KOCHI: Udayshankar R is just 13 years old. But with his achievements, the lad is proving that you are never too young for big things. The Class 8 student of Nalanda Public School, Thammanam, is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the startup, Urav Advanced Learning Systems Private Limited.
He founded the start-up with the help of his father in 2020 and immediately joined as the CTO. Uday is involved in providing STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) for children. With the help of his parents Dr Ravi Kumar, a dentist, and Sreekumari V, an engineer, Udayshankar helps other children access STEAM subjects in a fun and easy way. The start-up introduces an alternative approach to how these subjects are usually taught in schools.
The beginning
It all started when he was seven. During that year’s holidays, his mother asked him to either choose sports or robotics to keep himself engaged. Without any second thought, the youngster chose to learn robotics.
“I always had an interest in technology. Videos of people developing games and other useful devices inspired me to this field,” says Udayshankar.
“I didn’t want him to develop anything that’d just serve him or his family’s purpose. If he’s developing a robot, I want it to be useful to many people. It was Udayshankar who identified the potential of educational kits. He decided to start a company so his innovations could reach a lot of people,” says Ravi.
Sourcing necessary parts from Mouser.in, Udayshankar’s start-up has developed an infrared temperature gun and portable sanitiser dispenser.
“You need to know coding to assemble the kits. I take online classes on how to do the coding so other kids can learn STEAM in a fun way. The final output can be used in daily life as well,” says Udayshankar.He also has a YouTube channel called ‘Urals Technologies’, where he shares how to use Arduino boards for new inventions and other experiments. He is also a certified Python programmer, one of the youngest in the world. At 13, he cleared the PCAP examination.
‘Not just e-kits’
Udayshankar says he didn’t want the start-up to be just about education kits. “That’s why I learned C# to develop games for Android and MR/VR platforms,” he says. The youngster has so far developed three games for Jio Tesseract on their Augmented Reality JioGlass. He will take classes on how to develop games in three hours through the Unity 3D game development engine. “Urav will make educational and other games as well. When you take learning into a gamified form, children especially can learn concepts more easily,” says Udayshankar. He has created games on farming, the evolution of coronavirus and even dentistry!