14-year-old Harshwardhan Zala has developed drones to track killer mines in war zones
Fourteen-year-old Harshwardhan Zala is the CEO of a tech firm that he founded in Ahmedabad. If that astounds you, hear this: The lanky, bespectacled lad just signed a Rs 5 crore deal with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat for commercially producing drones to identify and destroy land mines in war zones.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was struck on January 12 at the 8th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, a platform for start-ups and business opportunities in Gandhinagar. At the summit, when most start-up entrepreneurs were curious to look for ways to tackle their major roadblock — raising funds, onlookers said Harshwardhan baffled the audience by asking the panellists how could he help India with his drones.
Zala’s drones, inbuilt with infrared RGB sensors and thermal meters, can emit ‘waves’ up to 8 sqm to track down land mines at two-feet above ground. This gadget has a 21-megapixel camera for clicking sharp, high resolution photographs of the surveyed area with a mechanical shutter. Meanwhile the base station will simultaneously receive a report of the location and readings and notify the authorities concerned. Alternatively, the drones can destroy the mine with a 50 gram bomb attached to them. This innovation is a boon for the army as it can fly these drones into battle zones.
In fact, this brainwave struck Zala when he was watching television. He was disturbed upon learning that most battlefield casualties are of soldiers who die from severe injuries when they accidently step on land mines. “I was inspired to do something for them,” says Zala, who hails from Surendranagar in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. He has now registered for a patent from his drones under his company, Aerobotics.
For Zala, it was time that gave him the pinch as it took him four months to design three prototypes of the drone in 2016, especially since he was juggling with tenth grade exams. “It did cost me time. But my teachers helped me a lot. They gave me ample knowledge to build this drone. Even my parents, especially my dad, also supported me,” says Zala, whose father Pradhyumansinh works at a Naroda-based plastic company, while his mother Nishaba is a homemaker. They sponsored Rs 2 lakh for the first and second prototypes, while the state government gave him grant of Rs 3 lakh for the third.
Zala now maintains a public figure profile on Facebook where he describes himself as a “10th class teenager, coder, entrepreneur and drone maker”. He created an Instagram account on Saturday and already has seven photographs up of him posing with his drone activities at the summit. Zala, the self-confessed nerd, says he’s “always into” Discovery Channel and had caught all 33 episodes of Time Warp, a show where a scientist, a teacher and an artist use a high-speed camera to examine bullets shots or water falling, in slow motion. Another Discovery show You Have Been Warned and Nat Geo’s Science of Stupid of hilarious scientific stunts and experiments are other favourites that helped him develop an eye for seeing science in everyday activities. Ask him about his hobbies and he says there’s nothing specific. “I mostly read books with vast knowledge about technologies.”
But his ambition doesn’t stop here as he wants to do something for India. “I want my country to be the best. I also want to build a huge empire — Zala industries.”
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