8 Coke Scholars Named Brightest Young Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Stars in Forbes 2024 30 Under 30 List

Each year, Forbes announces its 30 Under 30 list, naming 30 innovators in 20 different fields. Each honoree is distinguished as one of the brightest young entrepreneurs, innovators, and game changers in the country.

Forbes named 8 Coca-Cola Scholar honorees for 2024 – here’s how they’re positively impacting the world as leaders in their field.

The content below was originally posted on Forbes.com or on the honoree’s websites.

Rania Zuri

2023 Coca-Cola Scholar

Founder and CEO of The LiTEArary Society

Rania is the founder and CEO of The LiTEArary Society, an entirely youth-led nonprofit organization that works to end book deserts for disadvantaged preschool children. The LiTEARrary Society has donated over $326,000-worth of brand-new books to over 28,000 disadvantaged children in all 50 states since its inception in October of 2021. The organization has partnerships with and has received funding from Scholastic, Inc., Barnes & Noble, Hershey’s, Pilot Pens, and Starbucks.

Raina is also the youngest author of a U.S. Senate resolution. Her bipartisan resolution, National Early Childhood Literacy Awareness Day, works to strengthen literacy development for more than 15 million children in primary schools nationwide through corporate partnerships, national public library campaigns, and new book donation programs.

Neel Mehta

2014 Coca-Cola Scholar

Co-founder of Fiber AI

Aditya Agashe and Neel Mehta, Microsoft and Google alums, cofounded Fiber AI, a Y Combinator-backed marketing SaaS startup, in January. The company, which uses AI-powered marketing solutions, has raised $4.3 million from investors including Rebel Fund and Soma Capital.

Neel was a Product Manager at Google working on the Chromebook hardware team, leading the design of the next generation of Chromebooks based on AMD chips, a potentially multi-billion dollar portfolio, and partnering with Daydream to bring AR capabilities to more Chromebooks. Previously at Microsoft, Neel launched numerous features for Microsoft Project and Planner, two products in the Office family, and was able to scale the product adoption to 150 million monthly active users.

He is the author of the 3 #1 bestselling technology strategy books, including Swipe to Unlock, that have sold 300,000+ copies worldwide and been translated into a dozen languages. Prior to this, he founded the Civic Digital Fellowship, the first tech, data science, and PM internship program in the US government — that sends 80+ students from top colleges to work in federal agencies every summer.

Devishi Jha

2021 Coca-Cola Scholar

Co-founder of Leafpress

Launched in February 2023, Leafpress helps large real estate owners and tenants collect and report carbon emissions using AI. Its software syncs utility accounts to monitor and analyze energy usage across all of a company’s facilities. Devishi has done carbon auditing for companies including Sephora, Unilever, Spotify and P&G.

As noted on cnn.com, Devishi has been a climate organizer for over five years and her concern for the planet started after watching a video on climate change in 6th grade. “I was astounded by the catastrophic impacts that climate change could have on the planet during my lifetime, and was driven to act,” says Devishi. “I became an organizer two years later.” Since then she has been a member of the UNICEF USA National Council, partnerships director at Zero Hour and currently serves on the board at the American Lung Association as a climate activist advisor.

Saad Amer

2012 Coca-Cola Scholar

Founder of Justice Environment

A fashionable climate activist who’s been featured in “Vogue” and “Women’s Wear Daily,” Saadhas worked to mobilize young people to fight global warming. The Harvard grad and son of Pakistani immigrants cofounded Plus1Vote ahead of the 2018 elections to turn out the vote on climate change and social justice, collaborating with celebrities like Bella Hadid, Taylor Swift and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Today, Amer runs a consultancy, Justice Environment, focused on sustainability and ESG strategy. He served as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2021 report and has consulted for the United Nations.

Eric Chen

2014 Coca-Cola Scholar

Co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs

Eric co-leads the development of the Injective blockchain, which has facilitated over 300 million transactions totaling nearly $13 billion at an average cost of less than 1 cent. The firm raised $57 million from investors like Binance Labs, Mark Cuban, and Jump Crypto. In January, it launched a $150 million fund, backed by high-profile crypto investors including Pantera Capital and Kraken Ventures, to boost the growth of decentralized finance.

Prior to Injective, Eric was a researcher at Innovating Capital, working on trading strategies and protocol research. Before that, he was a part of the NYU Blockchain Labs. Eric has worked within the crypto industry since 2017.

Archika Dogra

2020 Coca-Cola Scholar

Founder of Innoverge

Archika Dogra founded Innoverge in 2017 to promote STEM education for social good and address educational inequity. The nonprofit works with more than 10,200 underrepresented students across 14 countries through 75 youth-run chapters.

Innoverge partners with community centers, schools and libraries to offer long-term STEM and humanities-focused programming for K-8 students. Innoverge’s curriculum covers unconventional topics like how computing can aid nonprofits, or what ethics look like in the field of neuroscience. Dogra has received more than $15,000 in grants and resource sponsorships from organizations like Disney, The Hershey Company and Ann Taylor.

Alongside educational outreach, Archika is passionate about the intersection of computer science and social innovation. She has previously interned under NASA, the University of Washington, and Sensoria Health, a bioinformatics wearable technology startup. This past summer, she interned for CityTaps, a Parisian startup building technologies to bring affordable running water to poor urban households in developing countries. On campus, she serves as the Co-President of Princeton Entrepreneurship Club. Archika’s work has been featured in Elite Daily and Geekwire and she has been recognized as a 2019 Global Teen Leader and Mars Generation 24 under 24 Leader in STEM.

Ashton Cofer

2020 Coca-Cola Scholar

Co-founder and CTO of Fizz

Fizz is a social media platform exclusively for college students that aims to be a safer, private, and more engaging space to share authentic content. CTO Ashton Cofer co-launched the company as a Stanford student in 2021, says the private nature of the Fizz community (limited only to your school, accessible only with proof that you go there) helps relieve the social anxiety that can stem from filtered, curated, or inauthentic content presenting a “false reality” on other platforms.

Students can use Fizz to stay up to speed on news, events, parties and other happenings across campus; exchange intel and recs on what classes to take; connect with peers and more — with the goal of fostering relationships off the app, IRL.

The cofounders say Fizz is now live at more than 130 schools across the country and that they recently raised a $25 million series B, bringing their total funding to $41.5 million. “Gen-Z’s story reads turbulently — it is one of social anxiety and a feeling of inferiority because of the highlight reels we see on legacy social media,” co-founder Teddy Solomon says. “Fizz is working to change this and make Gen-Z’s legacy one of positivity, community and togetherness.”

Jui Khankari

2022 Coca-Cola Scholar

Founder of AInspire

Jui Khankari founded AInspire at 16 years old to empower students of all ages and backgrounds to explore artificial intelligence. AInspire has served over 26,000 students in 91 countries and all 50 states.

Jui, who was a 2022 U.S. Presidential Scholar, developed an AI curriculum adopted by 38 school districts as well as organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, National Science Teachers Association, Discovery Education, the White House, and the National Center for Women in Information Technology. The resource is free and encourages all ages to learn AI. She was honored with the Princess Diana Award in 2021 and has given a TEDx talk on her work.

The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation celebrates and empowers visionary leaders who are refreshing the world. With its 35th class of Coca-Cola Scholars, the Foundation has provided more than $81 million in scholarships to over 6,750 program alumni who together have become a powerful force for positive change.