Today, let’s look at some ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things to make a difference.
Priti Patkar – Nearly 90 percent of girls born to prostitutes grew up with the belief that sex trade is predestined. With society marginalizing them and government doing little to uplift their current situation, Priti Patkar took it upon herself to educate and encourage them to lead a meaningful life.
While majority of us talk about the need for sex education in India, Patkar thought differently. From her university days, in 1986, she started visiting the red light areas in Mumbai, thereby, lending her ears to that part of the society where none wanted to go. To address this injustice, she started world’s first night care center for children of women working in red light districts.
Chewang Norphel – Enchanted by the serenity and beauty of Ladakh, we often forget this beautiful place faces acute shortage of water during winters. Since the only source of natural water in Ladakh is glacier water from the mountains, Norphel pioneered the first artificial glacier in Phuktse Phu Village in 1987.
Not only has the problem of water scarcity been addressed but the problems related to agriculture have also been solved. His simple innovation has enhanced the ecology of Ladakh. Farmers do not have to migrate during winters for alternate employment opportunities, and women do not have to walk for long hours to collect water. Above all, people are happy and do not face any crunch due to irregular water supply.
Jadav Payeng – Caught up with a strange obsession to plant trees on the sandbar since 1979 after the floods, near his birthplace in Assam, washed away large number of snakes ashore, he was determined to transform the barren land into a thick forest.
After receiving a negative response from the Forest Department, he left his education and home and started living in isolation. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. Moreover, he collected red ants from his village and transported them to the sandbar all by himself. At the end, nature reciprocated and soon there was a variety of flora and fauna, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal Tiger. However, it was only in 2008 when the Assam State Forest Department got to know about him and his miraculous work.
Shila Ghosh – Young at heart, 86-year-old Shila Ghosh sells home-made fries at a busy crossing in Kolkata. She lives in an area which is 2 hours away from the pavement which is her selling spot.
After the death of her only son, she works to make ends meet and support her grandchildren. She refuses to beg and believes that she is healthy enough to work and support her family. Day in and day out, she has been taking risks to ensure the financial security of her family.
Palam Kalyanasundaram – Inspired by his mother to serve the poor, 73-year-old Kalyanasundaram has been acclaimed as the ‘Best Librarian’ in India. During his 35-year-long career at Kumarkurupara Arts College, in Tamil Nadu, he willingly donated his salary every month towards charity, and to meet his daily needs, he did odd jobs.
Even after his retirement, he started working as a waiter to survive and to continue donating to the orphanages and children’s education funds. To him, the power of earning money feels more satisfying when donated to the poor and the underprivileged. Even today, you will find him in a small house in Saidapet, Chennai, and going to office regularly with dedication to uplift the marginalized section of the society.
Dr. Mala – Life is unpredictable and you never know what happens next. Same was the case with Dr. Mala. After completing her medical schooling, she joined the Armed Forces and became an officer and then fell in love and got married. She gave up her identity and her commission and later moved to Oman.
In Oman, she experienced a personal crisis following her divorce, and later came back to Delhi. But hardship followed her here to and she met with a serious accident. This accident, she believes, changed her life completely and gave her a new direction. She decided to follow her heart and went to live in Ranikhet, a hill station in Uttarakhand, leaving her home, friends and a well-paying job.
In Ranikhet, she started knitting and changing the lives of the people around. Through her art, she not only got over all her personal challenges in life but also helped people learn a new skill and make it a part of their livelihood.
Pooja Taparia – It was in 2004 when Taparia went to watch a play on child sexual abuse and her life changed forever. She was so moved by the play that she decided to start an organization, Arpan. It works towards freedom from child sexual abuse.
In the short span of 8 years, in 2012, Arpan has impacted the lives of over 70,000 individuals directly and 212,000 indirectly, including children, parents, teachers and NGOs. With a singular view to highlight and eradicate the shameful reality, Taparia has been working diligently without looking at any monetary benefit.
Indeed there are innumerable untold stories still hidden in various parts of India but what is more important is to talk of such stories and be inspired. The taste of freedom can only be savoured by talking of the heroes in the past and present and feel proud. Who knows? Maybe there is someone like them inside us too, calling for its Independence.
Priti Patkar – Nearly 90 percent of girls born to prostitutes grew up with the belief that sex trade is predestined. With society marginalizing them and government doing little to uplift their current situation, Priti Patkar took it upon herself to educate and encourage them to lead a meaningful life.
Priti Patkar
Chewang Norphel
Not only has the problem of water scarcity been addressed but the problems related to agriculture have also been solved. His simple innovation has enhanced the ecology of Ladakh. Farmers do not have to migrate during winters for alternate employment opportunities, and women do not have to walk for long hours to collect water. Above all, people are happy and do not face any crunch due to irregular water supply.
Jadav Payeng
After receiving a negative response from the Forest Department, he left his education and home and started living in isolation. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. Moreover, he collected red ants from his village and transported them to the sandbar all by himself. At the end, nature reciprocated and soon there was a variety of flora and fauna, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal Tiger. However, it was only in 2008 when the Assam State Forest Department got to know about him and his miraculous work.
Shila Ghosh
Shila Ghosh – Young at heart, 86-year-old Shila Ghosh sells home-made fries at a busy crossing in Kolkata. She lives in an area which is 2 hours away from the pavement which is her selling spot.
After the death of her only son, she works to make ends meet and support her grandchildren. She refuses to beg and believes that she is healthy enough to work and support her family. Day in and day out, she has been taking risks to ensure the financial security of her family.
Palam Kalyanasundaram – Inspired by his mother to serve the poor, 73-year-old Kalyanasundaram has been acclaimed as the ‘Best Librarian’ in India. During his 35-year-long career at Kumarkurupara Arts College, in Tamil Nadu, he willingly donated his salary every month towards charity, and to meet his daily needs, he did odd jobs.
Palam Kalyanasundaram
Dr. Mala – Life is unpredictable and you never know what happens next. Same was the case with Dr. Mala. After completing her medical schooling, she joined the Armed Forces and became an officer and then fell in love and got married. She gave up her identity and her commission and later moved to Oman.
In Oman, she experienced a personal crisis following her divorce, and later came back to Delhi. But hardship followed her here to and she met with a serious accident. This accident, she believes, changed her life completely and gave her a new direction. She decided to follow her heart and went to live in Ranikhet, a hill station in Uttarakhand, leaving her home, friends and a well-paying job.
Dr. Mala
Pooja Taparia – It was in 2004 when Taparia went to watch a play on child sexual abuse and her life changed forever. She was so moved by the play that she decided to start an organization, Arpan. It works towards freedom from child sexual abuse.
Pooja Taparia
In the short span of 8 years, in 2012, Arpan has impacted the lives of over 70,000 individuals directly and 212,000 indirectly, including children, parents, teachers and NGOs. With a singular view to highlight and eradicate the shameful reality, Taparia has been working diligently without looking at any monetary benefit.
Indeed there are innumerable untold stories still hidden in various parts of India but what is more important is to talk of such stories and be inspired. The taste of freedom can only be savoured by talking of the heroes in the past and present and feel proud. Who knows? Maybe there is someone like them inside us too, calling for its Independence.
#10 Pradeep Goel
#9 Krish Patel
#8 Zia Islam
#7 Rose Cook & Lynn Faughey
#6 David Chen
#5 Kenneth Lin
#4 Byron Hsu
#3 Neil Dufva
#2 Andy Kim
#1 David Tam
If
you don’t know who Mark Zuckerberg is already, you really must have
been living under a rock. Mark is an American entrepreneur who
co-founded and is currently the CEO of the social networking behemoth we
know as Facebook. Hailing from White Plains, New York, Mark started his
programming at a very early age back in “Middle School” and it looks
like that really paid off. Currently owning approximately 24% of
Facebook, Mark is now a Multi-Billionaire, with a fortune of roughly
$6.9bn and growing. So why is he top of the list? Well, I can think of a
few reasons, 6.9 billion reasons in fact!
Now
Dustin may be a little less familiar to you than Mark (above) but he’s
definitely someone who has struck lucky. In fact Dustin was one of the
co-founders of Facebook along with Mark. Dustin has since left Facebook
(back in 2008) and has now set up his own business, Asana a company that
apparently tackles the problems of workplace collaborations. Still in
it’s early development stages, Asana is currently in Beta mode if you
are interested? So how much did he make? A little over $1.4bn.
Andrew
Mason is the founder and CEO of the online business Groupon. A site you
have all more than likely heard about or used before. Andrew Now just
29 years old is worth an estimated $600 million due to the sites huge
success. Founded in 2008 Groupon has been steadily increasing it’s
traffic and it’s income for the grateful founder. The aim of the website
is to offer out daily deals to people all over the world via an online
coupon service. Each and everyday Groupon releases new “Groupons” to its
customers allowing them to receive discounts on anything from subway
meals to laptops and much more. Andrew was given $1 million dollars by
his previous employer in order to start this venture which has now made
them both a lot of money in the 2 short years it has been up and
running. I’m sure we can expect more from them in the near future.
Its
nice to have one of our own on the list, and I’m pretty sure we all
know who this young chap is. Matthew Mullenweg is the founding developer
of WordPress, a resource a lot of us use on a daily basis. Funnily
enough his background is anything but technical, he went to a performing
arts school, learned to play the Jazz Saxophone, and then he went on to
created one of the best website and blog programs in the world. In 2005
he started the company Automatic, which became the backing force behind
WordPress and Akismet. Well done Ma.tt – You see what I did there?
Blake
Ross is an American software developer, known best for his work with
Mozilla Firefox. That’s right at the age of 25yrs he has been able to
accumulate a total fortune worth $150 million. In 2005 he was nominated
for the Wired Magazines top “Rave Award” opposite some very popular
names including Larry Page and Jon Stewart. Blake also co-founded the
company Parakey which was eventually bought out by, yes you’ve guessed
it, Facebook.
Gurbaksh
Chahalis an American author and entrepreneur that has managed to
create, build and grow two businesses into a massive empire worth $340
million, and all that before he is even 30yrs! Born in India, his family
finally settled in California, by the time he was 16yrs old he had
dropped out of school and decided to embark on a career in business.
Gurbaksh is now the CEO and founder of gWallet.Inc. What an
awe-inspiring story.
You
may not have heard about Naveen but rest assured he is definitely a big
hitter. He made most of his money through a joint venture that you may
have heard of, Foursquare anyone? However before co-founding Foursquare
he had worked extensively with some very well known brands, Nokia, Sun
Microsystems and Sony to name a few. $80 million, yes please!
Angelo,
is someone a lot of you graphic designers, photographers, and web
developers may know very well. He is the pioneering brain behind
DeviantArt, The website was co-founded back in 2000 with Scott Jarkoff
and Matt Stephens and is bigger than ever today. It really is the
Facebook of the art/digital art world. The community is very strong and
it’s a really intriguing and inspirational website. Still $75 million
for creating a website back in 2000, I think I could wait 10 years for
$75mil, how about you?
Nat
Turner is one lucky entrepreneur, but lets not be harsh on him, he
worked extremely hard in order to get lucky. What I mean is that he was
lucky enough to build a brilliant company, Invitemedia, which is a
“universal buying platform” for display media according to their
website. Where he got “lucky” is when the global giant that is Google,
decided to buy him and his co-founders (Zach Weinberg and Scott Becker –
both aged 23yrs) out for a nice round figure of $70 million. Good job
Nat.
Peter
Cashmore is is the CEO and founder of the unique media website
Mashable.com which he started back in 2005. Pete has been lucky enough
to appear in the Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 as well as getting a
mention in the top 25 web-celebrities. There have been so many great
reviews by so many large publishing brands and the brand itself seems to
just getter better with time. The site now has over 10 million readers
monthly, and is set to have even more by the end of the year.