There’s a lot of criticism that Pakistan lacks entrepreneurs interested in research, however Jahanzeb Sherwani, CEO of iTeleport, is a businessman who has succeeded in both. During his final year as a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University he developed Jaadu VNC, an application which allows you to have remote control power over your computer from anywhere in the world! This application eventually became the seed which grew into iTeleport, his company based in Silicon Valley, California.

The Story Behind the Magic

Sherwani is a LUMS graduate where he majored in Computer Science and also cofounded the LUMS Music Society. After graduating, he continued researching and working in Pakistan for a year after which he was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University. He successfully graduated with a PhD in 2009.

In addition to being an innovative entrepreneur, Sherwani has worked with HANDS – a Pakistani NGO – in order to implement a telephone-based speech recognition program to provide health information across Sindh for the community health workers without a formal education. Sherwani is in all ways a multi-talented individual whose success is in providing a source of inspiration for all developers in the IT community.

According to Sherwani, developing successful applications is “all about the devices you use”. His success in the Apple world has been the result of his interest in and ongoing use of their gadgets such as the iPhone, iPad and iPad Touch. He believes that the work developers do is highly personal.

The original idea for Jaadu came in 2008 when his computer was connected to his TV and Sherwani was forced to use a wireless keyboard and mouse to control his computer remotely. He wanted to find a way to do this using his iPhone. Since there was no support for the iPhone app development community at the time, it took him a week to figure out how to make the software work. After completing the app, all the big tech blogs including Digg, Gadget, and Gizmodo featured iTeleport and there were approximately 100,000 hits on the YouTube video he had made. Once Sherwani started charging for it he made $5,000 (USD) in just one day!

Besides being a successful entrepreneurship story, Sherwani and iTeleport are a perfect example of the benefits of social networks and internet marketing.

An Overview of the Jaadu VNC

So what exactly is all the excitement about? Firstly, Sherwani was the first developer from Pakistan whose application was accepted into the iPhone App Store. The software itself works on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Though there are other apps out there with similar functionalities, iTeleport offers the greatest features at the lowest cost. It has been so successful that it reached #19 on the iTunes App Store and was chosen as one of the Staff Favorites. It currently sells for $25 (USD), a price that Sherwani and his wife decided on together (Awww!).

Features of the Jaadu

For those interested in getting iTeleport for their devices, here are a few key features of the application:

  • Browsing/Editing of PC Files – It allows you to browse and edit any file on your hardrive
  • MAC & Windows Support – Lets you run all Mac and Windows applications from your iPad
  • Multiple Interface Support – Supports Mac, Windows, Linux and AMX touchscreen interfaces
  • Multilingual – Supports multiple languages including English, French, Germen, Italian, Swedish, Russian and others
  • Remote Control View – The remote control view lets you browse through your apps with the click of a button
  • Web Browsing – Allows you to browse the web with full flash capabilities on your iPad
  • Supports all PC Accessories – Supports all standard accessories including external keyboard
  • Projector/Monitor Hookup – The VGA adapter support allows you to view your remote desktop on a monitor or projector
  • Multiple Monitor Support – Supports multiple monitor configuration allowing you to use iTeleport on 2 monitors
  • Easy Setup – Super easy setup and usage with 15 different multi-touch gestures