11 Indians among Young Global Leaders

Eleven Indians have found places for themselves in the list of 192 Young Global Leaders, announced by the World Economic Forum in Geneva on Tuesday.

For 2012, the forum has selected 192 YGLs from 59 countries.

Drawn from a pool of several thousand candidates, the 2012 YGLs were selected by a committee chaired by Queen Rania of Jordan and members representing international leaders from business, government and media.

The leaders are selected on the basis of their commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world, said a WEF statement.

The 2012 honourees will become part of the broader Forum of Young Global Leaders community that currently comprises 713 individuals.

There are 35 Indians that figure in this list of 'active' young global leaders.

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1. Chhavi Rajawat
Sarpanch of Municipal Government of Soda

She is an alumnus of Rishi Valley School (Andhra Pradesh), Mayo College Girls' School (Ajmer), Lady Shri Ram College (University of Delhi) and a management graduate from Pune.

Rajawat left her corporate job and city life to help develop rural India.

She became the Sarpanch Soda, 60 kilometers from Jaipur.

Incidentally, her grandfather Brig. Raghubir Singh had previously been Sarpanch of the same village.

Rajawat was honoured by former President APJ Abdul Kalam at the Technology Day function at New Delhi.

. . .

2. Subhashini Chandran
CEO and MD, Woodbriar Group Tea Estates India Ltd

Chandran is a business and social entrepreneur who owns and manages the largest privately owned tea plantation business in India with diversified interests in insurance services and real estate.

Chandran was named a 2010 Yale World Fellow.

. . .

3. Alok Kshirsagar
Director, McKinsey

He has worked with a number of leading private and public institutions during his time in the New York, London and Mumbai offices of the firm.

He is responsible for the McKinsey Asia Centre -- a special initiative to help Asian and Western companies capture the value of globalisation.

He is also committed to using his expertise to make a contribution to public policy in India e.g, for financial sector development and the provision of infrastructure finance.

Alok was educated at St.Xavier's College, Mumbai where he was a National Merit Scholar and at Oxford University in the UK where he was an Inlaks Scholar.

. . .

4. Sendhil Mullainathan
Harvard University professor

Mullainathan was hired with tenure by Harvard in 2004 after having spent six years at MIT, first as a junior faculty member and then as a full professor.

He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant' and conducts research on development economics, behavioral economics, and corporate finance.

He is a co-founder of the MIT Poverty Action Lab and most recently of the think-tank Ideas42.

. . .

5. Vandana Goyal
CEO, Akanksha Foundation

The India-based Akanksha Foundation, which currently runs nine charter schools in Mumbai and Pune, will add six more schools by the year 2015 to serve a total of 5,000 low-income children.

Students enrolled in the nine Akanksha schools have test scores comparable to those who attend elite, high-fee schools.
Akanksha uses the ASSET exam -- a diagnostic tool typically administered to India's private school students -- to assess the performance of Akanksha students.

Akanksha's schools are run from government-owned facilities.

Each of the schools operate in low-income neighbourhoods, initially taking in all the neighboring children, and then running a lottery-like programme for the remaining seats.

Schools are free for full-time students, and an after-school programme, from which the schools were hatched, is also available.

. . .

6. Binoy Job
Director, Prime Minister's Office

Binoy Job is currently director, of the Prime Minister's office.

A journalist and a serial social innovator, he was inducted in Prime Minister's Office in the second term of Manmohan Singh in 2009.

Prior to his current role, Job was heading few social initiatives with emphasis on Information Communication Technologies, Youth and Innovations.

He was Editor-in-Chief of 'Development Channel'- a news portal focussing only on 'development news'.
Job hails from a remote village Kainakary a lower Kuttanad area in Alleppey district of Kerala.

The thirteenth child of farmer parents, Job is educated in various institutes from his village school, Delhi University, London School of Economics.

He has won many fellowships in Leadership and Journalism including, British Chevening Programme on Globalisation and Leadership, International Leadership Programme of US etc.

. . .

7. Adarsh Kumar
CEO of Livelihoods Equity Connect

After growing up in India, Adarsh came to Washington, DC to pursue undergraduate study in Economics at Georgetown University.

After graduating, he returned to India to work on development issues.

He got the chance to lead the integrated rural development program of Urmul in 13 villages in Rajasthan.

After completing his studies at the Kennedy School of Government, Adarsh returned to India once again in 2000.

Adarsh` founded the All India Artisans and Craftworkers Association to increase market access and enhance incomes of craft producers in India.

Over the last two years at AIACA, Adarsh has been developing and field testing the concepts that are at the foundation of LEC.

. . .
Starting in December 2009, he has transitioned over to LEC and is working on it full-time.

8. Ashwin Naik
Founder of Vaatsalya

Ashwin, co-founder of Vaatsalya, has more than 10 years experience in the life sciences and healthcare industry.

Prior to founding Vaatsalya, Ashwin was vice president of Business Development and Informatics, Triesta Sciences, a specialty clinical research organisation involved in conducting advanced genomics based research in the field of oncology.

Prior to that, he has worked in various capacities at Molecular Connections (Bangalore/Rockville), Celera Genomics (Maryland), Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico) and Genetic Information Research Institute (California).

Ashwin has a medical degree from Karnatak Medical College, Hubli and a masters degree from University of Houston, Texas.

. . .

9. Sanjiv Rai
Founder and chairperson of ARE Technologies

An innovator and a serial entrepreneur, Sanjiv Rai has led several multi-million dollar commercialisations globally.

After leading as the principal investigator for the CHANDRA project for NASA towards setting up communication infrastructure on the moon for permanent lunar outpost, he returned to India with a social calling.

His initiatives AceWP Innovation Labs and BillionInnovators aim to unleash innovation in young minds.

Starting his education journey from a remote rural village to the best universities in the world, Rai feels from his experiences that the innovation mindset exists from rural to urban areas.

Commenting on the honour, Rai tweeted "Feels grt to be a part of the WEF-YGL community. Never quite enjoyed an alumni like this! Many thnx to all who've been kind to connect" congratulating fellow YGLs.

. . .

10. Rajamanohar Somasundaram
Founder and MD of Hexolabs

Hexolabs is a provider of products, platforms and hosted-on-demand services for mobile VAS services on the mobile phone to Enterprises, Media Companies and Wireless Carriers.

The company was founded in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

. . .

11. V R Ferose
MD of SAP Labs India

V R Ferose was appointed managing director from April 1, 2010.

In addition to being the overall head for SAP Labs in India, Ferose continues to be a key member of the global SAP Labs network, which has been established to share best practices, set benchmarks and generate synergies among SAP Labs worldwide.

Ferose has been part of the SAP family since August 1999 and has held various positions at SAP Labs India.

Ferose graduated from the National Institute of Technology in 1997 with a B Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering.