Gobinthirna was born in Vanni, Sri Lanka, in 1997. Life threw him a lot of challenges - he changed schools 9 times while moving homes 21 times during the height of the war and ended up losing everything except for one bag. Amidst all this, he saw a computer for the 1st time in 2005 and was enamored by what it was able to do. Someone told him about the search engine “Google” in 2009, and he started learning everything he could including software design, web design & graphic design. He spent all his spare time hanging around in internet cafes. He started doing projects locally and earning a few hundred Rupees for it. His mother and aunt pawned their jewelry and bought him his computer in 2011. There was a catch – there was no power in his home, so the computer was left at his aunt’s house in Vavuniya. He would go there for the weekends and come home to attend school on weekdays. After some time, the power came to his village so he brought the computer and kept at a neighbor’s house, which I used for one hour a day. After school, he worked in the industry for 5 years including networking within the Yarl IT Hub community which exposed him to overseas clients. In August 2019, he got his first UX design project from the US via LinkedIn. He finished in 5 days with almost no sleep and was paid about $1,500. That gave him confidence to continue building his company, which has completed 60+ projects, worked with 40+ clients from 16+ countries!

Ara Ehamparam

Nov 25 • LK

Dunya Habitats' founding team is made up of siblings (Sugeevan and Sumi Shanmuganathan) and Dr. Shivajan Sivapalan who came together to support Sugeevan’s founding vision to help minimize food scarcity issues in Indigenous and refugee communities.

Ara Ehamparam

Nov 21 • CA

17-year-old entrepreneur Anjalee Narenthiren, founder of Startup Dojo, chats with Tea Drops CEO & Founder Sashee Chandran about how she started her multi-million dollar company by betting her life's savings on her brilliant idea.

TamilCulture (TC)

Nov 19 • CA

We're excited to bring you our next Tamil Innovators Spotlight in partnership with Startup Dojo and Tamil Women Rising. Our featured innovator is Sashee Chadran, founder of Tea Drops, which has quickly become a multi-million dollar business that has caught the attention of eyes spanning Tory Burch and Michelle Obama.

TamilCulture (TC)

Nov 09 • CA