Digital Transformation

Tech Panda’s 40 under 40 tech innovators of 2024 

By definition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ‘technology’ means ‘the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area,’ giving the perspective that technology is basic knowledge put into practice. 

For technology to be driven and innovated, entrepreneurship needs to come into the equation. In August, it was stated that the IT Industry in India accounted for 7.5% of the country’s GDP in FY23. Around the same time, the GEM 2023/2024 report ranked India as the second-best country to start a business. 

Nowadays, technology is more advanced than ever in human history and as we jump into the quarter of this XXI century, with access to unlimited information, more and more young generations are constantly making breakthroughs and further innovating in different fields, that’s why we made this compilation of 40 brilliant minds that have put into each of their roles, the greatness of an innovative mind of a 40-year-old or in some cases younger!

Wangiwe Joanna Kambuzi

Cofounder and Executive Director of Mzuzu E-Hub, recently rebranded Emerge Livelihoods, an enterprise with the sole purpose of providing assistance and tools to help and amplify the reach of startups and early-stage companies; their main minis to foster socio-economic growth for communities through transformative solutions leveraging technology, promoting inclusivity, Kambuzi is a communication practitioner and business development professional, She’s also the board director for Commonwealth Business Women Malawi. 


Sithembile Banda

Head of Programs at Nxtgen Labs, stated that when she was in college, she had no idea of how advanced it was the tech industry in Malawi but the next year after her graduation, Banda landed her dream job by helping young Malawians explore the emerging technologies and bringing their ideas to life; one of the programs Banda is in charge of is dedicated to education of primary and secondary school to teach kids to code, create computer games and draw using digital art platforms. 


Avi Schiffman

A self-taught web designer, created his first website when he was 7 years old; ten years later, he founded nCoV2019.live; a website to help keep track of Covid-19 spread in the middle of the pandemic back in 2020. He got into Harvard, but after one semester, he dropped out to build a website to help find housing for Ukrainian refugees. Schiffman recently exposed his latest invention, Friend.com, a wearable AI specially designed to offer a supportive and comforting presence to humans.


Cody Coleman

Co-founder and CEO of Coactive AI, a platform designed to structurize unstructured data and analyze raw videos and images with no metadata nor tags required, speeding up the data analysis process for businesses. Coleman was born in prison, briefly placed in foster care, and later on adopted by his grandparents; despite attending public school in a low-income area in South Jersey, he quickly found interest in computers and gaming. Later on in high school, Coleman built his first computer; he was also a co-creator of DAWNBench and MLPerf


Hillary Yip

Creator and CEO of MinorMynas, at only 10 years old Yip, launched her startup after an eye-opening experience in a summer camp in Taiwan where her mother sent her after the struggles she faced learning Mandarin; afterward, she felt the need to create a website where kids could explore different cultures and have a little bit of the amazing experience she lived, the company itself is an educational platform dedicated to helping kids learn and teach each other new languages, they also developed immersive online products that are safe and entertaining. 


Alexandr Wang

Founder and CEO of Scale AI, the son of physicists who worked with the US Air Force and Military had a brilliant mind even as a child and was very fond of participating in coding competitions from a young age;  Wang’s company uses enterprise data to speed up the development of AI applications; It has been known to have collaborated with bigger technology companies like Meta and Microsoft, U.S Government agencies and startups.


Parita Parekh

Co-Founder and Head of learning at Toddle, an educational platform designed by teachers for teachers to help them and provide tools to make their life and work easier, is currently used in thousands of schools globally. Parekh has an extensive academic curriculum in which she completed her undergraduate education at Brown University, where she wrote her capstone thesis on education Afterwards, she pursued her Master’s in Education at Stanford University.


Shravan and Sanjay  Kumaran

Made history when they launched their company GoDimensions at the ages of 8 and 10 back in 2011. Their father always supported them and introduced a passion for programming to the boys. After self-teaching themselves how to code by reading books about it, they created their first company, GoDimensions, where each of them took a role, Shravan as the President and Sanjay as the Official CEO; the app itself is an online studio for games and lifestyle apps. 


Isha Ambani

Head of Reliance Retail,  a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. She graduated from Yale University with a double major in Psychology and South Asian Studies as a Nonexecutive director. Ambani has led the company’s expansion in new categories such as the E-commerce business ‘Ajio’, digital footprint, and even an Omni-Channel beauty platform ‘Tira.’ Ambani is also part of the Advisory Board of the Yale Schwarzman Center and the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Jio MAMI, and the Dia Art Foundation and, of course, is deeply involved in the launch and operations of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Culture Centre.


Advait Thakur

Founder and CEO of Apex Infosys, his interest in computers dates back to when Thakur was 6 years old; he showed brilliant aptitude and appreciation for understanding the digital realm; his company is currently the leading provider of automation and networking systems for houses and businesses in India, they ensure smarter systems while preserving energy affordable, efficiency and green. Thakur also exhibits a passion for excellence and positive social impact. Due to this, he Co-founded Crophle, an enterprise aimed to reform the agriculture supply chain to benefit small farmers.


Ritesh Agarwal

Founder and Group CEO of OYO Rooms, first called ‘Oravel Stays,” known as the equivalent to Airbnb when it was launched back in 2011, the official launch as OYO was later on in 2013, becoming a multinational chain of leased hotels and homes focused on affordable and comfortable stays, by providing full-stack technology products and services to owners in order to increase revenue, Agarwal stated that they are currently focused in expanding to international markets.


Tilak Mehta

Founder of Papers N Parcels, a same day delivery enterprises that offer different services like parcel tracking, order management, and shipping insurance, ensuring delivery in a period within 4  to 8 hours, Mehta told the story about how he came up with the idea for the business after leaving his book at his uncle’s house and being unable to find a courier fast enough but also affordable.


Nik Storonsky

Founder and CEO of Revolut, a Russian-born entrepreneur who worked for the banking industry as an equity derivatives trader at Lehman Brothers, later on in Credit Suisse until 2013 when let left the industry; afterwards in 2015 he launched his own British based fintech company that offers a wide range of banking services, it could even be considered a digital alternative to traditional banking. 


Farrhad Acidwalla

Founder of Rockstah Media and Cybernetiv Digital, the latest is a cybersecurity corporation that offers solutions, training, and even courses on the topic, while Rockstah Media is a digital firm that optimizes web development with a group of designers, developers, and market visioners. Acidwalla joined the entrepreneurial ranks at the age of 13 after building an olive community around aviation and aero modeling, from a $10 investment to buy his first domain name, one that he later sold for $1,200. 


Sreelakshmi Suresh

CEO of eDesign Technologies, is a design bureau that develops different types of PCBs, assuring top quality, quick turnaround services, and reasonable rates. Suresh has been the recipient of multiple awards, media coverage, and recognition such as the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement in 2008 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India. 


Kevin Systrom

Founder and CEO of Artifact, an app that uses AI to organize and suggest news to users based on their interests. Due to several reasons, they decided to stop operations and sold the AI-powered tech to Yahoo News. He developed a curiosity for computers after playing Doom 2 and learning how to create his own levels as a child; Systrom Co-founded and worked as CEO of Instagram for almost 9 years.


Ben Kaufman

Founder and CEO of former Quirky, a startup platform that connected inventors with companies specialized in order to collaborate for product creation; unfortunately, they went bankrupt in 2015 and sold the activities to Q Holdings. However, Kaufman launched CAMP back in 2018, a successful Family Experience Company. He also worked as CEO of said company until last year when he decided to step down as CEO but kept a role as Counselor and Board Director. 


Sam Eiderman

Co-Founder and CTO of  Utila, got his Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Computer Science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where his currently based, Utila is an enterprise-grade crypto operations platform with the purpose of simplifying digital asset management and daily crypto operations for institutions. Eiderman held the positions of Senior Software Engineer at Google and Principal Software Engineer in the Visualization Group at Oracle.


Katie Fritchen

Vice President of Marketing at ManageMethods, a Cloud Access Monitor that offers K-12 cybersecurity and student safety at an affordable price in collaboration with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Fritchen joined ManageMethods company back in September of 2018, fulfilling the role of Director of Content Marketing until 2019, when she was promoted to Senior Director of Marketing. 


Cara Jarrett

Marketing Director at Hypothesis, a highly accomplished women with over 12 years of experience in driving business growth, brand visibility and more important results; Jarret has worked hard to hand with leading organizations such as Hyatt Corporation and Harvard Business School; Hypothesis is a software that allows highlighting and annotating content, websites and PDFs in order to build universal collaboration into the internet. 


Norelle Done

Marketing Director of Viking Pure Solutions, a sustainable cleaning technology company that is looking to redefine the concept of clean with their patented e-water, a nontoxic solution. Done is characterized by leading and developing the implementation of human-centered marketing and communications strategies that are based on the empathetic understanding of the brand’s real value or purpose for its users.


Shikhil Sharma

Founder and CEO of Astra Security, He made a career out of consulting a number of businesses, startups and even banks on their online security and after realizing how ineffective traditional pentesting was, Sharma founded Astra Security; a cyber security company based in the U.S and India, that it is among the best vulnerability scanners for security conscious companies. 


Vikram Ahuja

Founder and CEO of Nabsolute and OsseoLabs, both companies that work with biomedical technology in order to improve human life and health, Nabsolute is focused on enhancing the efficiency and stability of bioactive molecules in the pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical industries while OsseoLabs develops digital workflow and patient custom 3D printed surgical guides that allows surgeons to work with highly precision.  


Jared Hecht

Founder and CEO of Fundera, a fintech company that serves as a marketplace for small businesses to apply for loans, credit cards, and other financial support, in other words, a business funding matchmaker. Hecht got his Bachelor’s degree in political science at Columbia University back in 2009. Meanwhile, he was the managing director and publisher of the university’s student-written guidebook ‘Inside New York’; he also worked as one of the first employees of Tumblr, where he would lead business development.


Suhas Gopinath

Founder and CEO of Globals Inc, a multinational enterprise recognized for having cutting-edge technology and offers cybersecurity solutions in web, e-commerce, and Mobile. Also Co-founder and CEO of HappyEMI, a consumer finance company providing shoppers instant financing. Gopinath taught himself how to make websites with the help of books and created his own at 14 years old and even when he created Globals Inc that same year, he only became CEO three years later when he was 17 years old. 


Yali Saar

CEO and Founder of Tailor Brands, an all-in-one business building enterprise that helps to speed up the process of developing a business creation, management and growth strategy. Before Tailor Brands, Saar founded Raising the Bar, a worldwide initiative aimed at making education a part of popular culture by creating one-of-a-kind, knowledge driven events in unusual locations in New York City, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Sydney.


Stephanie Lampkin

Founder and CEO of Blendoor, nowadays called BlendScore, a networking and hiring software company that is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, providing AI-driven recommendations. Lampkin got involved in the tech field at a young age because her aunt was a computer scientist and programmer in the 1980s and played an influencer role in her life; after being turned down by Google and witnessing firsthand inefficiency in the tech industry, her idea for BlendScore was born.


Sheena Allen

Former CEO and Founder of CapWay, a financial technology firm that offered financial services to marginal and vulnerable communities, they announced their closure just a month ago but in that same statement Allen declared;“I feel strongly that there is still much work to be done in the financial inclusion space, so it won’t be the last you hear of me in regard to fighting for economic equity”.


Iddris Sandu

Founder and CEO of Spatial Labs, a company that fusion the digital and physical worlds through the creation of hardware and software, bringing innovation to the human experience. Sandu moved from Ghana to the United States when he was 3 years old and developed a keen interest in computers by 10; later on, he was offered an internship at Google by the age of 13. He worked on Google+ and designs for social connectivities. When Sandu was in high school he built an app for his school that provided the tool to know how to navigate campus step by step using augmented reality.


Coco Chen

Founder and CEO of Dream Voyage, an AI-driven tool that helps individuals to explore and experience a deeper connection with the realms of subconsciousness, she is considered a pioneer in the field of mental wellbeing through AI solutions. Chen’s brilliant career also includes significant tenures as a Senior Product Leader at leading consumer tech companies, where she played a pivotal part in scaling two applications from inception to 10 million users.


Changxiao Xie

CoFounder of Empowerly, a company that uses data driven education technology in order to offer college admissions guidance accessible to students with a 98% success rate. Xie after graduating Princeton he worked building trading systems on Wall Street, machine learning at Facebook and researching Natural Language Processing (NPL) techniques for disinformation detection.


Kellan Carney

Chief of Staff at Sunny, a company that provides healthcare engagement and payment software services to health insurance companies. Carney’s early career years were spent in life sciences strategy consulting where he worked across the healthcare spectrum, early stage biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and the payer and provider space. He created a strategic partnership with Costco to lower the cost of living and maximize the value of members.


Maryam A Hassani

Co-Founder and CEO of Zealous, a startup that uses AI-powered technology and geolocation in order to ensure networking within the tech community around individuals. Hassani started her career as a strategy consultant. Later on she would lead the Special Olympics Innovation Challenge. She considered herself passionate about the tech ecosystem in MENA, and that is how she landed on the idea for the Zealous, as a way to level the playing field in software development, creating more opportunities for entrepreneurs in the future.


Maxim Serebryakov

Co-Founder and CEO of Sanas.ai,  a company that uses real-time speech-to-speech AI technology to optimize clear communications by giving multilingual speakers a choice when it comes to communication. Serebryakov graduated from Stanford University as an engineer dedicated to inclusivity. After living accent bias against a friend he got the idea of founding Sanas in order to ensure that every voice is heard and understood around the globe.


Aisha Bowe

Founder and CEO of STEMBoard, a fintech enterprise that specializes in advanced systems for the most elite organizations of the U.S. government; Bowe graduated from the University of Michigan back in 2009 and before launching her own business she worked for NASA for more than six years, she also founded LINGO,  a system of self-paced coding kits with guided tutorials and easy instructions design to make STEM simple and fun for students, is currently used worldwide by universities and schools.


Luca Schnettler

CoFounder and Group CEO of Qumata, a business that offers digital data solutions for health insurers by offering deeper insights into health and fraud risks, even future health and mortality risks, is powered by AI technology to help accelerate underwriting by increasing non-medical limits and boosting processing rates. Schnettler’s vision is to use digital means to innovate insurance sectors and help customers become healthier. 


Alex Wolf

Founder and former CEO of BossBabe, a company focused on helping women entrepreneurs in regards to content strategist, product development, sales, and marketing in general, Wolf also happens to be an advisor and investor in Cyber Collective, a nonprofit organization with the mission of helping and teaching people about the risks of technology in order to provide tools for their protection. Is worth mentioning that back in 2019, Wolf won the ‘Innovator’s & Disruptor’s Award in Media & Marketing’ issued by America On Tech.


Anna Wang

Founder and CTO of Copysmith, an AI writing-powered company that centers around content creation, resources, and tools, helping to build and sustain the business through adequate use of keywords, data, and optimized SEO, Wang is also a Venture Partner for Mythos Ventures, a venture capital and private equity firm that supports small businesses by investing in AGI-proof companies and prosocial technologies.


Baiju Bhatt

Founder and CEO of Aetherflux, an aerospace company focused on commercializing space solar power with the goals of providing renewable energy to households, businesses, and even the military globally. Bhatt is also recognized for co-founding and being an active Board Director of Robinhood Markets, a company that provides a trading platform accessible via a mobile app that is known for facilitating commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds, and cryptocurrency wallets. 


Nikhil Unni

Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Cortex, an Internal Developer Portal purposed to accelerate the path to engineering excellence by helping engineering teams to build better software at scale, Unni attended University of California, Berkeley and also University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; before launching his business he worked for companies like Adobe, Amazon, Addepar and Twilio Inc.

Verushka Buonaffina

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