"The Cool Thing I Do..."

 

BHAKTI MEHTA AND NIKKI GUPTA
Co-Founders, Two Aprons

“Two Aprons, a pop-up kitchen that curates authentic meals from across the globe, was born out of a desire to create extraordinary food experiences,” says Nikki. Bhakti is a self-taught chef and also owns a catering company. “Nikki and I launched Two Aprons in November 2017, with the intent of adding to Mumbai’s food culture,” says Bhakti. “The two of us went on a food trip to Hong Kong, where we dined at 22 restaurants within six days. Armed with local ingredients and food knowledge from that trip, we curated the city’s first Cantonese dinner,” she says. “The great thing about our pop-up service is that every meal is unique. A typical day for us includes mapping food trends, menu development, exhaustive food trials on friends and family, and looking for out-of-the-box venues,” Nikki shares. Though fairly new, Two Aprons received an overwhelming response, and “that has been our biggest achievement,” Bhakti adds. But one of their challenges has been to execute off-beat ideas on a budget. “Once, we got carried away with the idea of curating a lavish experience and overshot our budget. But we’ve been careful about it ever since,” Bhakti says. As for their future plans, Bhakti and Nikki want to turn Two Aprons into a permanent mid-size restaurant and experiment with food trends from around the world.

KALYANI KHONA

CEO and Co-Founder, Inclov Technologies

“It has always been a challenge for specially-abled people to find love, and that’s what prompted me to launch Inclov—the world’s first matchmaking app focused on people with disabilities. The app also has an offline platform called Social Spaces, through which we organise meet-ups. Crowdfunded in 2015 by 130 global backers, today Inclov has 23,000 active users monthly, 7,000+ matches and 30 meet-ups across 300 cities in India. Inclov matches users on the basis of age, location, level of independence and mobility, cure, and percentage of disability. We also have a 24-hour review process for a new user to ensure authenticity. Since I head Inclov Select (our premium matchmaking service), my role involves meeting new prospects, reviewing profiles to find suitable matches, and meeting families to mediate the discussion. This project is very close to my heart, and it gives me immense joy when we have success stories... Currently, we’re working on taking Inclov global, and also planning to launch a pan-India web portal with added features.”

 

ELIXIR NAHAR

Social Media Manager, Indian National Congress (INC)

“Handling social media for INC at 23 is definitely something I hadn’t planned. I used to work as an anchor and producer for CNBC, and landed this gig when Congress decided to revamp their social media team last year. They wanted to hire people from different fields, and since I love a challenge, I took it up. And it has been a roller-coaster ride since then. I manage content for INC’s FB and Twitter page, and a typical day starts at 8am and ends around 6-ish. But the Internet never sleeps, so one needs to be on it 24/7. Social media, especially for a political party, is a very volatile space; some days are super-hectic, while others not so much. But this has been a great learning opportunity. When I joined, my biggest struggle was to get people to take me seriously—I still freelance as a presenter and have also done a bit of modelling, and that made some people doubt my skills. But it feels good to prove them wrong. Currently, I take each day as it comes, but if I stick around in politics, I’d love to be the spokesperson for the party.”

 

PRIYANKA KOCHHAR
Motorcyclist

“I started out as a model a couple of years ago, only to discover my one true passion: riding motorcycles. I learnt to ride from YouTube tutorials, and just posted about it casually on Instagram. But it picked up massively, and that’s what prompted me to take it seriously. I now run a handle called @BikeWithGirl on social media with a collective following of 200K across platforms. I’ve also started a YouTube channel to document my adventures. I do get a lot of flak from people... They say (because I’m a girl), I have zero idea of what I’m doing. But the fact that I ranked fourth in the National Racing Championship last year obviously proved them wrong. My immediate goal is to raise awareness about motorsports through my channel, but my long-term vision as a motorcyclist is to have more women take up this sport, and see it on the same level as cricket in India.”