Tamil Nadu boy invents 'desi' social media app

Making use of his time in lockdown, a young boy in Tamil Nadu developed an app called 'Picgraphy' that can be used as an alternative to foreign social media applications. The app is available on Google Play Store and has already been downloaded by over 20,000 people.

Theni (Tamil Nadu): In the wake of border clashes between Indian and Chinese troops, New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps in the country - including the popular TikTok.

In an attempt at filling this void left by the banned apps, a 13-year-old boy in Tamil Nadu's Theni district has developed an application called 'Picgraphy'.

Son of Balamurugan and Jayamani, Mithun Karthik is a Class 8 student at a private school in the district.

Karthi says 'Picgraphy' can be used as an alternative to other social media applications. He created the application in 60 days and it has already been downloaded by over 20k people.

Developed with exclusive security features, this app is designed to rule out any threat including information theft and other privacy issues.

"Like Facebook and Instagram, it is a social media app. With this app, we can post pictures, chat and share our thoughts. I am also planning to enable audio and video call facilities shortly," Karthi said.

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Mithun started building this application during his school vacation and got it registered on June 17 on the Google Play Store.

"I have developed this app keeping in mind the privacy and security issues of the users."

Mithun Karthi is currently working on building another application called 'Hai Nanbaa'.

"The other app, 'Hai Nanba' is a personal messenger like WhatsApp. It has features like chatting, audio and video calling," he said.

His father Balamurugan said that Mithun had immense interest in computers and so they bought a laptop for him at a very early age.

"He started making websites while studying fourth and fifth standards. He created websites for a couple of organizations as well. He then registered his own company and created a website for it," Balamurugan said.

He further said that Mithun had also developed an application to track the number of coronavirus infections in the country.

Throwing more light on Picgraphy, he said that the application uses foreign servers to store data.

"Our government should allow the use of servers free of cost. This will ensure that no foreign companies have access to our data will help young kids like Mithun to turn into entrepreneurs," He added.

Mithun plans on making 'Picgraphy' available on iOS platform very soon.

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