Entrepreneurial Teen

Before his 18th birthday, Rahul Kavuru ’22 had created two companies with social missions.

BY SARAH PRUITT

Growing up in New Jersey, Rahul Kavuru ’22 was fascinated by stories of business owners and innovators generating buzz in the world.

In seventh grade, he and his friend, Sourish Jasti, launched CompanyRoots, a blog dedicated to the world of startups and nonprofits. So far, Kavuru, Jasti, and their team have interviewed close to 75 leaders, ranging from Nobel Prize winners in economics and chemistry to entrepreneurs who’ve competed on Shark Tank. In the interviews, they pick their subjects’ brains about their paths to success, the work they’re doing, and advice they would give to the next generation.

From the start, Kavuru was particularly drawn to social entrepreneurs who balanced their business goals with the desire to make a difference.

“They inspired me to view the problems in our world,” he says, “and figure out how to actually tackle them to make real change.”

During the summer of 2019, Kavuru worked in a pharmacy on New York City’s Lower East Side, where one of his tasks was to discard medications that were nearing their expiration date. “I saw how much medication was being wasted on a daily basis, even as millions of patients struggle without the medications they need,” Kavuru recalls. That same summer, he got a firsthand look at more real-world problems when he traveled to India to help distribute filters to more than 80 schools in need of clean water. Kavuru returned his attention to the ongoing problem of medication waste the following spring, after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I realized that if there were some sort of business model that could get medications approaching expiry to patients in need,” he explains, “it could actually help manufacturers, because they don’t have to put those medications in their warehouses and spend money destroying them.”

In April 2020, he co-founded the non-profit Altrui Foundation with his sister, Shreya Kavuru ’21, and Jasti. Since then, Altrui has partnered with generic pharmaceutical manufacturers and nonprofits to distribute more than 100 million units of medication valued in excess of $42 million through its online medical redistribution platform. The foundation also launched an education initiative, which pairs underserved students with mentors in their first or second year of college to help them navigate the college application process.

As a Sixth Former, Kavuru balances his entrepreneurial obligations with a full roster of academics and activities. In addition to playing tennis and squash, he helps lead the South Asian Society and Hindu Society, Entrepreneur Society, and Missionary Society, and he mentors a local student through the Friends Program.

This fall, Kavuru enhanced his business knowledge through an Independent Study Project working with ERC Eye Care, which provides accessible, affordable services to patients in rural India. Meanwhile, as Altrui’s CEO, he oversees the marketing, outreach, software development, and other efforts of a 20-person all-student team through virtual monthly meetings and an ongoing Slack chat.

“It’s been hard to do at school, especially with classes and tests and activities outside of the school day,” Kavuru says, “but I’m trying to put in as much time as I can. That we’ve actually created this model, and proven that we’re able to help communities in need — that’s really my motivation to continue.”