KARACHI: Nine individuals from Pakistan have been featured on Forbes magazine’s annual ‘30 Under 30’ Asia list released on Tuesday.

The list, available on the Forbes website, featured 300 young innovators and disruptors who are reinventing their industries and driving change across Asia-Pacific in the categories of arts, enterprise technology, entertainment and sports, social entrepreneurs, celebrities, youngest, finance and venture capital, healthcare and science, industry manufacturing and energy, media marketing and advertising, retail and e-commerce, big money and consumer technology.

The nine Pakistanis have been selected through seven entries in the third edition of the annual ‘30 Under 30’ Asia list for their achievements in the categories of entertainment and sports, enterprise technology, retail and e-commerce, social entrepreneurs and healthcare and science.

“It’s probably fair to say that Pakistan often gets a raw deal when it comes to international media coverage, with headlines usually dominated by themes like religious extremism and terrorism, women’s rights or border conflicts,” Forbes reported. “And while these areas are worthy of coverage, this South Asian nation has many more positive stories that don’t see the light of day, such as the incredible pool of young talent pushing boundaries in numerous industries and disciplines,” it added.

In the entertainment and sports category, Momina Mustehsan, 26, is featured for using her fame and social media following to advocate for social causes important to her, including women’s rights, cyber bullying and mental health awareness.

According to the Forbes, some of Pakistan’s most innovative minds are opting for careers in the critically important sector of healthcare.

Asad Raza and Abrahim Ali Shah, both 23, made it to the list for their healthcare startup, Neurostic, which aims to provide low-cost and high quality wearable and implantable medical devices for the developing world. Neurostic also provides low-cost prosthetic services for amputees in the developing countries having little or no access to rehabilitation facilities.

The same category includes 17-year-old Muham­mad Shaheer Niazi, whose work has appeared in the prestigious Royal Society Open Science Journal.

Sadia Bashir, 29, is featured in the enterprise technology category for co-founding PixelArt Games Academy. The academy’s mission is to bridge the gap between industry demand and education, by providing training in game design and production, game programming, digital art and animation. According to Forbes, her programme tries to address the significant gender gap in the gaming industry by maintaining a minimum 33 per cent ratio of women, with the hope to inspire Pakistani women to dream bigger.

Hamza Farrukh, 24, listed in the social entrepreneurs category, founded Bondh-e-Shams also known as The Solar Water Project. His project aims to tackle the problem of water scarcity in the most poorly connected areas of Pakistan.

Honoured in the same category, Syed Faizan Hussain, 24, is a solution-driven social activist based in Karachi. He founded non-profit Perihelion Systems in 2013 to better the lives of many by using technology.

The list also includes siblings Adnan Shaffi, 28, and Adeel Shaffi, 29, who are in the retail and e-commerce group for making online phone shopping easier by founding PriceOye in 2015. PriceOye is a price comparison platform for electronics in second- and third-tier cities in Pakistan which uses data analytics to provide marketing information to retailers while finding the best deal for consumers. According to Forbes, their website has more than a million views a month.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2018