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– Interview with J. F. Fazna: An Award Winner of Ideamart – Digit Awards 2013
Digit IT Magazine partnered with Dialog Ideamart to recognize the best performing mobile application developers cum entrepreneurs on Ideamart and the award ceremony was held on 12th October at Dialog Future World Auditorium. There was one particular app developer who was able to stun the gathering, when she was awarded for the most number of application submissions. She has developed 16 applications on Ideamart within a limited time period and today; we are interviewing Jifry Fathima Fasna to explore her story behind the success.
Q: Hello Fazna! Congratulations on your award at Ideamart – Digit Awards 2013. Tell us about yourself.
A: I’m from the east part of the island. My hometown is Oddamavadi, which is in Batticaloa. I started my school life at BT/BCC/FathimaBalika M.V. and did my A/L at BT/BCC/Oddamavadi Central College. Currently I’m doing my second year of the degree in Computer Engineering at University of Peradeniya. About my family, my father is an electronic technician and my mother is a homemaker. I have three sisters and a brother.
Q: Give us a brief introduction to your presence on IdeaMart?
A: I got to know about Ideamart from a friend before Ideamart team came to our university and did a session on Ideamart and how it works. Then, I decided to do apps on that platform and started the work. Now, there are 16 active applications on Ideamart developed by me. Some of them are service type and others are contact type.Under service type, there are few subscriber-based apps such as Girl Facts(Ultimate facts about girls), Health Tips, Sports Quotes (famous quotation for sport people by famous sport persons) and etc.
In contact based applications, there are several apps. Some of them are: Biorhythm, Sleep Calculator, Donate Blood, Know Your Blood Group, Future Job, EB Calculator. Biorhythm and Future Job use user’s birthday to produce the results while the other apps have their own specific inputs.
Users can find the full details of the apps on allapps.lk, or in our FB page https://www.facebook.com/
Q: 16 Applications! That’s amazing effort! What motivated you to develop applications for IdeaMart?
A: I just love programming. When I get an idea to do an app, I just do it. At the time I heard about diGIT-Ideamart competition, I had already finished 16 apps. So, I applied for them all. Yes, there is a motivation for me. My colleague Fawzan was already doing these kinds of work and he has won some awards in a recently held award ceremony and it impressed me a lot. So, I decided to follow his way and do some apps.
Q. How do you reach out to your target market? What are the marketing channels you use?
A: I initially target the people at my university. I prepared some posters and put them in every faculty’s student notice boards. Other than that, I have a plan to put some advertisement on newspapers and magazine also.Currently, I’m creating a Facebook page for all of my apps to reach the people since it is the mostly used media by everyone today.
Q. What are the challenges you face being a developer?
A: Challenges?? Hmm.. I don’t think being a developer is a challenge. May be it is because I love to be a developer. But, my family members worry about me, specially my parents because, I start everyday with a coffee in front of my laptop and end the day with the dinner in front of my laptop. So, they feel that I should move somewhere else and do some other works also.
Q: Do you have any role models? Who inspire you?
A: Yeah, as I already mentioned my colleague Fawzan is my inspiration for being a developer. He is doing lots of work on web development and application development. He was the one who showed me the way to do some creative work. I started my work as a content creator on his websites, Tip4theday.com andezmodem.com and now reached this level. I’m really thankful to him for what I’m now.
Q: Where do you see yourself in another 10 years time? Tell us about your future plans.
A: I like to see my self as a successful software engineer in the future. I’m not sure whether I’m going to be a freelancer or work under a specific company. Whatever I do, I like to do my best.I think being a freelancing software engineer would be sound nice 
. So, I can do my favorite work independently without any pressure. Other than the job, I want to do some more creative work in the field of application development and web development.
Q: We do not see many female developers/entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. What is your message to potential female developers/entrepreneurs?
A: Nowadays, women achievers are in every field. Women can achieve a good place as developers/entrepreneurs, because we are more creative and innovative. These two qualities help us to shine as a developer/entrepreneur.My opinion is being an entrepreneur is a very good profession for women. Not this one, for any profession, if they love the profession they can do it well.
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