Twenty-year-old Lukman Khan from Rajasthan has been selected as the winner of the prestigious "Global Young Entrepreneur of The Year 2010" award. Lukman, who is a B.Sc. final year student at a Jaipur college, comes from a very modest family.
He will receive the award at New York, headquarters of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), one of the groups which have set up the award. Lukman won the first prize at a national level Bizz-Plan competition held in Bangalore on January 23 by NFTE, I Create, Inc., and the international banking company Merrill Lynch.
Only a decade ago, Harsh Bhargava, an MBA from Harvard, Aruna Bhargava and two successful NRI businessmen, Purnendu Chatterjee and Jay Misra, had formed a non-profit corporation, "I Create, Inc", joining hands with NFTE to "spread the culture of entrepreneurship" among the youth in India. "Our intention was to eradicate unemployment in India by demystifying business for the youth," says Harsh Bhargava.
Lukman is from Jaigner Turkan, a tiny village in Rajasthan's Dausa district. It is one of the many villages in the State -- indeed in all India -- where traditional carpet weavers have been rendered jobless due to total takeover by power-driven looms. There are 125 to 150 weavers in this village, falling in Lalsot tehsil, who have left the place in search of jobs. Lukman's "Bizz-Plan" aims to make use of the wisdom and experience of the elderly to provide consultancy to the youth.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/07/stories/2010020754190500.htm
