College dropout to aerospace founder: How Anand Megalingam built Space Zone India
Anand Megalingam grew up in a small farming family where money was limited and education required effort. He watched his father support the family by driving a tractor. As a student, he walked nearly six kilometres to school every day. Raised in a farming family with limited means, he learned early that determination can travel farther than circumstance.
His journey was not linear. At one stage, Anand dropped out of college — a setback that could have ended his aspirations. Instead, it became a turning point. Determined to continue learning, he shifted to Aeronautical Engineering and immersed himself in the subject he was passionate about. His hard work paid off and he graduated as a Gold Medallist, proving that a difficult chapter does not have to define the rest of one’s story.
Challenges continued beyond college. Anand faced rejection, including a denied US visa application. Rather than viewing obstacles as roadblocks, he treated them as lessons. Over the years, his dedication opened doors to international opportunities, including participation in NASA-linked aerospace programmes.
Today, Anand is the founder of Space Zone India, a startup working on reusable rocket technology. For him, the answer to reaching space technology from modest beginnings lay in something more powerful than resources or privilege: the determination to keep moving forward, even when the path ahead seemed uncertain. But long before he was building spacecraft, he was simply a young student trying to create opportunities where few existed.
