'It was the early days of my 5th standard school vacation, and my mother asked me, 'Robotics classes or swimming classes for the weekends?' I chose robotics classes because technology fascinated me.'
Whenever I spoke to entrepreneurs, I used to start by asking them about their childhood and the dreams they had then. I was always curious to know whether becoming an entrepreneur was their childhood dream.
How can I ask such a question to Udayshankar Ravi Kumar, as he is still a 15 year old?
He is not just an entrepreneur but an AI whiz kid too.
It was in 2020 when he was not even a teenager that he co-founded Urav Advanced Learning Systems Private Limited, and became the Chief Technology Officer, with his father Dr Ravi Kumar as the director. His father is a dentist by profession.
Today, he has 15 AI apps to his credit, and has won the 2024 Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Ignited Mind Children Creativity and Innovation Award, the Young Innovator Program 5.0 of Kerala State for 3rDi 4 All - Indoor Navigation for the Blind App.
His company is listed with Start-up India and Kerala Start up Mission.
Udayshankar reveals how it all started with him creating an AI avatar of his grandmother when she didn't pick his call!
"My real Achamma was amused to see her AI avatar!" says the AI whiz kid.
Robotics classes or swimming class?
It was the early days of my 5th standard school vacation, and my mother asked me, 'Robotics classes or swimming classes for the weekends?' I chose robotics classes because technology fascinated me.
And the decision changed my life. I was not yet 10 then and was the youngest in the class.
I learnt a lot of hardware in the classes. Also, programming for Arduino.
Then came the pandemic and no school.
Personally, I enjoyed sitting at home and doing all the stuff I loved. I know it was not like that for many people.
My interest in software development started with learning Python online from an assistant professor at an engineering college when the pandemic started.
Soon, my interest shifted to Unity game development and from there to virtual reality and mobile apps.
And I started developing games and mobile apps.
Founding the company
In 2020, my father started the company Urav Advanced Learning Systems Pvt Ltd for me. The company has only three employees: My father as CEO, I as the sole developer and my mother, who is an engineer.
We started the company so that it can represent me and showcase the products I create. As I am a minor, I am not able to do many things legally. But a company can. That's the idea behind founding the company.
Now, I can take the apps and games I create to the public through our company.
The first product we came out with was an educational kit for children containing a thermometer gun which you can assemble and also use it. I also made an automatic sanitiser dispenser; the infra sensor of which senses the hand and dispenses the sanitiser.
Creating an AI avatar of grandmother
One day when I called my grandma in Palakkad, she didn't pick up the call as she was busy.
That made me think, why not create a replica of her using AI and make the avatar talk!
I was already using ChatGPT in coding. So, I created a mobile app called hAI!Friend (external link) and named my grandma's AI replica as Achamma (father's mother).
In hAI!Friend, you can create your own avatar by using the picture of anybody you know, and you can write all the characteristics of that person for the avatar. Then you can start chatting with that person in any language. That's how I started chatting with Achamma on hAI!Friend AI app.
My real Achamma was amused to see her AI avatar! hAI!Friend app is on the Google play store.
We can give Redeem Codes to Rediff.com readers for hAI!Friend and the upcoming StudyBuddy if they contact us at info@uralstech.in.
More apps... advAIsa, fAInansa, medAIka...
In Kerala, you see a lot of tourists. There are also people from other states working here. I have seen them struggling to communicate in the stores as they do not know the local language.
That made me think, why not create an app where you can ask questions in whatever language you know, and you will get answers in your language itself?
For example, a French man wants to buy milk from a kirana store but does not know how to ask in the local language. If you have this app on your phone, you can tell the app, I need milk, in your language. The app will translate what you want in the local language for the store.
I named it advAIsa (external link).
It is a commercial product targeted at small businesses.
In fact, we presented advAIsa as the sales agent of our company!
I created many variants of this product, like fAInansa (external link) for financial assistance. fAInansa can help you about prudent investing.
I have medAIka (external link) to give medical advice. You ask medAIka the questions which you generally google.
To help blind people navigate
I created 3rDi 4 All (external link), an Indoor Navigation app for the Blind as my social impact app.
It is in the trial and testing stage funded by the government of Kerala as part of YIP 5.0
I won the Young Innovator Program 5.0 of Kerala State for this app.
An AI teacher for schools
I created the ChatGPT powered Miss Vani (external link), an AI teacher for schools so that it can help both students and teachers. It is a kiosk product with more up to date data.
StudyBuddy coming soon..
StudyBuddy is aimed at helping children with their homework.
If you take the picture of the homework and ask StudyBuddy, 'Can you help me how to solve this?', it will solve it for you.
It will act like your buddy, your friend to whom you ask your doubts while doing your homework. This will be released soon.
All our apps are available on Google Play Store, Jio platform and Meta Quest, and in the local language.
No more school-going days
After I started the company and got immersed more and more into app development, I decided to stop going to school.
I was in the 8th standard when I took the decision.
I thought, when I wanted to work full time for my company, I was losing time going to school.
I wrote my 10th standard exam at the National Institute of Open Schooling, and I passed this year. I can write my 12th standard exam after 2 years as I will be eligible only then.
I am also planning to write exams in the US also. But my higher education will depend on how successful my company will be.
Do I miss going to school? No, I don't. You learn a lot of stuff in school which you don't need in your life.
When I want to concentrate only on software, why do I have to study history and geography?
Outdoor games? No.
I spend all my time doing what I like which is, developing apps and games.
In fact, a typical day of mine begins with me starting my work almost immediately after I get up. If I have to finish some important work, I stay up really late, till 2 or 3 at night. Then, I get up late.
In between work, I eat. Rather, my mother makes sure that I have regular meals. She has a very strict rule that I cannot watch TV or read while I eat.
I am not an outdoor person at all. So, I don't miss going out and playing with friends. I play virtual reality games.
I do have some 'real' friends from school. But I interact with them virtually.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
