Anyone who owns a laptop computer understands that to have it stolen would be a nightmare. E-mails, business reports, class notes, personal files—all in the hands of a total stranger. What if there were a way to get that laptop back and catch the thief in the process? Well, now there is.
One year ago, Ravi Hariprasad M’01 was seeing patients as a fourth-year medical student, when his car was broken into and his laptop stolen. Not only did he lose a $2,000 computer, but he lost a massive amount of important data. Driving home that night, with glass covering the seat next to him, Hariprasad came up with an idea for a program that could make it possible to track stolen laptops over the Internet. When he rose the next morning, he discovered that the Wharton School had a business-plan competition and the deadline was noon of the same day. “I found out about the competition at 9 a.m.” He got the proposal in on time and won first prize for best Internet and information-technology concept. After further development of the concept, it went on to win prizes at the MIT, Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter, and Nantucket business-plan competitions.
Hariprasad has interrupted his medical studies and now lives in Boston, where he has formed the company Lucira Technologies and continues to develop this tracking concept for other devices, such as cell phones and Palm Pilots. The original Lucira Pinpoint Program uses only 100k of memory and is available for free download on the Internet. The user must first register the program online and print out a card with a number on it.
If this person’s laptop is stolen, he or she simply goes to a phone, calls Lucira Technologies, and gives the number on the card. Company employees can pinpoint the location of the computer when the thief (or anyone unlucky enough to buy the stolen computer—“If you’re going to buy a hot laptop,” he suggests, “make sure you get a receipt.”) signs on to the Internet. Lucira Technologies immediately relays this information to the police, and the laptop is returned. This can be done from anywhere in the world, and the software is indetectible once installed. The only way to keep the computer from being tracked down is to physically remove the hard drive.
Hariprasad likened his sudden success to a movie: “I just sit back and watch. At some point it starts to seem surreal.” His company is working on many advancements in the new field of Internet tracking and plans to expand into Europe and Asia.
Though he plans to complete medical school eventually, Hariprasad says, “I can’t see myself going into clinical medicine in the near future. Right now my company needs me.” Having come up with a great idea, he explains, it is hard to look the other way. “Opportunity knocks very quietly,” he says, “but if you are always listening, you can hear it.”
—Jonas Raab C’02
