ISLAMABAD: Last year Sharjeel Sikandar and Sameed Tariq came up with an app that would assist people with hearing impairment. Their Project AMP turns a mobile phone into a processing unit which transmits sounds to a Bluetooth headset.
The duo won the best app in the Djuice Apportunity contest 2014.
"Hearing impairment is on the rise and with no cost effective solution available in the market, we set out on a mission to develop a solution which will be readily available for everyone. Our inspiration basically came from our friend Sameed who is also a co-developer and has hearing impairment by birth," said Sikandar in a video highlighting their achievement.
While the solution is deceptively simple, it clearly illuminates the promise of the app market in Pakistan’s developing economy. For Sameed Tariq, it is a dream worth fulfilling. With the breakneck speed of growing mobile phone users in Pakistan, software developers now have avenues for innovation and novelty in the world of applications.
According to a market research by German firm GfK, there are over 30 million Internet users and 15 million smartphone users in Pakistan. The recent statistics indicate a staggering growth in Internet use of over 550 per cent between September 2014 and April of this year, with the total number of 3G subscribers crossing 11 million.
Acknowledging the potential to cap the global market, Telenor Pakistan's youth-centric brand Djuice, has announced the launch of Apportunity 2015 for students as well as start-ups to showcase their app on a national and international forum.