We were lucky to catch up with Shashank Madala recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shashank thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The inspiration for creating Kora came from a deeply personal place—my cousins in India who have autism and the experiences we witnessed within our families. We saw firsthand how isolating and overwhelming daily caregiving could be for my aunt and uncle. Despite their love and dedication, they often felt frustrated and confused, struggling to address my cousins’ emotional needs. The lack of accessible resources only added to their challenges, making it difficult to find the right support at the right time. The stigmatization of autism in India only worsened this issue as there were no easily accessible communities or support systems of parents in similar situations for my aunt and uncle to turn to.
Seeing this, we could only imagine how many other families were facing these same exact struggles and we knew there was an urgent need for a solution. This sparked the idea for Kora as we realized how critical an app that could provide practical and emotional support would be. Our aim was for Kora to bridge the gap between caregivers and the resources they need while also providing a community to ensure no family feels isolated in the challenges that come along with caregiving.
Through the AI-powered communication system, our resource directory, and the community support forum, we hope that we have taken a step in the right direction to where every family who needs the tools can find them at their fingertips.

Shashank, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, I’m Shashank and my partner is Dhruv. We are two students who are passionate about using technology to make a positive impact in the world. Our journey into creating Kora began with a very personal connection – my cousin in India who has autism. Seeing the daily challenges that he and his family face inspired us to create something that could really help families like his.

Kora is more than just an app – it’s our way of combining cutting-edge technology with genuine care and support for families affected by autism. We wanted to create something that could help parents and caregivers better understand and connect with their children, while also providing them with a supportive community.

What makes Kora special is how it brings together several key features that families really need:
First, we have an emotion detection tool that helps parents better understand what their child is feeling, especially when verbal communication might be challenging. Parents can take a photo, and our AI helps identify the emotions being expressed.

We also included an AI assistant that parents can chat with anytime to get answers about autism, parenting strategies, or just general support. It’s like having a knowledgeable friend who’s always there to help.

One of the features we’re most proud of is our community platform. We’ve created a space where parents can connect with others who truly understand what they’re going through. They can share experiences, ask questions, and support each other – because sometimes the most valuable help comes from people who are on the same journey.

We’ve also included educational resources and helpful tools for tracking a child’s progress and preferences. Parents can keep track of things like sensory sensitivities, preferred calming techniques, and communication methods all in one place.

What really sets us apart is our commitment to making technology that’s not just advanced, but also deeply human and accessible. We understand that every child with autism is unique, and every family’s journey is different. That’s why we’ve focused on creating tools that can be personalized to each family’s needs.

We’re most proud of how Kora is already helping families better understand and support their children with autism. The feedback we’ve received from parents has been incredibly touching and motivates us to keep improving and expanding our platform.

Looking ahead, we’re committed to continuing to develop and enhance Kora based on feedback from our users. We want every parent and caregiver who uses our platform to feel supported, understood, and empowered in their journey.

We believe that technology, when designed with empathy and understanding, can make a real difference in people’s lives. That’s what Kora is all about – using innovation to create more understanding, support, and connection for families affected by autism.

How’d you meet your business partner?

We actually met through our high school robotics team last year! It’s funny how some of the best partnerships start in unexpected places. Both of us joined the team because we loved tinkering with technology and building things, but we quickly discovered we shared a deeper passion – using our technical skills to make a real difference in people’s lives.

Working on robots was exciting and challenging, but we often found ourselves having conversations about how we could apply our engineering and programming knowledge beyond just competitions. We’d spend hours after robotics practice brainstorming different ideas about how technology could solve real-world problems.

The real turning point in our partnership came when we started talking about our personal experiences – particularly about my cousin with autism in India and the challenges his family faces. We realized that while robotics competitions were teaching us valuable technical skills, we had an opportunity to use those same skills to create something truly meaningful.

What makes our partnership work so well is how we balance each other. We both bring different strengths to the table, but share the same core belief that technology should be used to help people. Working together on robotics taught us how to collaborate effectively, solve problems creatively, and persist through challenges – all skills that proved invaluable when developing Kora.

Looking back, joining that robotics team was about so much more than just building robots. It was where we found a kindred spirit in each other and discovered our shared mission to use technology for social good. From debugging robots to developing Kora, our journey together has been about constantly pushing ourselves to create solutions that can make a real impact in people’s lives.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Building Kora has definitely had its share of challenges, but there’s one particular moment that really stands out in demonstrating our resilience. We were about three months into development, and we’d just finished creating the first version of our emotion detection feature – something we were really excited about since it was core to helping parents better understand their children’s non-verbal communication.

We’d spent countless late nights coding and testing, often working through weekends while balancing our school responsibilities. The feature was finally ready, and we’d arranged to demo it to a local autism support group – a huge milestone for us.

The night before the presentation, we discovered a critical bug that was causing the emotion detection to completely misread certain facial expressions. The AI was interpreting signs of distress as happiness, which could have been really problematic for parents relying on the tool. We knew we couldn’t show it like this – it had to be perfect, because this wasn’t just about impressing people, it was about actually helping families.

Instead of giving up or postponing, we pulled an all-nighter, fueled by determination (and plenty of snacks). We traced through thousands of lines of code, rebuilt parts of the neural network, and extensively retested everything. By sunrise, we’d not only fixed the bug but had actually improved the overall accuracy of the system.

The presentation went ahead as scheduled, and the feedback from parents was incredibly positive. One mother even teared up when she saw how accurately it could read her non-verbal son’s emotions. That moment reminded us exactly why we were doing this.

This experience taught us that setbacks aren’t failures – they’re opportunities to make something better. When you’re building something that really matters to people, giving up isn’t an option. Now whenever we face challenges, we remember that night and how pushing through led to something even better than what we’d originally planned.

That’s really become our approach to everything with Kora – we’re not just building features, we’re creating tools that families rely on, and that responsibility keeps us going no matter what obstacles we face.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kora-ochre.vercel.app/#/
• Instagram: @shashankmadala
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shashank-madala-320989295/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhruv-shah-6a7210277/

Image Credits

Dhruv Shah’s photo was also attached in the step before