Izzi Millar, a 17-year-old A-Level student from Oxford, has taken the app world by storm. Alongside balancing school work and her extra-curricular activities like gymnastics and rugby, Izzi created On Thyme, a five-star rated app designed for students to keep track of their homework.
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The app allows you to organise tasks by subject and teacher, sends you reminders before your work is due and you can even upload photos to help keep on top of what is needed. We sat down with Izzi and spoke all about the inspiration behind the app, and how she hopes to encourage more girls to get into the world of technology.
Izzi created the app during lockdown in the UK
What inspired you to create the app?
"I started in the third lockdown, as school was all online so I had a lot more access to my phone and I wanted an app that I could put all my homework in. I didn’t really like anything on the app store so I decided to make one. I'm doing computer science at A-Level so it’s a good project."
How do you balance school, gymnastics and working on the app? Do you have to stay pretty organised?
"I have five hours of gymnastics training a week, and then I also do rugby. It was a lot easier for me in lockdown because when we were at home all the time I didn’t have to commute, so if I finished work early I could work on the app. I also have quite a lot of free periods at school. I do it when I have time because I enjoy doing it."
How did you find having to work from home during lockdown and not being able to go into school?
"I missed my friends, but I am quite an introvert so I actually found it relaxing because I didn’t have to get up early and I didn’t have to deal with being around people all the time, which was quite nice for me! It was harder to concentrate obviously with not having teachers right there but I did enjoy it."
The app allows you to organise your school work all in one place
What advice would you give to young girls wanting to get into the technology world like yourself?
"I would just say why not? I go to an all-girls school so there hasn’t been anything that has held me back because of that which has been nice, and my dad is a software engineer, so he's been able to help me a bit. Anyone who wants to get into it, try and talk to your computer science teacher at your school, try and find people who can help you. But I don’t think there is any reason why you can't just do it, if you have an idea, just go for it and see what happens!"
What do you see the future of the app being, are you hoping to grow it in the future?
"There are quite a few more features that I want to add and I am getting some of my friends who study languages at A-Level to translate it into other languages so it can be available in other places, I'm just hoping to refine it a bit more and make it work more smoothly."
What are your plans for the future, would you like to go to university?
"I do want to go to university, I am not entirely sure what I want to do yet but I think something along the lines of artificial intelligence or computer science or maybe something to do with physics. Then I want to go into the army and I want to be an officer in the Royal Signals so working with technology and cyber warfare."
OnThyme is available exclusively on the App store.
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