15 year old Indian student Prithvi Raj S Amin creates new social networking
A 15th year old class 10th student Prithvi Raj S Amin Student of St Aloysius High School Mangalore has create a social networking website “youflik.cu.cc” of his own. With this step, he has shaved off a good five years from the age at which Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, which is the biggest social media website in the world presently.
Amin started learning computers in fifth standard, he launched this website on July 2 2012, and within 24 hours 300 members clocked. Mark Zuckerberg started facebook at the age of 20th and when facebook lunched only 20 user registred in facebook.
However, the new website is not without its own set of problems. Amin, who wants to pursue computer engineering in future, stated, “The first day, the server crashed as it could not handle 300 members. Now I have purchased a better server space which can support close to 50,000 members.” He continued, “The site has small glitches and I am rectifying it on a day-to-day basis. This is a learning experience for me.”
“Initially, I wanted an interactive site on music, but finally it turned out be an SNS,’ Amin said. His parents are bewildered with this development. “We knew he was a ‘computer worm’. But this is something unimaginable to us,’ said his parents Sujaya, an advocate, and Satish Kumar, a private firm representative.
“He is more of an introvert, does not have many friends and does not interact freely with others,” says Sujaya. His teacher Santosh Lobo, who has taught him computer from eighth standard, said, “He speaks only when necessary. He has been a class topper and is the president of school IT club.”
Amin came in touch with computers in fifth standard. “One of my colleagues was replacing his old computers with new and one such computer landed home. He started working on this project during summer holidays,” Sujaya said.
In his social networking site, one can chat by scribbling text using a mouse and has a blog section, plus interactive forum and polls section, apart from the usual frills that a social networking website has. Through Youflik one can send emails, share videos, photos, music and much more. Also, Youflik enables video and voice chat and instant messaging. Advertising at a reasonable rate is another added feature, he said and added that security and privacy of the users will be of utmost priority.
Youflik TV provides a variety of channels to watch and the Youflik pages help the users to promote their brand, product, company, organization, group or community, local business and to create fan pages. At present 700 users have already enrolled on the site, he said, adding that the age limit for enrolling is 15 years which may be reduced to 12 years in the future.
His mother Sujaya proudly said that apart from his academic studies Prithvi is interested in computer applications. She sought the support of people and said that she was proud of the fact that her son now owns a social networking site.
Fr Edward Rodrigues, the headmaster of St Aloysius High School, Kodialbail, Prithviraj’s father Sathish were also present at the press meet.
