Anvith Yalamanchili,17, has developed a car-pooling platform that has received institutional backing too from Damac
When a student’s morning school journey in Dubai Sports City suddenly tripled from 15 minutes to 45 minutes after three new campuses opened nearby, his older brother decided to find a way to solve the traffic problem. Anvith Yalamanchili, a 17-year-old International Baccalaureate student at Dwight Global, created a free, web-based carpooling platform to reduce the number of private cars filling the area’s roads. The platform, called Community Carpool, has now attracted more than 1,000 registered users across Dubai, according to UAE news outlet The National.
My parents and friends have signed up, and the feedback has been quite positive.”
“Three new schools opened in the same area, which caused an increase in cars in that area, causing traffic and delays,” Yalamanchili told The National. “I want this to grow as much as possible in the UAE, and to expand in other areas of the world with similar traffic situations,” Yalamanchili told The National. What started as an effort to make his brother’s morning journey easier has since grown into a larger organised initiative. “I noticed a lot of these cars were coming from the same communities, like Arabian Ranches or Sports City, and they all had empty seats. It made me realise people should be able to carpool and that would speed up travel times at the busiest time of day. Yalamanchili has since built a small team of student interns who help promote the free platform in local schools and support its technical maintenance. Yalamanchili sees his non-commercial platform as a simple, community-led alternative While established transport companies and technology firms continue to offer paid school transport services in the UAE. “I think places like India and some cities in America could really benefit from this.