The Man Behind The Development of PrimeOS: Introducing Umang Leekha!

By now, most of you must have known that PrimeOS is the heart of Primebook laptops, and it’s what empowers students to access the pool of Android-based e-learning apps on a multitasking interface.?

But do you know who’s the backbone of such an impactful technological innovation???

Here, we introduce – The mastermind behind the development of PrimeOS, the CTO (Chief Technological Officer) of Primebook, Umang Leekha! He was born and brought up in Delhi, “ A Delhite,” as he exclaims! Umang pursued his studies at one of the prestigious schools in the city, namely – Ryan International School, Rohini. He was one of the top students in his school. Then, he attended Guru Tegh Bahadur Institute of Technology for a BTech Degree.?

During school days, Umang’s friends were captivated by the “Zynga Poker game, where chips stands essential for betting”. The child in him saw this as a great opportunity to get his friends’ Facebook access. So, he created a dummy program and told his friends that logging in to it with their Facebook credentials can help generate 1000 chips for poker. As Umang laughs and says today, he was able to get what he wanted, but – “Alas! The program didn’t work!” This experience sparked Umang's fascination with coding,? as he realized its power and potential.

Embracing his humble and cordial family roots, Umang started working on software development on a phone. “The Xiaomi one,” he says, “The open-source one that allows you to create and integrate custom Android OS.” He made some OS customization and contributed it to the XDA developers community.?

As time passed and he was building his career profile by working on Android and making customized Android developments, his life was hailed with a professional opportunity that he never knew would exist. He states that his college “hosted an event where multiple startups, collecting resumes, were invited for discussions.” That’s where he met Chitranshu Mahant, the CEO of Primebook.?

While Umang was looking forward to building a custom Android OS, the Primebook team was in search of someone who does the same! Being the only person in college who has worked on Android OS clicked in his favour, says Umang! He further adds, “There are very few people across the globe working on Android OS even though there are a lot who work on Android apps. So, the chances of the Primebook team finding me was very slim”.?

Even for Umang, finding a company or a “startup, to be precise,” with such requirements was like a dream come true. So, BANG ON, it was —?

There began his innovation at Primebook!?

There began the development of PrimeOS!?

In the initial days, Umang and his team started “using a tablet by connecting it to a keyboard and a mouse via USB. This was to learn how capable Android works with a keyboard and mouse.”??

From his technical experiments, he discovered that although such integration is achievable and can serve great, certain features in the Android UI and UX aren’t suitable for mouse tracking. As Umang states, “For instance, the notification panel, where you have to drag, swipe left and right, move up and down, doesn’t seamlessly fit with mouse tracking.” Once such shortcomings were identified, Umang and his team started with the coding to make such features accessible via keyboard and trackpad.??

After a series of coding, testing, and deployment phases, there took the stage – The PrimeOS. For testing, PrimeOS was developed for other laptops and released for free. The main use case here was gaming. The team collected users’ feedback and found that most people could beat the highest scores in playing Android games like Subway Surfers using a keyboard and mouse because of the better precision.???

Umang says – the primary vision “However, was to create an agile operating system for low-end devices so that everyone can afford to avail the right form of technology in this digital era.”?

Umang was one of the best maths students in school, and his mathematical skills helped him crack the complex logical calculations requisite to create such a unique operating system. Besides, as he asserts, it was the “never give up” attitude that made him through the toilsome “debugging part”. Sometimes, it took him months to debug an issue. But the enthusiast in him didn’t let him quit!?

As Umang shares his story, “Optimizing the software for gaming was the biggest challenge” he faced, as “most Android gaming apps, be it Temple Run or PUBG, are built for touchscreen.” His expertise in Java and Kotlin helped him topple this challenge and create “a replica of the touchscreen called Keymapping, where the users can map the inputs of the keyboard and trackpad to simulate touchscreen behavior.”

Another of the challenges that he overcame and still considers one of the most relieving moments in his life was when an issue was identified with the Primebook keyboard and he was able to resolve it.?

Herein, Umang says, “After a long duration of sleep on Primebook, the keyboards stopped working, and our OEM partners refused to fix it. But over 10,000 users were facing this issue, and we didn’t want to let go of it.” Indeed, after 15 days of extensive debugging, he and his team were able to fix this without the help of the OEM and ODM partners.?

With the kind of determination and the amount of effort Umang comes with, he’s ought to overcome any challenge. To bring the best possible innovation to PrimeOS, he constantly keeps updated with the latest Android trends and updates. In this regard, he states, “There are many phone companies who builds their OS customization like Samsung One UI. Also, various third-party developers are customizing AOSP OS.” He studies them all and tries to implement whichever are the best for PrimeOS.?

Furthermore, Umang always stays keen to prioritise user feedback. That’s precisely why he and his team have incorporated a special app for Primebook called PrimeCoding, which is about to be launched soon!?

He said, “A bunch of students using our Primebook laptop wanted to learn coding. But in general, Android doesn’t have a native solution for it. There are, of course, coding websites that you can open from the browser and use to learn writing codes. However, their experience isn’t up to the mark on Android. So, we have developed a custom terminal that offers a similar experience to Window’s command prompt or the Linux terminal. Using this, students can learn basic Java, C, HTML, and even Python programs. They can compile code, run, and see the outputs, following grade 9-12 and first-year curriculum.”

As we eagerly wait to see this new app for Primebook, Umang has a significant suggestion for the aspiring software developers of today. He asserts, “Being focused on one specific niche in software development instead of juggling between multiple verticals is the key to success in this field. That’s what can make you a much more valuable developer, I believe!”?

The Primebook team believe in him! We believe in his expertise! So, you might as well just give it a try! ?