Event
LA Hacks
Team
Sampath Kalagarla, Dheeraj Koppu, Kai Davey, Rehan Nagabandi
CoCo is an iOS app built at LA Hacks 2026 that gives neurodivergent people a personal AI coach for social skills, available anytime without a therapist in the room. Built by Sampath Kalagarla, Dheeraj Koppu, Kai Davey and Rehan Nagabandi, CoCo tackles a gap that affects millions: special education programs are chronically underfunded and the tools that exist are either locked behind expensive therapy or designed for clinical settings, not everyday practice.
What it solves
Neurodivergent people often struggle to navigate conversations, read social cues and practice the kind of everyday social situations that most people learn implicitly. Stanford research showed that AI social coaching increased measurable empathy responses in 71% of autistic children. But those tools are inaccessible for most families. CoCo brings that same approach to any phone, for free, with complete privacy since no audio ever leaves the device.
What it does
CoCo works across three tracks. A daily interaction log lets users record any real conversation, which is analyzed on-device for sentiment, social cues, strengths and improvement areas. An AI coach lets users practice specific scenarios with four distinct personas covering small talk, professional settings, introductions and boundary-setting. A progress dashboard tracks sentiment scores, improvement streaks and skill growth over time with badges and points for motivation.
How it works
CoCo is built in Swift and SwiftUI for iOS. ZETIC Melange runs social cue detection and sentiment analysis entirely on the device's NPU with zero audio sent to the cloud. ElevenLabs Conversational AI with LiveKit WebRTC powers the live voice practice sessions. Each persona is built from a custom system prompt that adapts to the user's onboarding profile including anxiety level, goals and focus areas. Daily scenarios are generated by cross-referencing the user's profile against their prior sessions so suggestions are always grounded in recent gaps.