Harsha is a successful 20-year-old social entrepreneur; a 3 times TEDx speaker and International Conference speaker; a recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019; and an honouree of Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40 Most Successful, Innovative and Influential Young People in 2022 list.

Harsha also founded and is the current CEO of Ascendance – an international education start-up that works with over 35,000 students across 28 countries that provides equitable and equal access to students from all walks of life with the resources, guidance, workshops, and networks to real-world hands-on experiences in the fields that they are passionate about and create sustainable careers and businesses for themselves.

She is the CEO and co-founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that aims to bolster South East Asian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) web presence by providing fast, simple, and affordable template websites, enabling these SMEs to bridge the digital divide and accelerate the growth of the region.

Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she also serves as the President of the ASELxPenn Club and the Vice President of Finance at the Wharton Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Club.

Heerraa is an international singer-songwriter and performer with the mission of changing the world with music. With fans from around the globe, Heerraa’s songs can be heard on radio stations worldwide including Hitz (Malaysia’s #1 Hit Radio), Ahenfo Radio (Denmark), Mark Skin Radio (USA), Valley FM (Australia), Kristal FM (Brunei), The UK Independent (UK), Super Sound Scotland, The Casey Beat (Australia) and more.

Featured on Simulacra 2’s Original Game Soundtrack with her song “The Girl Who Loved”, Heerraa is making waves in the global music scene, having received multiple awards from the United States for her music. As a producer and composer, Heerraa has collaborated with US award-winning singer-songwriter, Autumn Helene, for their heartwarming thanksgiving song, “Morning Light”, as well as produced a funk-soul track, “Across the Universe”, for Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective’s 2022 album. In 2022, Heerraa is set to release her multi-genre debut album featuring tracks such as “Fall In” (Ballad), “Attention Island” (R&B), “Chasing Daylight” (retro-pop) and more.

Heerraa is also a co-founder of the international youth movement, Ascendance, that has impacted 35,000 students across 28 countries. The team was awarded The Diana Award (UK) in 2019 for their humanitarian work. One of the fastest growing start-ups in Southeast Asia, Ascendance’s mission is to empower their generation to discover their passions and achieve holistic success while still in school. Over the next five years, Ascendance aims to impact #OneMillionTeens through their global conferences and programs.

Currently an undergraduate at Harvard University, Heerraa serves as the Director of Communications at Harvard Extension Student Association (HESA) and also hosts the Beyond the Lyric Podcast in collaboration with Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective.

Harsha is a successful 20-year-old social entrepreneur; a 3 times TEDx speaker and International Conference speaker; a recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019; and an honouree of Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40 Most Successful, Innovative and Influential Young People in 2022 list.

Harsha also founded and is the current CEO of Ascendance – an international education start-up that works with over 35,000 students across 28 countries that provides equitable and equal access to students from all walks of life with the resources, guidance, workshops, and networks to real-world hands-on experiences in the fields that they are passionate about and create sustainable careers and businesses for themselves.

She is the CEO and co-founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that aims to bolster South East Asian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) web presence by providing fast, simple, and affordable template websites, enabling these SMEs to bridge the digital divide and accelerate the growth of the region.

Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she also serves as the President of the ASELxPenn Club and the Vice President of Finance at the Wharton Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Club.

Mathura is a 25-year-old entrepreneur, who serves as the CEO of ET Ideas Group, a social business incubator based out of Southeast Asia.

At age 19, Mathura co-founded Ascendance, an international youth movement and social enterprise that has impacted over 35,000 students across 28 countries and 900+ communities. Today, Mathura serves as an advisor to Ascendance and actively guides the team to expand globally and execute its vision of creating global impact.

Mathura is a finance professional that serves as a junior director at the outsource accounting company, Simply Empowering. She has also authored a book, “Money Matter$” and has an ongoing online talk show of the same name where she interviews various finance professionals. In her personal capacity, she also provides financial coaching to executives, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and young adults alike on their personal finances.

Mathura has won several awards and accolades for her entrepreneurial and finance career including the Diana Award for Younge Changemakers 2019, the Top 10 Key Opinion Leaders in Malaysia from GoMonsta Awards, Top 4 at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards 2019 by EO, and most recently won second place for “Best Influencer” at the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards 2022 for her ongoing talk-show, “Money Matters”.

Jeff Thiel formed Carbon Innovations, LLC to promote market-based solutions to the global climate crisis. Carbon Innovations is working with building industry leaders to decarbonize the built environment, investing in companies with technologies that are essential for a zero-emission economy, advocating for a national carbon fee and dividend policy, and developing social media strategies to build political will for climate action.

Jeff is an experienced executive and entrepreneur who has built and launched new products and services in industries ranging from PC software to financial services, health care, and K-12 education. Jeff is a co-founder of three software startups. He worked at Microsoft for 10 years leading product management and development teams in the Windows and Consumer Products Divisions. Jeff started his career with the global management consulting firm Bain & Co. He was a Dean’s Medalist at the University of Washington and received his MBA with honors from the Wharton School.

Harsha is a successful 20-year-old social entrepreneur; a 3 times TEDx speaker and International Conference speaker; a recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019; and an honouree of Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40 Most Successful, Innovative and Influential Young People in 2022 list.

Harsha also founded and is the current CEO of Ascendance – an international education start-up that works with over 35,000 students across 28 countries that provides equitable and equal access to students from all walks of life with the resources, guidance, workshops, and networks to real-world hands-on experiences in the fields that they are passionate about and create sustainable careers and businesses for themselves.

She is the CEO and co-founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that aims to bolster South East Asian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) web presence by providing fast, simple, and affordable template websites, enabling these SMEs to bridge the digital divide and accelerate the growth of the region.

Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she also serves as the President of the ASELxPenn Club and the Vice President of Finance at the Wharton Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Club.

Joyce Lim is the CEO and Founder of the outsource accounting firm, Simply Empowering, which aids small and medium businesses and large enterprises alike to grow and sustain across Southeast Asia.

Apart from SImply Empowering, Joyce is an accountant, speaker, trainer and coach who focuses mainly on empowering businesses and individuals to take care of their money in a simple and practical manner for both corporate and personal wealth.

✅C-Suite Coach & Culture Transformation Consultant
✅Author of “Raising Successful Children” book
✅Principal Trainer of the “Be At Your Best Bio-Cybernetics Program”
✅ Formerly the Organizational Development Manager for Asia Pacific and Finance Director at H.B Fuller

Nandini Nag is the Global Business Development and Strategy Principal at Hitachi Vantara and was. Previously, she served as the Director of Strategy at Nokia.

Nandini is an experienced advisor with a demonstrated history of working in the telecommunications and hi-tech industries. She is skilled in Subscription Licensing, Go-to-Market Strategy, Financial Modelling, Customer Profile Analysis, Operational Analysis, etc.

Nunzio Quacquarelli is CEO of QS Quacquarelli Symonds. Nunzio has an MA from Cambridge University and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he won the Glockner Prize for Management.

Nunzio founded QS as a student project whilst at The Wharton School. Nunzio has passionately championed the mission of QS, which has remained unchanged since 1990, “ to empower motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfil their potential through educational achievement, international mobility and career development.”

Today QS consists of a team of over 700 people from 35 different countries. QS is best known for producing the world’s most popular rankings – QS World University Rankings. QS does so much more. QS aims to be a lifelong decision partner empowering a billion future learners around the world.

Vinita Jain is Director of Product Marketing in the Client Computing Group at Intel Corporation. She leads the group’s platform and ecosystem product marketing, including product launches, and go-to-market activities with equipment manufacturers and third-party hardware vendors; technologies and solutions; and performance marketing. Vinita joined the Client Computing Group in 2020 after ten years in Intel’s Technology Development organization, culminating in her role as Senior Engineering Manager of Advanced Design services where she also received Intel Achievement Award for Intel 10nm technology optimization. Before joining Intel in 2009, Vinita spent two years as custom design engineer at IBM Hardware Labs.

EJ discovered that being able to swim well and being able to teach swimming well required two different skill sets. He had students who learned from state swimmers and certified coaches, but they still couldn’t swim without letting go of their boards. That led him to set a goal to get anyone to be able to swim in 12 hours.

He was so determined to make this happen that he taught swimming from 7am to 10pm every single day until he created special flexible teaching methods that use clear communication and easy breakdown of the steps.

As of today, 463 students have graduated from this program.

Sanadtkumar Ganesan (born – 2000) is a documentary filmmaker, storyteller and entrepreneur who has always wanted to make movies since he was young.

Sanadt tried writing many different kinds of films and has been a video editor since he was 15 years old. From editing talk shows to music videos, he honed his skills as an editor and moved on into doing other things. Sanadt is currently a scriptwriter at ET Boost, an online channel and production house that curates content for corporate clients, social media and music videos for artists, documentary films and digital marketing services. (www.et-boost.com)

Sanadt is also the Chief Operations Officer (2021 – Present) of The Diana Award Winning Youth Movement, Ascendance, which to date has impacted thousands of students in their journey of following their heart and living life to the fullest.

“Wanted: Shades of Life is my way of reconnecting people to their hearts. People are beautiful, and sometimes, seeing what others go through, and understanding that they are just like you, brings out that inner voice. I hope you find what you love to do, and I hope one day we can talk about it.” – Sanadtkumar Ganesan

Want to know more about Sanadt? Check him out at www.sanadtkumar.com or follow him on Instagram!

Heerraa is an international singer-songwriter and performer with the mission of changing the world with music. With fans from around the globe, Heerraa’s songs can be heard on radio stations worldwide including Hitz (Malaysia’s #1 Hit Radio), Ahenfo Radio (Denmark), Mark Skin Radio (USA), Valley FM (Australia), Kristal FM (Brunei), The UK Independent (UK), Super Sound Scotland, The Casey Beat (Australia) and more.

Featured on Simulacra 2’s Original Game Soundtrack with her song “The Girl Who Loved”, Heerraa is making waves in the global music scene, having received multiple awards from the United States for her music. As a producer and composer, Heerraa has collaborated with US award-winning singer-songwriter, Autumn Helene, for their heartwarming thanksgiving song, “Morning Light”, as well as produced a funk-soul track, “Across the Universe”, for Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective’s 2022 album. In 2022, Heerraa is set to release her multi-genre debut album featuring tracks such as “Fall In” (Ballad), “Attention Island” (R&B), “Chasing Daylight” (retro-pop) and more.

Heerraa is also a co-founder of the international youth movement, Ascendance, that has impacted 35,000 students across 28 countries. The team was awarded The Diana Award (UK) in 2019 for their humanitarian work. One of the fastest growing start-ups in Southeast Asia, Ascendance’s mission is to empower their generation to discover their passions and achieve holistic success while still in school. Over the next five years, Ascendance aims to impact #OneMillionTeens through their global conferences and programs.

Currently an undergraduate at Harvard University, Heerraa serves as the Director of Communications at Harvard Extension Student Association (HESA) and also hosts the Beyond the Lyric Podcast in collaboration with Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective.

✅C-Suite Coach & Culture Transformation Consultant
✅Author of “Raising Successful Children” book
✅Principal Trainer of the “Be At Your Best Bio-Cybernetics Program”
✅ Formerly the Organizational Development Manager for Asia Pacific and Finance Director at H.B Fuller

Vinita Jain is Director of Product Marketing in the Client Computing Group at Intel Corporation. She leads the group’s platform and ecosystem product marketing, including product launches, and go-to-market activities with equipment manufacturers and third-party hardware vendors; technologies and solutions; and performance marketing. Vinita joined the Client Computing Group in 2020 after ten years in Intel’s Technology Development organization, culminating in her role as Senior Engineering Manager of Advanced Design services where she also received Intel Achievement Award for Intel 10nm technology optimization. Before joining Intel in 2009, Vinita spent two years as custom design engineer at IBM Hardware Labs.

Nunzio Quacquarelli is CEO of QS Quacquarelli Symonds. Nunzio has an MA from Cambridge University and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he won the Glockner Prize for Management.

Nunzio founded QS as a student project whilst at The Wharton School. Nunzio has passionately championed the mission of QS, which has remained unchanged since 1990, “ to empower motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfil their potential through educational achievement, international mobility and career development.”

Today QS consists of a team of over 700 people from 35 different countries. QS is best known for producing the world’s most popular rankings – QS World University Rankings. QS does so much more. QS aims to be a lifelong decision partner empowering a billion future learners around the world.

Ramyaahshiiny is a Diploma in Mass Communication graduate and later pursued her education where she graduated with a First Class Honours Degree, converting her PTPTN loan to a full scholarship. Today, she is a PhD candidate, focusing her research in communication.

At 21, she started her career as a host of a live talkshow, ET Youth, while still pursuing her degree in Bachelor (Hons) Journalism. Today, ET Youth is an online talk-show which has impacted over 4,000 individuals over the span of 7 years.

She also started her first business, Clicking Pens, collaborating with a video production company to create corporate videos, music videos and etc. Rammyasheiny handled the scripting of videos, scheduling of shoots and management of projects and gained experience over the years in the back-end of the video production field.

In 2016, Ramyaahshiiny was appointed as the CEO of the start-up, ET Boost (later known as ET Boost Sdn Bhd) with the aim of being the voice of the young while creating marketing materials for businesses to move towards the digital era. Today, many of ET Boost productions are done at our full-fledged studio in Gamuda Walk, Kota Kemuning, where our services varies from photography, videography, audio recording, web series shoots, live streaming as well as content for digital advertisements.

With her experience in the media field, Ramyaahshiiny also ventured into digital marketing, providing client’s different avenues for marketing while also growing their businesses (even up to 40% of business growth). With a range of clients in different industries within and outside Malaysia, she is versatile in adapting her digital marketing strategies to compliment her client’s products and services

Nandini Nag is the Global Business Development and Strategy Principal at Hitachi Vantara and was. Previously, she served as the Director of Strategy at Nokia.

Nandini is an experienced advisor with a demonstrated history of working in the telecommunications and hi-tech industries. She is skilled in Subscription Licensing, Go-to-Market Strategy, Financial Modelling, Customer Profile Analysis, Operational Analysis, etc.

Levent Yarar is the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships for Wharton Interactive. Before joining Wharton Interactive, Levent was Wharton Executive Education’s Business Development Director for Northeast USA, Canada, and Turkey. He was responsible for developing corporate partnerships to create impactful learning journeys.

From 2011 to 2017, Levent spent six years in Istanbul, Turkey working in various executive education centers for leaders in Turkey and the MENA region. As a certified consultant for the International Trade Center (UNCTAD-WTO), he has worked with SME’s throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

He completed his Business Management undergraduate degree at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and his MBA at Ohio University.

Levent Yarar is the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships for Wharton Interactive. Before joining Wharton Interactive, Levent was Wharton Executive Education’s Business Development Director for Northeast USA, Canada, and Turkey. He was responsible for developing corporate partnerships to create impactful learning journeys.

From 2011 to 2017, Levent spent six years in Istanbul, Turkey working in various executive education centers for leaders in Turkey and the MENA region. As a certified consultant for the International Trade Center (UNCTAD-WTO), he has worked with SME’s throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

He completed his Business Management undergraduate degree at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and his MBA at Ohio University.

Jeff Thiel formed Carbon Innovations, LLC to promote market-based solutions to the global climate crisis. Carbon Innovations is working with building industry leaders to decarbonize the built environment, investing in companies with technologies that are essential for a zero-emission economy, advocating for a national carbon fee and dividend policy, and developing social media strategies to build political will for climate action.

Jeff is an experienced executive and entrepreneur who has built and launched new products and services in industries ranging from PC software to financial services, health care, and K-12 education. Jeff is a co-founder of three software startups. He worked at Microsoft for 10 years leading product management and development teams in the Windows and Consumer Products Divisions. Jeff started his career with the global management consulting firm Bain & Co. He was a Dean’s Medalist at the University of Washington and received his MBA with honors from the Wharton School.

Harsha is a successful 20-year-old social entrepreneur; a 3 times TEDx speaker and International Conference speaker; a recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019; and an honouree of Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40 Most Successful, Innovative and Influential Young People in 2022 list.

Harsha also founded and is the current CEO of Ascendance – an international education start-up that works with over 35,000 students across 28 countries that provides equitable and equal access to students from all walks of life with the resources, guidance, workshops, and networks to real-world hands-on experiences in the fields that they are passionate about and create sustainable careers and businesses for themselves.

She is the CEO and co-founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that aims to bolster South East Asian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) web presence by providing fast, simple, and affordable template websites, enabling these SMEs to bridge the digital divide and accelerate the growth of the region.

Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she also serves as the President of the ASELxPenn Club and the Vice President of Finance at the Wharton Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Club.

Heerraa is an international singer-songwriter and performer with the mission of changing the world with music. With fans from around the globe, Heerraa’s songs can be heard on radio stations worldwide including Hitz (Malaysia’s #1 Hit Radio), Ahenfo Radio (Denmark), Mark Skin Radio (USA), Valley FM (Australia), Kristal FM (Brunei), The UK Independent (UK), Super Sound Scotland, The Casey Beat (Australia) and more.

Featured on Simulacra 2’s Original Game Soundtrack with her song “The Girl Who Loved”, Heerraa is making waves in the global music scene, having received multiple awards from the United States for her music. As a producer and composer, Heerraa has collaborated with US award-winning singer-songwriter, Autumn Helene, for their heartwarming thanksgiving song, “Morning Light”, as well as produced a funk-soul track, “Across the Universe”, for Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective’s 2022 album. In 2022, Heerraa is set to release her multi-genre debut album featuring tracks such as “Fall In” (Ballad), “Attention Island” (R&B), “Chasing Daylight” (retro-pop) and more.

Heerraa is also a co-founder of the international youth movement, Ascendance, that has impacted 35,000 students across 28 countries. The team was awarded The Diana Award (UK) in 2019 for their humanitarian work. One of the fastest growing start-ups in Southeast Asia, Ascendance’s mission is to empower their generation to discover their passions and achieve holistic success while still in school. Over the next five years, Ascendance aims to impact #OneMillionTeens through their global conferences and programs.

Currently an undergraduate at Harvard University, Heerraa serves as the Director of Communications at Harvard Extension Student Association (HESA) and also hosts the Beyond the Lyric Podcast in collaboration with Harvard Undergraduate Songwriters’ Collective.