Mana Jampala: While most children her age are busy with school and hobbies, 12-year-old Mana Jampala has built an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that is already serving businesses in multiple countries. A Grade 7 student from Kelowna, British Columbia, Mana is the founder of Voxa, an AI-powered receptionist that helps businesses manage customer calls 24/7.
Inspired by a problem at her father's workplace, she transformed a real-life challenge into an innovative AI solution. Her journey from learning Python at the age of nine to launching her own startup, has earned her recognition as one of the youngest AI entrepreneurs.
Mana's interest in coding began at an early age through Scratch programming camps. She later taught herself Python at just nine years old and started building AI products by the age of 11.
The idea for Voxa came after she noticed that employees at her father's business frequently missed customer calls while attending to clients. To solve the problem, she developed an AI voice assistant capable of answering calls, scheduling appointments, taking restaurant orders, sending follow-ups and generating call summaries. Today, the platform is being used by businesses in Canada, India and Cambodia.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Voxa develops 24/7 AI voice assistants for service-based businesses where missed calls can directly impact revenue. The platform is designed to answer calls, book appointments, handle customer inquiries, build automated workflows for reservations, reminders and follow-ups, while helping businesses reduce missed calls, staff overload and service interruptions.
Mana says the company is currently focused on supporting restaurants, pharmacies and other service businesses, while expanding pilot projects and live deployments across Canada.
Mana Jampala's journey shows that age is no barrier to innovation, proving that curiosity, coding skills and a real-world problem-solving mindset can create meaningful impact from an early age.