Five Indian-origin persons in Fortune list of 40 under 40
Indian-origin persons, including Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, have featured in Fortune’s annual list of 40 young and influential people in the field of business inspiring others with their work.
Fortune’s 2017 ‘40 Under 40’ list is an annual ranking of the most influential young people who are under 40 in business, whom the magazine termed as “disruptors, innovators, rebels and artists” inspiring others.
The list has been topped by 39-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron “France’s youngest leader since Napoleon” who swept the presidential elections in May “obliterating the two-party system that had governed the country for generations.”
The Indian-origin persons on the list are 26-year-old Divya Nag, who oversees Apple’s ambitious ResearchKit and CareKit programmes that encourage developers to build healthrelated apps, Rishi Shah, 31, and Shradha Agarwal, 32, who helm more than 10-year-old healthtech firm Outcome Health and CEO and founder of non-profit Samasource 31-year-old Leila Janah.
Varadkar, 38, whose father was born in India, has been ranked fifth on the list. Fortune said while Ireland has long defined mass emigration, “yet remarkably, its new prime minister is the son of a Hindu immigrant from Mumbai.”
The former doctor is Ireland’s youngest leader in centuries as
THE LIST HAS BEEN TOPPED BY 39YEAROLD FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON, “FRANCE’S YOUNGEST LEADER SINCE NAPOLEON”
well as its first-ever openly gay one, “no small detail in his devoutly Catholic country.”
Varadkar, however, dismisses all that as irrelevant.
“Far more crucial is his ability to protect the Celtic Tiger against economic disaster when Britain exits the EU in 2019, and guarding Ireland’s low-tax deals with tech giants. Many are rooting for his success,” Fortune said.
On Nag, who has been ranked 27th, Fortune said the Stanford dropout founded a stem-cell research startup and began a medical investment accelerator at the age of 23.
Nag now oversees ResearchKit and CareKit programmes and if the company succeeds, it could transform clinical trials from isolated events at hospitals to ongoing studies that capture vital signs from omnipresent sensors, Fortune said.
“I want to put people in charge of their health. It’s not about living with a specific disease or condition. It’s about living. Full stop,” Fortune quoted her as saying. Shah and Agarwal are ranked 38th on the list. PTI
On Wednesday night, Baltimore, a black-majority city in Maryland state, got rid of four statues of confederate figures, including one of Robert E Lee, the general who is enjoying new celebrity lately. The operation was carried out stealthily and swiftly to avoid a repeat of Charlottesville.
Also in Maryland, lawmakers have voted to take down a statue of Roger Brooks Taney, the country’s fifth Supreme Court chief justice, who delivered the majority opinion in the historic 1857 Dred Scott ruling that African Americans could never become citizens of the US. And New York City is scrubbing out all confederate names from its streets.
Confederate era memorials — statues, monuments and plaques — are facing renewed scrutiny, perhaps the closest in years, across America after the Charlottesville clashes on Saturday claimed three lives, one of whom died when a car with a white supremacist at the wheel plowed through the counterprotestors.
“It is fair to say that there is more attention on the issue now than there has been for many