“Age is merely a number; it’s the passion and vision that truly define one’s impact.” These words ring true for Sirish Subash who won America’s Top Young Scientist Challenge in 2024, 10^th grader Deepali, a washerman’s daughter, who earned a US government scholarship, and Pranjali Awasthi who runs an AI startup disrupting Google-dominated online search market. 14-year-old Siddharth Nandyala, an Indian-origin inventor cum entrepreneur in the US, is among the newcomers in the elite club of prodigies. Siddharth has developed an AI-powered app that detects heart disease within seconds, with an accuracy of over 96%.

With cardiovascular disease being one of the biggest lifetakers in the world, Siddharth Nandyala’s CircadiaV app is a breakthrough in science, technology, and healthcare. He invented a simple, easy-to-use, cost-effective solution for saving lives, particularly in economically backward countries and in India’s rural backwaters with little to zero access to a healthcare system. This Indian-American tech prodigy is the founder and CEO of STEM IT.

PC: LinkedIn.com | Siddharth Nandyala

Based in Dallas, Texas; Siddharth’s immigrant parents are from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. His father Mahesh Nandyala moved to the US in 2010 and is a serial entrepreneur with several startups in artificial intelligence. Born in a family that values education and innovation, he has grown up with natural curiosity for technology and its potential to solve real-world problems. Unlike kids of his age, he showed interest in making the right use of gadgets at a very tender age. His tryst with technology began at the age of 7, when his mother, Srilatha, showed him how to code.

Before joining the University of Texas, Dallas for a bachelors degree in Computer Science for Fall 2025, Siddharth earned certifications in artificial intelligence and machine learning from Oracle and ARM, thereby emerging as the world’s youngest AI-certified professional. He was not just doing certifications but chasing solutions. That’s when he started working on the app CircadiaV aiming to make detection of heart diseases easier, faster, and a lot more cost-effective. After all, timely detection may help many lives escape early death.

How Siddharth Nandyala’s CircadiaV app works? It records one’s heartbeats through a smartphone microphone, uses AI to analyse the data, and detects potential cardiac ailments – all in 7 seconds. No lab visits. No heavy machines. No expensive clinical tests. All that the app requires is a smartphone in good condition. CircadiaV has successfully been tested on 15,000 patients in the US and 700 in India during pilot trials.

STEM IT’s CEO Siddharth didn’t stop with just one invention. While working on his app, he came across another issue – prosthetic limbs. Many people who lose their arms in accidents or medical conditions can’t afford artificial limbs because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Siddharth decided to fix that too. He is now developing a brain-controlled prosthetic arm using EEG technology, bringing the cost down to just $300. That’s truly going to be life changing for many.

His transformative and disruptive innovations have already earned him recognitions. He was named Innovator of the Year by the Frisco Chamber of Commerce and received a Certificate of Recognition from the US House of Representatives. His startup STEM IT has garnered national attention, including a featured appearance on “Good Morning America” (broadcast on ABC). In 2014, he was honored with the distinction of delivering a keynote address, at the Global IndiaAI Summit, about his perspectives on the future of artificial intelligence.

At just 14, he has achieved what takes many adults a lifetime. And the best thing? It’s just the beginning for him. Despite being an innovator and an entrepreneur, he is still a growing kid at heart. Chess is his other passion. He admits that chess has played a big role in shaping his ability to think critically and solve problems strategically.

Travel Beats, a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, promotes achievements of young Indians in Americans through a series of success stories. IndianEagle.com, the most trusted travel-booking partner of Indians in USA, makes sure students, H1B visa holders, senior citizens on B2 visa, OCI Cardholders and others travel on best flights between USA and India for the lowest fares possible. 

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No matter President Trump latches the door of America to keep the less affluent, the marginalized, and the underprivileged outside; some journeys from the streets or slums in India are destined for success in the United States, braving barriers and borders. Among them is the journey of Anuja from the streets of Old Delhi to the Oscars in Los Angeles. Anuja is an Oscar-nominated short film and a 9-year-old orphaned math whiz, who lives with her elder sister and works in a seedy garment factory.

Nominated for the Best Live Action Short Film at the 97^th Academy Awards, Anuja is a poignant drama on the struggles and aspirations of two budding women by a team of Indian-origin women producers, including Mindy Kaling, Guneet Monga, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Suchitra Mattai. From filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali to Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay to the present-day Anuja, the stories of innocence transit into journeys of experience – the experience that is grim and gloomy.

PC: Instagram.com/anujathefilm

Anuja and her elder sister, Palak not only stitch clothes in the garment factory but also weave dreams of change for better out of cut pieces (leftover fabric). They remain stuck between a system that perpetuates child labor and a narrow path to escape the system. The bags they secretly make from cut pieces earn them some rupees, a part of which buys them short-lived happiness from mundane luxuries (watching a movie and munching popcorn) and the remaining is saved for an uncertain future.

Like Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories, the short film Anuja has an inconclusive ending. The curtain drops when Anuja, the protagonist, stands still contemplating on the road that diverges in two different directions – one to the factory where she toils for two meals a day and the other to a scholarship for free schooling. It represents the dilemma, mental conflict at large, of hundreds of thousands of children like Anuja, from slums and streets across India, who are tossed between the present and the future, reality and dreams.

Let’s now meet the real hero, Sajda Pathan, who lends absolute authenticity to essaying the titular character, Anuja, and brings it to life. Abandoned by her parents, Sajda Pathan grew up in the claustrophobic lanes of Old Delhi and survived through begging outside a temple before she was rescued by Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT), a nonprofit NGO supporting street children in Delhi-NCR with non-formal education. Salaam Baalak Trust was founded with the proceeds from Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay which was nominated for an Oscar at the 61^st Academy Awards.

Unlike Anuja whose mathematical brilliance was exploited by her employer in the film, Sajda Pathan’s acting talent became a force of change for her fortune. Sajda shines as the protagonist Anuja as it is her second film. She debuted on the silver screen as a lead character in The Braid (La Tresse), a 2023 French feature film.

The Oscar-nominated Anuja short film is strongly backed by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Guneet Monga as executive producers. Guneet Monga was the executive producer of two Oscar-winning documentary films – Period. End of Sentence in 2019 and The Elephant Whisperers in 2023. She has produced a galaxy of critically acclaimed films, including Massan, Rang Rasiya, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Pagglait, and The Lunchbox.

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A national security risk or a bold bet on young recruits? A giant leap in the pursuit of American Dream or the beginning of the end of a bright career? The US media is rife with this debate on 21-year-old Indian American Akash Bobba, one of the newly hired engineers in the 19-23 age group for key roles in Elon Musk’s DOGE, a federal agency. He is possibly the youngest Indian-origin recruit in the Trump administration 2025.

Who is Akash Bobba in the Department of Government Efficiency that Tesla chief Elon Musk formed with President Trump’s executive order on 20 January? It is one of the trending social media topics and popular Google searches this week. He is a UC Berkley graduate with impressive credentials in coding, analytics, and artificial intelligence. One of the six recruits, the youngest being a 19-year-old, whom Elon Musk handpicked for his ambitious experimentation at DOGE. Akash interned at Silicon Valley giants, Palantir, and wrote AI models for Meta.

What made Elon Musk hire Akash Bobba is that the latter is a future-ready tech leader with a proven track record of solving business-critical problems under pressure and in a very short time. He also excelled at the prestigious Management Entrepreneurship Technology (MET) program at UC Berkeley and gained first-hand knowledge of financial modelling techniques at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. His mental agility, boundless enthusiasm, zest for learning, adaptability, and passion for everything tech make a collective drive for Elon Musk’s DOGE – a cost cutter for the US government’s federal spending.

Scheduled to end in July 2026, Elon Musk-led DOGE project’s objective is to “modernize federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” It aligns with Trump’s election campaign promises to curtail federal overheads, reduce the government’s fiscal deficit, and ensure proper utilization of the federal budget. Musk, the world’s richest billionaire, has proposed that his DOGE project and team may make the federal budget shrink by up to $2 trillion through rigorous measures, including but not limited to, trimming the workforce, shutting down redundant agencies, and consolidating federal agencies from 400 to fewer than 100.

What caused the uproar among Americans over Musk’s appointment of Akash Bobba and other young engineers to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)? It is their high-level security clearance to access classified data of federal budget and taxation, as well as the government IT system, despite having no prior experience in any public service domain. A group of Trump’s supporters call it a potential threat to the national security citing that unprecedented access to restricted government systems is usually granted to experienced federal officials with clean records, not fresh college graduates.

Critics of the Trump 2.0 administration describe the bold government system overhaul by Elon Musk-led DOGE team as a ‘high-stake gamble.’ However, Akash Bobba’s meteoric rise from coding internships to a key federal agency in the new US government is grabbing the headlines. Alongside the news of Akash Bobba in DOGE, an anecdote about his remarkable coding skills is making rounds on social media. Charis Zhang, one of his former classmates, shares the anecdote,

“During a project at Berkeley, I accidentally deleted our entire codebase. I panicked. Akash just stared the screen, shrugged, and rewrote everything from scratch in one night – better than before. We submitted early and got first in the class.”

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Meet 14-year-old Sirish Subash from India, who won Discovery 3M’s Young Scientist Challenge 2024 and emerged as America’s top young scientist out of the 10 finalists including 6 Indian-origin contestants. Among thousands of promising innovators and inventors with a problem-solving attitude, only the best 10 budding scientists made it to the grand finale of America’s premier middle school science competition. While vying for America’s Top Young Scientist title, the finalists demonstrated the transformative power of STEM and their commitment to solving everyday issues and pressing global challenges.

PC: Youngscientistlab.com (collage by Indian Eagle) | Sirish Subash (right down corner)

Sirish Subash, Georgia

Sirish Subash from Georgia won America’s Top Young Scientist title and received a whopping $25,000 cash prize for his AI-based handheld device that can easily and accurately detect the presence of pesticide residues on agricultural produces. Science being his only passion, Sirish bagged the Agricultural Research Service Award for Excellence at the Georgia Science & Engineering Fair early this year. His AI-based pesticide detector, if developed further, could greatly enhance public health and food safety. He looks forward to developing futuristic devices to fight climate and environmental challenges for a better world.

Mentored by Aditya Banerji, a senior research engineer, America’s Young Scientist title 2024 winner Sirish says that his device is small, portable, and Bluetooth-enabled. “Some pesticide residue is rigid enough to be washed away when we rinse vegetables and fruits from markets. The idea is not to replace washing, but rather to help ensure that those produces are clean enough for cooking or consumption.”

Prince Nallamothula, Texas

A resident of Frisco in Texas, Prince Nallamothula who hails from the Telugu-speaking region of India has developed an innovative technique to use quantum dots in solar cells and test the cells in quantum chemistry. This wannabe quantum scientist wishes to make breakthroughs in the field of quantum technology. The US President’s Environmental Youth Award 2020 was presented to Prince Nallamothula, a 3M Young Scientist Challenge finalist. Notably, he is a TEDx Youth speaker and coach at the age of 14. He is serving as a young scientist at QuantumAstra, a startup working on next-gen computing, communication and sensing solutions in Frisco, TX.

Interestingly, the Mayor of Frisco declared 15 January 2019 as “Prince Nallamothula Day” in Frisco, recognizing his outstanding talent through an official proclamation.

Ronita Shukla, Massachusetts 

Of all the 10 finalists for America’s Young Scientist title 2024, Ronita Shukla has developed a novel solution to get atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed more than usual through increased photosynthesis by spirulina (blue green algae). Since spirulina grows 10 times faster than trees in the same stretch of land, it can increase the rate of photosynthesis, thereby sequestering more CO2 in the atmosphere. This 7^th grader from Acton, Massachusetts adjudges mobile internet as her favorite invention of the past 100 years. She aspires to be a research scientist or professor.

Aakash Manaswi, Florida 

Among the finalists of Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2024, Aakash Manaswi has prototyped a natural solution to save beehives from mite infestation. The livelihood of beekeepers in most parts of the US is threatened by the varroa mite, a parasitic pest that feeds on honey bees. The existing treatment of mite infestation is an expensive, time-consuming process. Since beekeeping is a key to the planet’s ecological balance, his invention could be more effective in saving the world’s most accomplished pollinators, honey bees.

A resident of Orlando in Florida, Aakash Manaswi aspires to become an entomologist and make beekeeping a fruitful practice.

Ankan Das, Florida

8^th grader Ankan Das has developed an intelligent walking robot as a fool-proof surveillance solution to vie for the title of America’s top young scientist 2024. The robot can be put in motion without motors or gears. Ankan, an aspiring aerospace engineer, has been passionate about robotics and aeronautics since his elementary school days. He wants to grow up designing and developing new-gen technologies, such as advanced rovers and robots for space explorations. Modern-day aircraft is his favorite invention of the past 100 years. Advanced aircraft facilitates tourism, cultural exchange, global trade, and international relations.

Rithvik Suren, Connecticut     

Rithvik Suren, who lives with his parents in Windsor, has made it to the finals of America’s most prestigious STEM competition for his AI-based innovation. Leveraging the power of AI intelligence, he is working on an innovative method that can predict impending occurrence of earthquakes and study sequences to make better predictions of such events in the future. Rithvik Suren wishes to study mechatronics engineering so that he could develop nano-tech solutions to threats to human life. Nanotechnology is his favorite invention of the past 100 years.

From 2012 until 2020, America’s Top Young Scientist title went to 6 Indian-origin kids named Deepika Kurup (2012), Sahil Doshi (2014), Maanasa Mendu (2016), Gitanjali Rao (2017), Rishab Jain (2018), and Anika Chebrolu (2020). Unfortunately, the Indian immigrant community did not have good luck with the ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’ title in the past three years. Hence, Sirish Subash’s win not only filled the three-year void but also brought back the prestigious honor to Indian immigrants in USA.

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Indeed, the US is a land of opportunities, not only for Indian immigrants exploring pathways to lawful permanent residency but also Indian students nurturing the American Dream. Once again, the States has opened doors to 30 meritorious and deserving students from India, regardless of their socio-economic background. Among them is Deepali Kannoujia, a 10^th grader from rural India, whose academic dreams are flying to America on the wings of a US government scholarship.

16-year-old Deepali, the daughter of a washerwoman, has been selected for the US State Department’s Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. YES, one of the prestigious scholarship programs, is a coveted opportunity for needy and meritorious students from developing countries to spend an academic year in the USA. Deepali’s journey from a marginal community in Uttar Pradesh to the United States has been making headlines worldwide as a story of inspiration, resilience, and perseverance.

PC: The Better India

Born into a family that survives on such humble means as washing clothes, Deepali has grown up with dreams not privileges. She is the youngest of four siblings. As the family income from traditional laundry goes into securing two meals a day for 6-7 family members, Deepali would shudder at the thought of not reaching her academic goals, primarily because of very little financial support from home. The situation became topsy-turvy when a chronic health condition made her father bedridden, leaving her mother all alone to manage household expenses.

Currently, Deepali is busy learning the etiquette of flying and packing her bags as her first-ever international flight to USA from New Delhi is scheduled on August 19, 2024. Prerna Girls School, a nonprofit institution in Lucknow for girls from low-income families, has been a stepping stone in Deepali Kannoujia’s journey from a humble background to international recognition, and from India to USA. The school run by the Study Hall Educational Foundation has supported Deepali’s academic pursuits from the very beginning.

On seeing her ardent zeal for studies and outstanding academic results in the face of adversities, the school encouraged her to apply for the US State Department’s Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. Of course, she had to fulfil certain eligibility criteria (elaborated below) for the scholarship.

“My mother is my biggest motivation. I have seen her work so hard for the family every day, which she continues to do till today. She can barely read and write, but she always taught me to value education and focus on my studies,” Deepali told a media publication.

What is Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program USA?

Integrated to the US foreign policy, the program is out and out a merit-based scholarship. It helps develop sustained connections between the Americans and talented students from developing nations, thereby creating space for the youth leadership growth and cross-cultural inclusivity in a civil society. The students selected for the YES program get to stay with host families in the US while attending local high schools for a year. The program also requires them to take part in civic education and community events there.

The expenses that the YES program covers for the eligible students include round trip flight tickets, pre-departure orientation, monthly stipend, health insurance, accommodation for 10-11 months, medical examinations and immunizations.

Who can apply for Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program?

Students who fall in the age group of 15 to 18 years and study in 8^th, 9^th, 10^th or 11^th grade can apply for the YES program. Intermediate-level proficiency in English speaking, writing and reading is a must, alongside a strong academic performance record. A minimum of 70% in grades over the past four consecutive school years is compulsory. The applicants must be legal residents/citizens of India or other eligible countries. Their total family income must be lesser than Rs 5 lakh. Their international travel history also matters. Those who have either not visited the US ever or stayed not more than 90 days in the US in the past 5 years are preferred for the program.

Travel Beats, a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, promotes achievements of young Indians through a series of success stories that many NRIs can relate to. Indian Eagle, the most trusted travel-booking partner of Indians in USA, makes sure students, H1B visa holders, senior citizens and others travel on best flights to and from India for the lowest fares available.

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“Are you sure you are 10 years old?” Sofia Vergara, one of the four judges, could not help wondering about the age of Maya Neelakantan, a metal guitarist, who mesmerized everyone during her audition on the stage of America’s Got Talent. Sofia went on to say, “Your energy, your confidence. A perfect audition! Amazing!” The other judges were equally praiseful of her. Heidi Klum, a renowned supermodel and reality show host, added, “Everyone in this room loved what you just did. You should be proud of yourself.”

Who is Maya Neelakantan? “The rock goddess,” as one of the AGT judges hailed Maya, is a metal guitarist from Chennai, India. Trained in Carnatic music, she set the America’s Got Talent stage on fire with her unique rendition of “Last Resort” by Papa Roach on an electric guitar. She started coyly with an authentic Carnatic Nata Bhairavi Raga and graduated to strum the chords of “Last Resort” with headbanging. The judges unanimously sent her to the next round.

PC: Maya Neelakantan | America’s Got Talent

Not only her performance, but also her appearance impressed Indians in America and beyond. With a bindi adorning her forehead and a pair of dangling jhumkas accessorizing her Indian ethnic outfit, Maya Neelakantan gave the impression to the world that no matter what she performs or where she performs, she carries her Indian culture and heritage that she inherited by birth. The Indian Diaspora is proud of Maya because she did not ape American fashion to impress the judges.

“Maya Neelakantan’s performance at America’s Got Talent seems to remind the US of Carnatic exponent M S Subbulakshmi’s historic performance at the UN General Assembly in 1966. Such comparisons are just, though exaggerated. Like M S Subbulakshmi, 10-year-old Maya is from the land of Carnatic music and made the cut on her first visit to the United States. Since Subbulakshmi’s concert tour of the US, it has been nearly 60 years. Precisely, America sees Indian talent galore,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.

Like Indian American Tiara Abraham, Maya’s musical journey commenced at a very young age. She took a fancy to heavy metal music when she was barely 5. As a YouTuber, her name spread far and wide by the age of 9. Her command over electric guitars did not go unnoticed and unrewarded by Tool’s lead guitarist, Adam Thomas Jones. Spellbound by Maya Neelakantan’s version of Tool’s 16-minute epic 7Empest, Adam Jones sent his signature guitar to her in 2022.

“My dream is to combine all of my music interests to create something that is totally unheard of! I want to create a genre of my own combining the intricate Carnatic music and the extreme Thrash Metal.

This story is part of our continued effort to give a shoutout to achievements of Young Indians in America. Travel Beats is a leading diaspora portal and a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, a most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians abroad. Sign up to our newsletter for latest community stories, US visa and immigration updates, and everything about US-India air travel.

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Our continued series of stories about young Indians in America evidences the fact that ambitious students from India eye the States as their most preferred destination for higher studies, well-paying jobs, and a better runway of growth. Some including the likes of Pranjali Awasthi grow into founders and entrepreneurs with disrupting innovations, whereas some return to the homeland for greater goals, like Ruchit Garg. Regardless of the brain drain to India or its reversal, they are sitting at the steering wheel of technology to make life easier for various communities.

PC: Penntoday.upenn.edu/news

Deserving an entry to the Young Indian space in Travel Beats – a leading community portal for Indians in the US – are Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar who have bagged the President’s Innovation Prize 2024 for their new-age edtech solution, Jochi. Both Indian-origin undergraduate seniors at the University of Pennsylvania have been awarded the prize for making schooling easier to students with learning differences, like ADHD. The prize includes $100,000 for their collaborative project and a stipend of $50,000 for each. Additionally, they got a dedicated workplace at the university’s business incubator to cradle and grow their edtech startup.

Adjudged as changemakers of tomorrow seeking to ‘make a positive, lasting difference in the world,’ Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar are currently helping more than 1000 neurodivergent students with their educational management tool integrated to the system of nine schools. The UPenn President’s Innovation prize money would help them develop their technology and expand it to more schools in America.

Yash Dhir, an engineering major, and Rahul Nambiar, a computer science major, founded Jochi in 2022. The idea struck Yash in his freshman year when he realized the challenges of remote education – the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic. He wanted to create a tool to aid remote learners in efficiently managing their time outside the classroom. Considering his learning differences in high school, he wanted to tailor it around middle and high school neurodivergent students with ADHD, dyslexia, and executive dysfunction among others.

But with life slowly returning to normalcy, Yash moved into the on-campus dormitory in 2021 for live classes and the exciting life at Penn. It is where he met his roommate and future business partner, Rahul Nambiar. Soon, they started investing their time after studies into developing the idea and creating an educational management platform. After a year or so, Jochi came to life, with an intent to transform the education environment for neurodivergent learners.

Jochi features a digital daily planner for students and management tools for learning specialties. While students can organize their daily assignment and extracurricular activities, educators can track their progress, examine their performance, and provide necessary support based on real-time information. This gives instructors a complete picture of their students as learners both in and outside the traditional environment of brick-and-mortal classrooms.

Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar’s Jochi earned recognition for its tremendous potential to revolutionize learning experience for neurodivergent students. They won many awards for their invention, including the $50,000 Draper Bridge Fund Award and $30,000 cash reward in the Startup Challenge. They also made it to the semifinals of the 2024 Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition. The 2024 Penn President’s Innovation Prize takes the total fundings for Jochi to nearly $300,000. With financial and faculty support from Penn, the student founders look forward to developing their startup into a successful business.

“Inventors at their core, Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar identified a gap and a solution to support students with learning differences. They have used their creativity and determination to turn an ambitious vision into a very useful product,” says Interim President J. Larry Jameson.

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The 10-year-old Indian American prodigy who earned accolades for her first stage performance at Carnegie Hall, New York in 2016 has grown into a musical genius with an M.A. degree. Once again, she created history and made Indian Diaspora proud with her master’s degree in music of voice at only 18 years. She is the youngest to have achieved this milestone across the statewide campuses of Indiana University.

She is none other than Tiara Abraham, sister of another Indian American prodigy Tanishq Abraham, the world’s youngest biomedical engineer who earned a PhD at 19. The sibling duo hails from an immigrant family of scientists and engineers in California. Their grandmother, who celebrated her 90^th birthday last year, holds the distinction of being the first Indian woman veterinarian with a PhD. Despite having a strong family background in STEM, Tiara chose music as her career when she was merely 7 and debuted as a singer at 10.

PC: Tiara Abraham (right) with her mother and brother Dr. Tanishq Abraham

“We were at first skeptical, because being a singer is competitive and there’s no guarantee how far you can go in music,” said Tiara’s mother. “That was always a fear for us. But it’s always good to be in something you enjoy doing. There’s no point in forcing her to do science just because it brings more security,” she was quoted by the magazine of her daughter’s alma mater, the University of California, Davis.

Tiara started classical voice training and community college at a tender age of 7, just like her brother who had enrolled for Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth at the age of 5 and delivered his first TEDx talk at 9. Within 3 years of having started vocal training, she recorded and released her first music album titled Winter Nightingale, a collection of nine classic carols and holiday songs in 6 languages – English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Latin.

Indian American Tiara Abraham’s first album was a wonderful culmination of her father’s discovery of her latent musical talent when she sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in vibrato style, which is quite difficult for someone at the age of 5. Tiara’s father, a software engineer, appointed a private tutor to train her in vocal music. Owing to her regular practice, hard work and passion, she won a local music competition and got the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Both Tiara and Tanishq are members of Mensa, a high-IQ society in America. Tiara became a member of Mensa when she was only 4. Tiara, along with Indian-origin Viveka Saravanan, won the YoungArts Awards 2024 in the classical voice category. YoungArts Week is the most prestigious national competition for emerging artists across the United States. Inspired by opera vocalist Renée Fleming and soprano lyricist Kathleen Battle, she wishes to become a soprano classical singer.

This story is part of our continued effort to give a shoutout to achievements of Young Indians in America. Travel Beats is a leading diaspora portal and a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, a most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians abroad. Sign up to our newsletter for latest community stories, US visa and immigration updates, and everything about US-India air travel.

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Six Indian-origin students have made it to the 2024 Class of Distinguished New Americans and each of them has won the $90,000 fellowship grant for up to two years. Thus, they have entered the prestigious cohort of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows, including Dr Vivek Murthy, the first US Surgeon General of Indian descent who played a crucial role in leading national response to epidemic outbreaks, and healthcare leader Nirav Shah who worked for US CDC.

Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, since its establishment in 1998, has supported nearly 800 New Americans – immigrants and children of immigrants – for their educational pursuits in USA. As immigrants themselves, Paul and Daisy Soros believe in the transformative impact of a single opportunity for talented individuals seeking to fulfil their potential in the land of American Dream. Every year, the merit-based graduate school program provides $90,000 fellowship grants to 30 students of various ethnic origins, with ‘potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States.’

PC: Pdsoros.org

Akshay Swaminathan from New Jersey

The $90,000 fellowship grant will support Akshay Swaminathan’s Ph.D. studies in biomedical data science at Stanford University. He has developed several data-driven tools, including a suicide detection system. The budding data scientist has published 40 research papers and co-authored a book on applying quantitative methods to address healthcare-related issues. He has also built a primary care clinic in Bolivia. His current research focuses on the role of AI in healthcare.

Being a language instructor and author, Akshay Swaminathan founded ‘Start Speaking’ platform to help language learners. He led ESL programs for Chinese immigrants and published 5 textbooks. He founded ‘Start Speaking’ platform to help language learners. As a future physician, he aims to bolster the healthcare system in marginalized regions. The third-generation Indian American born in a Tamil family practices Carnatic music as a way of nurturing his cultural roots.

Shubhayu Bhattacharya from Los Angeles

Kolkata-born Shubhayu Bhattacharya noticed common healthcare challenges in his community across India and California. Deeper research and a quest for solutions led him to found a startup, Auditus Technologies, to roll out hearing devices for adults suffering from dementia. He was pursuing a double degree in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics from Hopkins University at the time.

Later, he invented the first computational bedside system to monitor and classify motor functions in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. His Ph.D. thesis on AI methods for effective TBI treatment was published in leading health journals, and he was invited to deliver a keynote at international conferences. An MD student at Harvard, Shubhayu wants to become a physician-engineer in neurocritical or neurosurgical care. He aims to harness big data to improve the effectiveness & accessibility of brain injury care.

Malavika Kannan from Pennsylvania

One of the $90,0000 Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship winners in 2024, Malavika Kannan will fund her Master’s program in Fine Arts (Fiction) with the grant. Currently a senior at Stanford University, Malavika is a published author of ‘All the Yellow Suns’, a coming-of-age novel narrating the emotional journey of a queer Indian American girl as she explores her identity, engages in activism, and finds love. Her fictional pieces surrounding the themes of identity, culture and politics have been published in The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and The San Francisco Chronicle. She aspires to be a novelist and a professor of literature.

Keerthana Hogirala from Chicago

Keerthana’s family moved to the US from Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh when was 6. Her family endured a prolonged period of uncertainty during the wait for naturalization. The experience motivated Keerthana to make the most of the opportunity available to her amid the green card backlog. After graduating in neuroscience, she became a special education teacher at DC Public Schools.

She was instrumental in leading DC schools’ response to COVID-19 pandemic. She gradually overhauled operations with her innovative approaches. Her subsequent role as chief of staff put her in charge of the DC schools’ multi-year digital transformation initiative. She earned a full-tuition merit scholarship for MBA and 90% tuition merit scholarship for MPP. Keerthana is now pursuing an MBA and MPP dual degree at the University of Chicago. Her future goal is to address pressing public needs and drive social development in underprivileged communities.

Ananya Agustin Malhotra from Georgia

Ananya Agustin Malhotra of Indian and Filipino descent developed a deep interest in global history and international relations owing to her multiethnic background. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar while pursuing an MPhil in modern European history at Oxford University. Ananya actively advocates for women rights as well as peaceful foreign policies with focus on nuclear disarmament and risk reduction.

She has authored/co-authored several policy briefs. Her research papers, writings on world history, international law and order, security, peace and other works were published in popular media such as Global histories, American Oxonian, and Oxford Review of Books. She has effectively collaborated with her alma matter – Princeton University – on projects of science and global security. She is currently enrolled in the Juris Doctor Program at Yale University.

Aayush Karan from Wisconsin

A summa cum laude graduate pursuing Ph.D. in Quantum Science and Engineering at Harvard University, Aayush Karan has been exceptional at academics since childhood. His research skills are remarkable too. From his high school research in low-dimensional topology to undergraduate research involving application of mathematical concepts to solve scientific problems, his work earned him several rewards, including Davidson fellowship and Barry Goldwater Scholarship.

Aayush inherited his passion for scientific research from his parents, who moved to USA from India for advanced research in cancer biology. In future, he aims to contribute towards safe and effective utilization of AI technology. If not research, he immerses himself in creative pursuits, exploring various mediums of storytelling, from music to writing.

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After having recently got two Indian-origin CEOs, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Dhivya Suryadevara, America selected the top winner of Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024 from the Indian immigrants community. 17-year-old Achyuta Rajaram from New Hampshire won America’s Junior Nobel (as the STEM competition is popularly known) and bagged a whopping cash prize $250,000 as the most promising scientist of tomorrow. This is the second consecutive win for Indian Diaspora in the United States after Neel Moudgal from Michigan emerged the top winner in the same competition in 2023.

PC: Societyforscience.org | Achyuta Rajaram (left), Arnav Chakravarthy (right)

Achyuta Rajaram, a high schooler with dreamy eyes and unkempt hair, has been awarded as the first place winner for developing an automatic method to identify which parts of a computer model are responsible for ‘thinking’ and ‘decision making’ when it comes to interpreting images. In machine learning and artificial intelligence, the algorithms of a computer model work by certain patterns in data to respond to queries. His thought-provoking research can be likened to a deep dive into the human thought process, understanding which neurons in the brain respond to stimuli in the form of a picture.

“Achyuta’s research improved our ability to discover what computer models ‘think’ when they analyze a photo and which parts of their ‘mechanical brains’ are contributing to the decision making. For example, when a model identifies a car in a photo, does it first identify wheels and use this to identify ‘car-ness,’ or does it look for something else?” notes Society for Science, an American nonprofit that promotes STEM education programs and competitions. His project could help make computational algorithms “more effective, fair and safe”.

Indian American Achyuta Rajaram attributes his interest in computer science and coding to his parents, Nivedita Chevvakula and Rajaram Ramaswamy Kumaraswamy, who gave him an exposure to emerging technologies from a young age. Jazz drumming, teaching chess strategy, and organizing in-house tournaments are among his favorite activities beyond computers. He co-heads the physics, chemistry and chess clubs at Phillips Exeter Academy. After graduation, he plans to major in computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and continue his research in Artificial Intelligence.

Arnav Chakravarthy among top 10 winners at 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search

The other Indian-origin teen honored at the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search is Arnav Chakravarty from Sunnyvale, California. 18-year-old Arnav made it to the top 10 winners and took home $50,000 cash prize for his research that may help improve therapies for age-related human diseases like Alzheimer’s. He intensively studied how certain immune system cells known as macrophages regenerate themselves in an ageing body. Arnav Chakravarty’s research is based on recent studies that discovered that macrophage cells may be replenished by the bone marrow in aging humans

Interestingly, Arnav is cofounder and CEO of SciLynk Inc., an AI-driven startup for scientists and researchers. Nasdaq’s Entrepreneurial Center selected him as a ‘Face of Entrepreneurship’ in 2021 out of 30,000 young entrepreneurs across the globe. At the same time, he is interning at Stanford Medicine where he is leading a cancer research project. He is also the state secretary of the California Future Business Leaders of America, according to Society for Science.

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