Akshat says the idea came to him in December last year when he saw Delhi experiment with the odd-even formula for cars.
Highlights
- Delhi teen creates website to match individuals for potential carpooling
- Delhi's experiment with odd-even formula sparked idea, says Akshat Mittal
- Carpooling platform Orahi.com buys out his website Odd-even.com
Akshat Mittal looks like a regular 13-year-old at first glance, but is perhaps one of India's youngest entrepreneurs.
A class 9 student of Amity School in Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, Akshat has created a website http://www.odd-even.com, which matches individuals for potential carpooling.
Akshat says the idea came to him in December last year when he saw Delhi experiment with the odd-even formula for cars, as headlines screamed how the national capital was breathing toxic air every day.
With the focus also on the need to carpool, Akshat says he decided to pitch in, banking on his tech skills. He was taught how to code when he was as young as 10 by his father, who himself is an entrepreneur with several technology start-ups to his name.
Akshat says he worked on the website for seven to eight hours a day for weeks on end last year and finally came up with odd-even.com.
The website works on a simple formula - it matches individuals with potential carpools and for all this all one need to do is fill up some basic details like name, registration number of the car and preferences concerning a commuter on the website or the mobile app.
The effort has paid off. The website had close to 30,000 users when carpooling platform Orahi noticed it. They bought Akshat's page out and took him in as an adviser on their board.
Akshat says selling the website will not just help it grow but also hone his technical and entrepreneurial skills.