When I was seventeen, standing on a factory floor surrounded by rusting machines and anxious workers, I learned that leadership isn't about having all the answers it's about listening when no one else does.
That day, our AI-based defect-detection prototype failed again. After two months of sleepless nights, it still misread half the weld seams. The client was frustrated, my co-founder wanted to quit, and I felt we were out of options.
Instead of diving back into the code, I spent the day talking with the line workers about their routines, frustrations, and how they saw the machines. What they told me changed everything: the lighting on the factory floor shifted during the day, confusing the model. A small detail to an engineer, but critical to those who worked the line.
We retrained the algorithm using their feedback, and accuracy rose by thirty five percent. The same workers who once doubted our product became its biggest advocates. That moment taught me that innovation doesn't begin with algorithms it begins with empathy.
In 2019, I founded HoloWorld, an AI and AR/VR automation startup based in Pune, India, built around that very idea: that technology should see the world through human eyes. Our goal was to merge Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, and Augmented Reality to transform industrial operations making machines not just automated, but intelligent, visual, and responsive.
The early days were anything but easy. I pitched the idea to fifty two companies before hearing the first "yes." Most thought the concept was too ambitious. But that one opportunity changed everything it gave us the chance to prove what intelligent automation could really do.
We started small: integrating AI-based visual inspection tools into production lines. Our systems could detect defects invisible to the human eye, helping reduce manufacturing errors dramatically. Later, we built predictive maintenance algorithms that analyzed sensor and time series data to forecast machine failures before they occurred. The results were tangible downtime dropped by 25%, and product defects fell by 40%.
By 2021, HoloWorld had grown into a comprehensive industrial AI platform. I led a 15 member R&D team combining AI engineers, AR/VR developers, and product designers. Together, we built edge to cloud data pipelines, immersive visualization dashboards, and intuitive AR interfaces that helped engineers see real time performance data as holographic overlays on the factory floor.
We expanded across Asia deploying our systems in over 50 factories across India, China. Each installation felt like building a bridge between human intuition and machine intelligence. Along the way, I conducted AI adoption workshops for manufacturing leaders and partnered with government innovation programs to help traditional industries become digitally ready.
Our startup became profitable within three years through a mix of SaaS and enterprise licensing models. But more importantly, we built something that mattered technology that made people's work safer, smarter, and more meaningful.
In 2024, after five years of relentless building, HoloWorld was acquired by Stable Industries. It was a milestone that felt both triumphant and bittersweet.
The acquisition validated everything we had built our products, our impact, our vision. But as I watched the HoloWorld logo being replaced at our office, I realized something profound: the true product wasn't our code. It was our people, process, and purpose the shared belief that empathy and engineering could coexist.
Today, as part of Stable Industries, I lead AI product development for global supply chain optimization, carrying forward the same philosophy that began in that factory years ago.
Because what I learned then still guides me now:
Technology without empathy is just machinery. But with empathy, it becomes transformation.
