CREATIVITY SPECIAL .........................Awesome New Ideas For A Better Tomorrow (7)- KASHMIR APP

Awesome New Ideas For A Better Tomorrow (7)- KASHMIR APP

Life-saving gadgets, safer ways to travel, solutions for sanitation and cost-effective answers to everyday problems… India has a host of good ideas just waiting to explode. See what’s bubbling under

We scouted the length and breadth of the country to find the brightest innovations. The list continues

7. A Directory For Kashmir In One App

IDEA: Dial Kashmir

BRAINCHILD OF: Mehvish Mushtaq Hakak

She is the first Kashmiri to develop an Android application, and that too one that the Valley really needs. Mehvish Mushtaq Hakak’s Dial Kashmir contains over 500 contacts of government departments and numbers of private hospitals, fire brigades and all essential and nonessential services.

The 24-year-old inventor has described the application as “a virtual Yellow Pages”, and hers is perhaps the only state that has ann application like this. In 2013, Hakak took a course on Android application development and created Dialal Kashmir as a part of the course. To make it user friendly, the directory is divided into two categories – essential and commercial, with sections such as education, fire services, gas agencies, government offices, hospitals, electronics, NGOs and so on. It also lets you find pincodes, railway timings, publipublic holidays and prayer timings.

TThe daughter of a forest officer and a homemaker,er, HHakak always dredreamed of usinging technology for the greater gogood. She recountsre recent feedbackfe from a customer, wwho spotted aan animal ccarcass floating down the Jhelum, got on the app, and found the number of the Srinagar Municipal Council. The result: the carcass was cleaned up by the officials speedily. “In Kashmir, finding contacts is not an easy task as the official sites may not be working,” she says.

Dial Kashmir sounds like a model for the rest of India.

STATUS:

Hakak says that Dial Kashmir is her only priority and she will keep improving the application and adding information to it. It’s available for free download on Google Play, and has more than 25,000 downloads.

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