Navaneeth V. Ganesh (22), a final year M.Tech student of VIT (Vellore Institute of Technology) University, was adjudged the youngest Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) in India last July by Toastmasters International (TMI, estb.1924), a California-based non-profit which operates 15,900 TMI clubs worldwide with an aggregate membership of 345,000. The prime objectives of TMI are to promote public speaking, communication and leadership skills.
“Greatly impressed by the organisational skills of VIT’s TMI chapter in staging the India Emerge Youth Summit in 2012, I signed up as a member and went on to chair the 2013 summit which attracted over 1,000 delegates. Since then over the past four years, our team has helped set up seven TMI clubs with an aggregate enrolment of 350 members,” says Navaneeth.
The elder son of C.V. Ganesh Kumar, a Coimbatore-based real estate businessman and homemaker Bhanurekha, Navaneeth enrolled in VIT’s five-year integrated computer software engineering degree programme in 2012 and completed a coterminous MBA (finance) programme last year. “I am lucky VIT encourages co-curricular education and allows high achievers to write exams despite low class attendance. Chairing conferences and TMI events would never have been possible without the active support extended by the VIT management,” he acknowledges.
Navaneeth has ambitious plans to empower youth with digital skills using social media as a platform. “Because of my DTM activism, I received several job offers but I have chosen to work for UK-based digital services start-up Digiryte in Chennai. I believe my experience in VIT has equipped me with the entrepreneurial skills required for promoting the company of my dreams. Simultaneously, I’m engaged with extending the TMI initiative to under-privileged students to help them acquire employability skills,” he says.
A toast to you!
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Coimbatore)
KEHKASHAN BASU
Dubai-based green crusader Kehkashan Basu (16) is the winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize, 2016, an award presented annually by the Amsterdam-based KidsRights Foundation (estb. 2003). Previous winners include Pakistani women’s rights activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousefzai (2013), among others. Kehkashan was awarded a trophy, higher education study grant and project funding of €100,000 (Rs.71 lakh) at a glittering ceremony in The Hague (Netherlands) by Bangladesh Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on December 2.
Endowed by the Amsterdam-based ABN AMRO Bank and founded by Dutch child rights activist Marc Dullaert over a decade ago to “give children a platform to voice their struggles and circumstances”, the foundation acknowledges and celebrates child rights activists in the 12-18 age group. Kehkashan was selected from among 4,000 international nominees.
The only child of Dubai-based Mausham Basu, an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and general manager of Al Futtaim Panatech, a constituent company of the Dubai-based conglomerate Al Futtaim Group (net worth: $1.6 billion) and homemaker Swati, Kehkashan has recently completed her IGCSE class XI examinations from The Deira International School, Dubai.
Born and raised in the UAE, Kehkashan began her green crusade when she was eight years old. “I was deeply moved by a picture of a dead bird choked with plastic, and started thinking seriously about the effects of environment neglect. Therefore on my eighth birthday which coincidentally falls on World Environment Day (June 5), I pledged to plant a sapling annually and organised a series of waste-recycling campaigns in my neighbourhood,” she recalls. In 2012, she promoted the Green Hope Foundation, Dubai with a team of 1,000 volunteers which has so far co-ordinated waste recycling, beaches and mangrove clean-ups, tree planting and awareness campaigns for children and youth in ten countries including Nepal, India, France, and the US.
Kehkashan is now examining higher education options which will equip her to expand the Green Hope footprint worldwide. “I am exploring pre-university courses and a bachelor’s programme in environmental science at the University of Toronto, and perhaps a Masters at Harvard. Our foundation already works in the US as a partner with the World Bank’s Connect4Climate initiative,” she says
With this go-getting young activist and her committed band of followers going from strength to strength, there is perhaps a chance to heal the world.
Swati Roy (Delhi)