Daijiworld Media Network - Canada
Canada, Aug 4: What do most 12-year-olds usually do? They spend their time doing school homework, playing video games or enjoying games with friends. But Mana Jampala, an Indian-origin class 7 student from Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, is rewriting expectations. Alongside enjoying a normal childhood, she is successfully running an artificial intelligence (AI) startup operating across three countries.
Mana has emerged as one of the world's youngest AI entrepreneurs. She created Voxa, an AI-powered receptionist platform designed to ensure businesses never miss customer phone calls. According to her LinkedIn profile, the platform is already being used by companies in Canada, India and Cambodia.
Mana developed a keen interest in technology at an early age. She started learning coding through Scratch camps when she was just nine years old and later mastered the Python programming language. By the age of 11, she had begun building her own AI products, taking her talent far beyond the classroom.
During a visit to India, she participated in a college-level science competition and won a special award. She has also received financial support from the Medici Project of the 1517 Fund, which encourages young entrepreneurs.
Despite managing a growing startup, Mana enjoys playing football, spending time with friends and meeting other young innovators.
The inspiration for Voxa came while visiting her father's office. Mana noticed that employees, busy serving customers, were missing numerous phone calls. She realised that every missed call could mean a lost business opportunity.
This observation led her to develop Voxa, an AI voice assistant that works round the clock for restaurants, pharmacies and other service-based businesses. The system not only answers customer calls but also books appointments, takes restaurant orders, carries out follow-ups and prepares summaries of every conversation.
The platform is currently handling hundreds of calls successfully across Canada.
Mana said AI coding assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude helped her build the product. Instead of generating the entire application at once, she developed it step by step, generating smaller pieces of code before integrating them into the backend.
She then personally tested every component, identified bugs and fixed them herself. According to Mana, this gradual approach helped her gain a deep understanding of every part of the software.
Mana is not stopping with an AI receptionist. Her next project, Voxa Agents, aims to enable users to describe a task in plain English, after which autonomous AI agents will complete it automatically.
The system is expected to handle tasks such as monitoring competitors, preparing meeting summaries and tracking online conversations. Mana hopes to expand the company further and eventually join a leading startup accelerator.
At an age when most students are only beginning to think about their future careers, Mana has demonstrated how quickly the next generation is embracing the AI revolution. By creating products that serve businesses across continents, the 12-year-old has become an inspiration to young innovators and the global technology community alike.