The whole idea of a school like San Jose’s Bellarmine College Preparatory is exactly what its name implies - a place to prepare students to enter the real world after their time at the school is finished.
Everyone once in a while, though, there is someone who is not willing to wait.
In this year’s senior class, Harshil Ahuja is that person.
Long before graduating, the San Jose 17-year-old has already designed products to help those living in polluted environments, then formed a company to manufacture, sell, and ship them.
“I like to move through things quickly,” Ahuja said. “I'm like, 'Okay, let's, let's keep moving forward.’”
Ahuja’s mindset to “keep moving forward” started several years back.
“Tennis was a very big part of my life growing up and I used to play competitive, but I got injured,” Ahuja said.
When doctors prescribed several months of bedrest, Ahuja went looking for something to occupy his time and discovered the world of competitive robotics. Throughout middle school and into high school, Ahuja spent more and more time on robotics, learning more and more about engineering in the process.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
Local
It was during a 2019 trip to visit relatives in India, however, that Ahuja’s interest in engineering went from a hobby to a mission. It was during the festival of Diwali.
“So, lots of fireworks, lots of celebrations going on, and that made the air pollution really, really bad,” Ahuja said. “My relatives couldn't really afford those really expensive masks. They would have to just wear a cloth bandana or something like that. And those things are not effective at all.”
When Ahuja arrived back from India, he leaned into his love for engineering. He figured out how to make a mask that his relatives could wear to fend off noxious gases. After hours of researching, pricking his fingers on a sewing machine in his room, and 3D-printing some prototypes, Ahuja had his first version done. The problem was it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.
"It was like this long,” Ahuja said separating his hands a foot apart. “And the tube was the most atrocious thing I've ever seen in my life."
After going back to the drawing board numerous times, Ahuja crafted a mask that was both sleek and effective.
But instead of doing what many people his age would do, enter the device in a science fair, Ahuja used it as the basis to start his own company, Novarus Technologies.
Ahuja said, "I found all the raw materials. I did a lot of research to find manufacturers. Verify that they were good, legitimate people. I did a lot of research to make sure that it can actually be done in a feasible manner, in an ethical manner as well. And that was an entire complex process I had to learn as well.”
The company also sells a water filtration device Ahuja designed. The idea came to him on that same trip to India.
“There was this very big river and it was filled with garbage and human sewage and all this other waste,” Ahuja said. “And I saw this family with a little metal bucket, just scooping some up and taking it back and trying to boil it in hopes of cleaning it. And in my head, I'm like, ‘Okay, stop, like, nobody should have to first of all even think about having to drink that water just to be able to survive.’”
Ahuja’s mask and water filtration system are now both manufactured and sold around the world. He’s even hoping to add a portable, solar-powered air conditioner to the mix once it’s been fully developed.
As a way to help low-income families, Ahuja has partnered with Stanford professor Julieta Gabiola’s non-profit ABCs for Global Health. To help deploy his designs where they will do the most good.
“I'm not gonna lie, I don't see another path for myself other than this. I'm just going to take this as far as I possibly can,” Ahuja said.
