THE NEXT 100 - INNOVATORS

YOUNG INNOVATORS WHO SYMBOLISE INDIA TOMORROW

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SWARM SAPIEN TANMAY BUNKAR, 30

Founder, Botlab Dynamics Delhi

“Finance is the biggest constraint in technology, not physics”

When Tanmay Bunkar, a young IIT Delhi student, read of how the Indian army was looking to import American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles in 2010, he began looking for solutions. He quickly gave up because the sugar rockets—homemade rockets using potassium nitrate—were proving expensive to build. Less than a decade later, he had found the answer—dozens of low-cost drones carrying explosives and flying in a ‘swarm’ could attack tanks far beyond the range of anti-tank missiles. By 2014, he had demonstrated a two drone hunter-killer team. In 2016, he began Botlab Dynamics, a start-up at IIT Delhi, with a loan of Rs 50 lakh from the Department of Science and Technology.