Edinburgh student entertains millions online with new tech design skill she learned in lockdown

An Edinburgh student has kept millions across the world entertained during lockdown by developing a social media filter game.

Miriam's app has puzzled the likes of Love Island's Molly Smith, model Allie Ayers and millions of others around the globe

Miriam Khenissi, a computing student at Napier University has fused her passions for tech and design to create a game which has captured the attention of Love Island influencers such as Molly Smith who was in the show’s sixth series, models, and YouTubers as well as their combined millions of followers.

The Instagram filter game sees users trying to guess the name of a country in a short amount of time from a series of emojis, symbols and letters

It is not the 24-year-old’s first time seeing success from one of her creations.

Miriam is an Edinburgh Napier student who created the filter at the beginning of lockdown

“My first filter was actually one based on Tunisia because that’s my home country and it went viral there,” Miriam said, “But I wanted to do something more global, I had to come up with something easily understandable and the ideas come with time.

“I’m particularly inspired by countries that my friends are from so I make a list of around ten to 12 country ideas and put them into the filter.”

The filter, which she first released on Instagram in May took off firstly in East Asia before being picked up by users in the UK and USA. It has now been used over 5.8 million times.

“I love the combination of being both creative and technical,” Miriam added, “Unfortunately Instagram doesn’t reward for the filters being used but it does show some of the users who have picked it up and recently YouTubers have been taking up the challenge to guess the country.”

The student wants to continue creating and developing and already has ideas to keep people online entertained with guessing game filters for movies.

She added: “It’s a new skill I’ve learned during lockdown and I want to keep creating, I’m really passionate about it. I’m glad to see so many people having fun with it, the usage always spikes when we’re in lockdown and stuck inside and people are at home.”

To give it a go, Instagram users can select to use the filter here.

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