Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Lohrli.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
About a year ago while I was still a student at UCSD I was spending my summer interning at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I had become good friends with my co-worker and he suggested we enter a competition together to build software to help fix city infrastructure. I spent my days after work at Caltech hacking together a proof of concept that used AI to automatically detect potholes. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the competition and after my internship, I stopped thinking about the idea.
Fast forward to March of this year, I had just graduated from UCSD and maybe I had watched too much Silicon Valley on TV, but I really wanted to create a start-up. I got my roommate and my school friend together and we discussed different ideas and concepts. I ended up pitching them the pothole idea and they loved it. We started fleshing it out and thinking about different avenues we could take it.
Right around this time, I stumbled upon a hackathon hosted by ScaleSD (Smart Cities Accelerator Labs & Environment San Diego) which was geared towards tackling some of San Diego’s prominent issues. We attended the hackathon, hacked for more than 24 hours straight, and won. We were the only team that created a minimal viable platform and live demoed it during the final presentation.
After winning, ScaleSD invited us along with some of the other teams to join their two-month innovation program. The program was meant to help us refine our idea, continue development, and create a business model. Each team presented their progress through a series of three eliminations rounds. We won first place in the program.
Since March we’ve made a lot of progress and have all learned so many lessons. We’ve met with city officials to discuss integrating our solution into city vehicles and just recently met in the Mayor’s office to pitch our idea.
It’s been an exciting ride thus far but it’s just the beginning. I can’t wait to see what’s next as we continue building our product and finding new ways to help improve San Diego’s roads!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t been the smoothest road to get to where we are but the continuous support from our mentors and interested parties has helped us stay motivated. Coming from a pure tech background it’s been quite a switch getting into the business side of things. I find myself at meetings almost every week where I need to pitch the product to audiences of all sizes which is still a skill I’m developing. Additionally, there is still a ton of work to do in developing our platform and we face new problems every day. It’s definitely a struggle finding time to do everything but this is part of the journey and every milestone we hit pushes us forward.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about RoadReader – what should we know?
At RoadReader we are using advanced image classification techniques and machine learning to automatically identify road hazards and assess road conditions. Our goal is to improve infrastructure conditions through near real-time road status tracking and optimized repair processes.
My background is in computer engineering and I do a little bit of everything at RoadReader. Being that we are a team of three we all must wear multiple hats, however, I try to spend most of my time developing.
I always hear people complaining about how bad the roads are here in San Diego and it makes me proud to be able to tell them that I’m working on a solution.
What sets us apart from others in the field is the way we are obtaining our data along with the way we process and synthesize it.
Our approach combines the use of city municipal vehicles and daily commuters to collect frequent and consistent road data. This data is then processed autonomously by our AI algorithms to detect hazards and classify the condition of the road.
What we hope to create is a platform that cities worldwide can use to analyze, maintain, and repair roads.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I believe that being resilient is key to achieving success not just in the start-up world but in life as well. There will always be challenges that seem impossible to solve and situations that seem to have no finish line but getting through those are what seems to create the most growth. A friend told me something that will always stick with me, “comfortable in chaos”, and this is a saying that I live by every day now.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://roadreader.io/
- Phone: 3107417127
- Email: chad.david.lohrli@gmail.com
- Instagram: chad.ai
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadlohrli/
Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
