Meet Harish Ashok, the 17-YO Chennai entrepreneur, whose voice-based assistant makes Hardware development as easy as Software

At just 17, Chennai-based entrepreneur Harish Ashok has built Zenith, a real-time, voice-based hardware assistant that promises to remove the friction traditionally associated with developing hardware.

What is Zenith?

Zenith is a real-time voice-based hardware assistant for robotics engineers. It automates firmware generation, compilation, upload, and debugging, while maintaining live project context. By handling serial communication, pin mapping, and documentation in the background, Zenith organises the entire prototyping pipeline, bringing software-level iteration speed in hardware development.

Zenith begins with a simple question: What do you want to build?

From there, the assistant takes over the heavy lifting. In a recent video shared on X, Harish demonstrated how Zenith could help build a project with an OLED display that shows temperature and humidity whenever motion is detected.

What would typically take hours of wiring, coding, library installation, and debugging is handled instantly by Zenith.

The assistant writes firmware, installs libraries, compiles and uploads code, manages pin configurations, and even remembers the entire setup from components to wiring.

Users can casually ask Zenith to replace an IR sensor with a button, check datasheets, or troubleshoot issues in real time.

By automating repetitive tasks such as serial communication, pin mapping, and documentation, Zenith helps builders to focus on the physical and creative aspects of hardware development.

Harish’s philosophy behind Zenith is that building hardware should be as frictionless as building software.

The voice-based hardware assistant helps rapid iteration from idea to prototype, offering robotics engineers and makers software-level speed in hardware workflows.

Young entrepreneur thanks for backing project

“Huge thanks to @srajagopalan for believing in me, my vision, and supporting my journey,” the Zenith founder shared on X.

“This version of Zenith was built at @ns, grateful to @balajis for the amazing environment,” he further added and thanked his investors.

“Also thankful to everyone who backed and supported me along the way: @localhosthq, @upsurgelabs, and @anannas_ai,” Harish wrote.

Additionally, he shared that they are offering $5 in credit for a limited time,  and urged users to “build something cool with Zenith and tag or quote tweet us.”

Zenith is still in the development phase, and therefore, the developer has requested feedback from the people.

Introducing Zenith - talk to build hardware.

Build hardware projects at the speed of intent.

Link in the comments. pic.twitter.com/QXUdjmCD58

— Harish Ashok (@habril27) December 24, 2025

Who is Harish Ashok?

The young entrepreneur has completed an A-level from Lalaji Memorial Omega International School this year. In 2024, he worked on an energy-saving smart home platform that reduces unnecessary electricity usage by adaptively controlling appliances through efficient IoT algorithms.

The Chennai entrepreneur’s last year’s project was a Colour Code Scanning Device that returns the hex code of the colour scanned using a probe, designed for web developers.

It detects the intensity of red, green, and blue wavelengths reflected from an object and converts them into electrical signals for colour analysis. It returns the hex code of the detected colour.

With Zenith, Harish Ashok does not just intend to build tools, but he wants to shape the future of hardware creation.

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