The Texas Freeze of 2021 had a death toll in the hundreds. In mid-February, a snowstorm traversed the state, leaving behind freezing rain, icy roads, and piles of snow. The extreme cold caused pipe bursts and cut millions of home and business owners from the roads and, even worse, Texas’ independent power grids. Without power, many were in the dark and, worse, the cold for days on end.
This tragedy led Texan Stanford OHS students Sumedha (“Sumi”) Katakam (‘26) and Andrew Mullikin (‘25), who lived through this storm, as well as Keshav Narang (‘24), to look for a way to improve energy accessibility for homeowners.
Later, Ethan Ish (25’) and Noah Balough (25’) – both from California, and neither strangers to frequent power outages – joined the team. Today, Katakam, Mullikin, Ish, and Balough are (respectively) the CEO, CMO, CTO, and CFO of ASK Solar LLC (ASK).
“We didn’t know each other at all before coming into this,” said Katakam, interestingly. They were brought together in 2022 through the Start-Up Incubator Club at Stanford OHS (now the Business Launch Club), Katakam, Mullikin, and Narang (the latter of whom parted ways with ASK in 2024) began working on their solution to home energy inaccessibility. In their brainstorming, they looked into several different sustainable energy sources before zeroing in on solar.
Today, over 7.3 million homes in the United States are powered by solar panels, which harness the electromagnetic radiation (light) from the sun to generate energy. They contain photovoltaic (PV) cells that generate an electric current in response to sunlight, making them effective for decades.
Therefore, solar is a good alternative energy source that takes advantage of one of the most abundant natural resources on the planet: sunlight. In the residential sector, its widespread usage could make power regularly accessible for areas that would otherwise be affected by frequent outages as well as low-income communities. Furthermore, solar energy usage does not have the environmentally detrimental byproducts associated with natural gases and coal.
However, solar panels – and the related cost of energy storage – prohibit many from making the switch to solar. Typically, lithium ion batteries serve as a cache for the excess energy generated by solar panels. Without them, panel owners are left having to pay for electricity at night or during weather events when there is no sunlight. If power is even available, these hours are when it is at its most expensive. As Mullikin puts it, “you can lose up to 50% of the energy you produce by not managing it efficiently.”
Lithium ion battery units tend to go for $10,000 minimum, and they last a fraction as long as solar panels themselves, meaning they will need to be repurchased over the course of the panels’ lifespan. Katakam explained “solar energy needs to be available, but it just isn’t because of the cost barrier.”
This is where the ASK comes in: they have proposed a graphene and silicon hybrid supercapacitor that can be integrated into solar panels themselves to store energy, eliminating the need for a battery unit.
The utility of batteries comes from their high energy density and low self-discharge (i.e. they retain charge for longer periods). On the other hand, supercapacitors can charge quickly and have a long lifespan, allowing ASK’s design to “match the lifespan of a solar panel much better” according to Ish.
As an added benefit, they can be made of carbon-based materials, which are not only cost-effective but also far greener than lithium. Therefore, ASK’s hybrid supercapacitor incorporates the best of both worlds – all for an affordable price.
Their business model will focus on licensing their design to a total available market of around 2 billion dollars. There are two groups that would be involved in their product’s supply chain that are not, as of yet, closely related, that ASK wants to link together: companies that manufacture solar panels, and companies that work with supercapacitors.
ASK must incentivize panel manufacturers to implement the hybrid supercapacitor design over traditional battery storage. Establishing this “three-way triangle relationship,” Balough said, between ASK and the two previously mentioned groups, will fundamentally alter the industry forever: “solar companies would seek to cut ties with energy storage companies, and wouldn’t have to rely on them anymore.”
In 2023, ASK Solar LLC won the top prize in the Energy and Environment Sector in the Conrad Challenge. Furthermore, they received the grand award (beating out over 900 other teams) of $20,000 in legal services, which they used to file for their provisional patent. Later, through Katakam, the ASK Solar was awarded the 2024 Be More Grant, which gave them $10,000 to put towards developing a proof of concept and a prototype. Currently, their main goal is to build partnerships with national labs and pursue grants through America’s Seed Fund.
By collaborating with professionals and researchers in the solar industry and beyond, ASK grows every day. They hope that “in 5 years, people will have significantly cheaper energy storage because of us,” as Ish said.
Their advice for high school students who want to start their own company is to face your fears and go for it! For aspiring entrepreneurs and their projects, there are many opportunities to gain funding or professional partnerships, even outside of the Conrad Challenge. “That’s really how we got started with this whole thing,” said Katakam. She names the Diamond Challenge or the Blue Ocean Competition.
However, they also acknowledge the difficulties that come with the territory: “when we talk to people [in the industry], of course, they know we’re in high school,” said Mullikin, “so we need to bring something to the table.” In their case, it was their patent, but that does not mean that you need to have one to get started – it begins with having an innovative idea.
The team also experienced other difficulties associated with their lack of experience and being students. For one, people you approach for advice may break your trust and try to steal your intellectual property. Ish emphasized the importance of keeping your ideas under wraps when you can, and finding a trustworthy mentor (or multiple). One of theirs is a CEO of a company in the solar industry, who they initially contacted through a cold-email (and they still make him sign a non-disclosure agreement). Also, as is true for anyone beginning a start-up, there is an endless amount of hard work involved.
Despite the states-wide distance between the members, and with some now in college, ASK is a close-knit group. On an average day, you’ll probably find them hard at work in a Zoom call, discussing what they learned from a mentor, reading up on the latest industry research, or tweaking their prototype – or maybe just teasing Katakam.
She said that, “despite being online, we’ve been able to become not just good colleagues, but also amazing friends,” highlighting that their success has been made possible by each of their contributions. “Even though it might get us a little bit off topic (especially Ethan),” she joked, “our long-term bond has ultimately been one of our strongest assets.”
Sumi • Oct 30, 2025 at 8:26 pm
Wow this is amazing!!