Google pays Sabah student RM185,000

Yusrim’s ‘fantastic’ Coker Chat app provides instantaneous language translation.

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah teenager Yusrim Karim who developed Coker Chat is RM185,000 richer today. Yusrim, 15, had been working on Coker Chat, an app for an Internet-based messaging service that can provide instantaneous language translation, and submitted it to Google Ideas late last year.

Google Ideas, Google’s think tank, e-mailed him a few weeks later, describing his app as fantastic, and invited him to work together on a US$36mil (RM133mil) project or US$50,000 (RM185,000) cash.

Yusrim, a Form Three student of SMK Merpati in Sandakan, said he chose cash.

“I am happy that Google Ideas accepted my software,” said Yusrim, the youngest of three sons of Forestry Department officer Karim Maturis and his wife Hamidah Ismail, in an interview with The Star Online.

Karim has set aside the Google cash for Yusrim’s education.

Yusrim’s app allows a user to use his own language to communicate with anyone in the world.

Science teacher Azlan Budun, who only knew about the Google offer last week, is understandably proud of his student.

“He has so many creative concepts in mind,” said Azlan, who taught Yusrim information and communication technology (ICT) last year.

Coker Chat was the 14th app that he submitted to Google Ideas, he added.