23 Indian-origin entrepreneurs in Forbes' 'brightest young stars'

[naveen mishra]

23 Indian-origin entrepreneurs in Forbes' 'brightest young stars' | NDTV.com

New York: Over 20 Indian-origin young entrepreneurs are among Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's "brightest young stars" under the age of 30 from diverse fields like finance, media, sports and education, described by the publication as "prodigies reinventing the world right now."

The Forbes third annual '30 Under 30' list comprises young achievers in 15 different fields and includes icons like pop singers Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, founder and CEO of the short-form blogging platform Tumblr David Karp, tennis player Maria Sharapova and Pakistani girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai.

"This is an exhilarating time to be young and ambitious. Never before has youth been such an advantage. These founders and funders, brand builders and do-gooders aren't waiting around for a proper career bump up the establishment ladder. Their ambitions are way bigger and perfectly suited to the dynamic, entrepreneurial, and impatient digital world they grew up in," Forbes said.

The list of 450 young achievers includes 23 men and women who are of Indian-origin and are doing exemplary work like founding learning centers in India, or establishing a software company that helps teachers track classroom behavior, working as vice president at an American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida and owner of an exclusive chocolate boutique.

The young turks in the field of finance include Ganesh Betanabhatla, 28, who is the Managing director at investment firm Talara Capital.



Rushabh Doshi, 29, is a trader at financial firm DW Investment Management, who specialises in high-yield and distressed debt. Chaitanya Mehra, 28, is the portfolio manager at investment firm Och-Ziff Capital Management.

Neil Mehta, 29, is the founder of investment firm Greenoaks Capital, where he manages some $600 million, investing in industries ranging from ecommerce to insurance.

Sahil Lavingia, 21, is the founder and CEO of Gumroad, a web tool that lets creators quickly and easily sell digital products online.

Among the list of social entreprenuers is 29-year-old Karan Chopra who cofounded, GADCO, which is Ghana's largest producer of rice.

Krishna Ramkumar, 28, is the cofounder of Avanti, a group of learning centers in Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur and Chennai that provides 750 bright, low-income high school students with science and math education.

Ajaita Shah, 29, founded India-based Frontier Markets which brings clean energy to families at the base of the pyramid.

Kavita Shukla, 29, invented and patented FreshPaper a low-cost, compostable paper infused with edible organic spices that keeps produce fresh two to four times longer while still in high school.

Making a mark in the field of sports is 28-year-old Megha Parekh, who is Vice president at American football team Jacksonville Jaguars.

Amir Rao, 29, is a studio director at Supergiant Games and is co-creator of the action role-playing video game Bastion, which has sold over 2.2 million copies since 2011 and won multiple awards.

In the science category, Divya Nag, 22, is a leading name having cofounded, Stem Cell Theranostics and StartX Med.

Raghu Chivukula, 29, is Resident Physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Surbhi Sarna, 28, was inspired to found nVision Medical when at age 13, Sarna suffered from ovarian cysts that were so painful they made her faint.

Since doctors couldn't tell her if they were cancerous, a young Sarna vowed to create a technology to detect ovarian cancer quickly and early, Forbes said.

Sam Chaudhary, 27, cofounded ClassDojo, a software company that helps teachers track classroom behavior.

Sayamindu Dasgupta, 29, is a PhD student at MIT Media Lab and is vital to the Lifelong Kindergarten Research Groups Scratch project, which enables kids to programme their own games, animated stories, and art and share them with millions of other children around the world.

Pranav Yadav, 28, is the CEO of Neuro-Insight, a neuro-marketing firm that has developed a patented brain-mapping technology to investigate and improve the quality of TV commercials, programming and platforms.

Eesha Khare, 18, won the Young Scientist Award at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Forbes said her invention could pave the way to a cell phone that can be fully charged in just seconds.

Aditi Malhotra, 28, is the founder of Tache Artisan Chocolate boutique.