speaker 2
just some small areas. Do you sing Speaker 0
or do you play Speaker 3
an instrument? I play a couple of instruments. For my small band in my group, with my friends, I play the saxophone. And then with my family, yeah, I can either play the drums or sing. Speaker 4
For me, I really only have, like three passions. It's which is swimming, coding, and also like snowboarding. But like a lot of our time is really spent at the pool. We see each other so many times a week and it just takes a lot of time, a lot of energy. And honestly like even just for swimming it's so much more than just the time you spend at the pool. It takes a lot of time online that we do research to refine skills like and see how everybody else in the swimming world is doing. So it really just takes a lot of our time. Speaker 2
Yeah. I definitely say swimming is obviously a huge part of my life as well. Balancing everything with school. And I'm also kind of musical, not near as Leanne, but I I play the piano and the violin as well. So yeah. Speaker 0
You can join Leanne's band. Speaker 3
Oh, yes. Of course. We were looking for Speaker 2
a violinist. Oh, that's amazing. Fantastic. Speaker 1
There you go. Alright. That's Speaker 0
so so well rounded. I I love all of this about you ladies. It's it's great to hear that you're you're able to do so many things. And three passions is not just me. That's that's pretty pretty awesome. Speaker 1
Alright. Speaker 0
So if you could imagine Linkage in its best future form, what would that be? Speaker 4
So in the future, one of the main goals for fee, Linkage is so it's a reciprocal, app that you can trade skills with. So right now it is, an app where you could talk to seniors and, seniors can talk to the youth, but in the future we're hoping that it could be the youth can, contribute to the relationship through, like, technology, through the modern like, teaching them more about, like, the modern society because our world has changed drastically recently. And then for the, the seniors, it could be they provide historical context and their wisdom because they've they've really been through so many challenges their entire life. So then another thing we really want to focus on is the interface. The interface is an important part and we'd hope for in the future for seniors it could be just all voice activated like or mostly voice activated. Like if, the seniors want to say is tell like somebody a story they could go hey linkage to, let me read somebody a story and then linkage would be able to direct them to a chat where they could read somebody a story. And then for the youth side we were hoping that it could be integrated maybe into modern technology that youth already use or we just, just go down the path of just a really sleek UI that the youth constantly see everywhere. Some other goals that we have include adding AI monitoring into the chats so we make sure nobody's getting harassed and also to the voice calls because we also would love to add, like, voice chatting online, which would be really important, I think, to develop a deep connection. And then lastly, we would like to make sure that linkage, is, like, maybe even just prescribed as like, an app. Like if the seniors are facing loneliness, the doctor could go, oh, do you know about linkage? Like, it could help you. That would be the end goal. That'd be insane for us. And it's just something we, like, wanna move forward towards. Speaker 0
Those are some big goals, and I hope you achieve them all. That's amazing. I love the passion and the and the future outlook that you have for it. That's great. A few sort of Speaker 1
shorter questions, as we wrap this up. What's one day you're excited about this coming year? Speaker 0
We're almost, at the beginning of twenty twenty six. What is something that's exciting for you? Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm definitely really excited. Like, we are motivated by competing in these like different entrepreneurial challenges and competitions. So this is really exciting for us. We're gonna be participating in a couple new ones this year. And also just trying to build more connections with different companies that can maybe give us some feedback or advice. Speaker 4
For me I'm just really excited to see how far we can actually take this idea because it really just started out as a small idea we like came up with and we just never had any expectations. So in the next year, like looking back, we've come so far and we just I just can't like I just can't wait to see what we can do next. Speaker 0
That is amazing. I'll be keeping an eye out for you Speaker 2
for sure. Of course. Speaker 1
Hopefully this podcast once you put it out gives us some more exposure. That would Speaker 0
be great. Alright What do you imagine life will look like after high school for you? Speaker 4
So after high school, we still do and we all plan to go to university, but we just imagine our lives. We also are really passionate about swimming, so we can all imagine ourselves swimming still in university, but we also can imagine ourselves continuing to develop this app. We we do see a future for it, and we want to pursue it. And we also are open to maybe creating some other apps that address some problems we see in our communities that, like, mean deeply to us. And that's pretty much it. Speaker 3
I think we've just spent so much time balancing school swimming and then just, like, extracurricular stuff, like, creating this app. I think just in the future, it's kind of gonna be the exact same thing. Whether it's a linkage or working on another like passion project, I think. I just like the idea of just like getting together with a team, having an idea, and just constantly working for like a goal. I think I'm definitely gonna continue doing that even in the future. Speaker 2
Yeah. Definitely. We've all also interested in kind of, like, health care and stem. So hopefully, like, when we're getting into university and maybe get more knowledge on these subjects, like, our academic process can go a little bit smoother. Speaker 0
Awesome. Do you know what you want you would want to study in university or not yet? Speaker 2
I hope to become, I really wanna go into health care, something in health care. So hopefully becoming some sort of doctor. So, yeah, maybe some, like, pre med Speaker 4
or biology. Cool. I was yeah. Same as Sophie. I I'm hoping to go into health care. I think it like, I feel like a really rewarding feeling when I help people. So I think that would be a really good, path I could take for my future. Speaker 3
Yeah. I was thinking biology or chemistry again with the healthcare but rather than like being a doctor I wanna be a vet. Speaker 2
I wanna help animals. Speaker 1
That's amazing. Well I wish you ladies the best of luck and Speaker 0
the way you have been working towards your goals, I have no doubt you'll achieve whatever you set your mind to. So Oh, thank you. Speaker 1
Cheep it out. Speaker 0
Cheep it out. Speaker 1
Okay. What kind of person do Speaker 0
you hope to become? High level? What's what do you want to to sort of what do you think about the impact you've left, behind? What what do you hope that will be? Speaker 3
For me, I thought that this was experience this experience was really great because I got to meet like all kinds of people and learn about like their different perspectives. So for the person I want to be, I kind of just want to be able to see like the good or like the strength and like just the good parts in everyone. Like when you first see someone you never know what they could be going through or what they've overcome and I just wanna be able to acknowledge and be empathetic to everybody's situations. Speaker 4
I think very similar to Leanne and I think that's what drawn drew all of us together because we all share that mindset where we really just want to see the best in all people. We all also volunteer at Special Olympics because we swim and we have the knowledge to teach more people how to swim and we thought that was a really good opportunity for us to like further understand like challenges other people could go through. Speaker 2
Yeah just to give a little bit of context, if you don't know what Special Olympics is, it's like a program to help kids and even adults with disabilities like learn how to swim or like further develop their swimming skills. But yeah. For me, obviously I agree with Olivia and Leanne. I really hope to be able to continue trying to make a difference even if it's, like, in a really small way and just in different people's lives. And yeah. Wow. Speaker 0
You girls Speaker 1
are absolutely mind blowing. Is there something you Speaker 0
don't do? Speaker 1
Now, at the end of each episode, Speaker 0
we like to leave our listeners with a little challenge, something that they can try, you know, until our next episode is out. So this challenge can be given by you or by me, but I was wondering if you have a little try this at home challenge for our listeners. Something that they could do to put something into action. Speaker 4
Our challenge for the listeners for this episode is to send an email or text to somebody you appreciate and tell them how grateful you are for them. Speaker 0
Thanks for being here and for being a part of a generation that's ready to shape what's next. I'm miss Kim, and this is Gen Next. Don't forget to follow or subscribe and share this episode with a young go getter, a parent, or a teacher who'd love a dose of inspiration. And if you know someone who's doing something cool, whether they're a young kid, a teen entrepreneur, or an innovative educator, I'd love to hear from them. 
