Blog
Physical AI for India
6 min read
I grew up in a farming family, and I wanted to build machines.
After I graduated, I went home. One evening I was sitting in a chair, watching the news on TV, when I saw NASA land the Curiosity rover on Mars.
I remember thinking, “What am I even doing? It’s time I did something with my life.”
That’s how this journey began for me. It’s been a long road, and for much of it I kept asking myself, “Am I worthy enough to pursue this dream?”
When you say a dream like that out loud, people ask you to be realistic. You hear it enough times and you start doing it to yourself. You make the dream smaller before you’ve even found out what it would take.
I stuck with mine. I’ve been kicked around a bit, and I’m still rolling. I want it to be easier for the next kid to stick with theirs.
When I think about Physical AI for India, I picture a boy or girl in a village—a student who sees someone doing the same hard job every day and thinks, “I could build a machine to help with that.” I want them to be able to say it out loud and have someone take the idea seriously. I want them to know the skills are within reach and feel confident asking questions when everyone else in the room seems to know the answer.
I think most of us have had an idea we were excited about and felt a little silly saying out loud. Maybe it was something simple. Could I make this easier to carry? Could I make this move on its own? Could I build something that helps at home? I want more young people to say those ideas out loud and get the chance to try them for themselves.
That’s the kind of learning I want more young people to have. Every time they work something out for themselves, a bigger problem starts to feel within reach.
A school can give them a bench and time to try. A college can give them access to tools they couldn’t get on their own. At Evolve Robot Lab, we’re building robots they can take apart, kits they can build with, and parts they can get when they want to change something. If a motor fails, they should be able to find a spare, see how it connects, and get back to their idea.
My dream is for India to be ready to build robots of all kinds, including machines that solve problems only the people living with them would think to tackle. I want that student to build something we couldn’t have imagined for them.
It starts with more young people being able to say, “I want to build that,” and believing they have a real shot.
“No dream is too big, and no dreamer too small.”— Turbo (2013)