Forbes announced their 30 North American under 30 years list recently, which included 4 Pakistanis. These young Pakistanis made it to the list for their contributions to the fields of education, marketing and advertising, and gaming.
Below are the brilliant Pakistani youngsters who made it to Forbes 30 under 30 list 2021:
Asad J. Malik–Marketing and Advertising
Asad Malik moved to the U.S. from Pakistan in 2016 for college. He is a pioneer in using augmented reality for storytelling. His breakout project “Terminal 3” featured young Muslim immigrants and a collaboration with Magic Leap called “A Jester’s Tale” explored the personification of AI. Malik’s now working with Verizon to build educational AR experiences with 5G and his AR app Jadu turns TikTok stars and musicians into holograms.
Danish Dhamani – Education
A Pakistani native who grew up in East Africa, Danish Dhamani was terrified of speaking in classroom presentations and job interviews when he moved to the US. This motivated him to find a speech-coaching app, Orai (for “oral AI”) with his Drexel University classmates, Aasim and Paritosh Gupta in 2017.
From corporate clients including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Comcast, and IBM and individuals who pay $10 per month, Danish found 5,000 active monthly users record themselves speaking and receive feedback such as how many times they say “um”, through his app.
The Philadelphia-based startup has raised $2.3 million in seed funding and expects to become profitable in 2021.
Faizan Bhatty – Marketing and Advertising
Student at the University of Pennsylvania, Faizan Bhatty along with his mate, Kenan Saleh co-founded Halo Cars in 2019 as a way to create new ad space on rideshare vehicles and a way for Uber and Lyft drivers to earn more money.
“Smart digital screens sit atop cars enabling the display of hyper-targeted ads,” said Forbes, adding that startup-competition awards funded prototypes and a pilot and $500,000 from angel investors followed. Bhatty’s company sold to Lyft within a year of its inception.
Sanaa Khan – Gaming
29-year-old Sana is a Program Manager at Google, where she leads go-to-market strategy and hardware planning for the tech giant’s cloud gaming service Stadia.
Khan spearheaded initiatives such as ‘Stadia’s Free Play Days’, enacted during the pandemic for financially constrained gamers, as well as drives a scholarship program for women developers, making her the only Pakistani woman to feature on this list.
