NEWS: 15-year-old dotcom entrepreneur launches travel info portal

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

15-year-old dotcom entrepreneur launches travel info portal
by Deepshikha Ghosh, India Abroad News Service

New Delhi, Jan 25 - He isn't old enough to vote yet, but he is running a
company, launching Web sites and studying for his school examinations all at
the same time.

He has launched a portal providing visa, passport and immigration
information on 60 countries. And now he is set to launch Asia's first online
classroom.

And he's only 15. Meet India's youngest dotcom specialist, Siddharth Puri.

His Web site, www.visaonnet.com, inaugurated by Information Technology
Minister Pramod Mahajan Thursday, is supposedly the first such portal
offering online visa and passport forms, travel guidance and airport
information to travelers. It is a comprehensive guide to getting a visa,
complete with downloadable forms, and has clocked over 100,000 hits even
before the formal launch.

Hours before the inauguration, Siddharth was still working hard at his
terminal to be able to put up airport information by morning.

Early last year, when Siddharth was seeking a visa to go to the United
States with his father, he was struck by the long queue. "I cancelled my
trip and promptly decided to develop a Web site to provide online visa
forms. Now it has developed into something that offers much more than that,"
says the articulate teenager.

Siddharth, a student of Air Force Bal Bharti School, Delhi, started his
company, Cyberica Net Technologies, in February 2000 with just one engineer.
In March he employed his father, Praveen Puri, who gave up his job in a
multinational company to assist his son. The company today has five
employees. Its young proprietor is careful not to disclose the turnover just
yet.

"I have invested about Rs. 150,000 on a server and a little more. So far I
have earned zero money," says the young entrepreneur. After "fiddling" with
the Net for two years, which also included a brief detour for the crucial
Class 10 board examinations, it is very thrilling for him to see the
results.

He has done his share of legwork too. "It was a very trying time, calling up
embassies, listening to the harsh voices of receptionists, trying to explain
my concept," he says. He particularly remembers his encounter with a harsh
embassy employee who argued with him over the availability of visa forms.

Siddharth also hopes to have his online classroom "XI-g.com" on tomorrow, in
time for the minister to have a sneak preview. Inspired by similar sites in
the U.S., this portal would feature latest class news, homework updates,
competition information and message boards for parents and teachers. "My
classmates and I have already booked the domain name, hopefully it will be
up soon," he says.

--India Abroad News Service