New kids on the disruption block

Disruption is upon us. Well, software-fuelled disruption, to be precise. As software continues on its eat-the-world rampage, disruption is all around us — from money to education, from entertainment to design, from food to ticketing, from manufacturing to development, from health to commerce, from artificial intelligence to connected devices…
Who are these disruptors? The stories of Mark Zuckerberg, Travis Kalanick, Brian Chesky, Sebastian Thurn and the likes have been told, as also those of Sachin Bansal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Sridhar Vembu, Naveen Tewari, and peers.
Who are the new kids on the disruption block? Here are five among the stories we did in 2016 on disruptors and their journeys.
1. Let’s start with the youngest on our list: 12-year-old Tanmay Bakshi, among the youngest developers building apps on Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence platform.

Tanmay Bakshi, the youngest Watson programmer

2. The Kabeer Biswas-led Dunzo is a hyperlocal concierge service in Bengaluru that users swear by. Order anything you want and pay between Rs 30 and Rs 100 on delivery. The coolness of the platform is the automation: 30% of orders are handled by bots.

Dunzo! How a hyperlocal concierge app is killing it in Bengaluru

3. Julia, an open source programming language, has been ranked among the top 50 computational languages in the world. Its co-creator, Viral Shah, is from Bengaluru.

Julia is killing it in the programming world. Meet its co-creator from India

4. A globe-beating carbon extraction and reuse startup in Thoothukudi? Not exactly, but Carbon Clean Solutions’ testbed is in this eastern coastal town on the Indian peninsula.

This Indian startup has made carbon capture and reuse sustainable

5. A H1B visa application turned down, five startup ideas that turned belly up, and a $90 million success sold to LinkedIn. This is the backstory of Akshay Kothari, the 30-year-old heading LinkedIn’s operations in its second biggest and fastest growing market.

Akshay Kothari, the 30 yo steering LinkedIn’s second biggest market