3 Indians Among the First UN Young Leaders 2016

Out of 18,000 nominations from 186 different countries, only 17 Young Leaders were recognized for their leadership and contribution to the achievement of the 2030 agenda of Sustainability Development.  Among the 17 Young Leaders are 2 Indians and 1 Indian-American who were recognized for their leadership.  With 17 set of goals like tackeling climate change by 2030, putting an end to poverty and fight inequality and injustice.

“Today I am pleased to join in welcoming the inaugural class of UN Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “These 17 young change-makers are a testament to the ingenuity of youth and I congratulate them for their exceptional leadership and demonstrated commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals.” An 18 year old Indian-American young scientist, Karan Jerath made it his mission to protect our oceans against future oil spills. Karan has won the prestigious Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award for designing a device that shuts down the undersea oil spills.  Jerath developed a better containment enclosure that split aparts the natural gas, oil and ocean water; accommodates different pipe sizes, water depths and fluid compositions; and can prevent the formation of potentially clogging methane hydrate.  In addition, the device is beneficial in bringing down the cleanup cost.

Ankit Kawatra, a 23 year old management graduate; founder and chairman of Feeding India. Kawatras mission has always been to achieve zero hunger.

Per Food and Agriculture Organization, India has wooping 194.6 million people who are malnourished – seeing with ones naked eyes it’s not surprising that India is second highest number in the world.

Thought provoked by seeing abundance amount of food wastage in India, Kawatra founded ‘Feeding India’ with an aim to solve the hunger epidemic.  When his curiosity inquired about what happened to leftover food at wedding and big events, the answer he got at was disappointing.  Kawatra decided to do something about it.   Feeding India was formed and with few friend they started collecting extra leftover food from weddings and events and fed the hungry.

Trisha Shetty, a founder and a CEO of ‘SheSays’ strongly believes in empowering more women to have a voice, standup and take action against sexual violence and discrimination.

Being able to find limited resource online about what to do in situation like sexual abuse in India where violence against women is often easily visible, Shetty launched ‘SheSays’ to support victims and provide them with right tools, direction and assistance to fight it.

Currently the SheSays site is accessible in 6 different languages and Shetty still believes there is more that needs to be done in order to create an environment of zero tolerance towards violence against women.

This 3 UN Young Leaders along with 14 others will be bringing change at the United Nations in New York for the opening of the 71st Session of the General Assembly, where they are scheduled to take part in several events and meetings.
Photo credit: UN and 2016 nominees