Most 12-year-olds spend their afternoons juggling homework, sports activities and time with associates.
Mana Jampala is doing all that whereas working a synthetic intelligence startup with deployments in three international locations.
The Grade 7 scholar from Kelowna, British Columbia, has constructed Voxa, an AI-powered receptionist that helps companies keep away from lacking buyer calls. In line with her LinkedIn profile, the platform is already deployed in Canada, India and Cambodia, making her one of many youngest AI founders attracting international consideration.
A CODING JOURNEY THAT STARTED AT NINE
Mana’s curiosity in know-how started early. She learnt coding by Scratch camps earlier than choosing up Python at simply 9 years previous. By the age of 11, she had began constructing AI merchandise of her personal.
Her expertise quickly earned recognition past college. She gained a particular prize in a collegiate-level science competitors throughout a go to to India and in addition acquired a grant from the 1517 Fund’s Medici Challenge, which helps younger entrepreneurs constructing startups.
Regardless of working an organization, Mana says she nonetheless enjoys taking part in soccer, spending time with associates and assembly different younger builders.
ONE MISSED PHONE CALL CHANGED EVERYTHING
The concept for Voxa got here from watching her father’s office.
She observed staff usually missed buyer calls as a result of they had been busy serving individuals. These missed calls usually translated into missed enterprise alternatives.
That commentary impressed Voxa, a 24-hour AI voice assistant designed for eating places, pharmacies and different service companies the place each unanswered name can imply misplaced income.
The system can reply buyer calls, guide appointments, take restaurant orders, handle follow-ups and generate summaries after every dialog.
In line with Mana, Voxa is already dealing with a whole lot of calls whereas increasing its deployments throughout Canada.
BUILDING WITH AI, NOT LETTING AI DO EVERYTHING
Mana informed Enterprise Insider that she used AI coding assistants corresponding to ChatGPT and later Claude, however by no means relied on them to construct the product in a single go.
As a substitute, she generated small snippets of code, examined each fastidiously, mounted bugs herself and progressively constructed her personal backend. That step-by-step strategy, she says, helped her perceive each a part of the software program.
HER NEXT BIG BET IS AI AGENTS
Mana is already considering past AI receptionists.
Her newest enterprise, Voxa Brokers, lets customers create autonomous AI brokers just by describing a process in plain English. A person can ask it to observe opponents, put together assembly briefings or monitor on-line conversations, and the AI carries out the work mechanically.
She hopes to continue to grow the corporate, be a part of a number one startup accelerator and finally scale the enterprise additional.
At an age when most college students are simply starting to consider future careers, Mana Jampala is already constructing merchandise utilized by companies throughout continents, displaying how the subsequent technology is coming into the AI revolution a lot sooner than anybody imagined.
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