[MUSIC PLAYING]
ERICA HANSON: Great, so next up we
are going to be welcoming a team from India, Micamp.
They're going to be sharing more about their university-specific
projects.
So you'll see a bit more.
It's basically a one-stop shop.
So Praveen will be sharing more about his project.
And we're going to be joined by Todd on the Firebase team.
He's going to ask them a couple questions.
So let's check out Micamp.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Hello everyone.
This site, Praveen [INAUDIBLE] DSC core team member.
Actually, the problem is colleges or campuses
lack a platform where they can connect
all the students together, irrespective of the stream
or branch.
They can provide all the services online, present
in the campus, like issuing online gate pass,
issuing a book from library, downloading a study
material, shared by teachers, or be participating
in the upcoming event, online [INAUDIBLE] for all items,
lost and found feature, like if someone lose their ATM
during the event, then it will be
easier for him to find it by posting about it on the portal.
So now let's speak about the main problem we solved,
is to connect all the strengths, irrespective of the stream
by using of our platform.
Like in engineering college, you can see the students,
according to their skills, Android developers, machine
learning enthusiasts, dev developers, et cetera.
If [INAUDIBLE] is working on Android project
and need a guidance of any senior,
then it will be difficult for them
to find a good Android developer who should support him.
So here the students can get the details
of all the Android developers, along with their details
of projects and internships, et cetera,
so it will be easier for them to pick a good [INAUDIBLE]..
So then they can interact with them
and get a support or the guidance on the project.
It's not like [INAUDIBLE],, in which we are providing
services, but a platform to connect all the students
from different colleges together.
In the bigger picture, it can make a big impact
on all the students from all across the country.
Now let's take an example of the impact we create.
Let's say a student from college [INAUDIBLE]
to participate in e-summit of [INAUDIBLE]..
Then it will be easier for him to get all the services using
the same app he was using in his college for event registration.
For college map, or to interact with some Android developers.
So that's all from our site, and would make a great impact
with our solution, which is the need of the society
at the present time.
[END PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ERICA HANSON: Great, so we're back, hello.
TODD KERPELMAN: Hello.
PRAVEEN: Hello.
ERICA HANSON: Good to see you, Todd.
And we have Praveen from Micamp in India.
So we're so excited to have you.
How you doing, Praveen?
PRAVEEN: Yeah, great.
ERICA HANSON: Good, great.
PRAVEEN: I'm really [INAUDIBLE].
ERICA HANSON: Great, it's so good to be here with you.
And hi, Todd.
How's it going?
TODD KERPELMAN: Hi, it's going well.
I'm glad to be here, glad to see all the great student projects.
Do I look this way?
No, I look this way to look like I'm look at you.
ERICA HANSON: Yeah we'll say hello.
TODD KERPELMAN: Hello!
ERICA HANSON: Good day.
Great, so we'd love for you to introduce yourself and get
to know you a bit better.
And then hear any questions you have for Praveen.
TODD KERPELMAN: Yeah, well, I'll introduce myself real quick.
Hi, I'm Todd Kerpelman.
I am a developer advocate on the Firebase team, which you
can see over my shoulder here.
Oh, other shoulder, there we go.
We make products that make it easier for developers to build
better apps, like Micamp.
So I was going to talk to the Micamp team.
I say team, but there's actually only one of you
who did this entire thing all by yourself, which I
think is incredibly impressive.
So I want to ask Praveen, what was sort of the initial problem
that you noticed at your university that
inspired you to create this app in the first place?
PRAVEEN: Yeah, really, if we talk about the inspiration,
so it would be really, it all started
when I got into the college.
So when I got into the college, I see a lot of difficulties,
like from the first thing, [INAUDIBLE],,
the difficulty about finding the right places, about finding
the classes, where it is, and not getting the map correctly,
and getting the lack of proper information flow,
like when this will be well-connected,
and who is a [INAUDIBLE] senior?
Whom to connect?
Like if I have an interest in Android development,
so from whom I can seek guidance?
So lots of students were there like who
were complaining about the things,
like we don't have these things [INAUDIBLE],,
and we have lost this thing, so how to find it,
making connections.
So I give it a try.
Like, why not make app where we can find all the solutions
for our campus?
And instead of complaining about the things,
why not solve it ourselves?
So just change the system, don't complain about the things
and solve it yourself.
So that was really a motivation and inspiration
behind the idea.
TODD KERPELMAN: I really like that attitude.
I wish more people had that attitude.
I was going to ask like what parts of your app
were maybe more successful, or more popular than you expected,
or less popular?
Like, what user feedback kind of surprised you
when you sort of tested this amongst your friends
and students?
PRAVEEN: Yeah, actually when we launched it,
launched the beta version of it [INAUDIBLE],,
so we received a lot of feedbacks.
And the most popular one was to elect networking part.
So when a students get stuck somewhere in their project,
they need the guidance of any senior.
But actually because of the [INAUDIBLE] and those issues,
there were very less interactions with the seniors.
So when we launched this app, so users
were getting the list of all the users in the call list, whom
to connect.
And they were like, if they're working on an Android project,
then they can see the list of all Android developers
in their college.
So they can send a friend request to them,
check out their projects, where they
are doing their internship.
And they can take the guidance of them.
So it was a most popular part of our app.
And users were really appreciating that.
But if we talk about the less popular,
these were the [INAUDIBLE].
TODD KERPELMAN: Well, we got--
I missed a little bit of the end there.
Maybe he didn't want to talk about the less popular stuff.
ERICA HANSON: Yeah.
TODD KERPELMAN: Praveen are you still there?
Can you hear me?
Hmm, we have had a couple of networking issues.
Hopefully he'll be able to hear us and rejoin with the audio
fairly soon.
Because I want to find out more about the app
and maybe if he was using Firebase.
I'm hoping, because I got the sweater out.
I don't want to get out the sweater out for nothing.
ERICA HANSON: It's a great sweater.
TODD KERPELMAN: Thank you, It's a, well, I
mean, it's remarkably warm, which
I guess is what you're supposed to be doing for a Christmas
sweater, or a holiday sweater.
We got this originally for a video that we all made.
And so they're limited edition.
People keep asking where they can get one.
And at some point, maybe we'll just
set up a storefront where we can sell sweaters.
Because that's a business I know that Google
has been looking to get into, is apparel and retail.
And I think branded Firebase sweaters
are sort of our big hot initial foray into that area.
ERICA HANSON: I totally agree.
TODD KERPELMAN: Right?
ERICA HANSON: I think people will love it.
TODD KERPELMAN: I think so.
Like, we're looking to get, find a few social media influencers
to show off, do their latest dances in Firebase sweaters.
That's kind of our, that's our long-term plan.
I shouldn't be giving away too much of our company's
long-term strategy.
But it's mostly that, along with maybe
adding a few services to make it easier to develop apps.
So with all that, Praveen, are you able to hear us now?
Yeah, unfort-- OK.
ERICA HANSON: That's fine.
Yeah, we can move on to the next team.
So thank you so much, Praveen, for sharing more about Micamp.
It's amazing that you built this all by yourself.
It was great to hear about it.
TODD KERPELMAN: It's a lot of capabilities into one app.
I was very impressed when I looked at everything that he
was able to put in there.
It was really impressive.
ERICA HANSON: Definitely.
Great, well, thank you so much.
[MUSIC PLAYING]