January 17, 2019

The following is an excerpt of the interview that Asia 21 Young Leader Roopam Sharma ('18) gave to the Washington Business Journal. 

Roopam Sharma never thought he'd be a scientist, let alone an entrepreneur. But after discovering an unexpected affection for engineering in college, he started skipping class to work on independent projects. Following a visit to a school for blind students in Delhi, India, he and co-founder Neeraj Saini set out to create a replacement for braille, which they found can be difficult to learn and expensive to access. Their business, Eyeluminati, was born. 

Manovue, the technology behind the company, is a low-cost wearable device that works as a personal assistance system for people with visual impairments. Sharma landed a spot in Halcyon's current startup founder cohort, and he's raking in the accolades, including the National Youth Award from the president of India in 2018. He's also the youngest honoree of MIT Tech Review's top innovators under 35. 

Read the full text that was published by the Washington Business Journal on January 17, 2019.