Byju Raveendran, Zomato’s Gaurav Gupta on WEF’s Young Global Leaders list

Team Udayavani, Mar 11, 2020, 6:03 PM IST

New Delhi: Byju Classes’ founder Byju Raveendran and Zomato’s co-founder Gaurav Gupta are among the five Indians named by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its new list of 115 Young Global Leaders on Wednesday, March 11.

Announcing the list, Geneva-based WEF said these ‘change-makers’ from as many as 52 countries are working in areas ranging from revamping of health systems to investigating corruption while using their power of the under the 40s to change the world.

The other three Indians on the list are Tara Singh Vachani (CEO of Antara Senior Living), Vinati Mutreja (Managing Director and CEO, Vinati Organics Limited), and Swapan Mehra (CEO, Iora Ecological Solutions).

Vachani-led Antara Senior Living is focused on improving the lives of seniors and is billed as the first Indian venture creating vibrant residential communities that offer a lifestyle with lifecare.

Mutreja-led Vinati Organics a specialty chemical company where she has applied innovative methods for selecting chemical processes and products that are environmentally attractive.

Raveendran, who launched Byju’s as a learning app in 2015, calls himself a teacher by choice and an entrepreneur by chance.

Gupta’s Zomato has been a pioneering food technology start-up, which he launched as a table reservation business and then scaled it up across India, the UAE, and Australia.

Mehra-led Iora Ecological Solutions is into climate action and ecosystem conservation in India.

These five Indians are joined on the 2020 list of YGLs by US women’s football team co-captain Megan Rapinoe, world-renowned street artist JR, New Zealand’s first refugee parliamentarian Golriz Gharhaman, Finland’s youngest prime minister Sanna Marin, BBC News’s Africa Business Editor Larry Madowo and Xiaomi’s international business president Chew Shou Zi.

The list also includes Muhammad Hammad Azhar (Federal Minister for Economic Affairs in Pakistan), Ugyen Dorji (Minister of Labour and Human Resources, Bhutan) and Atika Rehman (UK Correspondent for Dawn.com, Pakistan)

Under the age of 40, these individuals are among the most promising artists, activists, academics, executives and political leaders and they are “pushing boundaries, achieving firsts, innovating and breaking traditional rules to improve the world,” the WEF said in a statement.

The WEF, which describes itself as an international organization for public-private cooperation, said these 115 individuals join the Forum of Young Global Leaders, whose members have gone on to become Nobel Prize recipients, UN Goodwill Ambassadors and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

Today this Forum has 1,300 members and alumni, representing more than 115 countries and the notable members include actress Yao Chen, lawyer Amal Clooney, author Hilary Cottam, filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

This year, over half the new members, are women and nearly half of YGLs are from emerging economies.

“They have worked to solve waste management challenges by focusing on improving treatment capacity in Indian plants, and more broadly, they have equipped young generations with the tools to effectively influence politics and policy,” it said.

The new YGL class will take part in a five-year program that includes executive education courses, group expeditions and opportunities to collaborate and test ideas with a trusted network of peers, the WEF said.