Marist Alum Recognized by Forbes '30 Under 30'

Three years ago, Kulvinder Lotay was featured in the Marist Circle’s For the Record initiative. He had already demonstrated unique promise -- the native Ugandan developed a fascination with technology at an early age, and ultimately chose to pursue Computer Science at Marist. At the Poughkeepsie campus, Lotay excelled as an Honors student, winning the Mid-Hudson Regional Business Competition and presenting research at the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference. 

But recently Lotay received a more prestigious honor: a spot on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list alongside his co-founders of Pilota, a software designed to evaluate travel risk through AI. 

Pilota was born during Lotay’s graduate studies at Cornell Tech. After receiving his diploma from Marist, Lotay entered Cornell’s one-year Master’s program in Computer Science, which culminated in teams of students competing for funding to launch their proposed start-ups. By the end of his first semester, the Pilota team of four assembled, determined to pursue this project whether or not they secured the funding. 

The co-founders initially set out to create a product in the health or financial technology space, but ultimately settled on flights (one of their founding software engineers is himself a licensed pilot) in their second semester.

“You realize that whenever you do any start-up-related thing is that 90% of the time, whatever you assumed upfront is either going to be wrong or a different perspective that you need to shift,” Lotay said. 

Kulvinder Lotay ‘18 was recently named a Forbes “30 Under 30” recipient. Source: Ken Huang

The Pilota team presented their company just before graduation in May of 2019 in front of investors and their peers. They came away from the event with one of the sought-after prizes and immediately got to work. The initial product launched in October of that year. 

The co-founders originally designed the app for travel companies to monitor the risks of delays and cancellations for different flights, while also providing an easy way to communicate with their travelers. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the market for travel companies booking for large business trips and corporate conferences diminished –– so the team shifted gears. 

A second version of the Pilota product launched in July, providing health and safety information to travelers booking fights amid the worsening pandemic. 

“Before, it was maybe fifty-fifty between the company and the traveler experience,” Lotay said. “Now, it became more solely focused on the traveler.” 

Since the pandemic, Lotay has noticed a greater interest from investors in health technology. He’s currently working with another co-founder on an idea for what he describes as an “Uber for doctors,” matching users with medical professionals. The aspiration for both this new project and Pilota echoes a career goal he expressed three years ago as a For the Record recipient: 

“I don’t want to go into entrepreneurship just for making money. I want to go into entrepreneurship because I feel that technology entrepreneurship has the most potential to make an impact on any sort of problem you’re trying to solve globally.”