Most 16-year-olds ask their mother and father for pocket cash. Raul John Aju pays his father a wage of Rs 2 lakh a month. That single truth, so easy, so fully surprising, captures every part that makes Raul’s story one of the exceptional issues occurring in India proper now. Not simply on the earth of expertise. On the planet, full cease. From the quiet city of Pathanamthitta in Kerala comes this exceptional 16-year-old, nonetheless a Plus Two Commerce scholar at North Edappally GHSS, who’s already an AI trainer, developer, employer, and lecturer. He runs a startup with 15 staff, has educated practically 5 lakh college students worldwide, and has constructed 15 AI instruments which might be fixing actual issues for actual folks. He has additionally, only in the near past, met UN Secretary-Basic António Guterres. He did all of this earlier than he completed faculty.
The nine-year-old who taught himself AI
28 Jul 2026 | 16:22
How do you train youngsters about cash and monetary duty?
Raul was 9 years previous when he started instructing himself synthetic intelligence. Not in a particular faculty. Not with a tutor. By himself, with curiosity and a telephone and the sort of targeted dedication that almost all adults can’t maintain. The turning level got here when his father bought a job at Adobe. “I gained free entry to all of the premium instruments, which allowed me to find out about AI,” Raul informed UN News. “After that, I created my robotic, generally known as MeBot, for a faculty science venture.” That faculty science venture grew to become the start of one thing a lot bigger.Largely self-taught, Raul constructed his first robotic on the age of 12 and has since developed over 15 AI instruments. He has suggested the Kerala and Dubai governments on the best way to combine AI into public companies. He has spoken at main expertise firms and worldwide conferences. And he has constructed a social media following of 5 lakh folks on his account, “Raul the Rockstar.”
Why he employed his personal father
Raul’s father, Aju Joseph, is just not a small title within the company world. He has labored for Amazon, Adobe, Wipro, and IBM, firms that almost all professionals spend whole careers making an attempt to get into. And now he works for his son. When requested why he introduced his father into the corporate, Raul’s reply was each sensible and surprisingly self-aware. “I can achieve as a lot data as I need from my telephone, however I haven’t got his expertise,” he stated. “He has labored for firms like Amazon, Adobe, Wipro, and IBM, so I can study from him. Additionally, to be sincere, it was good for my advertising and marketing.” He’s 16. He already understands the worth of expertise he doesn’t but have. And he isn’t too proud to rent somebody who can train him, even when that somebody is his personal father.
ThinkCraft Academy , studying AI like a recreation
Raul’s startup, AI Applied sciences, runs ThinkCraft Academy, the place college students from IITs, IIMs, prime overseas universities, and company establishments decide up AI abilities as simply as enjoying a recreation on their telephones.Deccan Chronicle The philosophy behind it’s simple: AI shouldn’t be intimidating. It mustn’t require a pc science diploma or years of technical coaching to know. It needs to be accessible, to college students in villages, to professionals in workplaces, to anybody who needs to study. By means of ThinkCraft, Raul has educated practically 5 lakh college students worldwide. The attain is genuinely world, with distant staff from world wide contributing to a enterprise that began in a Kerala family.
The AI instruments fixing actual issues
Among the many 15 AI instruments Raul has constructed, RESQ AI stands out for its function. “Should you’re concerned in an emergency scenario, the software will inform you what to do, and which legal guidelines apply. It can join you with a lawyer and likewise assist the lawyer to craft a method to win the case, by taking a look at hundreds of comparable instances,” he defined to UN Information. Different instruments embody MeBot, ZapGap, Investo AI, and FeedFye, every designed round a selected real-world want reasonably than constructed merely to reveal technical functionality.
From Pathanamthitta to the United Nations
Raul’s achievements have led to talking engagements at main expertise firms and invites to worldwide conferences, together with the 2026 India AI Summit in New Delhi, the place he was launched to Amandeep Gill, the UN Particular Envoy for Digital and Rising Applied sciences, in addition to UN Secretary-Basic António Guterres. He has additionally been shortlisted as a finalist for the World Training Medals 2025, a worldwide competitors based by HP to highlight modern work utilizing synthetic intelligence to rework schooling and shut studying gaps, with finalists from 12 nations. Behind his achievements are his mother and father, Aju Joseph and Sheba Ann, who’ve seen their son develop from a curious child experimenting with AI into a worldwide youth icon.
The message for each Indian baby and mother or father
Raul John Aju didn’t come from privilege. He got here from curiosity. He didn’t have a roadmap. He had a telephone, free entry to Adobe instruments, and a thoughts that refused to cease asking questions. He’s 16. He employs 15 folks. He pays his father. He has met the UN Secretary-Basic. And he’s nonetheless in Class 12. From the peaceable streets of Pathanamthitta to the halls of the United Nations, Raul John Aju’s journey proves that innovation has no age limits. The way forward for India’s AI story is being written by an adolescent in Kerala. And he has solely simply begun.
