Thursday, April 2, 2020

Six Nepalis makes their way to Asia’s ‘Forbes Top 30 Under 30’

Six Nepali youth have made to the list on Forbes’ 30 Under 30’ list, together with some 300 young entrepreneurs from Asia.
Golfer Pratima Sherpa, co-founders of Urban Girl Nikita Acharya and Kiran Timsina, Pad2Go’s founders Shubhangi Rana and Jesselina Rana, and Foodmario co-founder Rohit Tiwari are the young Nepalis, who made it to the list this year beating out thousands of other nominations.
Out of the 3,500 nominations, they were selected for their promise in their respective fields, and were dubbed change-makers and leaders by industry insiders for disrupting industries and inspiring change in various fields, according to the Forbes, the American business journal.
Golfer Pratima Sherpa, who is currently attending Santa Barbara City College in California, dreams to be Nepal’s first female professional golfer and wants to represent the country one day. “But her first club, at age 11, was a wooden stick that her father made from a branch, “the Forbes writes, adding that she is Nepal’s first ranked amateur female golfer today. Having grown up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club near Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), she was featured by ESPN and several other outlets for her drive, determination and promise in her sport. Due to the news published by the popular golf magazine ‘Golf Digest’, she shot into popularity. “A top-ranked golfer at the time Tiger Woods called her to the United States after he read the news that she had been playing golf since the age of 7,” the ‘Golf Digest’ wrote.
Likewise, started by Nikita Acharya and Kiran Timsina with an investment of $200, Urban Girl is a successful e-commerce store that sells branded clothing, accessories, cosmetics, and runs Urban Girl Cakes that employs and trains deaf women, as a business associated with the Gandaki Deaf Association. According to Forbes, the business now employs more than 50 people in Kathmandu and Pokhara.
The site that started by selling fashion jewelry and customised products like T-shirts and water bottles has now expanded to a broader range of products like makeup, home decor, and electronics.
And this is not the first time Pad2Go’s founders – a human rights lawyer and an engineer duo – have been awarded. Setting up vending machines for sanitary napkins for women, to remove menstrual taboo and raise awareness of menstrual health, the initiative started in 2018 as a not-for-profit.
Established in 2018, Pad2Go is a for-profit social enterprise to focus on menstrual health and remove the taboos around it. Now with 80 vending machines, and a suite of workshops to raise awareness and remove taboo, Pad2Go has also won first prize at the AGUASAN workshop in Switzerland in 2019. It also conducts workshops to address taboos around menstruation and works with manufacturers of sanitary napkins to get them cheaply.
Likewise, Tiwari co-founded Foodmario – a digital platform that connects home chefs with customers to deliver home-cooked food – two years ago, with an idea of selling home-cooked food for delivery, cooked by anyone from housewives to students. Having served more than 100,000 meals thus far, with approximately 34 employees, the business has been looking at expanding its offerings to cities like Butwal, Narayanghat, Chitwan, Pokhara, Biratnagar and Itahari, according to the Forbes.
Though, this year, Forbes’ 30 Under 30-Asia’ list includes young entrepreneurs from Nepal, the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, South Korea, and others, who have been the caretakers of social change, this is not the first time Nepali youth made it to the 30 Under 30 Asia list of the Forbes. The list is published every year in 10 categories of enterprise, exploration, sports, art, social change and others.
In 2019 also, some Nepali youth made it to the list, whereas in 2018, Forbes listed 4 Nepali young entrepreneurs including Ayushi KC from Khalisisi, Anjal Niraula from Gham Power, Eco-Cell Industries and an activist Kanchan Amatya made it to the 30 Under 30 Asia list.
Ayushi KC – a 28-year-old entrepreneur – was enlisted in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018. Founder of Khalisisi – a platform where peoples and organisation can connect the garbage collectors (Khalisisi Friends) – KC was then working in a motive towards zero-waste in Nepal. She founded Khalsisi Management Pvt Ltd, before she worked for USAID.
Likewise, listed under industry, manufacturing and energy category, Anjal Niraula (28) was then managing director of Gham Power, a company that develops solar micro-grid and commercial off-grid system. Having started in Nepal in 2010, the company has already installed 2.5MW of solar micro-grids across more than 2000 projects.
Likewise, listed under the Social Entrepreneurs Category, Eco-Cell Industries was founded by Nishan Shrestha, Sachet Pandit, and Subash Shrestha in the wake of the 2015 devastating earthquake to create a fast ad cheap way to reconstructing buildings.
Similarly, the 23 year-old Kanchan Amatya was then activist and entrepreneur, who founded of Sustainable Fish Farming Initiative (SFFI), and was listed under Social Entrepreneurs category by Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018.

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