Riya Karumanchi: Smart Cane

When most people start a business, their main priority to earn as much profit as possible. For Riya Karumanchi on the other hand, business is not only about profits but also helping people in need. Even since childhood, Riya Karumanchi has acted different than her peers. Growing up in an Indian household, Riya was always pushed to help others and use her intellect for the world’s greater good. During her early years, Riya showed much promise as a entrepreneur, always asking questions about how the world worked and how problems could be solved so that everyone was comfortable. At the age of 12, she joined ZeroToStartup, a business program that helped to strengthen her entrepreneurial mindset. In this program she single handly came up with an idea, “Smart Street Lights”, that was aimed at making cities more environmentally friendly. Using the skills that she learned from ZeroToStartup, as well as attending Stanford University, Riya came up with her big break through. At the age of 14, Riya noticed that one of her friends grandparents was having trouble getting around with her typical cane. After pursuing her goal of graduating Stanford, Riya finally had the skillsets necessary to help with this problem. The Smart Cane that she designed had several unique features that differentiated itself from other canes in the market. Some of these features included ultrasonic sensors which could detect tables or objects that the user might not perceive, as well as emergency alert which alerted family when the user had fallen. Ultimately, this device has helped so many people, which really shows that being an entrepreneur can be much more than about profits.