56 | FORBES ASIA DECEMBER 2017
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It should come as no surprise that 19% of those who made the Forbes 30 Under 30
list this year were born outside the U.S. And of that 19%, more than half were born
in Asia. Thirty-six Chinese and 19 Indians are on the list, which highlights 600
young entrepreneurs and disruptors across 20 industries in the U.S. (We feature 8
of those sectors in the pages that follow.)
To see the whole list, go to http://www.forbes.com/30under30. —Rana Wehbe
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES
CREATIVE STYLE DIRECTOR: JOSEPH DEACETISSTYLE ASSISTANTS: MAXIMILLIAN PARKINSON AND PARIS TORIBIO; GROOMING: SUZANA HALLILI USING URBAN DECAY AND MARIO BADESCU; PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE RITZ-CARLTON, BOSTONFOOD: Peter Yang is the 29-year-old cofounder of Pokéworks,
a restaurant chain in the U.S. and Canada (see p. 58).
MEDIA: India-born Rupi Kaur, 25,, has gained worldwide
Instagram fame thanks to her “Millennial-friendly” poetry
suited for the digital age. Kaur’s fi rst book, Milk and Honey, sold
over 2.5 million copies in 25 languages and spent 77 weeks
on the New York Times Best-Seller List while her latest book,
Sun and Her Flowers, which explores her Punjabi-Canadian
heritage, reached the top three on Amazon’s bestseller list.
HOLLYWOOD & ENTERTAINMENT: Kaitlyn Yang’s family
emigrated to the U.S. from China when she was 9. In the same
year, she was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, which
leaves her wheelchair-bound. A graduate of USC’s animation
program, Yang, 25, founded her own postproduction company,
Alpha Studios, in 2013 and has more than 40 credits to her
name, including Robot Chicken and Falling Skies.
SCIENCE: Nine of the 30 honorees are either Indian or
Chinese immigrants. One listee is 18-year-old Amber Yang,
who wants to solve the growing problem of space junk. For
the past three years she’s worked to improve the way it is
tracked and has developed a program that can predict the
future position of space junk with 98% accuracy—which is
far more accurate than the statistical models developed by
NASA. For her work, she won the 2017 Intel Foundation Young
Scientist Award and the CERN Award at the Intel Science &
Engineering Fair, and is on the way to commercializing her
research with her startup, Seer, while attending Stanford
University. Another standout is Indian national Deep Jariwala,
who develops nanometer and atomic-scale devices with
applications in computing, sensors and renewable energy. His
materials research made it possible to reduce the thickness of
solar cells to less than a thousandth of that of a human hair.HEALTHCARE: Kunwoo Lee, 29, is hoping to achieve a
breakthrough in medicine. The South Korean national has
co-authored a paper showing CRISPR technology—the basis
for genome editing—could cure muscular dystrophy in mice.
One big challenge is getting the gene editor into the body.
His solution? Nanoparticles. His startup GenEdit has already
raised $1.5 million.RETAIL: Celebs are smelling the roses, thanks to Seema
Bansal, 26, whose fl owers can last an entire year (p. 64).EDITED BY CAROLINE HOWARD WITH NATALIE SPORTELLI
Young Stars of Asian Descent Making a Splash in the U.S.: