This interview was conducted in December 2024. It has been transcribed and edited for clarity.

Mani Chadaga is a senior at Harvard College studying Computer Science and South Asian
studies. Originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, he remains focused on the intersections of
business, technology, and innovation.

HTR: If you could tell us a little bit more about your work, why you consider yourself innovative.
I’d love to learn more about the things that you’ve done.

Chadaga: Sure. So pretty much most of my free time while I’m here, I run two different
businesses. And my other business is not really a business yet. It’s just a project that I’ve been
developing, trying to make learning more addictive and trying to solve a very big problem here.
Because in America, education has very seriously plummeted, especially with things like
reading. There’s less than 31% of eighth graders even reading at their grade level. But at the
same time, all those eighth graders are addicted to YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. So
we’re trying a lot of different things, doing tests in classrooms to see if we can make sort of an
addictive reading product. So between those two things, I do a lot of work with generative AI.
Generative AI specifically to create engaging text materials, and a lot of it has been tested on real
people, and we’re trying to make a difference in various ways.

HTR: I think you named so many different fields, so what sparked your interest in computer
science, Generative AI, and education? What kind of got you interested in those things and why
did you continue to kind of grow those outlets?

Chadaga: Yeah, it’s really been one to the other. You listed computer science, education, and
generative AI, I mean computer science. My dad showed me Scratch when I was like six, and I
loved programming ever since. It’s just stayed fun the entire time. So I’ve always been doing
computer science. When ChatGPT came out, it was kind of hard not to find it super cool and try
to make something with it. And then as far as education, I’ve always been an educator. I would
say, at heart, when I was like nine, I made an online course, and 1000 people downloaded it for
some reason, which I found out much later. I didn’t check how many people had downloaded it
until, like years later, and I saw that all these people had downloaded my nine-year-old-created
course, which I thought was funny. It’s really just the things that I am naturally interested in,
how can I intersect them and create something that’s valuable?

HTR: Being part of two different businesses and the day to day of that, you must have so many
different experiences because of it. What are some of the key stories or challenges and successes
that you’ve had from being able to do that and be part of these two environments in addition to
your college life?

Chadaga: Yeah, as far as funny stories, the deal with the AI cold email business is that I work
very closely with a small number of clients. It’s not a sort of like large scale business where I’ve
1000s of customers, and the most I’ve ever had at a time in that business has been for clients,
and they they expect a lot of attention and time on their specific account, and a lot of the time
they want you to actually go and visit them and work in person on some of these, on some of

these projects. One of my clients was in Denver, and they wanted me to come and give a speech
about generative AI to all of their employees. I didn’t tell them that I was able to do this. They
just assumed that as a Harvard computer science student, I would be able to teach all of their
120 employees how to use AI. So I flew over there, and I whipped together a presentation on the
plane ride over there, and it actually went pretty well. It worked out because I had to really put
into words what generative AI is good at and what it’s bad at in order to be able to present to
these people and give them good information. And I would actually say it was through having to
do that metacognition about AI that I was able to see the other opportunity in education that I
think a lot of people have missed.

HTR: Are there any classes, professors or mentors that you’ve had on campus that have been
fundamental to you being able to achieve what you’ve been able to achieve?

Chadaga: Yeah, one definitely, Professor Malan with CS 50. When I took the course freshman
fall, it was just amazing. I thought that I had to learn a trillion different things to be able to
actually create software that people can use and find useful. After that one course, I had enough
confidence to start making things and having people use them. In fact, the summer after that
course, I released my first software product, which has since failed, but I at least had the
confidence and abilities to create it. And that was largely thanks to Professor Malan and his
course, and I’m actually working with him now for my thesis on the education work. So he’s
been really helpful in asking the right questions, helping me guide it towards something
intangible and kind of idealistic, to something much more realistic and impactful. I told you, I’m
[a] computer science and South Asian Studies double [concentrator]. I did not come here
intending to be a South Asian Studies major. I just showed up and I took elementary Sanskrit
my first semester for fun. And the professor, Nell Hawley, she’s not here anymore, but she was
just amazing, so much energy, [and] so much passion about the subject. I fell in love with the
subject too. I’ve taken seven semesters of Sanskrit since then, and I would say it’s hard to put
into words, in the short call that we have, how studying Sanskrit, Hindu philosophy, Buddhist
philosophy, all those things, has changed and improved my thinking and mindset. But it
definitely has to a very big degree. It definitely has. So I would credit her as well for starting that.

HTR: How did you go about finding your people on campus, your community, and building
that?

Chadaga: I met most of my close friends freshman year by just serendipity, like at Legally
Blonde, or in one of my freshman seminars, or just one of the people I’d met introduced me to
someone else. Just seeing who I clicked with, I think I’m really lucky in that I got a really solid
group, like the first year, maybe even the first semester.

HTR: What advice do you think you would give your younger self about navigating Harvard?

Chadaga: My younger self? I don’t know. I could tell my younger self not to waste my time on all
sorts of failed projects or failed other initiatives, but I think I learned a lot from those. To give
you a non-answer, I was glad that I came here not with too much of a plan. Not with too much
guidance, just kind of trying different things, and then figuring out what I liked and what really

could get me [to] wake up excited every day and go to bed fulfilled. I’m glad I could figure that
out on my own.
HTR: Being a Senior in Innovation, what does being an innovator mean to you, and how does
this kind of manifest itself in your daily life?
Chadaga: To me, it means solving problems, solving very tangible problems. When I think of
innovation, I think of it as a necessity. When you want to solve a problem that hasn’t been solved
yet, like for the work in education that I’m working on, it’s an unsolved problem. So by
definition, I have to come up with new approaches to even solve it. For me, what I want to do
with my life and career, is to solve big problems like that. So innovation is a natural necessity. I
wouldn’t say I like to do new things just for the sake of doing new things. You do them to solve
the problem [and] to make a difference for somebody else or for yourself?

HTR: Are there any projects or things that you’re excited to work on?

Chadaga: My current project. And then, for the next five years, I hope to work on education.