Google & beyond: Bengal boy readies better search results

Shubhadeep Choudhury in Kolkata

Tired of the inanities thrown up by search engines while checking out something on the net? Origgon, a search engine being launched shortly, could be the game-changer. Abhik Saha (15) comes from a remote town in West Bengal, and has developed the search engine with features that may be exactly what people frustrated with available search engines are looking for. 

Chalsa, Abhik’s hometown, is surrounded by two famous forests — Gorumara National Park and Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary. “A computer wizard emerging from such a place is really remarkable,” says local resident Rajen Pradhan.

Abhik’s father works as an accountant in a Chalsa-based business and his mother is a schoolteacher. Abhik, the couple’s only child, has developed Origgon, with which he wants to beat the Google one day.

“Ours is a social search engine. If one logs into it with Facebook account, it will show what the user’s FB friends had to say about the subject entered for search. Suppose, if one enters Goa for search, it would show if any FB friend had been to Goa recently, their comments on Goa and so on,” Abhik told this reporter from Mumbai over the phone.

Another unique feature of Origgon, Abhik says, is that instead of providing results through a series of links, Origgon will produce a paragraph or two in the beginning on the subject entered for search and then list the links for further search.

Abhik’s story thus far makes it pretty clear that he is nothing short of a prodigy. He created his first tech blog called Tech27 when he was only 12. Later that year he founded Tech 27 Consultancy. The business was carried out informally as Abhik used to approach his clients personally through social media.

In 2015, Abhik got his first smartphone and that was when he thought of developing an app. He designed apps such as 3D Hunter and ABCD which could be found on Google Playstore. All this work entailed a lot of searches on the internet. Abhik’s patience would often run out by the enormous time being wasted in searching and gathering information. “This led me to think of designing a new search engine,” says Abhik. 

He passed ICSE from the Don Bosco in Oodlabari near Siliguri, and got an important break when he got a call from a renowned angel investor from Mumbai. This prompted him to shift to Mumbai.

Origgon is available on the net. Right now it does not look any different from other searches. But Abhik says the site now is on a test run. Work is going on to fine-tune the search. The official launch will take place sometime month-end. 

“Search engine results are mostly based on artificial intelligence. Suppose, a particular blog has an interesting content, but it may still be ignored by the search engine. This will not be the case with Origgon. We will develop a profile of the user (through means such as the activities of the user on the Facebook and other inputs) and show the results in accordance with the user’s preference,” says Abhik.