Rehaan Anjaria

  • Civic Tech
  • Research
  • AI
  • Always Building

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  1. April 2020 – May 2021

    • COVID started, end of 7th grade.
    • Started first business, rehaan_designs, sewing hand made face masks at local pop up shops and built an online presence
      • $2k in sales over the course of the year
    • Started flying drones for fun

  2. September 2021 – May 2022

    • First year of high school, wanted to pursue fashion design, interested in starting a business.
    • Tried reselling shoes. Lost money. Spent money.
    • Worked at an ice cream store
    • Bought my first real drone (DJI Mini 2)

  3. September 2022 – April 2023

    • Joined the Cambridge Youth Council
      • Working with local gov to advocate for youth-related policies
      • Advocated for free menstrual products in public spaces
    • Took a Harvard Extension School class called Grand Strategy in International Relations and US Foreign Policy
      • Loved it
    • Took AP Computer Science A
      • Learned Java, fell in love with computer programming
    • April: Had back surgery, out of school for 2 weeks
      • Watched the free online lectures for the course CS50 everyday. Learned C, Python, and Flask.
        • My first intro to web development

  4. Summer '23

    • Turned the mini Flask app into my first website: building a club portal for my school
    • Fired from an escape room, worked at a pizza restaurant
    • Started a commercial drone business with a friend. Got scammed a couple times.

  5. September 2023 – May 2024

    • Started Drone Club at high school with a couple friends, teaching kids how to fly drones
    • Co-Chair of Cambridge Youth Council
      • Became a youth advocate on Family Policy Council (the powers of Cambridge)
      • Worked on youth mental health awareness campaign
    • Began working on a new project with a friend: CRLS PathFinders, connecting kids in my high school to resources in my city (Cambridge, MA)
    • Continued the club portal website, learned about web frameworks and full stack development

  6. Summer '24

    • Built out the PathFinders website in full (no AI), with auth, db, caching, SSR, design, full stack, all of that. Ready for users in the beginning of the year.
    • Continued drone business, filmed weddings, car commercials. Slow, but finally profitable.

  7. September 2024 – May 2025

    • Applied, rejected, and accepted to colleges (Go Trojans!)
    • Final year as Co-Chair of Cambridge Youth Council
      • Represented Cambridge at the annual National League of Cities conference in Tampa, Florida. Won 3rd place and $2k for a video I directed and edited showing where we see the future of cities in 100 years. Proceeds went towards the youth council.
      • Planned, built, and helped design mural for high school
        • Made a documentary about the whole process
    • Officially launched PathFinders, hosted events, built up the website.
    • Formed a web dev team to keep the website live
      • Taught 3 younger students how to manage and upkeep the website
    • Graduated high school
    • Started a documentary about religion in the 21st century.

  8. Summer '25

    • Got a driver's license, expanded drone business.
      • Filmed events, weddings, finally made some decent money
    • Built portfolio website for college
    • Built website for my neighbor who is a muralist, mapping his murals in Cambridge
    • Fixed a friend's mom's documentary portfolio website
    • Continue filming religion documentary

  9. August 2025 – December 2025

    • Started college
    • Joined USC's most exclusive startup accelerator, TroyLabs, on the Tech division
      • My first real exposure to structured entrepreneurship
      • (Kind of) worked on an AI bookmark startup
      • Met amazing people
      • Now I want to build a startup
    • Finally learned about AI and all the things
      • Skeptical about AI coding
    • Won first place at a hackathon with 2 friends.
      • Built my first civic tech tool; called it MapCzar
    • Helping start iOSC, USC's very first (and only) iOS mobile app development club with friends
    • Networked at LA Tech Week
      • Met really cool people
        • Helped a friend build his fragrance e-commerce site
    • Began building a team of people to help me build my civic tech startup

  10. January 2026 – May 2026

    • Back from winter break, hitting the ground running
    • Worked for (and stopped working for) an AI + Language startup
    • Finally convinced on AI coding
    • Another semester with TroyLabs
      • Worked on AI healthcare startup
        • Cool people
    • Found amazing developers for CityWise (not MapCzar any longer)
    • Partnered with AI for Good club at USC for research
    • Officially launched iOSC
    • Spoke at dozen or so neighborhood councils around LA
      • Trying to see how residents thought about information access
      • Building for them, not for me.
    • Started working for Crosstown Media, a journalism startup based out of USC
    • Launched CityWise
    • Officially incorporated Visic Tech
    • Started a documentary about a Chinese street stall right outside campus

  11. Summer '26

    • Back in hometown of Cambridge
    • Networked at Boston Tech Week
      • Met some cool people
    • Building relationships with Cambridge gov through Youth Council connections
    • Met and called with many cool people building civic tech, AI, local gov, or mapping projects around the world
    • Conducted informal research with USC PhD student about creating conversational tool for LA Councilmembers
      • Conducted dozens of user interviews for this
    • Vibe coded civic tech projects and posted them on LinkedIn
      • Learned about RAG, MCP
      • Started reading some research papers about latest advancements in AI
    • Planning a hackathon for LA Tech Week
    • Expanded and built new features for CityWise
    • Continued work for Crosstown Media
    • Building network of civic engineers