Rajashri Venkatesh
It is surprising as well as a proud moment to see so many young Indian entrepreneurs making a huge mark in the global market. So here is a list of such inspiring bunch of bright young stars, who achieved their goals and targets at a very young age, gaining respect and recognition at an international level.
Sameer Kulavoor heads Bombay Duck Designs, an independent design studio that has worked on everything from music videos (like Pentagram's 'Lovedrug Climbdown') to brand identities (like the visual identity for the Bacardi NH7 Weekender), as well as several independent projects like the recent Blued Book, the Ghoda Cycle project and the OH FLIP! series of flipbooks that are great collector’s items and conversation points. Kulavoor's design work is minimal, as he prefers to focus on single elements, isolating them from the surrounding chaos to make people take notice. His clean, simple illustrative style effectively draws attention to the product in focus, and retains elements of Mumbai without being kitschy and using "Indian design" cliches. This week, he recommends videos, art and design for their minimalism and analog production.
Neha Juneja, co-founder and CEO of Geenway Grameen Infra, has combined her passion for the environment with her talent for product design to bring a monumental change to rural households. With Grameen Infra, Neha has designed a Smart Stove that burns biomass with incredible efficiency, reducing smoke emissions by 80% and fuel consumption by 65% compared to traditional mud cookstoves.Neha’s innovation has gained the attention of innovators around the world. Last year, the Greenway team won the Grand Prize at Intel Global Challenge at UC Berkeley and went on to be featured as one of Fast Company’s “Top 14 Design Stories of 2012” in December. Greenway was also recently selected for the 2013 Unreasonable Institute, where promising entrepreneurs pitch to potential funders and receive intensive consulting support over a six month period.
Sramana Mitra has been an entrepreneur and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley since 1994. Her fields of experience span from hard core technology disciplines like semiconductors to sophisticated consumer marketing industries including fashion and education. As an entrepreneur CEO, Sramana founded three companies: Dais (off-shore software services), Intarka (sales lead generation and qualification Software; VC: NEA) and Uuma (online personalized store for selling clothes using Expert Systems software; VC: Redwood). Two of these were acquired, while the third received an acquisition offer from Ralph Lauren which the company did not accept.
Amir grew up in the very place in which Supergiant Games is headquartered – the same home in which he took up hosting pen-and-paper role-playing sessions at the tender age of 10, and to this day he still DMs to the same group (which includes Supergiant Games’ Darren Korb). Contrary to the impression this must give, he did move out of his parents’ house for a while. After majoring in English at Columbia University, he joined Electronic Arts to work on the Command & Conquer franchise, where he was responsible for design on Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Along with his colleague Gavin, he left the studio in 2009 to form Supergiant Games in his ongoing quest to give back to gaming what gaming’s given him. At Supergiant, Amir designs content for the studio’s games and manages day-to-day operations.
Chaitanya Mehra worked as a trader at Goldman-Sachs, Forbes reported, before joining Och-Ziff Capital Management, where he is a portfolio manager focusing on energy. With $39 billion in assets under management, the firm is one of the largest hedge funds in the world, Forbes noted. Mr. Mehra graduated from Laguna Blanca in 2002, and the school touted his accomplishments in a news release shortly after Forbes published the list. Mr. Mehra's participated in Laguna Blanca's computer club and worked on the student newspaper, The Fourth Estate, and the school's literary arts magazine, Portfolio. He got his start in business early, the news release noted: He sold his first business, the Web-based myEdesk.com,while he was an upper school student at Laguna Blanca.
Phanindra Sama is the Founder and CEO of RedBus, India’s First Online Bus Ticket Booking Service. Started in 2005 , today Redbus is the largest online bus ticketing company in India. It has the largest network of bus operators (350+ and growing). It offesr over 4500 routes across the Indian map. Customers can book tickets as per their convenience – be it the phone, home delivery, physical outlets or even SMS.
Phanindra recieved his Electrical Engineering degree from BITS Pilani and Post- Graduation from Indian Institute of Science. Prior to Redbus, he worked at ST Electronics and Texas Instruments. He hails from Nizamabad, Andhra Pradesh.
Farrhad is a 20 year old Indian entrepreneur and TEDx speaker. He started off as one of the world’s youngest entrepreneurs and Rockstah Media was the first company he founded. His clientele includes Padma Shree recipients, National Award winners, corporates, media personalities and Public Sector Units. Farrhad has received several awards and recognition for his work, digital strategies and concepts. He has been featured on CNN, CNN-IBN, LiveMint, MSN.com, Yahoo! Finance, The Economic Times and The Times of India to name a few.
Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato, is the Founder and CEO of Zomato. Zomato, founded in 2008, is Indias largest restaurant guide listing over 42,000 restaurants across 12 cities in the country Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Indore. Zomato was started by IIT Delhi alumni in July 2008 for Delhi NCR and has expanded its services over a span of 4 years to 12 cities in India. Info Edge has invested over $6.5M in Zomato since 2010. Zomato has recently forayed into print as well with the Citibank Zomato Restaurant Guide 2012. Zomato is headquartered in New Delhi and currently employs 150 people. Zomato has expanded into the international markets with the launch of their Dubai section and will expand to more cities in the Middle East and South East Asia by the end of 2012.
In 2003, a 19-year old college dropout walked up to musician Vishal Dadlani at Just Around The Corner (now rechristened Eat Around the Corner), a popular hangout in Bandra, a tony suburb in north Mumbai. His purpose was simple: he wanted to manage Pentagram, a rock and electronica band started in 1994 by Dadlani. Even though he had a formal presentation ready, Dadlani was immediately sold by the energy and verve of Vijay Nair, who months later managed to get Pentagram to lead a show in Estonia with some 357 other acts — not too bad for a decade-old indie act from India.
Neil Mehta is the Founder and Managing Partner of Greenoaks Capital, a privately held global investment firm. Previously, Neil was a senior investment professional responsible for special situations investments in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia for Orient Property Group, a Hong Kong based firm financed by D.E. Shaw & Co. Neil also invested in private businesses at Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, an alternative investment firm based in Los Angeles, California. Neil holds a BSc in Government from the London School of Economics.
