Meet The Founder Of Indic Keyboard: The IIT Delhi Dropout Who's Now Worth INR 750 Cr!

Long before starting his career officially, Ankit Prasad always had a goal - of wanting to be an entrepreneur and that too, someone like Bill Gates. For someone coming from Chaibasa, a small town in Jharkhand, it could be easily be called an overambitious dream.  

As a child, he loved everything about computers and it was encouraged by his father Ranjit Prasad, who bought the first-ever computer in Chaibasa. This laid the foundations for the journey Ankit was about to take.  

After completing his primary schooling in Chaibasa, the family moved to Jamshedpur when his father got appointed as a professor of Geology at NIT Jamshedpur. Both Ankit and his brother faced difficulties in learning the English language, yet they both displayed a strong affinity for mathematics and soon, it was the subject in which they found comfort.   

In an interview with the Indian Express, Ankit said, “Adapting to a new language was proving to be more difficult than expected. All the subjects that required English proficiency started to scare me and that’s when mathematics became my best friend. It required nominal understanding of the sentence, which made me feel very comfortable”.

Balancing IIT & Entrepreneurship 

In 2005, the brothers channeled their interests into web design and started developing websites for local restaurants and other small businesses that needed their help. Their business soon picked up the pace and generated greater revenue. It was in that year when Ankit became one of his school’s top achievers in the 10th board exam.  

Also read: This IIT Kharagpur Duo Dropped Out Of College & Created A Company Now Valued At INR 250 Crore!  

He was soon drawn to the air of excitement around being admitted into one of the IITs, and thus began preparing to take the entrance exams. He was admitted to a coaching institute in Jamshedpur to prepare for the IIT entrance and relied on the income from his business to support his classes. However, his problems with vision and the lack of facilities at the institute made it a rather frustrating process. Nonetheless, he persevered and appeared for his first exam.   

The first time, he wasn’t able to secure a good enough rank to make it to an IIT but he was adamant about his goal and worked hard for another year. Finally, with an AIR of 400, he succeeded and made it to IIT Delhi!  

But his study at IIT Delhi was far from how he envisioned it. For someone as creative as Ankit, who wanted to work on projects with tangible outcomes, the theory-centered academic syllabus was hard to like. As a result, he became more focused on his business ventures and started experimenting with technology use-cases.

Becoming A Full-time Entrepreneur

From the hostels of IIT Delhi, Ankit developed Touchtalent, a web-based global community that allows users to display, share, and monetize art and design in 2012. His brother has been a constant companion in all his ventures.   

According to the official description, Touch Talent prides itself in being “.. the largest community of creative individuals in Asia, fast-growing in the United States and Europe.” today.  

Soon, as the volume of his endeavors increased, the number of classes he was attending dwindled, and eventually he decided to drop out and pursue his business career full-time.  

Also read: The Inspirational Story of Balvant Parekh | The Man Behind Building an INR 7000+ Crore Empire  

After dropping out, he delved into the booming smartphone industry with the application Bobble AI and the popular Bobble Indic Keyboard. It took some time to gain popularity, and when he referred to himself as a CEO, most people considered it nothing more than a fever dream of a 21-year-old dropout.   

The Bobble Keyboard revolutionizes texting on smartphones. It uses the power of Artificial Intelligence to automatically predict stickers, memes, emojis, and GIFs and makes conversations much more interesting. It is currently worth over INR 750 crores and is a 4.5 rated app in Google Playstore with over 10 million downloads.  

Ankit’s big break came in 2018 when he made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30, and that's when people started recognizing his genius. What a great feat indeed!  

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