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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Over 15 Pakistanis In Forbes Under 30 List Of Super Achievers

WASHINGTON – American business magazine Forbes has come out with its annual list of young achievers under the age of 30 for the year 2021.

The prestigious list is actually a collection of 600 youngsters divided into 20 categories containing entrepreneurs, professionals, performers, artists, and disruptors across the world.

Following are the Pakistanis who have made it to the coveted list:

Abdullah Siddiqui

The young singer-songwriter seemed stunned as he shared the exciting news with fans and followers through Instagram, saying,. I’m completely stunned and so incredibly grateful to everyone who helped me get here, thank you.

He rose to fame through Nescafe Basement’s Season 5. Siddiqui began producing English-language electronic music at the age of 11 and started releasing it as an independent artist when by the age of 16. He has written and produced music for some prominent singers in Pakistan, including Fawad Khan, Shamoon Ismail, and Aima Baig.

The 30 Under 30 list recognizes and highlights the next generation of talent. Siddiqui’s achievement comes under the entertainment and sports category.

Siddiqui fell on the underground/indie music circuit radar when he made his Forever South (FXS) debut, the netlabel co-founded by artists Rudoh and Dynoman with the experimental track, ‘Fiction’.  He has also appeared on True Brue TV, Nescafe Basement, Coke Fest, and Pepsi Battle of the Bands while featuring various concerts across the country.

Siddiqui has also released three critically acclaimed full-length albums and a multitude of singles, recently the first-ever English language PSL official anthem for Peshawer Zalmi, Kingdom, which currently has over 4 million views. He has written and produced music for some well-known singers in Pakistan, including Fawad Khan, Meesha Shafi, Shamoon Ismail, and Aima Baig.

Misha Japanwala

The second Pakistani is a sculpture artist and designer also named in the 2021 list. The 25-year-old featured honoree in the arts category. As described by Forbes, She is a visual artist and designer whose work addresses issues such as domestic violence and honor killings in Pakistan.

She collaborated with Gigi Hadid last year for a special issue of V Magazine that the supermodel guest-edited. Another of Japanwala’s works, a collection of breastplates and other wearable body castings, was featured in a six-page spread in Vogue Spain in 2018.

Shayan Mahmud

The 29-year-old managing partner of an international advertising and digital marketing agency has been included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Asia in the category of media, marketing, and advertising.

Mahmud, who holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from Regent University London, oversees Trademor, an Eikon7 subsidiary that helps small and medium-sized enterprises with sales and marketing on e-commerce platforms like China’s Alibaba.

Hannia Zia

The third is Hannia Zia, a psychology graduate from Yale and a former Google product manager, is an entrepreneur in Pakistan working as a project manager with the government during the pandemic. According to Fobes, she is the Pakistani Government’s sole product manager of its pandemic tech response and one of the three founding members of the Prime Minister’s Office initiative Digital Pakistan.

Zia launched a WhatsApp bot to spread novel Covid-19 awareness in seven different local languages that have connected to 500,000 users and were also endorsed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, as well as a Covid-19 ringtone, which has been heard by 113 million Pakistanis.

Zohaib Ali and Owais Qureshi

Cofounders of Dastgyr Technologies, Zohaib Ali and Owais Qureshi have also made it to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Asia in the category of retail and e-commerce.

Amazingly, the duo started their setup in strict lockdown conditions in 2020 with a total investment of $300,000. They set up Dastgyr, a B2B retail marketplace in Pakistan.

The startup is focused on solving inventory procurement challenges for more than 2 million retailers across Pakistan. It allows users to purchase inventory from more than 2,000 products listed on the app and provides next-day doorstep delivery and microloans.

In a matter of months, cofounders Qureshi and Ali have shipped thousands of orders to more than 30,000 users across major cities in Pakistan.

Their setup has raised nearly $3.5 million from SOSV and other global investors. Previously, the duo was part of the team that helped found Airlift, a mass transit startup that raised a record $12 million in Series A in November 2019.

Saad Jangda and Hamza Jawaid

Jangda and Jawad created a Pakistan-based B2B e-commerce marketplace startup – Bazaar. They managed to raise a $1.3 million pre-seed round, the largest in the country to date.

Both have featured included in the Forbes 30 under 30 lists for Asia in the category of retail and e-commerce.

They have already built a team of over 300 employees. Their app connects more than 12,000 mom-and-pop grocery stores to wholesalers, manufacturers, and suppliers.

Bazaar has raised the largest pre-seed round in Pakistan and the largest seed round in the Middle East and North Africa region, totaling a combined $7.8 million.

Yaseen Khalid, Saquib Malik, and Nabeel Siddiqui

This trio cofounded ModulusTech, which offers an innovative flat-packed house that can be set up within a day by three people using simple hand tools.

The produces 50 times less greenhouse gas emissions compared to concrete buildings. The company hopes its solution can be used to provide homes to the poor, displaced, or homeless people. ModulusTech has been recognized by the UN, Global Cleantech Award and others and has received funding from the Islamic Development Bank and other international NGOs, as well as some angel investors.

Iman Jamall and Hasib Malik

The husband-and-wife founded CreditBook in June to empower micro, small and midsized businesses across Pakistan.

Their startup app helps small business owners manage their finances by tracking cash received and payments pending with automated payment reminders sent out to customers. They managed to register over 250,000 users and raised $175,000 in pre-seed funding from investors in Pakistan’s financial and retail sectors.

Amna Akhtar

Akhtar is the co-founder of GirlDreamer. The startup is a non-profit organisation that supports the personal and professional development of young women. Her organisation focuses on empowering women of colour in the UK

Forbes 30 under 30 mentions her under the Social Impact category of Europe.

Zahra Khan

Young Pakistani Zahra makes it to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List. The mother of two Zahra is a chef by profession and a successful entrepreneur as well. The London-based chef is the owner of Feya Cafes and shops.

Zahra is mentioned in the Retail and e-Commerce category of the European chapter of Forbes. Along with her successful business, Zahra is also fighting the gender gap within society. She is determined to support and empower women.

Ameer Shakeel 

Pakistan’s Ameer Shakeel with his Iranian partner, Payam Pourtaheri, founded AgroSpheres. The young achievers work on the use of synthetic pesticides and how misuse contaminated the environment. As students at the University of Virginia, they founded the firm to make bio-based crop protection that could replace those chemicals.

Their proprietary bioprocessing and manufacturing AgriCell platform, for which they have 30 patents issued or pending globally, enables a suite of biocontrol products as alternatives to synthetic chemicals. With $11 million in funding, AgroSpheres has set up partnerships with a handful of large, global corporations whose names it cannot disclose.

Junaid Bin Usman
Junaid Bin Usman
Junaid Bin Usman
An avid news enthusiast and multimedia journalist with seven years of experience in mainstream and digital media. Loves to write about social issues.
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