Inspired by a problem that plagues so many working mothers, Ulupreneur Ritu Narayan decided there had to be a better way to provide transportation for children to and from school without mothers having to leave their work. The problem, as she sees it, is not only universal—it’s generational. Her mother faced the same dilemma; she had to leave the work force because she couldn’t juggle the kids’ schedules with her work. Ritu decided the solution must be tech-based and founded Zūm in 2016, now a billion-dollar sustainable transportation platform. With the Zūm app, parents can view a profile of their child’s bus driver, along with real-time tracking and notifications about their school bus’s location and their child’s pickup or dropoff status. Zūm also allows administrators to optimize routes and provides staff with real-time data and performance reports.
We caught up with Ritu at an exciting turning point for the company. Ulu invested in Zūm when she launched; in a recent video interview, we asked her what it’s like working with Ulu.
What has been the most gratifying part of building Zūm?
Zūm has been providing a solution to an age-old problem and modernizing an 80-year-old industry that is highly antiquated, relatively untouched by technology, and very polluting and harmful for students—and that’s exciting for me
Kids today commute to schools the same way our parents and grandparents did.”
Zūm is transforming this area, using digitization and technology, to bring peace of mind and transparency to school transportation for every parent and student. In addition, we’re changing the infrastructure, and making it cleaner and more sustainable for the environment.
Tell us about the significant pivot you had in recent years.
When we launched the company, our solution was designed for parents. We were called “Uber for kids.” Then, as things progressed, we went to the first school asking them to promote us to their parents: they said, “Wow, this is a wonderful and thoughtful solution.”
It was an “a-ha” moment—we were not thinking about using our solution for schools.”
We became so successful in that solution that—fast forward, three years later—there was a pivotal point. Either we could be doing both things for parents and schools, or we could dedicate our resources and work with schools, and make a huge impact on the school transit system. We decided to put all our resources in that direction. Now we work with very large school districts commuting thousands of students. In some cases, we are taking over their entire transportation systems and digitizing and electrifying them.
You’ve had a huge milestone recently, what are your dreams for Zūm?
We are now in 14 states, serving more than 4,000 schools across the country, serving thousands of students every single day. Our big milestone was the Oakland Unified School District in California, which became the first district in the country to be 100% electric with a bi-directional charging system. What that means is that school buses are an ideal asset to be electrified, because they are huge batteries-on-wheels and are not used for transportation during the peak demand for energy in the evenings. So when buses come back to the transportation yard, they are plugged in and give energy back to the grid. It’s a win-win across the entire community.
My dream is for every single school district to have Zūm and have all 27 million students nationwide commuting on a safe, reliable, and sustainable transportation system.
