A flood that tore through a village in West Bengal wiped out Suraj Biswas's childhood home, but the very disaster that displaced his family ended up rerouting his entire life story. Between studying in a village with no electricity, cracking one of India's toughest entrance exams, delivering food on a bike in Bengaluru during the pandemic and eventually building an artificial intelligence startup from scratch, Suraj's rise reads like a script written for the movies. His company today reaches more than 30,000 students studying in government schools across the country.
Displaced by the Ganga's Floodwaters
Suraj was born into an ordinary family in Ranaghat. When floodwaters from the Ganga swept away the family's house, everyone moved in with his maternal uncle in Balagarh, and it was in that same village, one that had no electricity supply at the time, that Suraj began his schooling. He later studied up to class 9 at Bapuji Vidyamandir in Chakdaha, a school where his uncle worked as a teacher. For high school he shifted to a school in Medinipur; formal schooling was never something Suraj enjoyed, but he understood early on that education was the only way to move forward in life, so he stuck with it. He eventually returned to Bapuji Vidyamandir to complete his class 12 studies.
A Family Tragedy That Pointed Him Toward Research
In 2017, Suraj's young cousin was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called cystic fibrosis and died at just three years old. The loss shook him deeply, and it was around that time that he decided he wanted to work in medical science, with a particular focus on genetics research. That single decision set the direction for almost everything that came after.
He Cleared NEET, Then Walked Away From Medicine
Suraj knew the only route into the medical field ran through NEET, the national entrance test for medical courses, so in 2019 he moved to Kota in Rajasthan, a city known for its coaching institutes, to prepare for the exam. He cleared it in 2020 with a score of 601. But a seat in a private medical college was well beyond what his family could afford, and becoming a practicing doctor had never really been his ambition in the first place. So instead of pursuing an MBBS seat, he chose to head toward research.
An NGO Long Before the Exam Results Came In
What's easy to miss is that Suraj had already co-founded a non-profit with a friend before he even sat for NEET. The organisation, called the Arnab Foundation, worked on supporting the education of children from migrant families. Running it taught him a hard lesson: fulfilling any social responsibility long-term requires financial stability first. That realisation is what pushed him to enroll at the Guru Nanak Institute of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology in Sodepur.
Delivering for Zomato in Bengaluru to Get Through the Pandemic
When COVID-19 forced every class online, Suraj relocated to Bengaluru. To cover his living costs there, he signed up as a delivery partner with Zomato while also enrolling in a school in the city. Once the lockdown eventually lifted, he returned to Kolkata in 2022, and it was there that he teamed up with three friends to launch a startup, the real starting point of his business career.
Two Ed-Tech Brands, a Patent, and Recognition in Russia
Aiming to improve the quality of education and push research forward through technology, Suraj built two brands, Assessli and Dotsin, designed to steer children in government schools toward research work. The venture went on to be showcased on India's behalf in Russia and secured a patent of its own. It also draws support from the Government of India through the NIDHI PRAYAS program, a scheme meant to back early-stage innovators.
A 25-Person Team Now Reaching 30,000 Students
Suraj's AI company employs more than 25 professionals today and, through it, support is reaching over 30,000 children studying in government schools. Its main platform, Assessli, runs on what is described as hyper-personalized intelligence and is equipped with an LLM that pulls together genomic, neuropsychological, psychological and behavioural data without any language barrier, using it to help students carry out research. The platform delivers information to every user in real time. The path from delivering food on a bike to founding an AI startup was never a smooth one for Suraj, but his persistence and his refusal to lose sight of his goal are what eventually got him there.
