Forbes just released its annual “30 under 30” list, which highlights some of the world’s top trailblazing artists, entrepreneurs, athletes, investors, engineers, and business owners. The class of 2021 was deemed exceptional in their respective crafts by the American business magazine and all 600 leaders have pushed past their limits in a year filled with civil unrest, a worsening economy, and a global pandemic.
In its tenth edition, Forbes has incorporated different categories into this year’s dynamic list including education, healthcare, finance, law and policy, and social impact. Half of the people who appear on this year’s “30 under 30” self-identify as a person of color, 40 percent identify as female, and 1 percent identify as non-binary. On top of that, 20 percent of the “Under 30s” hail from 62 countries outside of the U.S. including Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, and Myanmar.
Here are a few of the people of color included in the class of 2021, along with their contributions in their fields that landed them a spot in the Forbes highly competitive and highly anticipated list.
Education
Kehkashan Basu
Kehkashan Basu, 20
Kehkashan Basu is the founder and president of Green Hope Foundation, a youth-led global social innovation whose mission is to engage all elements of civil society, especially those who are marginalized, using Education for Sustainable Development. Basu, who was born in Dubai and currently lives in Toronto, Canada, joined the World Future Council as a Youth Ambassador in 2012, when she was just 12 years old and is currently the youngest member on the council. She has spoken at over 200 United Nations, is a UN Human Rights Champion and a National Geographic Young Explorer. At just 12 years old, she was elected for a 2-year term as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Coordinator for Children and Youth, making her the first minor to ever hold that position.
Green Hope Foundation has worked with 100,000 young people to build partnerships with stakeholders, implement sustainable practices within society, develop goals aligned with the UN’s “Leave No One Behind” mandate, teach the knowledge and skills needed to fight for a sustainable future, and bring awareness to their main areas of focus, which include climate change, social upliftment, land degradation, and biodiversity conservation. Basu has spread her message of peace and sustainability since 2008 and her internationally acclaimed work in children’s rights, peace and disarmament, climate justice, gender equality, and social upliftment have landed her a spot on the Top100 SDG Leaders in the world in 2020.
Danish Dhamani, 26; Paritosh Gupta, 24; and Aasim Sani, 23
Danish Dhamani is the founder of the speech-coaching app Orai. A Pakastani native who grew up in East Africa, Dhamani created the Philadelphia-based start-up with Drexel classmates Paritosh Gupta and Aasim Sani, inspired by his fear of public speaking. The program currently has 5,000 active monthly users who pay $10 a month for the service and collectively has raised $2.3 million in funding. The app allows users to record themselves speaking and receive feedback on things like how many times they said “um” in their speech. The software partnered with IBM, Comcast, intel, and others and is expected to become profitable next year.
Finance
AJ Okereke is a first-generation American of Nigerian descent and investor at Golden Palm Investments. He received his Master of Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, a masters in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School and afterwards attended Cornell University as an undergrad. As Managing Partner of Venture Capital at Golden Palm, he helps support companies that bring new services and consumer goods to Africa, including Jetstream and digital wealth firm, Chaka. Okereke is a part of a team that identifies sectors of the economy with demand and opportunities for growth through technological advancement.
Media
Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, 22
Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Muslim, a media publication run by a team of Gen-Z and millennial Muslim writers and creators. Khatahtbeh, who is from Hoboken, New Jersey, received a Knight Foundation grant in 2020 for his work in providing a safe environment for all Muslims to read and write about news concerning the Muslim identity. Muslim has attained a large social media presence with over 500,000 Instagram followers and sends a popular weekly newsletter that has 15,000+ subscribers.
Healthcare
Erika Moore, 29
Erika Moore is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Principal Investigator of the Moore Lab at the University of Florida who conducts research on the abilities of immune cells to repair tissue by using 3D models. Her lab focuses on the applications of lupus, which disproportionately affects Black women, and can lead to cardiovascular complications and death. She received her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from John Hopkins University and her Ph.D from Duke University. Moore was awarded a Space Research Initiative Grant, as well as the University of Florida’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) KL2 Career Development Award for her work in biomaterial-mediated healing.
Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako, 27
Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako is a 4th-year medical student at the Yale School of Medicine from Yaounde, Cameroon. He received a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Howard University and a Masters in Bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a medical doctor candidate at Yale University focusing on healthy equity amongst marginalized populations and racism in healthcare. Tiako has conducted research on cardiovascular health, addiction medicine, and the built environment’s impact on health. He is a fellow in the Center for Emergency Care and Policy Research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and writes about racism in medical education in the medical student magazine “In-Training”. Tiako is also the host of “Flip the Script”, a podcast covering health disparities.
Social Impact
Raby Gueye is the founder and CEO of Teach for Senegal, a nationwide movement that recruits, equips, and places local graduates to teach in disadvantaged schools in Senegal. Their mission is to enlist, mobilize and develop as many of the country’s future leaders to word towards systemic change in education. Gueye was born in Podor, Senegal and at age eight first moved to the United States where she attended Arizona State University. Through her role as an English teacher in India she was able to work with a diverse group of NGOs to increase the literacy rate of children in the country. She received her master’s degree in elementary education from ASU and in 2015 she was recruited by Teach for America to join a national group of recent college graduates committed to teaching in urban and rural public schools.
Teach for Senegal works towards their vision of being able to provide an education to every child in Senegal and collaborates with local communities to identify the root causes of educational inequity. Gueye has maintained a dedicated commitment to social justice issues and was named an Echoing Green Fellow in 2019.
Trisha Prabhu, 20
Trisha Prabhu is a first-generation immigrant from India and a current Harvard student from Naperville, Illinois. She is the creator and CEO of ReThink, INC., an award-winning, innovative, non-intrusive, patented technology that effectively detects and stops online hate. The software has a custom-built keyboard that has the power to detect cyberbullying and harmful messages and is available in six different languages. According to the platform’s homepage, more than five million students have benefited from ReThink’s services and 1,5000 schools have adopted the program into their curriculum.
Prabhu was inspired to create ReThink in 2013 after reading about Rebecca Sedwick’s suicide, a 12-year-old girl from Florida who was cyberbullied. Having been a victim of cyberbullying herself, Prabhu was determined to help end online hate and as a result, ReThink has stopped young people from posting an offensive message 93% of the time. In 2017, she was elected Illinois’ Youth Governor and is the recipient of multiple awards including Daily Points of Light Honor, awarded by the George H. W. Bush Foundation, and the Anti-Bullying Champion Award by the International Princess Diana Awards.