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about me

Hi! Harsha here – I’m a 24-year old award-winning social entrepreneur who is building startup networks for over 75,000 Gen Zs globally through my startups, Expop & NGEN.

Harsha is a 24-year-old, multiple-award-winning social entrepreneur and entrepreneurship ecosystem builder that has impacted over 75,000 Gen Zs globally through 10+ years of experience designing and scaling incubators, venture programs, and founder communities. She has built systems and networks that have launched over 250+ Gen Z-run startups and have facilitated seed rounds from $250K to multi-million-dollar raises.

Harsha has launched and scaled 4 ventures personally that have been featured on over 50+ TV interviews and newspaper articles around the world and authored the book, ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021 and has since sold over 10,000 copies. She is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Harsha has spoken on 3 TEDx stages and multiple international conferences across 3 continents. She was the recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019 from the Diana Award Foundation, UK. In 2022 she was also listed on Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40’s List of Malaysia’s most successful, innovative and influential young people and was also selected as a Skoll Fellow from the Skoll Foundation, USA, representing the region on the international philanthropic scene.

She co-founded Ascendance, a social enterprise that works with over 50,000 students across 26 countries, transforming at-risk students into social entrepreneurs. Ascendance enables at-risk students to gain economic mobility through experiential learning that teaches entrepreneurship, financial literacy, work-ready skills, sustainability, and more, and has developed over 80 revenue-generating student social enterprises between 2023 and 2024 alone.

In 2025, Harsha launched Expop, a global expansion of Ascendance’s work, in the United States. Expop is a Gen Z-focused startup platform, community, and incubator where high school students learn by building. Expop is building the next generation of founders and builders by reimagining how students learn entrepreneurship. Through their flagship six-month, challenge-driven incubator, high schoolers move beyond theory to actually test ideas, build prototypes, and develop real-world problem-solving skills. They are currently leading an inaugural cohort of 200+ Gen Zs across the U.S. and facilitating the creation of 50+ early-stage startups.

In 2023, she founded the NextGen Entrepreneurship Network, a non-profit in the United States that curates a community of exceptional Ivy League entrepreneurs. NGEN represents 20,000 founders across the Ivy+ university network. Bringing together entrepreneurs from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, MIT, NYU, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale, NGEN provides a range of programming to aid these brilliant entrepreneurs to thrive and grow. Several startups in our network have already raised millions in venture capital funding, been accepted into prestigious accelerators such as Y Combinator and Techstars, and even been acquired.

Harsha was also founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that helps offline businesses take their first step online through fast, simple template-based websites. StartMyName.com was acquired by Newwave Synchronizer in January 2025. Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, released in 2021 and selling over 10,000 copies. She is also a member of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Lab, where a select cohort of college students across the U.S. works with OpenAI’s community team to understand the impact of AI on students and campuses. As part of her work with the ChatGPT Lab, she contributed to their recently launched “100 Chats for College Students” book that was launched in late 2025.

She has been invited to share strategies and methodologies of fostering youth entrepreneurship, and engaging and empowering at-risk students at multiple TEDx Talks and global conferences spanning Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Brunei, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more.

Harsha is a 24-year-old, multiple-award-winning social entrepreneur and entrepreneurship ecosystem builder that has impacted over 75,000 Gen Zs globally through 10+ years of experience designing and scaling incubators, venture programs, and founder communities. She has built systems and networks that have launched over 250+ Gen Z-run startups and have facilitated seed rounds from $250K to multi-million-dollar raises.

Harsha has launched and scaled 4 ventures personally that have been featured on over 50+ TV interviews and newspaper articles around the world and authored the book, ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, which was released in 2021 and has since sold over 10,000 copies. She is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Harsha has spoken on 3 TEDx stages and multiple international conferences across 3 continents. She was the recipient of the Diana Award for Young Changemakers in 2019 from the Diana Award Foundation, UK. In 2022 she was also listed on Prestige Malaysia’s 40 Under 40’s List of Malaysia’s most successful, innovative and influential young people and was also selected as a Skoll Fellow from the Skoll Foundation, USA, representing the region on the international philanthropic scene.

She co-founded Ascendance, a social enterprise that works with over 50,000 students across 26 countries, transforming at-risk students into social entrepreneurs. Ascendance enables at-risk students to gain economic mobility through experiential learning that teaches entrepreneurship, financial literacy, work-ready skills, sustainability, and more, and has developed over 80 revenue-generating student social enterprises between 2023 and 2024 alone.

In 2025, Harsha launched Expop, a global expansion of Ascendance’s work, in the United States. Expop is a Gen Z-focused startup platform, community, and incubator where high school students learn by building. Expop is building the next generation of founders and builders by reimagining how students learn entrepreneurship. Through their flagship six-month, challenge-driven incubator, high schoolers move beyond theory to actually test ideas, build prototypes, and develop real-world problem-solving skills. They are currently leading an inaugural cohort of 200+ Gen Zs across the U.S. and facilitating the creation of 50+ early-stage startups.

In 2023, she founded the NextGen Entrepreneurship Network, a non-profit in the United States that curates a community of exceptional Ivy League entrepreneurs. NGEN represents 20,000 founders across the Ivy+ university network. Bringing together entrepreneurs from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, MIT, NYU, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale, NGEN provides a range of programming to aid these brilliant entrepreneurs to thrive and grow. Several startups in our network have already raised millions in venture capital funding, been accepted into prestigious accelerators such as Y Combinator and Techstars, and even been acquired.

Harsha was also founded the start-up, StartMyName.com, a social impact venture that helps offline businesses take their first step online through fast, simple template-based websites. StartMyName.com was acquired by Newwave Synchronizer in January 2025. Harsha is also the author of the book ‘The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur’, released in 2021 and selling over 10,000 copies. She is also a member of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Lab, where a select cohort of college students across the U.S. works with OpenAI’s community team to understand the impact of AI on students and campuses. As part of her work with the ChatGPT Lab, she contributed to their recently launched “100 Chats for College Students” book that was launched in late 2025.

She has been invited to share strategies and methodologies of fostering youth entrepreneurship, and engaging and empowering at-risk students at multiple TEDx Talks and global conferences spanning Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Brunei, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more.

my start-ups

Learn more about Ascendance

Ascendance is a global social enterprise that has impacted over 50,000 Gen Zs across 26 countries and over 1,800+ communities by trasforming at-risk youth into social entrepreneurs through platform, programs and incubation.

Learn more about the NextGen Entreprenuership Network (NGEN)

The NextGen Entrepreneurship Network (NGEN) brings together Ivy League and top university entrepreneurial communities into a shared ecosystem, unlocking the value of in-person student entrepreneurship through.conferences, events, workshops, treks, and more.

Learn more about StartMyName.com

StartMyName.com aims to aid individuals and businesses take their first step online. Designed to aid individuals, small and medium businesses and student entreprenuers thrive in the digital world, we provide digital skills workshops, world-class modules, and digital tools to help organizations grow their online presence.

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