Last Week, Forbes India released their 2021 edition of the Forbes 30 under 30 list, recognising young talented artists, entrepreneurs and content creators in India. This year, 13 incredible women doing diverse – but equally inspiring – work, have made it onto the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list!
The Forbes 30 under 30 list includes people from varying backgrounds – education, art, entertainment, science, healthcare, and more.
From engaging in artistic and social work, to technological development, the women in this year’s list are a force to be reckoned with.
So, without further ado, here are the inspiring women who’ve made it onto the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list!
Priyanka Das Rajkakati
Priyanka Das Rajkakati is all about her unique personality and tremendous talent. She is a 29-year-old space scientist and a PhD student at the ISAE-Supaéro (France). In addition to this, she also loves painting, creating illustrations, graphic designing, and origami!
Priyanka has been selected to send her artwork to the moon as a part of an international Moon Gallery Project. Her artwork Bhedadīpikā – An Illustration of Duality, is a fusion of the scientific and creative sides of her mind. It is based on her own duality – as an artist and a researcher.
The name Bhedadīpikā is inspired by her Indian roots and Vedic influence.
Keerthi Reddy Kotta
Keerthi Reddy Kotta is a 24-year-old entrepreneur from Telangana and holds a Master’s degree from London School of Economics.
She is the Co-founder and COO of StaTwig, a Hyderabad based cloud solution company. StaTwig builds a blockchain-enabled vaccine supply chain management platform that provides complete transparency to stakeholders.
Her company has also won the World Economic Forum’s Global Innovator’s Award for its valuable contribution.
Maalavika Manoj
Maalavika Manoj, popularly known as Mali, is a Mumbai-based singer, songwriter, and composer. Her music captures the veracity of classic pop from the 70s and 90s and is mainly centred around mental health and well-being.
She initially studied business administration, in the hopes of landing a high-paying corporate job. However, the pull of music was stronger and she gave in to her calling as an artist. She completely committed herself to pursuing music and living an adventurous life.
Her latest single ‘Absolute’ was a huge hit. The lyrics explore how the privileged misuse the power in their hands and leave those inferior to them to suffer.
Keerthy Suresh
A 28-year-old Tamil, Telugu and Malayali film star, Keerthy is best known for her performance in 2018’s Telugu film Mahanati, portraying the character of a late Telugu film actress Savitri.
She also won a National Film Award in the best actress category for the same.
She is currently working on several major South Indian film projects and is all set to make her Bollywood debut with director Amit Sharma’s Maidaan, opposite Ajay Devgn.
Poulomi Pavini Shukla
This 28-year-old Supreme Court lawyer strives to provide orphaned children with a fair chance at an education and career.
Her struggle to help and empower these children started when she was in college. A young victim of the Bhuj earthquake approached her to seek help with her education. Poulomi researched about schemes and scholarships which could help that girl get admission, but was surprised to find that no such policies existed.
She took it upon herself to fight for these children. In 2015, she co-authored a book “Weakest on Earth—Orphans of India”, and filed litigation seeking reservation for orphaned children in 2018.
This led the National Commission for Backward Classes to consider orphans as OBCs for educational and career opportunities. Since then, several states have made various changes such as providing reservation for education and financial assistance to orphans.
Neelam Jain
At 26, Neelam is the co-founder and CEO of PeriFerry. PeriFerry is an inclusive organisation that focuses on helping place transgender people in companies that offer them sustainable jobs.
Neelam is a former Goldman Sachs’ employee who always felt passionately about helping people in the LGBTQIA+ community. She realised that even though there are many organisations working towards the well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community, none of them actually help in uplifting their socio-economic status.
So far PeriFerry has helped over 85+ transgender people find employment. Their mission is to provide employment and create a safe work environment for transgender people.
Neelam Jain has made it on the Forbes 30 under 30 List alongside her COO Nishant Agarwal.
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Nishita and Nikita Baliarsingh
Nishita Baliarsingh and Nikita Baliarsingh are 23-year-old entrepreneurs. The Odisha-based sisters are the co-founders of Nexus Power and are working towards building an EV future beyond lithium-ion batteries.
The idea of Nexus struck them in April 2019 during a random conversation about electric vehicles, which made them realise the lack of efficient batteries in the EV industry.
Nexus batteries are manufactured by procured crop remains, which makes the batteries eco-friendly and also biodegradable. This also helps farmers earn extra income on the side.
Nexus Power is expected to go commercial in 2022 and has also received a grant worth 4 lakh rupees from the government of India, under its TIDE programme.
Niharika Kapoor
Niharika Kapoor is the APAC lead for YouTube social support and community operations. She is the first woman vertical business head at YouTube India, and also the youngest one, at just the age of 28.
Niharika joined Google right after her graduation as an Associate Account Strategist. Her job involved providing support to Google advertisers, both small and medium businesses. In the next 2 years, she moved to Youtube India as a partner manager. She closely managed upcoming creators, focused on revenue development and hosted events and workshops.
In 2020, Niharika took up her new role as Asia Pacific Lead (APAC) for YouTube community & social media support operations, making her the youngest and the first woman to ever don that role at YouTube India.
Biraaj Dodiya
Biraaj Dodiya is a 27-year-old artist, born in Mumbai and living and working in New York. Being born in a family of artists her love for art goes way back. Biraaj’s work involves drawing, painting and sculpture installation art. Though she’d been learning about art since her childhood days, it was only after attending the Art Institute of Chicago and NYU that her passion for art became conscientious.
Last March Biraaj made her debut solo show at Kolkata’s Experimenter Gallery which showcased some of her paintings and sculptures. Her future plans include gearing up for an exhibition with Experimenter at Bikaner House in March and also a fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, a residency programme in Umbria, Italy, starting in 2022.
Vaishali Gupta
At 27, Vaishali Gupta is the Head Of Brand Marketing and one of the co-founders of mCaffeine, which is disrupting the personal care market in India by being the first vegan, caffeine-based personal care brand. Vaishali is a BTech graduate in electronics and communication engineering, from Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.
She made it onto the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list alongside her co-founding partners Saurabh Singhal and Mohit Jain.
Shefali Vijaywargiya
Shefali Vijaywargiya is a 28-year-old Brand Manager for Amul Kool. She joined Amul as an Area Sales Manager in 2016, after her MBA from the Institute of Royal Management. Her first task was to launch diced cheese in Gujarat. Her gender became a major challenge for her as the trade partners did not take her seriously, owing to her young age and gender.
But this didn’t break her spirit and she refused to give up! She thrived on building professional relationships with top buyers in the industry. She also organised events, conferences, product demonstrations. Within two months, her efforts managed to grab 30% of the market share. This struggle prepared Shefali for the pandemic and despite all the roadblocks, she came out thriving.
Niyati Mavinkurve
Niyati Mavinkurve is a digital content creator alongside her husband Abhiraj Rajadhyaksha. They’re popularly known as Abhi & Niyu. The couple travels the country making travel vlogs, and fetching stories from places where people wouldn’t think to look.
Before becoming a content creator, Niyati was a Chartered Accountant and a freelance writer, while her husband Abhiraj was an ad video producer.
Niyati and Abhiraj create content focusing on societal issues and spread awareness by making them fun and educational. In the past year, their channel has gained over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, as well as over 1.5 million followers on Instagram. Niyati has been featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list along with her husband Abhiraj.
Tripti Dimri
Tripti Dimri is an Indian actress and at the young age of 26, she has become one of the most critically acclaimed actresses of 2020, following her fierce performance in Anushka Sharma produced Bulbbul on Netflix.
The young actress is also known for her role in 2018s Laila majnu and is gearing up for more challenging roles across mediums.
Congratulations to these wonderful and talented women who are raising their power and achieving their dreams. Let them be an inspiration to all of us – that with hard work and determination anything is possible.
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