Dubai: The act of spreading knowledge through books is like lighting several lamps with one. Books can educate, enlighten and entertain thousands of people.
Realising the power of the written word, Aryan Kundra, a 16-year-old student of Jumeirah College, Dubai, has created BookStorm: A digital application now available on iOS and Android platforms that can bring books lovers to one single digital marketplace where they can buy, sell, swap or borrow books within their community.
Explaining the reason behind the creation of the app, the grade 12 student told Gulf News: “As someone who loves books, I realised I had a large collection of academic and non-fiction books that I had read and was willing to share with the community. I thought it might be the same with my friends and many others in the community. There is a large bookloving community and circulation of these books throughout the community would make best use of these.”
Digital marketplace for booklovers
Not everyone can afford digital books. While interacting with his friends, Aryan felt there was a whole community of book lovers who wanted to share or exchange books and were looking for a reliable platform to do so. “BookStorm is designed as a simple, convenient and engaging platform for people to come together on a digital platform and buy, sell, trade and give away their pre-loved books. These could include, competition exam, business tomes, biographies, self-help guides, fiction or books from any other genre,” elaborated Kundra.
The app launched six months ago already has 74 registered users and many students have responded positively to it.
‘Proud of Aryan’
Commenting on Aryan’s initiative, Mark Cahalane, the head of Year 12 and teacher of Design and Technology at Jumeirah College, Dubai, said: “The Jumeirah College Sixth Form ethos centres around student excellence and we consistently encourage our students to not only break through boundaries, but to confidently use their initiative to support those around them. Aryan is no exception to this, devoting a significant amount of his spare time to making the world a better place. Not only will the app he has developed support our school community through the exchange of old books, but it will significantly reduce the amount of paper being used from purchasing new school books annually. We are so proud of Aryan’s accomplishments and look forward to continue to seeing him prosper.”
User review
Marc Zanginkle, a Dubai-based IT consultant who subscribed to BookStorm, said he had uploaded some books that he wanted to sell. “This app is very easy to navigate as it has a user-friendly interface. By providing an opportunity to buy, sell, exchange books it is providing the community a sustainable alternative to preserve books and put them to good use. These books would have been discarded otherwise."
Aarush Malhotra, a Grade 12 student at Gems Wellington School, another registered subscriber, found the app very helpful.
“I put up a lot of my study guides from GCSE up for sale recently. I saw that many of the maths books from IGSCE that were put up by other students were lapped up immediately. I bought some fiction books written by my favourite author and these were at one-fifth the price at book stores, plus they were in pretty good condition.”
