COVID-19 opened a lot of our eyes to video conferencing and how much we can do from home thanks to computer programs like Zoom and WebEx.
There's now a new player that's offering improvements to those popular sites. It's only had about 100 downloads, which is significant because it was designed and built by Ayush Kurian, a 10th grader at Rowlett High School.
"I have a small server connected to my computer. There's 156 different projects. It's kinda like a to-do list," Kurian said.
One item on that list was to make a video conferencing program, which, with help from his computer science teacher at Rowlett High School, he completed last year. The program is called Calyr. It's pronounced like "caller" just spelled differently.
Calyr lets users hold meetings, attend class, or do interviews from the comfort of your home. The program is similar to the popular Zoom and WebEx, but has new features, like the ability for everyone in the meeting to watch videos together and talk about them and make it easier to participate in class.
"Let's say you're in a class, and you want to raise your hand but you don't want to interrupt the teacher... you can press (that) button and it shows the person you want to speak," he said.
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It's all designed built and supported by a student not old enough to drive and run out of his North Texas home.
His parents paid several hundred dollars to help him chase his dream.
This week the app became available in both the Google Play, and Apple App store.
You can also reach an online version by typing: connect.calyr.online.
*Map locations are approximate, central locations for the city and are not meant to indicate where actual infected people live.
