They tap into Android to turn entrepreneurs

Android is now the rage in the phone and tablet segments of the electronic communication devices, and five engineering students have mastered the art of developing applications for this operating system, thus becoming entrepreneurs even while in college.

The final-year students of the NRI Institute of Technology at Agiripalli, a remote village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, have got at least two jobs each in prime software companies during campus interviews, but they do not wish to take up the offers as there is a tremendous demand for their applications in the Android Marketplace.

‘Yoga Trainer'

In just six months, K.Y. Sai Krishna, a computer science engineering student, and four of his friends developed nine Android applications with a download of more than 20,000 installations for some, and more than 100 for the most recent one. ‘Yoga Trainer' on the Android Marketplace was developed by Sai Krishna, who has also released 15 updates so far.

Trained by S. Rambabu, a Java expert of the Hyderabad-based Sri Sai Institute of Information Technology, two teams of students developed the Java-based Android applications — Message Translator, Weight Loss, Hair Styles, Mobile Med and Stock Ticker — which were instant hits. A majority of downloads happened in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea.

Best and up-to-date

The students have placed their applications on the Google Android Marketplace and Amazon.com, in both the free and paid sections. But those in the free section are sought-after more, and they release maximum updates, making their functionality the best and up-to-date. Helped by their friends in the U.S., they have obtained Marketplace accounts as these are not given in India.

Usage pattern

The group studied the usage pattern on the Android Marketplace and identified health and fitness, games, communication, medicine, and lifestyle as the top categories in which the maximum number of downloads took place and selected those apps for development. Using the free Application Programming Interface of several players on the Internet, they provide the content. They have made Rs.70,000 in six months for the nine applications they developed as mini-projects as part of their finishing school exercise.

M. Veerendra Durga Prasad and K. Vijay Kumar joined Sai Krishna in giving the final shape to Yoga Trainer.

The apps are available in English, Japanese and Korean, and those in French and Spanish are in the pipeline. Besides offering yoga exercises, Yoga Trainer explains how to take a posture, how long to stay in that position, how to relax, and the diet regimen for some health conditions.

‘Message Translator'

Updates are released mostly to bring them into the ‘Just-in' section of the Marketplace, where a majority of people search for the new ones. The ‘Message Translator' can translate a message or mail into 22 languages and allows you to share it on Gmail, SMS, Blue Tooth, Facebook, or even over barcode. This app was developed by A. Durga Prasad and Ganganadh.

The students are confident of starting their own Android applications development unit, employing others too, for doing the work on a large scale, once they pass out of the university.