Mumbai: Forbes India team has released the 2020 edition of the coveted ‘Forbes India 30 Under 30’ list, featuring young achievers under the age of 30 that meet our four broad criteria: the impact of their achievements, their ability to disrupt the environment they operate in, the scalability of the business or line of work, and the potential of their ideas in the long term. They range across several professions such as entrepreneurs, designers, artists, finance, and sportspersons.
The 2020 Forbes India 30 Under 30 list includes the founders, co-founders, and professionals of 30 entities across 17 categories. This year, we have refreshed our categories to include digital content creators, to keep up with the trend of social media creators and influencers.
With all our honourees under 30 years of age, the achievers were arrived at following a three-fold research process: One, interviews by the Forbes India team with sources across relevant categories as well as through studies of databases and media coverage. Two, inviting applications on forbesindia.com from, or nominations of, entrepreneurs and professionals who fit the criteria. Three, spreading the word on social media.
This helped the Forbes India team arrive at a long list of over 255 names across 17 categories. The next step was narrowing down to a ‘shorter longlist’—the names most likely to make it to the top 30. This pool of around 85-odd names was decided in consultation with our category experts. The last stage was separating the final 30 from the other contenders. Armed with expert views, the Forbes India editorial team debated, argued, and vetoed its way down to the final 30.
“The audacity of youth and their penchant to write new rules is what the Forbes India 30 Under 30 list is all about,” says Brian Carvalho, Editor, Forbes India. “Team Forbes India’s 30 under 30 package is our effort to celebrate India’s young and their achievements.”
Take, for example, YouTuber Bhuvan Bam who graduated from being in the special mentions last year—which lists people to watch out for—to debut in the new Digital Content Creators category, with his enviable 16 million subscribers on the video-sharing platform. South Cinema’s Sai Pallavi may have dabbled in movies at the age of 6 only to miss math classes, but today she is working on two Telugu films, one with Rana Daggubati and another with Naga Chaitanya and is on the lookout for roles with ‘chiselled characters’.
Then there are the trio co-founders of motorcycle taxis startup Rapido that is changing the ridesharing business in India; 26-year-old Gourish Singla of healthcare startup Shivom uses blockchain in genomics to protect the identity of patients and incentivizing them while helping pharmaceutical companies with data to advance research. The 2020 list of Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 achievers is all changing the game in their fields and showing the way to traditional and legacy businesses with their new ideas and business models, and a fresh set of eyes.
