By Ritu Jha-

A group of North Carolina teens have turned their grief over losing a friend to drunk driving into a high-tech tool they hope will prevent such tragedies.

The four friends from Enloe Magnet High School unveiled their concept for SoberRide at the TYE Globals 2024 on June 21, where it won several awards.

The concept: Imagine getting behind the wheel tipsy, shame on you, and your car rightfully “refuses” to let you drive if its advanced facial recognition and AI-powered sensors determine you’ve been drinking.

TYE Globals, an annual flagship event for the Youth Entrepreneurship Division of TiE Silicon Valley, runs a 10-week boot camp and teaches high school students skills in business and start-up concepts.

Looking sharp and confident in their suits, the team recently agreed to chat with indica.

“My expectation of participating in TYE Global and visiting Silicon Valley was to draw inspiration,” said Chief Product Officer Aditya Bharadwaj. “We see these huge tech giants leading the frontier of research and, impacting everyone’s lives, becoming household names. And I want to take inspiration from that and apply that to my own life and my product. That’s what I came here for.”

SoberRide was TYE Global’s second runner-up and was also crowned the best business model. The awards and recognition have given a shot of confidence to budding entrepreneurs.

CEO Swayam Shah, 15, said he and his friends were in eighth grade when their friend Jonathan Pooley was killed. So when they enrolled in TYE’s program in 9th grade, they decided to build a software tool and established SoberRide.

The team sounded a little somber for not winning the TYE Global competition but remained determined to take the product forward globally.

Asked about their next move, Shah said they’re lobbying for legislation mandating anti-drunk systems in vehicles. That will give the company enormous potential.

“We strongly believe in the mission of saving lives, which is why we will continue with this company. So far, we’ve raised over $3,000 in seed funding from the TYE competition, regionalist competition, and last year’s competition,” Shah said.

CFO Krithin Visvesh was closest to the friend who was killed in the drunk driving crash when they were younger.

“I realized that drunk driving is a huge issue, and that incident prompted me to think of a solution to this issue,” Visvesh said. “Drunk driving takes thousands of lives every single year. We all felt something needed to be done about this, and I formed a team. Jonathan Pooley was our main inspiration.”

Visvesh said that while they highlighted their product at TYE Global, that’s only the beginning of their promotional and development plans. There was also a recent drunk driving crash in Pune, India, where two IT professionals died in a crash caused by a 17-year-old drunk driver.

“So, like, this is not just in our local neighborhood,” he said. “This is happening globally. And that’s why we chose drunk driving as a problem to solve.”

Not willing to leave anything to chance, the team has also taken the initiative to push for legislation mandating such products as part of sentencing orders in drunk driving cases. They’ve spoken to their congressional representative, Deborah Ross, and to officials of the Department of Transportation.

Bharadwaj, the chief product officer, said the team met with them and they concluded the product fits in the criteria of what they’re looking for.

“So, the legislation is being pushed in Congress that we need these mandated in our cars right now. That’s where our product comes in. A market is being created by this proposed legislation. We’re going to use the legislation as leverage to penetrate the market to create profit and happiness for all of our customers.”

But capital will be needed to turn the dream into reality. CFO Visvesh says this is a “passion project” that the team plans to continue pursuing as capital becomes available.

“It’s a cause that we believe in. For funding, I think we’re looking at any help and guidance from mentors, startup organizations and companies. But what we want to start with and what we asked for is $25,000. That much is required to get our company started and get it off the ground. We’re going to use this fund to pilot and get our product in vehicles.”

Even if the product ultimately goes nowhere, Chief Marketing Officer Bhavik Kunimuri, 16, said that being part of TYE has been a learning experience for them.

“I’ve learned how to make business models, how to find target market estimates and develop market strategies. That’s my role as the CMO of this company, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. What TYE has done for us is to give us the confidence that we can make our project a real thing in the future.”

Kunimuri said the team didn’t know the first thing about starting a business before joining TYE last year.

“But the program taught us everything that we need to know. That includes business model, finance, marketing, and everything else that we need to successfully launch our business and take it off the ground. That’s why we were at the TYE Global competition.”

Kunimiri said the team’s next step is to get the software tested in vehicles.

“We’ve just been developing the prototype, but we haven’t had the opportunity to put it into a vehicle yet, as the integration process with the vehicle is extremely complicated. Our next step is to work with an OEM and start practicing or prototyping how this will actually fit inside the vehicle so that it can prevent the vehicle from turning on if alcohol is detected in the driver.”

Kunimiri said all four plan to go to college and study hard skills like computer science and engineering. They believe those skills will prepare them for successful entrepreneurship careers.

“As one of the speakers at TYE said, anyone with an engineering degree or computer science degree can fulfill the roles of someone with a marketing or business degree. But someone with a business or marketing degree cannot fulfill the roles of someone with a computer science or engineering degree.”

[Photo courtesy: indica : (From L to R)Aaditya Bharadwaj, Krithin Visvesh, Swayam Shah, Bhavik Kanumuri.]