9 Pakistanis made it to Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list

It's always great to see people from your own country being appreciated for their hard work, so you can imagine how pleased we were to see that nine Pakistanis were included in Forbes' 30 under 30 Asia list this year!

Forbes reports, "It's probably fair to say that Pakistan often gets a raw deal when it comes to international media coverage, with headlines usually dominated by themes like religious extremism and terrorism, women's rights or border conflicts. And while these areas are worthy of coverage, this South Asian nation has many more positive stories that don't see the light of day, such as the incredible pool of young talent pushing boundaries in numerous industries and disciplines."

Here are the Pakistanis of the hour and why they made it to the list

Momina Mustehsan (25)

"Momina Mustehsan is one of Pakistan's most prominent emerging music stars, and fast becoming one of her country's most high profile activists. After singing a duet with famed singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan that that went viral, Mustehsan quickly earned an online following in the millions.

Mustehsan has used her newfound exposure to advocate for social causes important to her, including women's rights, cyber bullying and mental health awareness."

Muhammad Asad Raza and Abrahim Shah (24)

"Muhammad Asad Raza and Abrahim Shah launched Neurostic; the healthcare startup aims to provide low cost and high quality wearable and implantable medical devices for the developing world.

Pakistan is listed as one of 57 countries with a critical health workforce deficiency by the World Health Organization in a 2006 report, facing a huge shortage of human resources and key skills. Services that Neurostic offers seek to address some of those gaps, including clinical decision support, active, fitness and healthcare monitoring, and data analytics for healthcare applications.

Neurostic also provides prosthetic services for amputees in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Syria -- places that have little or no access to rehabilitation facilities."

Muhammad Shaheer Niazi (17)

"At just 17, Muhammad Shaheer Niazi is already a full-fledged scientist whose work has appeared in the prestigious Royal Society Open Science journal. The teenager was the first to photograph the movement of ions, capturing the charged ions that create the honeycomb. And while that might sound esoteric, it actually has implications for research in fields like biomedicine."

Sadia Bashir (29)

"In a country where women’s education isn't always a priority, Sadia Bashir wanted to help women break into the male-dominated industry of video game production. Bashir was working in design when she cofounded Pixel Art Games Academy.

The academy's mission is to bridge the gap between industry demand and education, by providing training in game design and production, game programming, digital art and animation. Her program tries to address the significant gender gap in the game industry by maintaining a minimum 33% ratio of women, hoping to inspire women in Pakistan to dream bigger.

To that end, she's also created scholarships for women who want to learn video game development within her academy."

Adnan Shaffi (28) and Adeel Shaffi (29)

"Brothers Adnan Shaffi, 28, and Adeel Shaffi, 29, founded PriceOye in 2015, a price comparison platform for electronics in second and third-tier cities in Pakistan. The platform uses data analytics to provide marketing information to retailers while finding the best deal for consumers.

While e-commerce stores in Pakistan focus attention on first-tier cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, many have forgotten about lower-tiered cities, leading to a 20% increase in prices in those areas. Their website has had 805,000 visits in the past month."

Hamza Farrukh (24)

"Some 84% of Pakistan's population do not have access to clean drinking water -- but Hamza Farrukh has a solution. What began as a college project to bring fresh water to one rural Pakistani village funded by a $10,000 Davis Project for Peace grant, quickly grew into a mission to implement cost-effective, sustainable and maintenance-free clean water access for all rural Pakistanis.

Farrukh began Bondh-E-Shams -The Solar Water Project, and developed a solar-powered water extraction and filtration system. Costing $8,000, it has a lifespan of 25 years and can service around 5,000 people per day."

Syed Faizan Hussain (23)

"Syed Faizan Hussain is a solution-driven social activist based in Pakistan. He founded non-profit Perihelion Systems in 2013 to better the lives of many by using technology.

Some of Perihelion’s products include; Edu-Aid, an American Sign Language translating software; One Health, a disease surveillance and tracking system used to predict outbreaks and alert health institutions to expedite intervention; and Glove Gauge, wearable technology to facilitate professional production processes such as measurements."

Congratulations once again to the honourees!