A quiet shift is underway in how a new generation of Indians is engaging with technology. Beyond online tutorials and classroom kits, some children are now stepping into workshops, factories, startup floors, and real product environments, learning not by memorising concepts, but by building, testing, and shipping things that work.
Eight-year-old Lakshveer Rao is among the youngest faces of this change.
Laksh is an 8-year-old builder and India’s youngest hardware startup founder, and the co-founder of Projects by Laksh, a parent–child innovation initiative focused on hardware-first products, real-world execution, and learning by building. Beats in Brief recently spoke to his father, Capt. Venkat, to understand more about Laksh’s journey, his work, and the thinking behind this early exposure to real-world building.
Building real products at eight
Unlike most child-centric innovation stories, Laksh’s journey is not centred on demonstrations or competitions alone. It is structured around real products, real systems, and real-world output.
Among his key projects is Circuit Heroes, a circuit-building trading card game designed to make electronics hands-on and interactive. The product has gone through four iterations, and more than 300 decks have been sold. Alongside this, Laksh is working on Hardvare, a hardware execution platform aimed at simplifying how functional devices are built, and Chhota Creator, a peer-learning initiative where children teach other children through hands-on content.
Over the past few years, Laksh has built and documented 200+ projects across electronics, robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, coding, mechanical systems, and game design. His builds range from obstacle-avoiding and self-parking cars to ESP32 camera systems, automatic kitchen tools, experimental wearable concepts, and robotics prototypes.
His work has also extended into early entrepreneurial experiments. Laksh has conducted paid robotics workshops for children, completed paid photography assignments, and sold handmade products, efforts designed to connect learning with responsibility, delivery, and outcome.
Learning beyond classrooms
A defining feature of Laksh’s journey is where his learning takes place.
Rather than being limited to structured classrooms, he has spent time across 25+ companies in four cities, gaining hands-on exposure to manufacturing floors, hardware startups, robotics firms, and advanced prototyping facilities. These environments allow him to see how products move from idea to design, testing, production, and real-world use.
Laksh has pitched and showcased his work at platforms including South Park Commons Open Pitch, Scaler School of Technology’s Yugantar Tech Fest, VibeHack by Emergent, and The AI Collective. He has been a finalist or special award recipient at multiple innovation forums and has also been shortlisted in early screening stages for Shark Tank India Season 5 and ISF Junicorns.
The exposure, his family says, is not designed for visibility alone, but to place him inside real ecosystems where outcomes, constraints, and iteration shape learning.
A father’s perspective: “Co-working, not instructing”
Laksh’s journey is closely shaped by his father, Capt. Venkat, a former Indian Army officer whose career has spanned the armed forces, entrepreneurship, and early-stage startup ecosystems.
“What the Army instilled in me was discipline, systems thinking, accountability, and respect for real-world outcomes,” he told Beats in Brief. “Those values have quietly shaped how I approach parenting, making it more about co-working than instructing.”
He is clear that there was no master plan to raise a founder.
“What I observed early on was deep curiosity and an unusual willingness to struggle with real problems. Instead of optimising for grades, speed, or polish, we chose to optimise for exposure, effort, and ownership. If something could be built, shipped, sold, or tested in the real world, we leaned into that, even if it meant slower progress or visible failure. We decided to minimise the distance between idea and reality.”
According to him, his role is not to drive projects, but to create access, set boundaries, and insist on follow-through. Laksh decides what to build, breaks things often, fixes them, and learns to live with the consequences, whether that is a failed prototype or a successful sale.
Where projects coexist with childhood
Despite the scale of Laksh’s work, his father emphasises that projects do not replace childhood.
“School, play, rest, and non-negotiable downtime matter. Projects do not replace childhood; they coexist with it,” he said. “What changes is the quality of engagement. When he builds, it is end-to-end. When he learns, it is tied to something tangible. When he earns, it is linked to effort and responsibility.”
Laksh continues to follow a regular routine. The difference lies in how learning is integrated into life. Building, traveling, selling, documenting, and interacting with professionals are all treated as parts of the same learning loop rather than extracurricular add-ons.
A window into a changing generation
Lakshveer Rao’s journey reflects more than one child’s achievements. It points to a broader shift in how a section of young India is beginning to approach learning, through tools instead of toys, factories instead of formulas, and execution instead of exhibition.
It is not framed by his family as a story of exceptional intelligence alone, but as an experiment in a different learning model, one where curiosity is taken seriously, discipline is learned through doing, and children are trusted with real tools and real problems earlier than traditionally allowed.
In a country investing heavily in manufacturing, electronics, and deep-technology ecosystems, stories like Laksh’s offer a glimpse into how the next generation may grow up not just consuming technology, but designing, building, and shaping it from the ground up.
ALSO READ: The World of Viral 10-Year-Old Tech Enthusiast Sharav Arora: https://beatsinbrief.com/2025/12/15/sharav-arora-viral-10-year-old-tech-enthusiast/
About the Author
