Indian teen turns school project into family business in UAE
Dubai: A Dubai-based Indian teenager has turned a school project into a family business after his father was amazed at how the product turned out, a media report said on Saturday.
Sixteen-year-old Ishir Wadhwa, a Dubai resident and student at GEMS World Academy, was required to submit an innovative project for his Grade 10 course, according to the Khaleej Times report.
He looked for an everyday problem to solve and found it on the wall — the screw and nails.
“While screw and nails have been in use since time immemorial, they pose problems for people on a daily basis such as damage to walls, outsourcing labour, dust pollution and other dangers of drilling.
“I reached out to my elder brother Avik, who is now studying engineering at Purdue University in the US. When we put our minds together, the solution, like all great ideas, was elegantly simple,” Ishir explained.
Their solution was to put two steel tapes and a strong magnet together.
“The steel tape that adheres to the wall is known as the ‘alpha steel tape’ and the one on the object to be hung as the ‘beta steel tape’. The neodymium magnet holds the entire assembly together, including the object being mounted,” he added.
The family called the product KLAPiT, from the clapping sound produced by the two magnets coming together.
Believing that the invention “could be an absolute game-changer”, Ishir’s father Sumesh Wadhwa left his high-paying job and career and decided to launch the product as their family business, the Khaleej Times report said.