Mittal, 13, will stay on Board for a year.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
Teenager Akshat Mittal was in the headlines for creating a website that helps commuters pool or share their car rides when the Delhi government implemented an odd-even plan to curb pollution in January. Now the 13-year-old has sold the website oddeven.com to carpool app Orahi.com for an undisclosed amount, reported The Times of India.
The all-cash deal made Mittal a member of the company’s technical advisory board. He will also be mentored by the company for a year.
“The algorithm was developed by me and I look forward to the year-long stint with the board,” Mittal told Times of India.
The website of Mittal that stopped functioning after the odd-even plan was lifted has been in the second stage of development. The platform has more than 30,000 members.
“The name is catchy and easy to remember. It currently has 30,000 users and we anticipate more users to register after the second phase of odd-even rule come into effect on April 15,” Arun Bhati, chief executive officer of Orahi, told Times of India.
“We put our bets on this since the name was catchy and easy to remember,†he added.
Oddeven.com users will now be redirected to Orahi after verifying their identity. Payment can also be made online.
The website created by Mittal helps commuters identify people from their locality with whom they can share rides. Anybody who wishes to share rides can register with the website by providing their source, destination, time, car type, registration number, gender preference etc.
If somebody doesn’t want to use their car or just want to hitch a ride, or doesn’t have a car, they need not give details like car number and car type.
Once the registration is done, one will be provided with the details of people with whom he or she could share a ride. They can contact each other offline and plan their ride.
Recently, the Gurgaon-based Orahi had raised an angel round of Rs $514,705 from Indian Angel Network.
A Class IX student at Amity International School, Noida, Mittal had taken part in the TiE Delhi-NCR Young Entrepreneur (TYE) program.