Four Indians are among 32 young leaders named by a prestigious global non-profit organisation as its 2015 class of young leaders, focused on shaping a brighter future for the Asia-Pacific region and confronting the most vexing challenges facing the region.
Mishi Choudhary, Sanjay Vijayakumar, Aarti Wig and Manish Dahiya have been named the Asia 21 Young Leaders by New York-based Asia Society in its leadership program that identifies and brings together Asia-Pacific's top leaders under 40.
In its tenth year, the Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative is a robust network of more than 800 young leaders from 30 nations. "They are all in their own ways focused on shaping a brighter future for the Asia-Pacific region, and confronting the most vexing challenges facing the region today," the organisation said in a statement.
Choudhary is a technology lawyer and an online civil liberties activist. She is the founding executive director of SFLC.In, a pro-bono legal services organisation based in New Delhi that focuses on free speech and expression, privacy, software patents, network neutrality, internet governance and access to knowledge.
Vijayakumar is the chairman of the board of Startup Village, India's first incubator for public-private partnerships, promoted jointly by the Government of India and private sector entities.
Dahiya is the executive director and global head of Energy Complex at Noble Group Limited and his work focuses on enabling the requirements of an energy-short world as it balances its demands for growth with the obligation of providing basic power requirements to the populace, the organisation said.
Wig is co-founder of the Indian arm of the Yunus Social Business (YSB). She helped set up the world's first Yunus Social Business Fund in Mumbai, which has funded seven social entrepreneurs across India.
This year's class of 32 young leaders represent 22 countries and are divided almost evenly between men and women, with 50 per cent working in the private sector, 44 per cent in the non-profit sector, and six per cent in the public sector.
Members of the class include social entrepreneur and champion of accountability in Nepal Narayan Adhikari, founder of a for-profit social venture that develops low-cost technology for women in the developing world Zubaida Bai from the US, founder of the first massive open online course (MOOC) platform in Vietnam Duong Giap, Mongolia's first female chancellor of a state university Yanjmaa Jutmaan and Lisa Katayama of Japan, who is empowering social activists and entrepreneurs in Japan with leadership, design, and storytelling tools.
Asia 21 alumni from India include Director of Filmkaar Productions Nitin Das, Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy, Founder and Director of Centre for Environmental Research and Education Rashneh Pardiwala and NASA Engineer Sabrina Singh-Gilmore.
