BEYOND THE ADRENALINE RUSH

Vaishnavi Joil, co-founder of India’s first and longest coastal zipline, has involved the local communities in her venture, back at her hometown, Devgad in Maharashtra. With a zeal to uplift the youth and put her hometown on the path to development, Joil shares her ideas with SIMRRAN GILL

- SIMRRAN GILL

Vaishnavi Joil CO-FOUNDER, FLYING KONKAN ZIPLINE ADVENTURE SPORTS

You co-founded India’s first coastal zipline. How did it all start?

As an IT engineer and a robotics expert, I was as far away from starting an adventure tourism company. But the pandemic happened and the dream to form a tech start-up transformed to do something to uplift the people of my hometown Devgad and put it on the tourist map. And hence came, Flying Konkan Devgad Zipline, the first and the longest coastal zipline of India. It was conceptualised as a curious idea in 2016, and finally took shape and materialised in January 2021, after years of meticulous research, planning, permissions, paperwork and several trials. However, the pandemic and the lockdown in 2020, was a pivotal point in the way the venture would shape out eventually.