Hyderabadi techie develops app to counter Zoom

Hyderabad: A young techie from the city developed a new video calling app 'MeetHour'. It is a video conferencing app which allows organisations and individuals to meet virtually using a tool that is highly secure and easy to use.

At times when work from home has become a new normal, this youngster had used all his free time to develop the App.

App developed by Shoeb Ahmed Fareed enables people to connect anywhere and anytime for online meeting-teaching-training-webinar and video presentation. "Integrated with HD video conferencing, audio conferencing, screen sharing, content sharing, funds raising, live streaming, and other powerful features, it can be widely applied to all including enterprise, government, education, training, healthcare, law, finance, military and community," said Shoeb Ahmed Fareed, who is Chief Technology Officer of App.

Speaking to The Hans India, Shoeb said that MeetHour is developed by a team of four passionate people. It was started in mid of March in 2020 and launched on August 10th, 2020 on three platforms, including Web, Android, iOS. "The App is currently having a rating of 4.5 stars in Play Store and 4.4 stars on IOS out of 5 and it is the second most downloaded video calling app after Zoom," he added.

"The app is end-to-end encrypted and can be hosted on the client's server. App has a lot of users who are using the free version and are mostly from India, middle east and US. The app has already been used by clients such as healthcare and schools in the India, US and EezyClinic in the UAE. The team is in negotiations with many schools, colleges, government agencies, healthcare providers, law firms, political candidates and faith communities. Schools can use it for classes. Political candidates can use it for their virtual meetings. Individuals are used for their family reunions. Faith communities are using their faith related congregations virtually," explained Shoeb.

"We are currently a team of four, including Shukoor Ahmed, Shoeb Ahmed, Rajan Natarajan and Vijay Veerapan. Shoeb is the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer and the other three are mentoring, providing the input and also funding to MeetHour," said Shukur Ahmed co-founder.

The focus is to have the App used by a young person to a very senior person in 70s and 80s and even the 90s with ease and simplicity. It allows users to have longer calls whereas Zoom only allows 45 minutes for a free conference. The team is currently exploring many ways to offer our services, including customizing to a user's need.

"So far, we have been getting a lot of positive responses. A lot of users like to see an increase in participation from 50 to 100. App allows 50 participants as of now. We have a long list of enhancements which Zoom, Google and Microsoft are not currently offering to their users. Our team is seeing a lot of interest from many to make an App or have language options and the team is looking into it," added Shukoor Ahmed.