Amit Gupta:
0:12
Hello and welcome to the Indian Community Podcast. Today we are joined by Rounak Adhikary in the brilliant Mind behind Project X. He was recently funded by Google, and Project X is poised to reshape the tech world. Rounak is also a professional cricketer and a really fun person to speak with. So I hope you really enjoy this this episode with Rounak and discover and inspire from his journey and all the innovation that he's driving with his company. P, project X Rounak, welcome to the Indian Community Podcast.
Track 1:
0:43
Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to join both of you guys and talk about project X and My Journey. Thank you so much for having me once.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
0:55
Excellent. Rounak, you're all over the internet everywhere. I see on LinkedIn, on Google there's mention of Rounak and Project X and Google and everything that you've done is so inspiring and amazing. Can you share your journey starting from. Where you were born, the city, or the town that you live in, and what have your key inspirations and challenges been along the way to, to become who you are today?
Track 1:
1:23
Actually I have been born and brought up in a very small village of West. In our village being an entrepreneur is never it isn't like it, it isn't even an option to be honest. Okay? So if anyone gets a decent job of 20,000 rupees, it's considered to be a very good thing over there. Coming from that background, I was actually lucky enough that my father worked in the IT industry and we had a computer in our house, which was the only one in our like entire village. So I like, even though it was very underpowered, I was able to, do couple of stuffs over there. And the children of our village who are my friends, used to come over and watch me use the computers. So that is how my journey with computers started and. iN the early days, it is a such a rural place that, just behind my house, the rice fields start and you can't see the end. So this is a place where I have been born and brought up, played there all my childhood. And for my schooling, I shifted to a city 20 kilometers away from my house. After class eight, but I never let stayed away from my village and I'm still living there, to be honest. So that is where I belong. Okay. And from my childhood I used, I had the knack of. Tweaking a lot of things. I used to change operating system of my phone, change the operating system of my device. Like operating systems were like very interesting to me from the beginning. And there's one thing that with limited resources, we get most creative and I had the bare minimum resources and so I used to try different things and, come up with some different solutions from my own. So that is how I started learning things of like on my own. And the only passion that I had from my childhood was cricket and cricket. I till my first year in college, I wanted to play for India. I still want actually to play for Indian cricket team, and I used to work really hard. Yeah. I have represented like I've my district at different age group and I'm continue to play at at grade level. So that is a bit about my background and at the age of 19 when I went to Punjab to study in B-A-C-H-C-I at lovely professional University over there, then I saw diversity, then I saw culture, like cultural influence. Okay. So th that is where I opened up as a person. So there is another story that I wanna share from my childhood is, since you know I am from a very humble background, the school that I used to study in was in a city. Okay? So at times I used to feel nervous and all, and I used to stutter. So I actually. Got the habit of stuttering and I my friends used to make fun of me and there was a time a point of time where I had very few or no friends, so I was alone and I only focused on myself. And I used to read a lot of books. Books were my only friends. I any be it any topic, mostly nonfiction I used to study. And from there I, started loving information and data. And that knack of problem solving was always there from the beginning. And then when I went to college, sorry. And then when I went to college I talked to people from different parts of India, from different parts of the globe, from the Africa Middle East I realized that computational accessibility was a big challenge, not only in small parts of India, but also in other countries as well. So from there I thought that, if I could help these people, not from an entrepreneurial perspective, not from a company perspective, just as a solution perspective, and in the whole lockdown. Before joining college, I did around 30 courses from Coursera all free. I applied for the scholar, like financial aid 30 courses. I did an honors in social psychology. I learned cloud computing ai. Front end. But anything I just, anything that intrigued me, I learned it. Okay. Python, like I learned I and I, there was one time when I was alone in college, I had friends, you're not with your family the first time you're alone. It so I was just thinking, and I thought that why can't we just take the whole computing to the cloud? There are virtual machines available, but you know why not the whole operating system to the cloud so that everybody can use it on any device. And then I called up one of my childhood friends, Ronne, who is a very good engineer. And from there, the journey of Project X actually started. Okay, that was when we started ideating from back then we were actually trying to make laptops, our own laptops. Okay. But eventually, when we started doing research, we built conviction that, oh my God, laptops ha We're, we'll start selling laptops and we'll just end the market for Apple, hp. We are the only And then, when, and that was the point when we started learning what is entrepreneurship. And I really wanna thank l and the whole over there and spec specifically, Sho trusted me and said, Kiron, you just go 100% a hundred percent attendance leverage and build. We are here to support you. And it was the first of its kind in our university from in our like entrepreneurship perspective. We had just built a POC of how things will work, just the small backend part. And they, and he was the first person who saw the potential actually that what we can do. And then. We registered our company. We got Startup India certification, and we started pitching to VCs. No product, no go-to-market strategy. Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just going and pitching. So first meeting with Sequoia Capital, now pick 15. I'll not name the vc. Okay. We presented the idea. He told that. Dude, you can't fix this. This is a technological barrier. Many people have tried to fix solve this. It's not possible, so you better do something else. I was like, okay, fine. Now he was like, okay, if you can solve this, please go ahead. Nice. Best of luck to you. And then slowly after that, actually a bit before that our third Co-founder joined sh Subro is a very dear friend of Ron. And back then I had no idea how company works, how, what is equity, how team works. Nothing. Nothing. It is 2022. I'm talking about. Okay. When I'm in the first year of my college. So from then I, Jonathan Subaru, actually three people brought in three perspectives. And that is when the things started taking off, I had to convince both of them that we, this will work. Ron was convinced who broke, who I had to convince that this will work. Please stay. And he showed that conviction in me and I'm so glad that it did. And I started reaching out for help on social media that, on Reddit, that if we're building something like this, if someone wants to join in, please do join in. Okay. So a guy called who was 10 years older than us. Joined us. She worked for one year, that one year, last one year. We had a very good deck and very good idea. So we got selected for all the flagship pitching competitions across IT Bombay, IT root, key IT IT Go Hardie. Everywhere we pitched there, we got recognition connection, but there was no product. Okay. So that was the hardest part for us. No product, how to build. So then we again, started hiring the I, I hired a senior guy from PTMI then hired a couple other senior engineers. The team combination was not actually getting well. Again, no one was aligned with the vision other than the founders. So that was a very big problem. And all of this money, I missed a part between my school life and college life that I'll discuss now. juSt after my school life ended, I had no I had like very little pocket money coming from very humble backgrounds, so I started freelancing. All those 30 courses I did from was from a very old computer. From 2010, it was barely running, and after that I started doing freelancing. There's one very dear brother of mine from California who hired me from Fiverr. We still are in touch. He gave me a thousand dollars order. I delivered that. From that I got a frontend order. I had never coded before that I was very good at ux, I was very good at ux. I did the, that Google UX Design certification course and all. I used to do some small UX consultancy, but never coded. He's another friend gave me that job and I took that money. I had no clue how to do that. Within seven days, I made their website and deliver that. Then I started learning like that and earned from him. He gave me a lot of money. He gave me a lot of work and a lot of money to be honest. And later I converted that into an agency. I still work together. I don't get time to look at all the projects, but we still do work together. And they're also a multimillion dollar company now with more than 30 offices in the us. Yeah. So that is how I, got financially independent. Actually, this financial independence was not only for pocket money, but also for being a ator so that I can support myself for two years and not work and play cricket. So we never know where things are heading. We never know where things are heading. So I used this money to fund project techs for the first one, one and a half years. Everything the month, monthly burning rate was 50, 60,000 rupees. Anyways, it was not, it's not easy for a like Indian 18, 19-year-old guy to spend. Burn that much money. But I was very fortunate enough to, have that platform to do that. So that is how things started. And then I went to, in the first year, just in the first year before starting Project X, as I said that I had the idea and all just before that I was trying to understand the relationship between computation and human beings. Okay. So then I started reaching out to professors. Across the world from Cambridge, Oxford, M-I-T-I-T, everywhere. And I'm so glad that Dr. Josie, who is the HOD of IDC at I Bombay, got back to me seeing the, immature email that I've sent by BC, C, everybody, 30 people in the mail. And he called me at IIT. I learned a lot from him. Then in that six months, I learned a lot from him. I worked. On making accessible technology for the Indian older adults. With him. I was a volunteer, an academic volunteer in his a CI course that he runs for the professional people. That was a very big exposure and connection that I got from there. And then just after they came back, I left my research at IRT and I thought that right now Project X has that. Think that can take me there. So I left everything. I registered the company and started off. And after that stint of one year happened. So you think I am, I was convinced that it will take me. And the next one year nothing happened. No product only connection. This that, no product, no development, nothing. I'm learning on it. Being a young developer, learned a lot. Subaru learned a lot. Everybody's young, everybody's learning. So I. Learned as an see how to manage company, how to manage tech, how to manage product. I learned Ron it, on the other hand, he became A-C-N-C-F Ambassador last month for India, for Linux Foundation. He became a Linux Foundation scholar and, went to, Ireland went to China recently for all scholarship and he's leading the tech team now. So I'm so proud of him. And is managing the whole front end and the finance of the full startup, so that's a quick brief and if you have any more questions, I can answer that or then I can start about the Google story and the team building story, how we build the team.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
13:45
Yeah. So I'll maybe give you a few minutes to breathe and let me digest everything that you just said. So there are some really cool and important themes out here that I wanted to highlight. tHe first thing that I noticed was the hunger to
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
14:01
Okay.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
14:01
something and change, the, the situation that you were in, right? You were you had your constraints, Those were not your constraints, those were your opportunities because you thought there is room to grow and learn be in a better place. In, in spite of all of this and all these great achievements, you're still living in, in the hometown that. That you belong to, which is also another great aspect of the humbleness that you come from, right? So the humble background is evident in what you're doing. And one thing that I really liked about what you just said, Veronica, is the how you defeated the challenge, right? So how, somebody said this is not going to happen and this is not possible and this is not feasible, but you were able to. away from that and and that yes, you can do it. It's not just an idea, but it's also a feasible idea. Which is which is commendable because a lot of times we lose hope and because when we face rejection, we think okay, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I can't do it. But you are able to walk away from rejection with still higher. So I think that is also an interesting aspect of your personality. And I love the way you were able to. Reach out to people, explain your vision and get them to work with you. So that's, those are classic traits of being a leader. So I, when I look at Your Honor, and I saw your story the other day. I was like, okay, this is a classic example of a future leader, and I definitely wanna reach out to you and speak to you because everything that you just said is exactly what I was expecting you to be. Which is phenomenal. So I, I wish you really good luck with everything that you're doing I think it is a fun time. In fact, you mentioned that from your house, the rice fields. Are you can only see rice fields, right? Is that how you got inspired for the name Infinity? oss was that infinity coming from there?
Track 1:
16:10
Not really. Not really see. First thing, Amit, that I want to add on that you said at the first, see, I believe that, success is an occasion and rejections are a daily life thing. We have to accept that and take things that way. We have to take, if we assume that things are gonna be hard, then it's fine. If we assume that things are gonna be easy, then we are in trouble. And the name Infinity, the first thing, project X, we know We knew that we are trying to build something like on the cloud that is an os. But we spent around seven days thinking about name, this, that, this, that, this, that. And I just had to save the deck by a name. I wrote Project X and from there the name started. The team thought, oh, okay, this looks good. We can start. And Infiniti os. Infiniti Os has. A very deep meaning to be like to me, at least by building Infinity oss, we are trying to build a platform which gives in finite possibilities to all the people, to democratize computational power for everyone. I. OSS means in finite possibilities with like also like it. It also has in finite features. You can run any app, any platform that uses any hardware and on any platform and for everyone. The possibility is in finite. You can run it on any device, be it your smart TV computer tab, any, anywhere, ar, vr. So the possibilities are in finite. With that theme in mind, I came up with the name Infinity was, so that is how I thought and perceived it to be, and then coming to the team, okay, so we three guys, we were thinking. That it though, left the company for a month after that meeting. He thought that SE was ka. I'm a first year guy. I have to earn from my family. Everybody. It makes sense. Makes it made a hundred percent sense from his perspective that he wa was okay and he was not earning as I was. I was earning around thousand thousand dollars one, like$2,000 a month, which is a lot in India. A lot. So it made sense. I never deleted his email from the admin dashboard. He came back one month later. I knew he would come back and he did, and he still, and I'm so glad to see that he has become such a nice leader. It's about passing things on to people and I'm so proud of him to be honest and move about the team. Yeah. So we had the idea, but the tech challenge, how do we break through? How do we break through? I was thinking, and with that thing in mind I wanted to reduce friction. Friction in the sense no one is gonna install some OSS and delete your windows, right? Gonna do that. So I pivoted that to the cloud thing on the website. So it will just be a website that has every function that Anno has so that you can access it from any device. Which has any NEOS, no matter what, and access the highest computation with power, it should solve the purpose. I fell in love with the problem, so I pivoted. I did not fall in love with the solution. Kill laptop, okay, it doesn't matter. It should solve the problem. Okay? And after that pivot, you won't believe. I applied for Launchpad at I Am Bangalore. It has very less acceptance rate. 4% Eastern India revenue. Okay? We at I am Bangalore, I learned what is business, how to do business in the, in those three months, how things work. Okay? And that is how things got started. Product development. Avi, let me just, in the next five minutes I'll explain how I build that team. Okay. So initially there was three people. Ironic Subaru. Okay. Then there was a girl called Anamika. She was a friend at college. She also was one of the first people I told one many of my friends at college that, I'm building something like this. Most of the guys. How can you compete with h hp, Dell? And she was the one who told Neena, it's good. It's good. Yeah. And she joined us in hr. Okay. I'll help you, I'll help you I don't need any money. She joined us and one of the guys, one of the guys who told that it's not possible actually worked as a, like managing intern for us recently. Okay. Okay. And that's how it started.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
21:04
These people or they just joined themselves.
Track 1:
21:07
They just joined themselves. I am here to amplify the vision. Whoever wants to join in, just join in. We are in this together. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm here. We are here to solve something for everybody.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
21:21
Okay.
Track 1:
21:22
Okay? Yeah. The first senior member that joined the team was Mr. Kiran Kapa. He is, he was the senior Vice president of Bank of America. He is, he also loves innovation in India for Barak. He, so there is one Mark Portal from Startup India where I sent him a request. He wanted to have a meeting at day one when we had absolutely nothing. He guided me. Carried the whole team till now. It's been more than one year that he has been supporting us without any documentation, nothing. He even helped me get a couple of freelance gigs so that I can get some money to run the company. And with him Mr. Vera Pati joined, who's also a serial entrepreneur. He has made more than four startups and sold a couple of them. He's based out of Texas. He has also helped us. And with that mentorship, I became a bit mature. Now coming to the product development, the most interesting part of the story, so with those mentorship and all, we had the vision, we had the idea of how to like the go-to market, but how to build that. VC told us it's not possible. It is, it was actually very difficult. So the technology that we're using for this purpose is not used anywhere else. We like we are using Kubernetes technology and it is not generally used for a heavy computational task to run full UI applications. Out to the guy who was in the core team that built Kubernetes, Carlos Eduardo, he's from Nvidia. He still maintaining Kubernetes. He has built Kubernetes. He instantly connected with the idea. He instantly connected with the idea. He also joined us. He works with us every day without any salary. Nothing. He's working with us for more than six months now, and we, and I'm proud to say that we are about to launch the MVP first MVP in the next seven days of Infinity us.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
23:32
beautiful.
Track 1:
23:33
the Of course.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
23:34
Thank you.
Track 1:
23:37
And Carlos bought a lot of maturity in the team. And after that I felt that we lacked management in the team because I can't do everything I can, I can't do external fundraising, part product, strategy, vision, everything. I need someone who has been there, done that, I put a job post and one gentleman, I put a very detailed job post on LinkedIn that what we are trying to do in detail, and one gentleman, Al Sw, who had VMware, one of our indirect competitors, he was the director of VMware for 14 years, and he was the senior director at hp. He connected with the vision and joined us full-time without salary. He's been working for almost three months now.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
24:22
Okay.
Track 1:
24:23
And only because of him, we have been able to fast forward the whole development process, make all these scru models maintain Jira, confluence, everything, documentation, this, that, and the last senior p person that I wanna talk about. Is Mr. Gotham Vora. Gotham. So Ibel, I am a product designer myself, but I, but if I want to do the product design full-time, then I can't focus on any other things. I can give you the wire frame, the idea, everything, but I need someone senior who can manage it. Similar thing, I put a job post on LinkedIn with the full story and everything Mr. Gotham were applied and I got to know that Gotham had Bill Tola from scratch and took it to 10 million users. He made the first design studio for BCG in India. He also instantly connected with the vision and joined us full-time without salary. Everyone will get his, of course, we have to. That's our responsibility. But they're there, conviction on us. A non, IT guy, non big city guy trying to solve such a
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:28
You have been in it. yoU have worked. Actually, that was one of my questions. I wanted to finish you to finish off what you're saying. I will come back to those questions, so yes. I'll not interrupt you on your flow, please.
Track 1:
25:39
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm see I have an I identity card now since I'm a fellow here. I'm like,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:45
yeah.
Track 1:
25:45
I later I became a fellow, but when they joined us I wasn't a fellow.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:51
I understand. Yeah. Okay.
Track 1:
25:53
Recently I became, back then, I used to work there as a researcher, so I was the youngest person in the team. I used to work with people who are like my mothers father said. So it was a really good opportunity. I think Dr. Josie had smelled the hunger in me or something like that. Maybe, I don't know. You have to ask Dr. Josie about that, so I, where was I? I missed her. After Gotham joined, then. We were in a state key. Now we can launching this time and we started getting government funds from them. Okay. Compelling pitch. We got government funds from minister of elect minister of Commerce and Industry for 10 Lac rupees. We got Metis, EIR for full Lac rupees at IT Bombay. And then the big thing AWS had given us$5,000 diversity credits, which had exhausted. We were about to do pilot and we didn't have enough money to do that. So I reached out to someone at Google's startup team, explained the whole thing. He's Hey, I can help you out. They put a proposal and we got accepted into the Google for Startups program and got,$200,000 support from Google. That was, that felt that, that felt surreal, the first time I received funds. The second time I received this, these moments felt surreal because, it saved us a ton of costs. We can still operate on that and build and sell it. So I'm extremely thankful to Google for, giving my giving me that opportunity to, do that. So that is how we got started. Right now we have a team of around 20 people with many Interesting profiles. Most from tier three cities. Villages. There is one guy called Akash. Okay. He recently joined as a founder's office intern with me. Akash used to live in Sunderbans in a very, rural area, much rural than my place. I still have I can still right now, so 10 years ago I couldn't, but right now I can order dominoes at my village. But he still lives in a such a place where there are tigers and all. His mother used to work as a household over there. That guy without any tuition anything, got 94% in his plus two and couldn't join a college. He used to work in a brick mine. He used to make bricks with his own hands. One of my unc, like not my own uncles, like one of my uncles scouted him and told that, Rounak, can you help? I talked to him. That guy knew so much about comp, like computers, astrophysics, who just with a phone that the government had provided him as a scholarship of 10,000 rupees. I, at that point, I, realized that these are the people for whom we are building Project X and Infiniti us. Maybe if Infiniti US was available that time with his small phone, he could have done a lot more magic. We never know. There are more engineers in the team. Dev proto is there. Mauk is there. Bial. They Proto and Bial are the two young chaps, both AVPs of engineering. First job was what a VP of engineering at a startup and they're delivering like crazy. I. They are delivering like crazy. They are satisfying people who have led companies like hp, VMware Nvidia, they're delivering and they are working day in and day out without money. Nothing. They also want to solve this problem so desperately they're working for it. And this keeps me, awake till 4:00 AM 5:00 AM to work a bit harder,
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
29:32
this is excellent. Think I really love about this story is how. You've been able to motivate people without trying, right? So there is a hidden charm that that is attracting you, or you are basically attracting people and talent and also recognizing great talent. I, I was very impressed with the, the story. About how somebody, used a mobile phone to build themselves and make themselves what they are today. We see it a lot of youngsters who use the mobile phone and all those devices to watch all kinds of, reels on Instagram or TikTok. But and I must say sometimes also we also fall prey to that,
Track 1:
30:15
i. Can also be used to consume art. I do. I consume a lot of art. I consume a lot of news from Instagram and just after the day we had the, first call with you guys, I got verified on Instagram
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
30:31
I saw
Track 1:
30:32
for free. Yeah. I was like, oh dude, what is this? How is they make a mistake or what?
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
30:42
So I, I think it's the stars are aligning. Rounak, they want you to do some song and dance also on Instagram because I've also heard that you're a talented singer. I'm not going to ask you to sing, but there's so many things that you are doing. You play professional cricket. you're an artist. you've got the, these big organizations that you're standing up from ground zero and you're doing a lot of work even in your community. So how do you manage to find time to do all of this? We all have 24 hours, but you seem to have more than that.
Track 1:
31:18
I don't know. Actually, every evening I go and hang out with my friends. I have tea. I don't know, actually, it's not like that. Trust me. Maybe I work a bit quicker. I no, I, the thing is that I actually can complete tasks a lot quicker like from the beginning, from the childhood. Also, I.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
31:40
tHat's great. And there's one other aspect that I really liked about your, how the lovely professional university or LPU, has supported you throughout this, right? Because they're your primary alma mater, if I may say, and they have given you. thE platform to be able to go ahead and stand up and do this. So there's a lot of independence and courage and support that they've provided to you. Which is commendable, but I think that's the way that's the right job of an educational institution. It's not just like teaching you two plus two is four, but also you to go out and build a career and.
Track 1:
32:23
Actually, the thing is that someone had to stand up and then the ecosystem builds up. Okay. The senior authorities were there. There are 30,000 students. Okay. So there was no provision to get full attendance leverage. That's a whole interesting story. So I wasn't able to deliver, go to conferences, work and maintain classes. I went my HOD, he's maximum 10%, we can do concession. I was like, makes sense from his perspective, always. Then I went to our head of school. He was like, I'll definitely try to help you. He put in his word and then he was very busy. I understand that. And then I went to the Dean of entrepreneurship. He recognized that. He recognized that, and he then took my case forward from there. And again, they needed some approval from my department. Okay. Initially when I'm saying something like, I'm making an operating system like this, that I have gotten this, gotten, that people tend to think that this might be a bit misleading as young children do in college I'm really grateful to two faculties, Mr. Sum Smith Bassa, and Mr. Kamal Naan. Kamal naan, and for, supporting me from that, backing me. And saying, you go ahead. We are with you. And then that got passed and I also directly got in touch with the vice chancellor. She also really loved what we were building and said, ki go ahead, we are with you. And then they have never, I have, I've never looked back after that. They have been such a big motivator for me and a big enabler of entrepreneurship right now though. They have a different module for entrepreneurship in their classes in our department. aNd Mr. Bana said that, I was responsible for this. So I really feel, extremely honored for that to, start that culture in our college. And culture is the biggest thing in college. When I go to its and all I see that the culture is the biggest differentiator. It's every kid is talented. It's all about the culture. Of hard work. I went there, I took a session with Mr. Bina just a couple months back. I saw that the students were coming up with so many interesting design ideas. I shared the resources. Part is to find the right people, right resources, right place to apply.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
34:45
right.
Track 1:
34:46
get, help them get that. And now that will be like integrated in the culture and I believe there'll be many more bigger startups than Project X coming from LP University,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
34:55
so help you actually, that was your sparks. That is the other people who gave you the spark. was a blessing to go to help you. In fact, do you
Track 1:
35:04
Absolutely. Definitely.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:06
So
Track 1:
35:07
I.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:07
how did you, yeah sorry, but that, how did you, after your 12th did you apply for it? How did you reach help you?
Track 1:
35:14
I Wanted to I I always wanted to learn more about human cap, like HCIH, like human computer interaction. There were a couple of options for me. Symbi was there so I has a. Master's in HCI, not a bachelor's. It's a four year bachelor's. So there were some biases. There were some other couple of colleges, but they were pretty expensive for us too, and I wrote an example, help You Nest, where I got 40% scholarship. So
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:42
Okay. That's great.
Track 1:
35:44
That helped me get a admission in a private college where HCI is being taught and, just after six months of joining LP, by then I have already learned about HCI works from like everywhere in the internet, this law at law, this, how this works, how that works, how to build this make made more like make mock projects that the mock projects that we are having in the third year. We, I did that in class 12 in my free time. Not because I wanted to get there, like people want to get at, its get at, MBBS colleges. I
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
36:17
right?
Track 1:
36:18
that because I love doing that. Apart from playing cricket, I'm alone. I'm, I prefer doing something than, watching a movie. That is how I am wired. Watching a movie is not bad, it is just how I am as a person, but I'm like always listening to music while I'm working. That's. Something about me. So I think that answered your question. Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
36:44
ROn, I think we'll soon be wrapping up. I, I. One last major and then we will go into a quick rapid fire what are your immediate plans for project X? Especially I know there's a major launch coming up for beta users what can we expect in 2024? What are those high level plans that you're aiming for?
Track 1:
37:11
So 2024, irrespective of the amount that we raise, we will launch. We will launch in the education sector first. Because that's how we started, where we started and why we started. We'll expand across educational institutions, as I said that, oh I haven't mentioned that. Very recently I was invited at the sec, like Central Secretariat at the Parliament in the North block to talk about, to discuss about Infinity OS and its implementation across India. So I have some commitments from the Indian government as well. I can't disclose everything. It's a bit confidential so we have definite plans of integrating this with all the major educational institutions across India so that everyone has access to proper computational power at an affordable cost and. Then slowly we'll move across verticals, like the enterprise sector. And maybe in the next few years people will be having infinity US as a normal operating system in their machines, hopefully. aNd not only their laptops, but also their mobile phones. So that's a whole different. Strategy that we have that will be slowly, revealing in the future that's still under progress. So that's the impact that we want to create. So I'll just give one small use case if we have one minute time. So suppose as once we start scaling in the educational sector. Not only the kids can use it at their, schools and colleges, only 49% of the Indian schools are having functional computers, only 49%. And at the national education policy, they're claiming digital impact for every child. So there's a very big gap. Even if you, at the balance sheets of. Delhi University, the highest expense, is it expense more than 20% Highest depreciation it expense. So it gets balanced out, so it, there has to be a solution so those students can access it at their education institution also, and also on, and as it's on the cloud and on the browser, they can access in, in their local machine if they have, or even in their TVs. If it's a smart TV or we are coming up with a solution that will make it on a normal TVs as well.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
39:39
That's great. That's great. That's great.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
39:41
I must say, and this is for all our listeners and viewers this is the man that you have to follow. He's, he is changing the ecosystem and there's a lot of stuff happening, so I'm really excited for the future, Ron. We are gonna post links to your LinkedIn Twitter, and other handles on this in the description below. So hopefully a lot of people will start following you and tracking all the great fun stuff that you're doing and you're making in India. So this is a brilliant make in India story and, I would also say it's also made for India at least for now. And I'm sure there's potential in use case for Infinity US across the world. There is in finite use cases that I'm
Track 1:
40:23
Absolutely.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
40:23
looking forward
Track 1:
40:24
Absolutely.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
40:24
for this to come out, but I love the way that you're thinking about your local community. You're thinking about all the people that, really matter and building this right. So this is excellent. I congratulate you once again. Do you wanna go into a quick, rapid fire?
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
40:40
Yep. We should. Okay. So these are very quick questions, just fun stuff. Nothing serious okay. I'm just starting it. So Mac or pc.
Track 1:
40:54
PC
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
40:56
Okay, so early Bird or Night Owl
Track 1:
41:01
prefer to be early bird, but unfortunately a night.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:06
unfortunately. Okay, I'll take that. Favorite programming language
Track 1:
41:12
Favorite programming language?
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:14
Is there too many actually so difficult for him to
Track 1:
41:17
Yeah. Okay. Many
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:19
name one.
Track 1:
41:20
right now, I.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:23
huh? Okay. Trust. Okay. One tech gadget that you cannot live without.
Track 1:
41:33
I missed you. I missed you. There was some lag in your audio.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:36
Yeah. One tech gadget that you cannot live without.
Track 1:
41:43
My mobile phone, definitely.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:47
Okay fifth one is a very easy one. Cloud or local storage.
Track 1:
41:52
Absolutely cloud.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:54
Okay, you would like to continue.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
41:56
Yeah, I wanna ask you batting or bowling
Track 1:
42:00
Ah, tough call. I was a bowler when I started, right? Batting, because bowling takes a lot of practice, but bowling is more close to my heart, but I am unfortunately a better batsman. So
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:13
and favorite movie star.
Track 1:
42:16
favorite movie star. Okay. Movie stuff. There are many.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
42:24
Favorite.
Track 1:
42:25
For now, I would say I like Panka Strip party a lot. His acting?
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:31
Excellent and favorite food.
Track 1:
42:34
Favorite food? Actually I try. Try a lot of food. I try different cuisine, but all time Favorite is the Go-to option always is Biani always.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:51
Is a very sentimental topic. I was reading this the other day, that was also one of the most ordered food in India, last year. And somebody ordered some, more than 15,000. So I,
Track 1:
43:06
Through, I forgot the company.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:09
Yeah,
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:10
and,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:11
can.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:12
Name a book that has influenced you the most.
Track 1:
43:17
There are many that shaped me. There are many, actually the most okay to think. Okay, so something that's coming to my mind right now is eat that frog as a really nice book. I. That I really like and one movie that I has changed me a lot is Into the Wild. If you have a chance, please do watch it. So I just added it. Yeah. Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:50
Okay.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:51
Okay.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:51
nice. And finally, if you had to describe your journey in one word especially with Project X, how would you describe, what do you feel when you look back these years? what is that one word that comes to your mind?
Track 1:
44:11
About me or the journey as
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:14
your journey.
Track 1:
44:20
So the journey felt unreal and the only thing that I was resilient.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:27
Excellent.
Track 1:
44:28
Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:30
That's great. Thank you so much for this, Veronica. We really enjoyed speaking with you and learning more about everything that you've achieved at this young age. So I am, I'm just hoping to stay in touch with you and keep a track of all these different achievements that you're going to crack this year and the years to come. And I also wish you great success with the team that you have. I'm Yeah,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
44:54
we might have a webinar with his team, perhaps, he, him and his team so that that your message can reach out to the people you wanna.
Track 1:
45:02
sUre.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:04
Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
45:04
Thank you once again for appearing on the Indian Community Podcast. Ron, it was a pleasure hosting you.
Track 1:
45:11
So much.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:11
Pleasure.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
45:13
Thank you. Bye-Bye.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:14
Bye-Bye. Thank you. Bye.
45:16
Um, uh, Uh, Um, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Yeah Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.
0:12
Hello and welcome to the Indian Community Podcast. Today we are joined by Rounak Adhikary in the brilliant Mind behind Project X. He was recently funded by Google, and Project X is poised to reshape the tech world. Rounak is also a professional cricketer and a really fun person to speak with. So I hope you really enjoy this this episode with Rounak and discover and inspire from his journey and all the innovation that he's driving with his company. P, project X Rounak, welcome to the Indian Community Podcast.
Track 1:
0:43
Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to join both of you guys and talk about project X and My Journey. Thank you so much for having me once.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
0:55
Excellent. Rounak, you're all over the internet everywhere. I see on LinkedIn, on Google there's mention of Rounak and Project X and Google and everything that you've done is so inspiring and amazing. Can you share your journey starting from. Where you were born, the city, or the town that you live in, and what have your key inspirations and challenges been along the way to, to become who you are today?
Track 1:
1:23
Actually I have been born and brought up in a very small village of West. In our village being an entrepreneur is never it isn't like it, it isn't even an option to be honest. Okay? So if anyone gets a decent job of 20,000 rupees, it's considered to be a very good thing over there. Coming from that background, I was actually lucky enough that my father worked in the IT industry and we had a computer in our house, which was the only one in our like entire village. So I like, even though it was very underpowered, I was able to, do couple of stuffs over there. And the children of our village who are my friends, used to come over and watch me use the computers. So that is how my journey with computers started and. iN the early days, it is a such a rural place that, just behind my house, the rice fields start and you can't see the end. So this is a place where I have been born and brought up, played there all my childhood. And for my schooling, I shifted to a city 20 kilometers away from my house. After class eight, but I never let stayed away from my village and I'm still living there, to be honest. So that is where I belong. Okay. And from my childhood I used, I had the knack of. Tweaking a lot of things. I used to change operating system of my phone, change the operating system of my device. Like operating systems were like very interesting to me from the beginning. And there's one thing that with limited resources, we get most creative and I had the bare minimum resources and so I used to try different things and, come up with some different solutions from my own. So that is how I started learning things of like on my own. And the only passion that I had from my childhood was cricket and cricket. I till my first year in college, I wanted to play for India. I still want actually to play for Indian cricket team, and I used to work really hard. Yeah. I have represented like I've my district at different age group and I'm continue to play at at grade level. So that is a bit about my background and at the age of 19 when I went to Punjab to study in B-A-C-H-C-I at lovely professional University over there, then I saw diversity, then I saw culture, like cultural influence. Okay. So th that is where I opened up as a person. So there is another story that I wanna share from my childhood is, since you know I am from a very humble background, the school that I used to study in was in a city. Okay? So at times I used to feel nervous and all, and I used to stutter. So I actually. Got the habit of stuttering and I my friends used to make fun of me and there was a time a point of time where I had very few or no friends, so I was alone and I only focused on myself. And I used to read a lot of books. Books were my only friends. I any be it any topic, mostly nonfiction I used to study. And from there I, started loving information and data. And that knack of problem solving was always there from the beginning. And then when I went to college, sorry. And then when I went to college I talked to people from different parts of India, from different parts of the globe, from the Africa Middle East I realized that computational accessibility was a big challenge, not only in small parts of India, but also in other countries as well. So from there I thought that, if I could help these people, not from an entrepreneurial perspective, not from a company perspective, just as a solution perspective, and in the whole lockdown. Before joining college, I did around 30 courses from Coursera all free. I applied for the scholar, like financial aid 30 courses. I did an honors in social psychology. I learned cloud computing ai. Front end. But anything I just, anything that intrigued me, I learned it. Okay. Python, like I learned I and I, there was one time when I was alone in college, I had friends, you're not with your family the first time you're alone. It so I was just thinking, and I thought that why can't we just take the whole computing to the cloud? There are virtual machines available, but you know why not the whole operating system to the cloud so that everybody can use it on any device. And then I called up one of my childhood friends, Ronne, who is a very good engineer. And from there, the journey of Project X actually started. Okay, that was when we started ideating from back then we were actually trying to make laptops, our own laptops. Okay. But eventually, when we started doing research, we built conviction that, oh my God, laptops ha We're, we'll start selling laptops and we'll just end the market for Apple, hp. We are the only And then, when, and that was the point when we started learning what is entrepreneurship. And I really wanna thank l and the whole over there and spec specifically, Sho trusted me and said, Kiron, you just go 100% a hundred percent attendance leverage and build. We are here to support you. And it was the first of its kind in our university from in our like entrepreneurship perspective. We had just built a POC of how things will work, just the small backend part. And they, and he was the first person who saw the potential actually that what we can do. And then. We registered our company. We got Startup India certification, and we started pitching to VCs. No product, no go-to-market strategy. Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just going and pitching. So first meeting with Sequoia Capital, now pick 15. I'll not name the vc. Okay. We presented the idea. He told that. Dude, you can't fix this. This is a technological barrier. Many people have tried to fix solve this. It's not possible, so you better do something else. I was like, okay, fine. Now he was like, okay, if you can solve this, please go ahead. Nice. Best of luck to you. And then slowly after that, actually a bit before that our third Co-founder joined sh Subro is a very dear friend of Ron. And back then I had no idea how company works, how, what is equity, how team works. Nothing. Nothing. It is 2022. I'm talking about. Okay. When I'm in the first year of my college. So from then I, Jonathan Subaru, actually three people brought in three perspectives. And that is when the things started taking off, I had to convince both of them that we, this will work. Ron was convinced who broke, who I had to convince that this will work. Please stay. And he showed that conviction in me and I'm so glad that it did. And I started reaching out for help on social media that, on Reddit, that if we're building something like this, if someone wants to join in, please do join in. Okay. So a guy called who was 10 years older than us. Joined us. She worked for one year, that one year, last one year. We had a very good deck and very good idea. So we got selected for all the flagship pitching competitions across IT Bombay, IT root, key IT IT Go Hardie. Everywhere we pitched there, we got recognition connection, but there was no product. Okay. So that was the hardest part for us. No product, how to build. So then we again, started hiring the I, I hired a senior guy from PTMI then hired a couple other senior engineers. The team combination was not actually getting well. Again, no one was aligned with the vision other than the founders. So that was a very big problem. And all of this money, I missed a part between my school life and college life that I'll discuss now. juSt after my school life ended, I had no I had like very little pocket money coming from very humble backgrounds, so I started freelancing. All those 30 courses I did from was from a very old computer. From 2010, it was barely running, and after that I started doing freelancing. There's one very dear brother of mine from California who hired me from Fiverr. We still are in touch. He gave me a thousand dollars order. I delivered that. From that I got a frontend order. I had never coded before that I was very good at ux, I was very good at ux. I did the, that Google UX Design certification course and all. I used to do some small UX consultancy, but never coded. He's another friend gave me that job and I took that money. I had no clue how to do that. Within seven days, I made their website and deliver that. Then I started learning like that and earned from him. He gave me a lot of money. He gave me a lot of work and a lot of money to be honest. And later I converted that into an agency. I still work together. I don't get time to look at all the projects, but we still do work together. And they're also a multimillion dollar company now with more than 30 offices in the us. Yeah. So that is how I, got financially independent. Actually, this financial independence was not only for pocket money, but also for being a ator so that I can support myself for two years and not work and play cricket. So we never know where things are heading. We never know where things are heading. So I used this money to fund project techs for the first one, one and a half years. Everything the month, monthly burning rate was 50, 60,000 rupees. Anyways, it was not, it's not easy for a like Indian 18, 19-year-old guy to spend. Burn that much money. But I was very fortunate enough to, have that platform to do that. So that is how things started. And then I went to, in the first year, just in the first year before starting Project X, as I said that I had the idea and all just before that I was trying to understand the relationship between computation and human beings. Okay. So then I started reaching out to professors. Across the world from Cambridge, Oxford, M-I-T-I-T, everywhere. And I'm so glad that Dr. Josie, who is the HOD of IDC at I Bombay, got back to me seeing the, immature email that I've sent by BC, C, everybody, 30 people in the mail. And he called me at IIT. I learned a lot from him. Then in that six months, I learned a lot from him. I worked. On making accessible technology for the Indian older adults. With him. I was a volunteer, an academic volunteer in his a CI course that he runs for the professional people. That was a very big exposure and connection that I got from there. And then just after they came back, I left my research at IRT and I thought that right now Project X has that. Think that can take me there. So I left everything. I registered the company and started off. And after that stint of one year happened. So you think I am, I was convinced that it will take me. And the next one year nothing happened. No product only connection. This that, no product, no development, nothing. I'm learning on it. Being a young developer, learned a lot. Subaru learned a lot. Everybody's young, everybody's learning. So I. Learned as an see how to manage company, how to manage tech, how to manage product. I learned Ron it, on the other hand, he became A-C-N-C-F Ambassador last month for India, for Linux Foundation. He became a Linux Foundation scholar and, went to, Ireland went to China recently for all scholarship and he's leading the tech team now. So I'm so proud of him. And is managing the whole front end and the finance of the full startup, so that's a quick brief and if you have any more questions, I can answer that or then I can start about the Google story and the team building story, how we build the team.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
13:45
Yeah. So I'll maybe give you a few minutes to breathe and let me digest everything that you just said. So there are some really cool and important themes out here that I wanted to highlight. tHe first thing that I noticed was the hunger to
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
14:01
Okay.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
14:01
something and change, the, the situation that you were in, right? You were you had your constraints, Those were not your constraints, those were your opportunities because you thought there is room to grow and learn be in a better place. In, in spite of all of this and all these great achievements, you're still living in, in the hometown that. That you belong to, which is also another great aspect of the humbleness that you come from, right? So the humble background is evident in what you're doing. And one thing that I really liked about what you just said, Veronica, is the how you defeated the challenge, right? So how, somebody said this is not going to happen and this is not possible and this is not feasible, but you were able to. away from that and and that yes, you can do it. It's not just an idea, but it's also a feasible idea. Which is which is commendable because a lot of times we lose hope and because when we face rejection, we think okay, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I can't do it. But you are able to walk away from rejection with still higher. So I think that is also an interesting aspect of your personality. And I love the way you were able to. Reach out to people, explain your vision and get them to work with you. So that's, those are classic traits of being a leader. So I, when I look at Your Honor, and I saw your story the other day. I was like, okay, this is a classic example of a future leader, and I definitely wanna reach out to you and speak to you because everything that you just said is exactly what I was expecting you to be. Which is phenomenal. So I, I wish you really good luck with everything that you're doing I think it is a fun time. In fact, you mentioned that from your house, the rice fields. Are you can only see rice fields, right? Is that how you got inspired for the name Infinity? oss was that infinity coming from there?
Track 1:
16:10
Not really. Not really see. First thing, Amit, that I want to add on that you said at the first, see, I believe that, success is an occasion and rejections are a daily life thing. We have to accept that and take things that way. We have to take, if we assume that things are gonna be hard, then it's fine. If we assume that things are gonna be easy, then we are in trouble. And the name Infinity, the first thing, project X, we know We knew that we are trying to build something like on the cloud that is an os. But we spent around seven days thinking about name, this, that, this, that, this, that. And I just had to save the deck by a name. I wrote Project X and from there the name started. The team thought, oh, okay, this looks good. We can start. And Infiniti os. Infiniti Os has. A very deep meaning to be like to me, at least by building Infinity oss, we are trying to build a platform which gives in finite possibilities to all the people, to democratize computational power for everyone. I. OSS means in finite possibilities with like also like it. It also has in finite features. You can run any app, any platform that uses any hardware and on any platform and for everyone. The possibility is in finite. You can run it on any device, be it your smart TV computer tab, any, anywhere, ar, vr. So the possibilities are in finite. With that theme in mind, I came up with the name Infinity was, so that is how I thought and perceived it to be, and then coming to the team, okay, so we three guys, we were thinking. That it though, left the company for a month after that meeting. He thought that SE was ka. I'm a first year guy. I have to earn from my family. Everybody. It makes sense. Makes it made a hundred percent sense from his perspective that he wa was okay and he was not earning as I was. I was earning around thousand thousand dollars one, like$2,000 a month, which is a lot in India. A lot. So it made sense. I never deleted his email from the admin dashboard. He came back one month later. I knew he would come back and he did, and he still, and I'm so glad to see that he has become such a nice leader. It's about passing things on to people and I'm so proud of him to be honest and move about the team. Yeah. So we had the idea, but the tech challenge, how do we break through? How do we break through? I was thinking, and with that thing in mind I wanted to reduce friction. Friction in the sense no one is gonna install some OSS and delete your windows, right? Gonna do that. So I pivoted that to the cloud thing on the website. So it will just be a website that has every function that Anno has so that you can access it from any device. Which has any NEOS, no matter what, and access the highest computation with power, it should solve the purpose. I fell in love with the problem, so I pivoted. I did not fall in love with the solution. Kill laptop, okay, it doesn't matter. It should solve the problem. Okay? And after that pivot, you won't believe. I applied for Launchpad at I Am Bangalore. It has very less acceptance rate. 4% Eastern India revenue. Okay? We at I am Bangalore, I learned what is business, how to do business in the, in those three months, how things work. Okay? And that is how things got started. Product development. Avi, let me just, in the next five minutes I'll explain how I build that team. Okay. So initially there was three people. Ironic Subaru. Okay. Then there was a girl called Anamika. She was a friend at college. She also was one of the first people I told one many of my friends at college that, I'm building something like this. Most of the guys. How can you compete with h hp, Dell? And she was the one who told Neena, it's good. It's good. Yeah. And she joined us in hr. Okay. I'll help you, I'll help you I don't need any money. She joined us and one of the guys, one of the guys who told that it's not possible actually worked as a, like managing intern for us recently. Okay. Okay. And that's how it started.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
21:04
These people or they just joined themselves.
Track 1:
21:07
They just joined themselves. I am here to amplify the vision. Whoever wants to join in, just join in. We are in this together. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm here. We are here to solve something for everybody.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
21:21
Okay.
Track 1:
21:22
Okay? Yeah. The first senior member that joined the team was Mr. Kiran Kapa. He is, he was the senior Vice president of Bank of America. He is, he also loves innovation in India for Barak. He, so there is one Mark Portal from Startup India where I sent him a request. He wanted to have a meeting at day one when we had absolutely nothing. He guided me. Carried the whole team till now. It's been more than one year that he has been supporting us without any documentation, nothing. He even helped me get a couple of freelance gigs so that I can get some money to run the company. And with him Mr. Vera Pati joined, who's also a serial entrepreneur. He has made more than four startups and sold a couple of them. He's based out of Texas. He has also helped us. And with that mentorship, I became a bit mature. Now coming to the product development, the most interesting part of the story, so with those mentorship and all, we had the vision, we had the idea of how to like the go-to market, but how to build that. VC told us it's not possible. It is, it was actually very difficult. So the technology that we're using for this purpose is not used anywhere else. We like we are using Kubernetes technology and it is not generally used for a heavy computational task to run full UI applications. Out to the guy who was in the core team that built Kubernetes, Carlos Eduardo, he's from Nvidia. He still maintaining Kubernetes. He has built Kubernetes. He instantly connected with the idea. He instantly connected with the idea. He also joined us. He works with us every day without any salary. Nothing. He's working with us for more than six months now, and we, and I'm proud to say that we are about to launch the MVP first MVP in the next seven days of Infinity us.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
23:32
beautiful.
Track 1:
23:33
the Of course.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
23:34
Thank you.
Track 1:
23:37
And Carlos bought a lot of maturity in the team. And after that I felt that we lacked management in the team because I can't do everything I can, I can't do external fundraising, part product, strategy, vision, everything. I need someone who has been there, done that, I put a job post and one gentleman, I put a very detailed job post on LinkedIn that what we are trying to do in detail, and one gentleman, Al Sw, who had VMware, one of our indirect competitors, he was the director of VMware for 14 years, and he was the senior director at hp. He connected with the vision and joined us full-time without salary. He's been working for almost three months now.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
24:22
Okay.
Track 1:
24:23
And only because of him, we have been able to fast forward the whole development process, make all these scru models maintain Jira, confluence, everything, documentation, this, that, and the last senior p person that I wanna talk about. Is Mr. Gotham Vora. Gotham. So Ibel, I am a product designer myself, but I, but if I want to do the product design full-time, then I can't focus on any other things. I can give you the wire frame, the idea, everything, but I need someone senior who can manage it. Similar thing, I put a job post on LinkedIn with the full story and everything Mr. Gotham were applied and I got to know that Gotham had Bill Tola from scratch and took it to 10 million users. He made the first design studio for BCG in India. He also instantly connected with the vision and joined us full-time without salary. Everyone will get his, of course, we have to. That's our responsibility. But they're there, conviction on us. A non, IT guy, non big city guy trying to solve such a
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:28
You have been in it. yoU have worked. Actually, that was one of my questions. I wanted to finish you to finish off what you're saying. I will come back to those questions, so yes. I'll not interrupt you on your flow, please.
Track 1:
25:39
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm see I have an I identity card now since I'm a fellow here. I'm like,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:45
yeah.
Track 1:
25:45
I later I became a fellow, but when they joined us I wasn't a fellow.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
25:51
I understand. Yeah. Okay.
Track 1:
25:53
Recently I became, back then, I used to work there as a researcher, so I was the youngest person in the team. I used to work with people who are like my mothers father said. So it was a really good opportunity. I think Dr. Josie had smelled the hunger in me or something like that. Maybe, I don't know. You have to ask Dr. Josie about that, so I, where was I? I missed her. After Gotham joined, then. We were in a state key. Now we can launching this time and we started getting government funds from them. Okay. Compelling pitch. We got government funds from minister of elect minister of Commerce and Industry for 10 Lac rupees. We got Metis, EIR for full Lac rupees at IT Bombay. And then the big thing AWS had given us$5,000 diversity credits, which had exhausted. We were about to do pilot and we didn't have enough money to do that. So I reached out to someone at Google's startup team, explained the whole thing. He's Hey, I can help you out. They put a proposal and we got accepted into the Google for Startups program and got,$200,000 support from Google. That was, that felt that, that felt surreal, the first time I received funds. The second time I received this, these moments felt surreal because, it saved us a ton of costs. We can still operate on that and build and sell it. So I'm extremely thankful to Google for, giving my giving me that opportunity to, do that. So that is how we got started. Right now we have a team of around 20 people with many Interesting profiles. Most from tier three cities. Villages. There is one guy called Akash. Okay. He recently joined as a founder's office intern with me. Akash used to live in Sunderbans in a very, rural area, much rural than my place. I still have I can still right now, so 10 years ago I couldn't, but right now I can order dominoes at my village. But he still lives in a such a place where there are tigers and all. His mother used to work as a household over there. That guy without any tuition anything, got 94% in his plus two and couldn't join a college. He used to work in a brick mine. He used to make bricks with his own hands. One of my unc, like not my own uncles, like one of my uncles scouted him and told that, Rounak, can you help? I talked to him. That guy knew so much about comp, like computers, astrophysics, who just with a phone that the government had provided him as a scholarship of 10,000 rupees. I, at that point, I, realized that these are the people for whom we are building Project X and Infiniti us. Maybe if Infiniti US was available that time with his small phone, he could have done a lot more magic. We never know. There are more engineers in the team. Dev proto is there. Mauk is there. Bial. They Proto and Bial are the two young chaps, both AVPs of engineering. First job was what a VP of engineering at a startup and they're delivering like crazy. I. They are delivering like crazy. They are satisfying people who have led companies like hp, VMware Nvidia, they're delivering and they are working day in and day out without money. Nothing. They also want to solve this problem so desperately they're working for it. And this keeps me, awake till 4:00 AM 5:00 AM to work a bit harder,
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
29:32
this is excellent. Think I really love about this story is how. You've been able to motivate people without trying, right? So there is a hidden charm that that is attracting you, or you are basically attracting people and talent and also recognizing great talent. I, I was very impressed with the, the story. About how somebody, used a mobile phone to build themselves and make themselves what they are today. We see it a lot of youngsters who use the mobile phone and all those devices to watch all kinds of, reels on Instagram or TikTok. But and I must say sometimes also we also fall prey to that,
Track 1:
30:15
i. Can also be used to consume art. I do. I consume a lot of art. I consume a lot of news from Instagram and just after the day we had the, first call with you guys, I got verified on Instagram
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
30:31
I saw
Track 1:
30:32
for free. Yeah. I was like, oh dude, what is this? How is they make a mistake or what?
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
30:42
So I, I think it's the stars are aligning. Rounak, they want you to do some song and dance also on Instagram because I've also heard that you're a talented singer. I'm not going to ask you to sing, but there's so many things that you are doing. You play professional cricket. you're an artist. you've got the, these big organizations that you're standing up from ground zero and you're doing a lot of work even in your community. So how do you manage to find time to do all of this? We all have 24 hours, but you seem to have more than that.
Track 1:
31:18
I don't know. Actually, every evening I go and hang out with my friends. I have tea. I don't know, actually, it's not like that. Trust me. Maybe I work a bit quicker. I no, I, the thing is that I actually can complete tasks a lot quicker like from the beginning, from the childhood. Also, I.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
31:40
tHat's great. And there's one other aspect that I really liked about your, how the lovely professional university or LPU, has supported you throughout this, right? Because they're your primary alma mater, if I may say, and they have given you. thE platform to be able to go ahead and stand up and do this. So there's a lot of independence and courage and support that they've provided to you. Which is commendable, but I think that's the way that's the right job of an educational institution. It's not just like teaching you two plus two is four, but also you to go out and build a career and.
Track 1:
32:23
Actually, the thing is that someone had to stand up and then the ecosystem builds up. Okay. The senior authorities were there. There are 30,000 students. Okay. So there was no provision to get full attendance leverage. That's a whole interesting story. So I wasn't able to deliver, go to conferences, work and maintain classes. I went my HOD, he's maximum 10%, we can do concession. I was like, makes sense from his perspective, always. Then I went to our head of school. He was like, I'll definitely try to help you. He put in his word and then he was very busy. I understand that. And then I went to the Dean of entrepreneurship. He recognized that. He recognized that, and he then took my case forward from there. And again, they needed some approval from my department. Okay. Initially when I'm saying something like, I'm making an operating system like this, that I have gotten this, gotten, that people tend to think that this might be a bit misleading as young children do in college I'm really grateful to two faculties, Mr. Sum Smith Bassa, and Mr. Kamal Naan. Kamal naan, and for, supporting me from that, backing me. And saying, you go ahead. We are with you. And then that got passed and I also directly got in touch with the vice chancellor. She also really loved what we were building and said, ki go ahead, we are with you. And then they have never, I have, I've never looked back after that. They have been such a big motivator for me and a big enabler of entrepreneurship right now though. They have a different module for entrepreneurship in their classes in our department. aNd Mr. Bana said that, I was responsible for this. So I really feel, extremely honored for that to, start that culture in our college. And culture is the biggest thing in college. When I go to its and all I see that the culture is the biggest differentiator. It's every kid is talented. It's all about the culture. Of hard work. I went there, I took a session with Mr. Bina just a couple months back. I saw that the students were coming up with so many interesting design ideas. I shared the resources. Part is to find the right people, right resources, right place to apply.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
34:45
right.
Track 1:
34:46
get, help them get that. And now that will be like integrated in the culture and I believe there'll be many more bigger startups than Project X coming from LP University,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
34:55
so help you actually, that was your sparks. That is the other people who gave you the spark. was a blessing to go to help you. In fact, do you
Track 1:
35:04
Absolutely. Definitely.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:06
So
Track 1:
35:07
I.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:07
how did you, yeah sorry, but that, how did you, after your 12th did you apply for it? How did you reach help you?
Track 1:
35:14
I Wanted to I I always wanted to learn more about human cap, like HCIH, like human computer interaction. There were a couple of options for me. Symbi was there so I has a. Master's in HCI, not a bachelor's. It's a four year bachelor's. So there were some biases. There were some other couple of colleges, but they were pretty expensive for us too, and I wrote an example, help You Nest, where I got 40% scholarship. So
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
35:42
Okay. That's great.
Track 1:
35:44
That helped me get a admission in a private college where HCI is being taught and, just after six months of joining LP, by then I have already learned about HCI works from like everywhere in the internet, this law at law, this, how this works, how that works, how to build this make made more like make mock projects that the mock projects that we are having in the third year. We, I did that in class 12 in my free time. Not because I wanted to get there, like people want to get at, its get at, MBBS colleges. I
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
36:17
right?
Track 1:
36:18
that because I love doing that. Apart from playing cricket, I'm alone. I'm, I prefer doing something than, watching a movie. That is how I am wired. Watching a movie is not bad, it is just how I am as a person, but I'm like always listening to music while I'm working. That's. Something about me. So I think that answered your question. Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
36:44
ROn, I think we'll soon be wrapping up. I, I. One last major and then we will go into a quick rapid fire what are your immediate plans for project X? Especially I know there's a major launch coming up for beta users what can we expect in 2024? What are those high level plans that you're aiming for?
Track 1:
37:11
So 2024, irrespective of the amount that we raise, we will launch. We will launch in the education sector first. Because that's how we started, where we started and why we started. We'll expand across educational institutions, as I said that, oh I haven't mentioned that. Very recently I was invited at the sec, like Central Secretariat at the Parliament in the North block to talk about, to discuss about Infinity OS and its implementation across India. So I have some commitments from the Indian government as well. I can't disclose everything. It's a bit confidential so we have definite plans of integrating this with all the major educational institutions across India so that everyone has access to proper computational power at an affordable cost and. Then slowly we'll move across verticals, like the enterprise sector. And maybe in the next few years people will be having infinity US as a normal operating system in their machines, hopefully. aNd not only their laptops, but also their mobile phones. So that's a whole different. Strategy that we have that will be slowly, revealing in the future that's still under progress. So that's the impact that we want to create. So I'll just give one small use case if we have one minute time. So suppose as once we start scaling in the educational sector. Not only the kids can use it at their, schools and colleges, only 49% of the Indian schools are having functional computers, only 49%. And at the national education policy, they're claiming digital impact for every child. So there's a very big gap. Even if you, at the balance sheets of. Delhi University, the highest expense, is it expense more than 20% Highest depreciation it expense. So it gets balanced out, so it, there has to be a solution so those students can access it at their education institution also, and also on, and as it's on the cloud and on the browser, they can access in, in their local machine if they have, or even in their TVs. If it's a smart TV or we are coming up with a solution that will make it on a normal TVs as well.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
39:39
That's great. That's great. That's great.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
39:41
I must say, and this is for all our listeners and viewers this is the man that you have to follow. He's, he is changing the ecosystem and there's a lot of stuff happening, so I'm really excited for the future, Ron. We are gonna post links to your LinkedIn Twitter, and other handles on this in the description below. So hopefully a lot of people will start following you and tracking all the great fun stuff that you're doing and you're making in India. So this is a brilliant make in India story and, I would also say it's also made for India at least for now. And I'm sure there's potential in use case for Infinity US across the world. There is in finite use cases that I'm
Track 1:
40:23
Absolutely.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
40:23
looking forward
Track 1:
40:24
Absolutely.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
40:24
for this to come out, but I love the way that you're thinking about your local community. You're thinking about all the people that, really matter and building this right. So this is excellent. I congratulate you once again. Do you wanna go into a quick, rapid fire?
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
40:40
Yep. We should. Okay. So these are very quick questions, just fun stuff. Nothing serious okay. I'm just starting it. So Mac or pc.
Track 1:
40:54
PC
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
40:56
Okay, so early Bird or Night Owl
Track 1:
41:01
prefer to be early bird, but unfortunately a night.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:06
unfortunately. Okay, I'll take that. Favorite programming language
Track 1:
41:12
Favorite programming language?
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:14
Is there too many actually so difficult for him to
Track 1:
41:17
Yeah. Okay. Many
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:19
name one.
Track 1:
41:20
right now, I.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:23
huh? Okay. Trust. Okay. One tech gadget that you cannot live without.
Track 1:
41:33
I missed you. I missed you. There was some lag in your audio.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:36
Yeah. One tech gadget that you cannot live without.
Track 1:
41:43
My mobile phone, definitely.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:47
Okay fifth one is a very easy one. Cloud or local storage.
Track 1:
41:52
Absolutely cloud.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
41:54
Okay, you would like to continue.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
41:56
Yeah, I wanna ask you batting or bowling
Track 1:
42:00
Ah, tough call. I was a bowler when I started, right? Batting, because bowling takes a lot of practice, but bowling is more close to my heart, but I am unfortunately a better batsman. So
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:13
and favorite movie star.
Track 1:
42:16
favorite movie star. Okay. Movie stuff. There are many.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
42:24
Favorite.
Track 1:
42:25
For now, I would say I like Panka Strip party a lot. His acting?
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:31
Excellent and favorite food.
Track 1:
42:34
Favorite food? Actually I try. Try a lot of food. I try different cuisine, but all time Favorite is the Go-to option always is Biani always.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
42:51
Is a very sentimental topic. I was reading this the other day, that was also one of the most ordered food in India, last year. And somebody ordered some, more than 15,000. So I,
Track 1:
43:06
Through, I forgot the company.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:09
Yeah,
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:10
and,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:11
can.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:12
Name a book that has influenced you the most.
Track 1:
43:17
There are many that shaped me. There are many, actually the most okay to think. Okay, so something that's coming to my mind right now is eat that frog as a really nice book. I. That I really like and one movie that I has changed me a lot is Into the Wild. If you have a chance, please do watch it. So I just added it. Yeah. Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:50
Okay.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
43:51
Okay.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
43:51
nice. And finally, if you had to describe your journey in one word especially with Project X, how would you describe, what do you feel when you look back these years? what is that one word that comes to your mind?
Track 1:
44:11
About me or the journey as
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:14
your journey.
Track 1:
44:20
So the journey felt unreal and the only thing that I was resilient.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:27
Excellent.
Track 1:
44:28
Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
44:30
That's great. Thank you so much for this, Veronica. We really enjoyed speaking with you and learning more about everything that you've achieved at this young age. So I am, I'm just hoping to stay in touch with you and keep a track of all these different achievements that you're going to crack this year and the years to come. And I also wish you great success with the team that you have. I'm Yeah,
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
44:54
we might have a webinar with his team, perhaps, he, him and his team so that that your message can reach out to the people you wanna.
Track 1:
45:02
sUre.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:04
Yeah.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
45:04
Thank you once again for appearing on the Indian Community Podcast. Ron, it was a pleasure hosting you.
Track 1:
45:11
So much.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:11
Pleasure.
amit-gupta_2_01-05-2024_083800:
45:13
Thank you. Bye-Bye.
rahul-mehra_1_01-05-2024_190801:
45:14
Bye-Bye. Thank you. Bye.
45:16
Um, uh, Uh, Um, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Yeah Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.
