- Young start-up founder who took up her passion for cars and automobiles
- The transition of eMobility Fleets are inevitable, ZAP Mobility to overcome hurdles
- Electric vehicles are a cleaner, more environmentally-friendly way to travel
Featuring the incredible stories of #Womanufacturing, we bring to you the story of a young start-up founder who took up her passion for cars and automobiles to the next level. From rebuilding her father’s old car and working with prestigious General Motors to founding a start-up that provides customized charging solutions to EVs (Electric Vehicles). Here is the exclusive story of IITB alumnus Khushboo Shrivastava who is co-founder and CTO of ZAP Mobility.
It was the days when Indian cinema and popular culture of India was still busy improvising the plots of young girls playing with Barbies decked in pink dresses; Khushboo was already playing with the cars and bikes in her dreams. Unlike many other girls whose fascination with cars and bikes got strangled with societal pressure of gender stereotypes, our young machine maker Khushboo went on joining the prestigious tech school of India that is IITB and then she never looked back.
Her Eureka Story
During her graduation days, she rebuilt her father’s car which exposed her to the fascinated world of designing in the automobile sector. After her graduation, she joined General Motors in the EV section. It was then she realized the need and responsibility of providing sustainable transport solutions in India. When asked about the motivation behind the idea of her start-up ZAP Mobility she replied, “During my professional journey I met Siddharth Sridharan (Co-founder of ZAP Mobility), and we were on the same page that transition to electric fleets is inevitable, but we believed that there are many hurdles to overcome as the entire value chain was being disrupted”.
ZAP Mobility provides services like predictive battery analytics, software and customized charging solutions to electric fleet operators, manufacturers, and energy operators to optimize their batteries’ performance and extend its life.
They cater to mobility players and energy companies to improve their operations related to EVs. While explaining more about her start-up Khushboo said, “some fleet operators care about the high utilization of their fleets and the reduction of operating costs, thus to provide better options through EVS we launched a platform that provides an end-to-end platform for commercial applications where fleet operators can start planning their transition to electric vehicles”. She is a technical founder and CTO of the ZAP Mobility and aims at scaling their services to a broad range of partners and customer segments to advance efficient transportation systems.
Breaking the Stereotypes
When asked about the jokes in pop culture of not having enough girls at IIT, Khushboo laughed and said, “Nowadays the picture is changing, but yes, still, gender equality is there in IITs, especially in mechanical engineering but the culture at IITB is very inclusive, girls are not only a part of every core tech committee but also lead, be it robotics, Biomed or space projects”, she added. While talking about a discussion about the gender bias in the sector she said that it is high time for girls to get over the age-old discussion of gender bias in the sector and that opportunities are equal for all and the industry is hungry for talented individuals and does not care about genders.
There are definitely more hurdles for women in terms of work-life balance but we are smart to learn work-life integration and I have been really fortunate to have great support from my parents, husband, mentors at General Motors and IITB alumni
Khushboo Shrivastava
Co-founder & CTO, ZAP Mobility