Professor creates weather app

By: Anthony Petro, Contributing Writer

Photo by Brendan Felch/ The Towerlight

A 2015 Towson alum and current adjunct professor developed an application that will turn your alarm clock off when school is cancelled or delayed.

Jal Irani graduated from Towson University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and then received his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins.

After a trip to Bill Bateman’s Bistro with a few friends during his senior year, Irani went to a friend’s house. That night, Irani and his friend Audrey came up with an idea for an application called SleepIn.

SleepIn allows the user to connect the app to their school’s alert system and their alarm clock app, so if any closures or delays occur, SleepIn will turn their alarm off.

“SleepIn is my baby,” Irani said. “It launched earlier this year (December 2017) and has around 600-700 downloads now.”

Irani said the app references two separate databases to get accurate information about your school’s closure or delay.

“I had a proud parent moment when I downloaded SleepIn and it worked,” said computer science professor Josh Dehlinger.

Dehlinger taught Irani when he was an undergrad.

“[Irani] told me about the idea a year ago,” Dehlinger said. “It was a small idea, but he was very excited when it released.”

Nilashree Shirodkar, a junior studying for her master’s degree in applied information technology, has Irani as her professor in a server side programming course.

“I think he has done a great job by developing this application,” Shirodkar said. “It is a help for students and it feels great to see an app up in running that we have had discussions about during our classes.”

Irani has developed two other applications on his own, another with the University, and even runs a mobile contracting company called Apptzr.

“I always consider him as my mentor whom I can count on,” Shirodkar said.

The other apps he has developed include Corrie Health, SmartAddress and Wavy Leaf.

Corrie Health is an app designed to remind patients recovering from cardiac problems to take their medication.

SmartAddress is an app Irani launched in January 2017 designed to allow the user to save addresses of their current location and then compare Uber and Lyft rates to this location in the future or other locations.

Irani worked on the app Wavy Leaf with Dehlinger while studying as an undergraduate student. According to Dehlinger, this app was created as a joint project with the biology department as a way to map and track invasive species.

Irani’s company Apptzr is a mobile contracting company that designs applications for bars and restaurants. These apps allow these places to digitize and then solve and process everyday problems.

As Irani said, SleepIn is his “baby” though. Currently it is only available in Maryland, but updates occur regularly, and Irani hopes to expand the app’s radius.