AN APP TO LIGHT UP A HOME

Every time 17-year-old Ishnoor Singh’s grandparents came to visit from Amritsar, they would worry about the safety of their house. Singh thought they could rest easy if they got a home automation system. “So I looked up the options online and they were really expensive and complicated,” says the Gurgaon boy. Since he dreams of being an entrepreneur specialising in affordable tech, he decided to try and create an Android app that would control switches remotely. It took him six months to create a working model, using off-the-shelf components. He then needed financial help to build five prototypes for market testing. It was Ishnoor’s parents who suggested crowdfunding as a good way to get feedback too. “I had set a target of Rs 45,000 but within the first 10 days I already had Rs 76,000,” he says. “Some very senior professionals connected with my father on LinkedIn shared his post and that really helped. A total of 46 people donated.”

Singh is now building 20 prototypes instead of five. “It will allow me to do more extensive testing,” he says. “I will be testing among our neighbours, some of the funders and my grandparents.”

To Ishnoor, the best thing about this experience is that it showed him that people had connected with his idea.

“What started as a pet project is turning into a product that consumers could actually buy,” he says.