A school student in Mumbai needs some books from across the city and finds that the courier charge is higher than the books are worth. Most people would grumble and move on. Tilak Mehta saw a dabbawala at his school and asked why a network that already carried lunchboxes across the city couldn’t carry parcels too. The company opened when he was 13. His story is one of four in this piece. Some of the others are better known, some are more scientific than commercial, and none is as simple as the headline version. That is what makes them useful for anyone curious about teen entrepreneurs in STEM and what a young person can actually do with a good idea.
Teen Entrepreneurs in STEM: Four Stories Worth Knowing
Gitanjali Rao: A Question About Water
At 10, Gitanjali Rao, an Indian-American student in the United States, followed news of the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan and began looking for a quicker way to test water for lead. An article on carbon nanotubes in a science and technology magazine gave her an idea for a sensor, but she wasn’t sure it would work or whom to ask for help. She entered the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge for feedback and contacted chemistry professors for advice. In 2017, aged 11, she won with Tethys, a device that uses a carbon nanotube sensor to detect lead in water and sends results to a phone app. It began as a cardboard box and some drawings.
She was granted a patent for Tethys in 2021, went on to build Kindly, an app that suggests kinder wording before a hurtful message is sent, and was named Time magazine’s first Kid of the Year in 2020. It’s worth knowing that Tethys, though patented, wasn’t yet available for the public to use when she described it in a later interview, so this is a story about invention and persistence, not a finished product on shelves.
Tilak Mehta: A Delivery Problem in Mumbai
Tilak’s idea began with a practical annoyance: the courier fee was higher than the cost of the books he needed. After seeing a dabbawala at his school, he wondered whether Mumbai’s dabbawala network could carry parcels as well as lunchboxes. Papers n Parcels launched in July 2018, when he was 13 and still in school. It delivered small parcels within Mumbai the same day through an app that notified dabbawalas of new orders and paid them for each delivery. Reports at the time said around 300 dabbawalas had joined and the company employed about 200 people of its own.
It’s worth noticing what supported him. His uncle took the role of CEO and his father provided the initial funding and guidance. That isn’t a flaw in the story. It is how most teenage ventures actually work.
Ritesh Agarwal: A Problem Found by Travelling
Ritesh Agarwal, now widely known as the founder of OYO, travelled across India as a teenager and stayed in more than a hundred budget hotels and guesthouses. He came away convinced that affordable, good-quality budget hotels were scarce. He left college to build a business around that problem, which began as Oravel and was later rebranded as OYO. His route, leaving college, is not one to copy casually, and the later years of any company are rarely as smooth as its early headlines.
Student Startups in Science: Spacetech and Drones
The newest generation is moving into harder science and engineering. In coverage of the Avendus Wealth-Hurun India U30 List 2026, Onkar Singh Batra, aged 20, was reported as the list’s youngest entrepreneur, with Apolink, a spacetech startup building broadband infrastructure for low-Earth-orbit satellite networks. Naman Pushp, aged 21, founded Airbound, which builds autonomous drone systems for mid-mile logistics and medical deliveries. Neither started as a school student, but both are in their early twenties, and their fields show where student startups in science are heading.
School Students Who Changed Tech: What They Have in Common
Look closely at the school students who changed tech or tried to, and the same four habits keep appearing.
- They started with a real problem they had noticed themselves. Contaminated water, an expensive courier, a shortage of decent budget hotels.
- They asked for help. Gitanjali contacted professors, and Tilak had an uncle and a father in his corner.
- They built something simple first. A cardboard box and some drawings, or a basic app and a network that already existed.
- They used what was already around. A magazine article, the dabbawala network, a competition that offered feedback.
None of these requires genius or a particular age, which is the encouraging part.
Teen Startup Stories: A Reality Check
Teen startup stories are inspiring and also selective. A few honest caveats are worth keeping in mind.
We hear mostly about the ventures that worked. The many that stalled or stopped rarely make the news, and they taught their founders a great deal too.
Support matters. Family backing, mentors and access to resources appear in most of these stories. They shouldn’t be treated as a one-person effort, and children without them can still start small.
“Changed the world” is a high bar. Tethys is patented but wasn’t widely available, and Papers n Parcels was a local service. The real value for a child is in learning to build, test and explain an idea, not in fame.
This isn’t a case for leaving school. Gitanjali and Tilak did their work as school students, and a young founder still needs maths, writing and communication skills.
Suggested line: For more on what setbacks look like behind success stories, see Failing Forward: Inspiring Stories of Scientists and Innovators
Young Innovators India: How Your Child Can Start
Young innovators India has produced come from ordinary classrooms too, and the first steps are small.
- Keep a problem notebook. Ask your child to write down things that annoy them at home, at school or in the neighbourhood, and to choose one that interests them.
- Build the smallest version. A cardboard model, a drawing, a spreadsheet or a simple app is enough to test whether the idea makes sense.
- Ask an expert. A teacher, a local professional, or a researcher reached by a polite email can help, and children are often surprised by how many people reply.
- Look at what’s on offer. The INSPIRE Awards MANAK scheme, run by the Department of Science and Technology, invites schools to nominate students’ original ideas, and shortlisted ideas receive an award of ₹10,000. Children can’t apply directly, so ask the school whether it takes part. Participating schools may also have an Atal Tinkering Lab. Check the current year’s eligibility and deadlines, since they change.
For a simple structure to follow, see Project-Based Learning at Home: From Curiosity to Projects
How This Fits a Deeksha STEM Classroom
Learning by design works through the same cycle as every story above: notice a problem, build a first version, test it and improve it. Enquiry-based learning starts from a real question, and experiential science gives children a place to build and test a prototype. Communicative English matters more than it seems, since contacting an expert, entering a competition or pitching an idea all depend on explaining it clearly.
FAQs
Can a school student really start a company? They can start a venture, but in practice anyone under 18 needs an adult, usually a parent or guardian, to handle legal and financial matters. Check the rules with a professional before taking money or signing agreements.
Does my child need to be a coding genius? No. Gitanjali’s sensor idea came from reading a magazine article, and Tilak’s started with a delivery problem. Curiosity, asking for help and willingness to build a rough version matter more than any single skill.
Should my child skip school or college to start a company? It’s a high-risk path, and most families shouldn’t treat it as a model. Several of the people in this piece did their early work alongside school, and the stories that involve leaving education are the exception.
What if the idea doesn’t work? That’s the most common outcome, and it isn’t a failure of the exercise. A child who has built a rough prototype, asked for feedback and found out what doesn’t work has learned a lot, and can try again with a better idea.
The Bigger Picture
The most useful thing about these stories isn’t how young the founders were. It’s how ordinary the starting point was: a news report, an annoying delivery fee, a hotel stay that went badly. Each began with someone noticing a problem and deciding it was worth trying to fix. That is something any child can practise, with or without a company at the end of it.