Forbes India 30 Under 30 2024: Young achievers making waves, solving problems, and just getting started

The year 2023 was big for some. Take, for instance, Aaquib Wani, the man behind the Indian cricket team’s newly designed jerseys for the ODI, T20I, and Test formats. And cricketer Shubman Gill, who became only the third Indian batter to score 10 international centuries at the age of 24, joining Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. Or even actor Tripti Dimri, who was praised for a “refreshing” and “full-bodied” performance in movies such as Animal and Qala. In addition to these, javelin star Neeraj Chopra brought home two gold medals from the Asian Games and World Championships last year.

These are just a handful of names from a cohort of 300-plus people who may be from diverse fields but have one thing in common—they’ve all been winners of Forbes India’s coveted 30 under 30 list.

As these past listees continue to make waves, we are back, now 11th year in a row, to catch them young and recognise the work they’re doing. And as always, the list does not comprise well-established names or next-generation entrepreneurs.

This year, we have 19 categories and a total of 38 winners, including co-founders and multiple winners under some heads.

Over the years, while we’ve found some exceptional people running companies that bridge gaps for customers, this year, we’ve gone a step ahead to find those helping other businesses thrive and introduced a new category—B2B.

Under this, we found Shreyans Chopra’s Mstack, a cross-border custom manufacturing platform specialising in specialty chemicals. Backed by Lightspeed, Mstack has scaled up furiously over the last 18 months. “His vision of establishing a cross-border B2B-managed marketplace dedicated to specialty chemicals is bold and timely,” says Bejul Somaia, partner at Lightspeed, one of the backers of Mstack.

Among the others on the list are people such as Anupam Pedarla and Sashank Reddy of NxtWave that offers transformative learning experiences, empowering learners for high-demand roles in technology innovative, vernacular, cohort-based tech courses. In the last three years, NxtWave has helped close to 1,700 companies hire their tech talent and is in touch with more than 3,000 companies across India and other countries.

Then there’s Hunny Bhagchandani who founded Torchit to create innovations that will help persons with disabilities.

Parul Chaudhury and Jyothi Yarraji, athletes in the Indian contingent participating in the 2024 Paris Olympics, feature in the sports category with their stories of grit and resilience.

It doesn’t stop here. We are ready to present some of the brightest stars in the country today and hope that, like their seniors, they will continue to make rapid strides in the years to come. Check it out for yourself.

Methodology

The research process was three-fold: One was interviews by the Forbes India team with sources across relevant categories as well as through studies of databases and media coverage. Two, on forbesindia.com, inviting applications from, or nominations of, entrepreneurs and professionals who fit the criteria. Three, spreading the word on social media. This helped us arrive at a long list across 20 categories, including a new one—B2B—this year. The next step was narrowing it down to a ‘shorter longlist’—the names most likely to make it to the Top 30, decided in consultation with experts in each category. The last stage was finalising the 30 winners for 2024. Armed with expert views, the Forbes India editorial team debated, argued, and vetoed its way down to the final 30 from close to a thousand nominations. We have only considered for selection those who were under the age of 30 as of February 29, 2024 (the cut-off date for selection of the list). And, in the case of enterprises that have several co-founders, we have considered only those where at least one of them is under 30.