AN INDIAN teenage entrepreneur who launched a programme to help underprivileged students access better education opportunities has won a prestigious global prize.
Adarsh Kumar, an 18-year-old student-innovator who grew up in poverty, was on Wednesday (1) named the winner of the $100,000 (£74,471) Chegg.org Global Student Prize 2025 at a ceremony in London.
Born in Champaran in the north Indian state of Bihar, Kumar was raised by a single mother who cleaned homes to fund his education.
“Winning this prize is unbelievable,” said Kumar, after receiving his prize in London, adding, “It has given me the confidence to work harder.”
Kumar used a laptop his mum bought with her savings to teach himself coding, start-up skills, and entrepreneurship from online resources.
Aged 13, he launched the non-profit Mission Badlao with his sister-in-law; it helped acquire land for a new government school, facilitated 2,000+ Covid vaccinations, distributed menstrual health products, and planted 3,000 trees.
A year later, he left home with Rs 1,000 ($10/ £8.30) for Kota town in Rajasthan, seeking specialist coaching to crack the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination.
However, he had insufficient funds to pursue these tutorials, so he used the free library wi-fi to send emails to mentors and eventually was able to join programmes, intern at start-ups and shadow founders.
This led to the launch of Skillzo, a platform that facilitated mentorship and programmes in entrepreneurial skills.
“Adarsh’s story is more than a personal triumph – it is a powerful symbol of the courage and grit of young changemakers everywhere, whose voices deserve to be heard and whose stories can inspire the world,” said Nathan Schultz, CEO and president of Chegg, Inc.
“Their stories remind us of the extraordinary impact students can have when they are given the support and platform to act on their vision,” he said.
Skillzo has so far helped 20,000 underserved students.
With his Chegg.org Global Student Prize winnings, Kumar intends to build SkillzoX – an AI-powered, low-bandwidth mentorship platform for rural areas, and launch the Ignite Fellowship – a global accelerator for student changemakers.
