Teen turns school project into family business in UAE

Dubai - It was supposed to be a school project.

What if you can mount a home theatre system on a wall — without having to drill any holes? Sixteen-year-old Ishir Wadhwa thought there must be a way. So, with the help of his family, he invented a solution.

It was supposed to be a school project. But, with his father amazed at how the product turned out, they decided to turn it into a family business.

Ishir, a Dubai resident and a student at GEMS World Academy, was required to submit an innovative project for his Grade 10 IB course. He looked for an everyday problem to solve and found it on the wall — the humble screw and nails.

“While screw and nails have been in use since time immemorial, they pose problems for people on a daily basis such as damage to walls, outsourcing labour, dust pollution and other dangers of drilling,” Ishir explained.

“I reached out to my elder brother Avik, who is now studying engineering at Purdue University in the US. When we put our minds together, the solution, like all great ideas, was elegantly simple.”

Their solution was to put two steel tapes and a strong magnet together. “The steel tape that adheres to the wall is known as the ‘alpha steel tape’ and the one on the object to be hung as the ‘beta steel tape’. The neodymium magnet holds the entire assembly together, including the object being mounted,” Ishir explained.

saman@khaleejtimes.com