Indian American Activist Tara Raghuveer and Entrepreneur Aadith Moorthy Among ‘TIME 100 Next’

Indian Americans Tara Raghuveer and Adith Moorthy, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, British Indian actress Ambika Mod, and British Indian physician Mehreen Datoo are among ‘TIME100 Next,’ an annual list of emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. Joining them are Nepali LGBTQ activist Rukshana Kapali, and Bangladeshi student activist Nahid Islam. 

Now in its fifth year, the TIME100 Next list was created “to recognize that many of today’s most influential leaders are not waiting long in life to make an impact,” the magazine says. “Nor are they eager to respect the status quo by following the traditional power structures and pathways that have determined what influence looked like in the past.” The list has “no age requirements; its aim is to recognize that influence does not have them either, nor does leadership look like it once did,” the magazine notes. “Indeed, the majority of the individuals on this year’s list are leaders of color; more than half are women.”

Tara Raghuveer is the founding director of KC Tenants, an organization of poor and working class tenants in Kansas City, Missouri. She is also the Homes Guarantee Campaign Director at People’s Action, a national network of grassroots organizations committed to racial, economic, gender, and climate justice. The Australian-born, Indian American immigrant who came to the U,S. with her family in 1995 and grew up in Kansas City. 

Describing Raghuveer’s initiative as “remarkable,” Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, notes she “started with her neighbors in Kansas  City, and created a tenants union that’s become a leader in the fight for better regulations, protections, and rights for renters.” This year she expanded her reach, launching the Tenant Union Federation “to help others across the country build power, and forging a movement of working-class solidarity changing the way Americans think about rent, housing, and our basic rights,” Nelson writes. “Her organizing could impact millions and shift our national conversation about housing. And just as important—Tara has helped thousands embrace the power that’s available to all of us through solidarity. 

Aadith Moorthy is the founder and CEO of Boomitra, a solution that removes emissions and boosts farmer profits by incentivising farmers’ land restoration through a verified carbon credit marketplace and carbon monitoring tech. His expertise in advanced AI and satellite technology have earned him recognition as a top founder in AI by TechCrunch. In addition, Aadith is a Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholar and holds graduate degrees from Stanford and two bachelor’s degrees from the California Institute of Technology. Moorthy found Boomier as a student at Stanford.

The Earthshot Prize–­winning startup “has helped farmers remove 10 million metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Moorthy hopes to double that in short order, and distribute $200 million by 2025 to marginalized farmers,” writer and editor Jeremy Gantz writes. “In June, Boomitra began a partnership with the Mongolian government that aims to sequester about 1.3 million metric tons of CO2 annually, while helping prevent desertification across 3 million acres.” Gantz says “Moorthy knows that change often begins with an uphill battle, but says the pursuit of solutions that could move the climate needle on a ‘planetary scale’ keeps him motivated.”

Ambika Mod was most recently seen as Emma Morley in the hugely popular Netflix series “One Day.” The 14-episode British series is adapted from David Nicholls’ 2009 bestselling novel of the same name. It chronicles “the slow-burning, two-decade-spanning relationship” between Emma and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall), according to Netflix. Variety describes Em, as Dexter calls, her as “a no-nonsense and bookish girl from the English county of Yorkshire.

In the Time magazine essay on Mod, Mindy Kaling writes that “Ambika’s character, Emma, is at the heart of this sweeping love story, which had the distinction of making millions of people weep uncontrollably, internationally, when it dropped.” And even though Kaling was one of those weeping people, she was “also struck by how deeply funny Ambika was.” Her Emma “had so many unexpected qualities,” Kaling notes — “she was cynical, goofy, vulnerable, and sexy. I was immediately googling Ambika to find out more. And I think that’s when I knew I was a fan for life, when I lay on my sofa in the dark, disappearing into an online spiral to find out what’s next for Ambika Mod.”

Payal Kapadia made history earlier this year winning the Grand Prix at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival for his film, “All We Imagine As Light,” about sisterhood in modern Mumbai. The award is considered the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d’Or. The Malayalam-Hindi film follows the story of Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a nurse, who receives an unexpected gift from her long estranged husband. This causes disruption in her life. Her younger roommate, Anu ((Divya Prabha), tries in vain to find a private spot in the big city to be alone with her boyfriend. One day, the two nurses go on a road trip to a beach town where the mystical forest becomes a space for their dreams to manifest. 

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Describing her as a “trailblazer,” actor Ayushmann Khurrana writes in TIME that Kapadia’s film is “a master class of emotions—deeply reflective, philosophical, and meditative in its approach. There is a powerful believability to how she portrays the human experience onscreen. Her authenticity and her lens on reality are part of what makes her work so rare.”Khurrana goes on the say that what Kapadia “achieved at Cannes is a milestone for Indian cinema.” He said he’s “proud to be living in an era where I could witness a talent like Payal showing the world that Indian stories resonate universally, transcending geographies and languages. Her win will inspire other filmmakers and artists to follow in her footsteps and think big. India is a young country of more than 1.4 billion people. We have 1.4 billion stories to tell, and Payal has boldly, loudly, and brilliantly told everyone to pursue their dreams. It would be an honor to work with her, and to engage with her mind.”

Dr. Mehreen Datoo is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College and a Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. Since she contracted malaria while conducting research in Uganda in her 20s, Date’s work has been central to the clinical development of the new malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, from early-phase clinical trials to regulatory approval. The vaccine was “now being administered to children in sub-Saharan Africa and will be game-­changing in the fight against malaria, which in 2022 killed 608,000 people, three-quarters of them children under age 5,” writes  Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute. A clinical lecturer and specialty trainee doctor in infectious diseases and micro­biology at Oxford University, Datoo has worked tirelessly over the past seven years with experts across multiple continents to achieve this goal. “Her team’s efforts will help reduce the incidence of malaria globally, as well as have a direct impact on the health and quality of life of children and their families and communities,” Hill writes. 

Rukshana Kapali is leading the charge of pushing for greater protections for Nepal’s transgender community. fourth-year law student and a transgender woman from the Newa Indigenous nation, Kapali has filed more than 50 cases against the Nepalese government since 2021 pushing for changes in policy. “Of the 20 lawsuits she filed at the Supreme Court, only one so far has reached a verdict, but it’s a meaningful first victory: a November ruling narrowly granted her full legal recognition as a woman,” writes Time journalist Chad De Guzman. “While other transgender people will have to similarly petition for gender recognition, Kapali’s court win sets a legal precedent that may assist their cases,” he notes.  She believes her work is just beginning: “Suing them and holding them accountable in the court of law is also saying that we are not stoppable and we’ll keep on fighting.”

Bangladeshi student activist Nahid Islam “didn’t have to get any older than 26 to help bring down one of the most powerful people in the world,” journalist Verena Hölzl writes in TIME. The sociology graduate is one of the faces of a student movement that kick-started countrywide protests against Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “One of many protest leaders, he became more widely known after being tortured by the country’s notorious intelligence services. Not long after, he delivered the students’ one-point demand: Hasina must resign, Hölzl writes. “No one thought she could be toppled,” Islam says. Hasina fled the country on Aug. 5 following weeks of demonstrations. However, “the biggest challenge might still lie ahead, Hölzl  notes. Islam is one of two Gen Z ministers in the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. “Their task: repairing the democratic system that was eroded during the 15-year reign of an increasingly authoritarian government,” Hölzl says. “We should understand the pulse of the new generation,” Islam says. Political violence between parties, endemic in Bangladesh, must stop. “We need to move on.”