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3 IIT Kanpur alumni make it to Forbes ‘30 under 30’
Three alumni from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K), including a Lucknow boy, have made it to the prestigious Forbes list of ‘30 under 30’ for 2017.
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Three alumni from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K), including a Lucknow boy, have made it to the prestigious Forbes list of ‘30 under 30’ for 2017.
The magazine has released the coveted list in its February edition.
Farid Ahsan, 24, from Lucknow, Bhanu Pratap Singh, 25, from Gorakhpur and Ankush Sachdeva, 23, from Ghaziabad are credited with developing one of its kind social networking applications, Sharechat, that simplifies access to digital content for non-English speakers.
The Forbes magazine’s list features many young, promising leaders and their enterprises that have emerged as game-changers in different sectors.
The names of three IIT-K alumni figures under social media, mobile tech and communication category.
“We feel great to find a place into the Forbes list. The utility of Sharechat is being recognised,” said Farid.
Farid, Bhanu and Ankush graduated from IIT-K, rejected conventional high paying jobs and followed the route of entrepreneurship to achieve their dreams.
“Our love for technology and products led us to build a series of internet products. After many initial failures and rejections, success finally came to our way in the form of Sharechat,” said Bhanu.
“Today it boasts of 5 million downloads and 1.7 million shares on Google Play and the user base is growing at around 30% month to month,” the Forbes notification reads.
Launched in 2015, ShareChat is a first of its kind social network application for regional language consumers in India.
It is available in 8 Indian languages, namely Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil and Bengali. “This audience seeks local language content and wants to interact with other users of similar backgrounds in their native language only,” said Ankush.
This app is one of the very few startups in the world to be covered under Social Media, Mobile Tech and Communication category by Forbes.
“Previously social networks apps like Facebook, Twitter has been given this kind of appreciation, clearly showing the bright future prospects for Indian startups,” the trio said.
Last year, another Lucknow girl Anshulika Dubey, the co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) of Wishberry.in, made it to the elite list of Forbes Asia ‘Top 30-under-30’.
