At the age of 17, Dhruv Sringari and a friend developed an app that helped streamline the traffic in high school hallways and reduce classroom interruptions. They designed their digital hall pass for Methacton High School in Montgomery County, Pa., to help their assistant principal, who was looking for ways to keep students from unnecessarily wandering the hallways. The duo came up with the idea of digital hall passes, believing these would better coordinate student movement through the school day. At the time, they had no idea that SmartPass would turn into a successful startup whose services are now being used in more than 5,000 schools around the country and overseas—or that it would be bought out in December 2024 by the international school safety vendor Raptor Technologies.

Students use SmartPass to create hall passes from their school-issued devices, and SmartPass reports on their time spent out of class. Administrators and teachers have embraced it, Sringari ’21 Eng says, because it minimizes the disruption of students asking for a paper pass. Many students—particularly those who might experience hallway bullying—also like being able to schedule the timing of passes, he says. “It’s so easy to make a hall pass,” Sringari says. “It takes maybe 15 seconds. For the average student, it’s never a problem. But for the kids who might cause issues for principals, this is a great way to change the culture at their school.”

Sringari and his friend, Peter Luba, scaled their business up during their time in college, traveling to schools across the country to demonstrate how SmartPass works. Their business grew significantly in 2022, from 250 high schools to 1,000. After graduation, the duo raised seed funding through Reach Capital. In 2023, Sringari was named SmartPass’s chief technology officer and co-founder, while Luba became the company’s CEO. They’re now based in New York City. In 2024, both were named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List as co-founders of SmartPass.  —Cristina Rouvalis