A 17-year-old Indian-origin student in the US has built her own artificial intelligence startup after her school banned ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.
Navya Tuteja, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, recently launched her own startup, Raaha, a platform aimed at helping neurodivergent job seekers assess whether a job opportunity could be a suitable fit. Two months after its launch, the platform had attracted more than 1,000 users and 20,000 job listings, according to a report by Fortune.
Who is Navya Tuteja?
Navya is a student and young AI entrepreneur who serves as president of her school’s AI club. According to Fortune, her interest in the technology grew despite her school blocking ChatGPT, Claude and similar generative AI tools.
She told the outlet that the restrictions meant she used AI much less during school and had to complete assignments and prepare for exams more independently. While she believes AI needs to be used responsibly, she does not think banning the technology is the solution.
“I don’t think banning it is the solution,” Navya said, adding, “I think you have to regulate it in the right way.”
{{/usCountry}}“I don’t think banning it is the solution,” Navya said, adding, “I think you have to regulate it in the right way.”
{{/usCountry}}Navya shared that she now voluntarily follows the same discipline she developed during the ban. She does not use AI for schoolwork and tries to do her learning independently, particularly for subjects in which she has exams.
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How did she build Raaha?
Navya shared that the startup was partly inspired by her experience with her mother, who is hard of hearing, and by her observations of job advertisements aimed at neurodivergent candidates.
She noticed that job postings often focus heavily on employer requirements while providing little information about what the workplace or day-to-day experience would actually be like. Raaha analyses job listings across several factors and uses a quiz to help candidates assess their potential fit before applying.
Navya shared that she wrote Raaha’s underlying algorithm herself, while using AI primarily for more mechanical aspects of the project, such as cleaning up the website’s design. She revealed that she also uses AI in everyday tasks such as drafting emails and making sense of messy information when she is short on time.
The 17-year-old said that she has bootstrapped the platform and is currently offering it for free. However, a longer-term business model could involve employers and workforce organisations paying to use the platform or improve their job postings.
She shared that Raaha is not her only project. She has also developed Legible, a tool designed to simplify special-education documents, including IEPs and 504 plans, for families.
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Navya’s Indian-origin roots
Navya’s parents, Deepti and Rohit Tuteja, moved from Delhi to the US around 17 years ago. The family initially lived in Atlanta, where Navya was born, before moving between Richmond, the New York-New Jersey area, Atlanta and eventually Northern Virginia.
Deepti works in data management oversight for TD Bank in the US and serves on the board of a Harvard-affiliated venture capital fund, where she reviews startup pitches. Rohit, who trained as a lawyer in India, later moved into privacy and cybersecurity consulting at Deloitte. He now leads cybersecurity governance, risk and compliance at Sentara Health, a Virginia-based hospital and insurance network.
Navya is their only child. Her parents described her as someone who has been largely self-driven from a young age. “For the past at least six years, we have never had a chance where we had to wake her up,” Deepti said.
What’s next for Navya?
The 17-year-old plans to attend college but said that she would consider running Raaha full-time if the startup continues to grow. For now, she is continuing to develop the platform while keeping it free and building its user base.