By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

 

Great team spirit and vision can enable people to come out with big ideas and innovations that can transform many of the existing practices, opined Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube.

Hurley was giving the keynote address at the inaugural session of the 31st World Conference of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP) hosted by Qatar Science and Technology Park at Qatar National Convention Centre yesterday.

Narrating his own story, Hurley said that his childhood experience and background was not much different from anyone else. He noted: “I was interested in art. Technology was getting more and more widespread during my childhood and I became more involved in electronics, learning how things work.”

He said: “I was confused about what I wanted to do in college. Was it my art skills or my interest in technology?  I started as a student of computer science but left it as soon as I understood that I will not be developing tools but using them.”

Hurley stated that he transitioned to an art major student and majored in design. “Design is also something very unique as you create something that did not exist,” he added.

After college he started working for a small organisation in California but was exploring ways to come out with something more creative. “I used to meet my friends at coffee shops and discuss several ideas. The idea of video sharing site came up as there were picture sharing sites at that time but there were no video sharing sites at all.”

“More cameras with videotaping were becoming available in the market. So,we found the opportunity in video sharing site and started developing a site. We went through a lot of difficulties initially. It took a long time to upload videos and many of them could not be played in the media players.”

“We found out that flash player would allow these videos to play. As most of the browsers supported flash player we could solve the issue of media player and enable everyone to watch the videos.”

Hurley commented: “We did not have great experience in this field but we were at the right time at the right place and people had the devices to take the videos. Looking at the problems that we faced in the process of setting up YouTube, I can understand the difficulties facing individuals in any of the ventures. But these problems can be overcome with the right innovations.”

 

 

 

 

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