The world has always admired those who paved their way through the ups and downs of life. And guess what! We have another name added to this list of successful people. Priyanshu Ratnakar, a 17-year-old boy who started his startup ‘Protocol X’ owing to his passion for Information technologies. Let’s have a look at the extraordinary journey of an ordinary boy to achieve his dreams.





"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney

An Inception of Talent





Priyanshu was born in a middle-class family, residing in a small town of Bihar, as their first child. It was one of the remote places with limited options and facilities available for studying. But it was not all about academics for Priyanshu, as he was always more focused on gaining knowledge about different technologies since the day he was sent to school at the age of 2.5. The same reason attributed to the fluctuation of his academic results in the category of an average and below-average student. However, even failing in a few subjects could not stop him to learn new technologies, which quickly became his passion. When most of the students were busy either playing or studying for academic exams, he started learning Microsoft DOS in the third class itself.





"Take up one Idea. Make that one idea your life- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." - Swami Vivekananda









Priyanshu was so much into love for technology that nothing could stop his zeal to gain more and more knowledge. When his family could not afford a high specification computer for him, he used to stay in his computer lab after school to learn and practice different programming languages. The slow internet connectivity at that time also posed a hurdle to his learning, but he fought all the odds and was able to learn most of the programming languages till the time he entered the eighth class. Without any mentor or faculty to guide him, he became a self-made programmer by creating his first website at the age of 12 and rolling out his android application at the age of 13.





Going Ahead Of His Time





His knowledge level had already reached great heights at an early age, but it was not enough for him to justify his love for Information Technology. He went ahead and found his new interest in the world of hacking and cyber security during his ninth class in school. Priyanshu decided to put his hands in the field of cybersecurity and started learning the overall aspects of this field by watching tutorials and following the latest blogs. He was a complete master of most of the technologies by the time he completed his high schooling from Dav Public School, Malighat.





"If I have a reason to do something, and I have enough passion, I generally succeed." - Leander Paes

He was always inspired by the success stories of his idols - Ratan Tata, Trishneet Arora, Anand Prakash, and Kevin Mitnick. To create his destiny like them, he started his company ‘Protocol X’ after completing his 10th. His startup was a real replica of his learning until the, with the utmost focus on providing the best available Web & App development services.













Making Motivation A Way Of Living





As life is full of odd surprises, impacting the goals and dreams. The same thing happened with Priyanshu when the extra burden of schooling, along with running a startup at a very young age, started posing a problem. It was a time when one of his greatest achievements put him into a state of dilemma. He received a call from Google stating that his app has been selected for Devfest, a community-led developer event hosted by Google. It was a dream come true for him, and the only thing he wanted at that point in time was to attend the event. However, it was the exam time for all the 11th standard students of his school, and not appearing in the exams could result in his failure. He was disheartened with the way things were turning out for him but always kept himself motivated even when no one was supporting him. He decided to show his achievements to his parents and asked for their suggestions. His parents got convinced after seeing his actual talent and defended his decision to leave the exams and attend the fest to focus on the bigger goals of his life.





"Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light." - Madeleine L'Engle

There is always one point in everyone’s life when we need to face the disastrous state of depression. Something similar happened in the journey of Priyanshu when his startup was not getting much response. Although he was trying his best to showcase the quality of the services provided by his startup, his efforts seemed to be going in vain. He became so depressed that he did not attend school for many days. Moreover, he also stopped studying and was not taking any interest in learning new technologies. It was a time when good books and biographies of celebrated personalities came to his rescue. He always loves to read while feeling low and unmotivated, but this time he used those lessons to come out of his depression phase. And, within a few months, he completely recovered and started focusing on new strategies for his startup, which in turn resulted in more business for him.













A Bright Future Ahead





It is very well said that God helps those who want to help themselves, and it completely fits in the case of Priyanshu. From getting the first rank at State level for creating Doodle for Google to starting his startup after 10th standard, he has come a long way. With the sudden increase of internet usage in India along with rapid technological advancements since 2000, his focus has shifted to protect users from the increasing threat of cybercrimes and online frauds.





"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs

He is using his talent in the right way and has earned more than 40 certificates within a short span of his entrepreneurship journey. Not only this, the year 2019 has brought many laurels for him, which includes Male Entrepreneur of the Year 2019, Kalam Youth Leadership Award 2019, Prestigious Indian of the Year 2019, India Star Passion Award 2019 and Incredible Indian Icon Award 2019. These five honors and awards have given more confidence and inspiration to Priyanshu to make this world a better place to live through his technological advancements.





All ups and downs inspired him to work on the most advanced technologies like IoT (Internet of things), AI (Artificial Intelligence), and Machine Learning to serve the people most effectively. He has already developed an AI-based app 'Cyber Hedge' which can help users to identify the fake WhatsApp messages and news which have already taken many lives in the past two years. Moreover, he is also working on an app that can help to stop the piracy of the movies using Artificial Intelligence and planning to make it public in mid-2020.













Conclusion





"I have only one talent. I can work harder than anyone else." - Abhinav Bindra

It may look like living a dream life for everyone else, but only Priyanshu has lived with both success and failures throughout his life. His hard work and courage to achieve something unique provide us the best opportunities to face hurdles in our life. The best part of his success is that he is not only creating his destiny but also trying to bring a revolutionary change in the world through his technological findings and development.