- Title: LEBANON: Lebanese-designed app aims to replace personal assistants
- Date: 30th May 2013
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) USER OF KACTUS APPLICATION, ELIE, SAYING: "I found out about Kactus on Facebook and I tried the application, and it honestly helped me in different tasks as getting a visa to the United States of America. The thing is that you can have a visa, ask parents to get your visa, but what is great about Kactus is that you can be independent, I felt that I can do anything." VARIOUS OF CHEMALY WORKING ON HIS LAPTOP
- Embargoed: 14th June 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Lebanon
- Country: Lebanon
- Topics: Business,Communications,Technology
- Reuters ID: LVA4060AHD0V9V9YR78RND8IV0OC
- Story Text: Three Lebanese engineers have come up with an digital alternative to a personal assistant - Kactus.
It provides users with guidance on the necessary steps required to accomplish the task they wish to do.
The tasks available on the application range from completing official documents and visa applications to diet schedules and cooking recipes.
Nadi Chemaly, Bassam Seif and Lea Dunia are the brains behind this smartphone app that has become very popular in Lebanon.
"Kactus is a personal assistant, or in other words, a secretary that a user downloads on his phone. What do I mean by secretary or personal assistant? It means that I tell the Kactus application what I want to do, and it then gives me a schedule with everything I need to do. I tell Kactus for example that I want to apply for a visa to the United States of America, and it schedules for me what I need to do each day to have this visa," said Chemaly.
Inspired by their ongoing research and responding to their user's suggestions on social media, the developers of the application add about 20 new schedules every day.
"In September we started creating the idea and writing the application's programme. It was officially launched in the markets at the end of March and since then we had many people downloading it, we have more than 12,000 users that open and use Kactus regularly, they check what updates are available and ask us on social media, Facebook and Twitter, how they can do this or that," explained Chemaly.
Lea Dunia explains how they stumbled upon the idea.
"We came with the idea of Kactus because we faced problems when we graduated, we wanted to apply to the syndicate of engineers and we didn't know what are the necessary documents that are required for the application, and where we should go and what time, so we started to ask around and no one was able to provide us with the right answers, and at the same time I was trying to apply for a visa at the Chinese embassy and I didn't know what are the necessary documents that are required so I was obliged to visit the embassy many times. So we came up with Kactus to help any person who needs assistance in completing a document," said Dunia.
The developers unveiled their future plans, saying that the application will soon allow its users to add their own schedules.
They are also optimistic about promoting their application at a global level.
According to Elie, a regular user of 'Kactus, one of the application's best benefits is the self-empowerment.
"I found out about Kactus on Facebook and I tried the application, and it honestly helped me in different tasks as getting a visa to the United States of America. The thing is that you can have a visa, ask parents to get your visa, but what is great about Kactus is that you can be independent, I felt that I can do anything," said Elie.
'Kactus' developers have represented Lebanon in different workshops and countries such as Dubai in the global entrepreneurship summit back in September where their application was ranked among the top 10.
According to their Facebook page, 'Kactus' has been ranked among the top 5 most popular iPhone free applications in March. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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