Agnihotra Buddy - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

Not really. This was my first app on the Play Store. I did make some dummy apps for practice or self-use.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

To marry simplicity and accuracy. I knew that users of this app can be people who are not very tech-savvy and at the same time we need high accuracy with did require some technical background.

_{Shashi Bhushan Singh}

Shashi Bhushan Singh, the interviewee, is a 37-year-old developer from India living at The Madman’s Farm (www.Themadmansfarm.org) involved in organic farming, forestation, sustainable living, natural learning , deschooling movements and film making. He built this app for the German Association of Homatherapy which is the proprietor of this app. Shashi took care of the technical aspects of the app whereas the UI/Testing/Functionality of the app was taken care of with the exclusive help from Dr. Ulrich Berk and Bruce Johnson.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

Da Tuner is my favorite guitar tuner app, I really like its simplicity. Another favorite of mine is Zender which makes sharing so simple and cool.

How long have you been working on this app?

Almost 3 years now.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

This is a very specific app for a very specific cause which is Agnihotra (a form of Vedic ritual performed to attract positivity and reduce negative energy). I myself am a practitioner of Agnihotra and I used to struggle to get the exact time of sunrise and sunset as per my location (which is one of the needed variables to perform Agnihotra), so that was the need I kept in mind.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

One, it is very accurate; accurate to seconds. Most of the other apps are off many minutes, some of which are accurate have accuracy only to a minute. Secondly, this is entirely free, because this is helping a social cause and Agnihotra helps heal the planet, we decided not to make it a commercial app.

In today’s times when our planet is bruised and our environment is poisoned. Agnihotra offers a simple yet powerful action to take to heal our planet and save our environment. This is not just some belief or religious sentiment, you can find scientific validations and research done on these by third parties – all of it available on our website (homatherapy.org). Even for fighting the CORONA virus pandemic, Agnihotra promises to be a powerful tool. (again citations available for this claim too on our website.)

Thus, this simple, free app will allow more people to do Agnihotra accurately and hence increase the impact and help heal our planet in the long run.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We will continue to improve our app. We take each review below 5 stars seriously and talk to users to understand what we can improve. An alarm function is going to be added soon in the next version.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

Continue doing Agnihotra, spread the good flames around the world and let’s save this planet and ourselves.