Teen school dropout creates tech waves

School dropout, tech genius, entrepreneur and all of 15 years old... that’s Angad Daryani who opted out of the ‘school’ race at a time most students his age were busy preparing for their SSC board exams.

Daryani, who decided he just did not want to study anymore, now has his own company that sells DIY kits, Shark Kits, for everything from portable speakers to headphones to power supplies.

“Kids don’t learn anything there (in school). I had no satisfaction that I knew things, I couldn’t apply anything I had learned to real life,” says Daryani. His love for developing and creating things wasn’t appreciated in a system where practical knowledge isn’t too common and he dropped out.
“I quit the formal pattern of studying and am now being home-schooled,” says the 15-year-old. 

Daryani’s love for all things technology and electronic came early. He built his first humanoid robot when eight and his first creation was a remote-controlled hovercraft he made in Class 6 by watching YouTube videos. Daryani, who has presented his work to former president APJ Kalam and industrialist Ratan Tata, has a long list of achievements.

He would take apart his toys and put them back together, he would imitate the projects shown on the craft show Art Attack. Then he decided to attempt the Homi Bhabha Young Scientist Exam and started taking tuitions from a Dilip Ogale who would explain concepts using handmade models. “I would go home and create those exact same models and then show it to him the next day,” says Daryani.

Since then Daryani has been constantly creating and making things, using open source software and interacting with different makers from all over..

He creates mechanised products on robotics, automation and electronics and electronics for tech fests and other competitions.

In January next year Daryani will be launching SharkBot, “the fastest and most robust desktop 3D printer that can print any material except metal”. The idea came about when he noticed people were importing 3D printers for desktop use. “After taxes that comes to Rs3 lakh whereas the cost of making it is less than Rs30,000. We are wasting foreign currency by importing these things...I want to change that,” says the young maker who spends at least four hours daily working on SharkBot. In Diwali this year, he also started selling kits to help people make their own 3D printers.

“There’s a movement called Rep Rap which allows people to build a 3D printer using stuff they can find at a hardware store. I sell the RepRap Prusa i3,” says Daryani. His customers are usually engineering students.

The future of India’s 3D printing appears to be in the safe hands of a 15-year-old maker.