Jahanzeb Sherwani was mostly immune to the hype surrounding the release of the Apple iPhone. The computer science PhD candidate didn't stand in line for several hours with other rabid gadget-philes pining for the slim, touch-screen phone. Instead, his wife picked one up for him a few months after its release.
For fun, he started developing applications for the phone during his spare time on weekends. Workweeks for Sherwani don't have a lot of spare time. He researches how semi-literate health workers in the developing world might better utilize information through spoken dialogue systems. His doctoral work is the latest phase of a lifelong love of computers. When he was in the second grade, he came down with chicken pox. Most kids would use their recuperation time to pick at scabs and catch up on their favorite cartoons, but he had different ways to entertain himself. "I can remember being home and writing out BASIC [computer] programs for fun," he says.
Sherwani's idea of fun helps explain why he tinkered with iPhone applications. "My first application was actually a little cutesy, geeky Valentine's Day app for my wife Nosheen!" Sherwani's digital greeting showed his wife a question and two possible answers. Nosheen tapped an answer and worked her way through a conversation path that eventually ended with a Happy Valentine's Day message. "She was super excited and touched!" boasts Sherwani.
Her reaction made him realize he had an opportunity to create something with mass appeal. A few weeks after that Valentine's Day iPhone message, he posted a video on YouTube that chronicled his application in action, showing potential users how his creation would allow them to have full control of their desktop computers from the palms of their hands, anywhere in the world. The number of views grew—10,000 ... 50,000 ... 80,000 ... 100,000—in just one week. Users of Jaadu—which is Urdu for magic—left nearly 100 comments thanking the creator of the application. One read: "You are my personal hero!"
Jaadu VNC has already helped Sherwani beyond sending cards to his wife. While doing fieldwork in rural Pakistan, he needed to fix a bug in the dialogue systems that he was developing there. He was able to access his computer—left in the city, Karachi—and fix the problem without wasting a day traveling back and forth.
After Sherwani completes his graduate studies this spring, he plans to work on Jaadu VNC fulltime in his own start-up company.
—Kelly Delaney (HS'09)
