ISLAMABAD: Late last year when six Pakistanis made Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 in the US, Pakistan was pretty ecstatic. Last night, however, news erupted that for the Asian rendition of the listicle whose spots are the most coveted for young rising stars ... we scored nine spots!
Pakistan has the sixth-largest population in the world, and within that population 60 percent fall in the 18-40 demographic. In other words, we have a large number of young people who can potentially change the world.
Forbes’ list includes a singer who uses her platform for activism, tech and business-savvy individuals, social entrepreneurs and people looking to revolutionize health care in the South Asian country.
Perhaps the most recognizable name on the list is one of Pakistan’s leading singers, Momina Mustehsen. The 25-year-old was catapulted into the spotlight after she performed a record-breaking (we are talking hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, the highest of any from Pakistan) duet to “Afreen Afreen” with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan on the musical production platform Coke Studio. Mustehsen took her platform in stride, using it for a number of awareness campaigns, including one with UN Women.
Sadia Bashir had a mission to help women break into the world of tech and design by way of video game production — and she did just that. She co-founded Pixel Art Games Academy, which provides training in game design, production, gaming programming, digital art and animation targeted at young women. The program is directly responding to the gender gap in the gaming industry. Thirty-three percent of their students are (and always must be) women, a roster Pixel Art Games Academy keeps up through the scholarships Bashir created to encourage women to join.
Brothers in real life and in business, Adnan and Adeel Shaffi, 28 and 29 respectively, are the masterminds behind PriceOye, a price comparison website which they launched in 2015.
Many online shopping websites do not cater to cities outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi — a mistake that not only costs retailers but costs the people living outside the big cities as well.
PriceOye does price comparisons for electronics and uses data analytics to help retailers in their own marketing. With website numbers in the hundreds of thousands per month, PriceOye addresses the gaps that traditional e-commerce in Pakistan is not, a gap which leads smaller cities out of the running for great deals.
The singer-activist has been highlighted for her work on women’s issues, cyberbullying, human rights and also for being honored as one of the BBC’s 100 Most Influential Women of 2017.
Neurostic is a health care startup launched by 24-year-olds Muhammad Asad Raza and Abrahim Saha. Neurotstic aims to provide high-quality prosthetics and medical devices (such as cochlear implants) — without the astronomical associated costs. It also addresses clinical decision support, fitness and health monitoring, with a focus on data analytics for health care needs.
Raza and Saha are answering the call of a dire need in Pakistan where health care and resources can be sought to come by. Their prosthetic and implantable devices not only cater to the population in Pakistan but Afghanistan, Iran and Syria as well.
Another Pakistani named for his work in health care is also the youngest of the honorees. Muhammad Shaheer Niazi, 17, is the first to photograph the movement of ions. Forbes named him for the impressive science feat that depicted charged ions creating a honeycomb. This level of research is indispensable to biomedical research. Niazi has also been published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
At 23, Syed Faizan Hussan is the founder of startup Parihelion Systems. With a mission to use tech-backed products for the improvement of the highest volume of lives, Perihelion Systems is addressing a number of Pakistan’s health issues. Products it has produced include One Health, a tracking and surveillance system used to predict outbreaks of disease, an invaluable resource for a country with a massive population and limited health care resources. Another product is the Edu-Aid, a sign language translating software.
The ninth name to make the list is Hamza Farrukh, 24, a portfolio solutions strategist at Goldman Sachs in London, who in his spare time has embarked on a fantastic social venture helping out in Pakistan. Farrukh is the founder of Bondh E Shams, a solar water project aiming to respond to areas in Pakistan with limited, scarce or no water access. Bondh E Shams, which translates as “droplets of the sun,” comes at a time when certain regions of Pakistan are affected not only by drought but also water that is not safe to drink.
Farrukh’s project has set up two solar-powered wells which provide safe, clean water to 1,500 residents of a small village in Pakistan. One of these wells has the capacity to supply clean water to an estimated 5,000 people every day.