Aarti Parikh

Seldom does our childhood love for reading Noddy’s adventures put us on the Forbes website as adults.

But it happened to Ranchi girl Aarti Parikh. Once Aarti outgrew her bedtime stories, she became a software engineer who then went on to design KiteReaders, a platform for interactive and enhanced e-books for children on the iPad. Her apps (the trendy term for digital applications) have become a must-have for numerous young parents across the world.

Forbes, arguably the most famous business magazine in the world, publishes lists of powerful men and women, billionaires, among others. Its website introduces Aarti — with a thumbnail smiling picture that makes her look most non-nerdy and almost like a favourite big sister who enjoys telling stories — as an edutech entrepreneur. It is a space she shares with other out-of-the-box global women entrepreneurs such as Elena Favilli, who founded the e-mag Timbuktu, Nancy MacIntyre, the CEO and co-founder of Fingerprint, an app to make children learn maths and logic on mobiles.

Says the Forbeswoman post: “From a childhood love of books and programming, Aarti Parikh co-founded KiteReaders to produce and distribute enhanced e-books and apps for kids, partnering with children’s book authors and publishers.”

“Most people assume creative thinking is just not our cup of tea. I am glad to prove this assumption wrong,” Aarti, currently based in San Francisco in the US, told The Telegraph.

She is also a crusader for the written word. “At KiteReaders, we realise kids have easy access to mindless and addictive games and videos. We strive to produce e-books and apps that have quality content and deliver enhanced reading experience that is a joy for the little ones and that helps build critical literacy skills from a young age,” she added.

Born in Ranchi to Roshan Lal and Champa Bhatia, both entrepreneurs, Aarti did her schooling from Loreto Convent, Ranchi. She then went to Delhi Public School (RK Puram) New Delhi and then to Cleveland State University in the US to graduate in electrical engineering and did computer science courses from the Ivy League Stanford and Carnegie Melon universities.

Now, she looks after products and codes at SachManya, which she co-founded with her techie husband Chintu Parikh, a former Yahoo executive, for her brand KiteReaders.

“Aarti has been a topper, a dreamer and a fighter all along. She is also an avid reader,” proud dad Roshan Lal Bhatia told The Telegraph.

The best for the last. One of Aarti’s iPad educational apps for children from the KiteReader stable, Being Global, beat Disney at the 2012 Appy Awards. Jharkhand, collars up for taking the mickey out of Mickey Mouse.