Amikumu

This last Sunday September 3^rd, I had the opportunity to participate in the launch party of the app Amikumu in Toronto.

Amikumu is an app where you can find people. But this free app is based on the languages spoken.  This is especially useful for Language lovers who want to find speakers of a specific language nearby in order to practice it, or for travellers who can meet a speaker of a specific language in a place they are visiting. More information can be found in https://amikumu.com

In representation of Amikumu, came Chuck Smith, an experienced IT developer from the USA, who is also a polyglot (I spoke to him in English, Esperanto and Spanish, and I heard him speaking in French with other visitors). He also worked developing the Duolingo’s Esperanto course and is a founder of Esperanto Wikipedia. He was kindly explaining to the attendees of the event the different ways we can use Amikumu and its features. This app allows chat with people who are connected, and language lovers can also introduce themselves in different forms with different profiles per language. Future improvements will allow more features favouring people who want to use the different kinds of Sign languages.

Chuck Smith and me, during the event. 

The flags in my shirt were kindly provided by Mundo Lingo Toronto.

A video of Amikumu CEO, Richard Delamore, was presented, where he welcomed all attendees and talked about the develop and launch of this app. He mentioned that when this app was first released, they decided to start with the Esperanto community. He said that they chose this community because average Esperanto Speakers are at least bilingual, they know Esperanto and their mother tongue, and many Esperantists know more languages. Their feedback and ideas were very important for their final product.

Eduardo Costa, who hosts Toronto Babel Meetup

When I made a quick review to the page where the Amikumu team is presented, my attention was centred to the fact that all team members are Esperantists, coming from very different cultures, but also greatly impressed me to see that, a group of real lovers of languages and polyglots have been working together in this idea (with an average of 5 languages spoken by each team member).

With my friends Mateo and Trevor from Esperanto Toronto 

I wish all the success to this app, a creation from language lovers to the world, and Amikumu for sure, will be a word that Esperanto will give to other languages. To all my readers, download it and enjoy its benefits.