“The greatest threat to our planet is that someone else will save it”
Well, someone really took that seriously, and is an inspiration to us all. At a mere age of 8 when most of us don’t even realize the miracle which we are walking on, a student of Eicher School Delhi became conscious about the environmental crisis we are facing. The name of this young genius is Madhav Datt. He joined the environmental club in his school in standard 3. Some may find it hard to digest but yes, it was at this very age where he became aware of the “actions” that are being taken to protect the environment and how there are none which are actually improving anything. This notion got into this young mind, and with zeal and passion to change the world and make Earth a better place, Madhav Datt at the age of 16 founded the International youth organization “green the gene” in the year 2004. It is worth mentioning that ‘The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
The organization “green the gene” is led by madhav datt and his friends, who are concerned and passionate about the environment and society and want to improve the current dire situation. Over the past years their campaigns, grass root organizations, projects, events and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by students and youth from schools and universities across 42 countries, who have decided to be the change and through whom we are successfully building a global grassroots movement for environmental change across the world.
For his dedicated work in the field of Environment, he has been honored with the title of “Youth Environmentalist of the Year” by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, and has represented India and been invited to speak at various international summits and forums on the environment, youth empowerment, leadership and social entrepreneurship, and as a part of the drafting committees of youth recommendations to various governments.
He represents the 700 million youth of the 47 countries of the Asia Pacific Region, as the United Nations Environment Program Eco-Generation Ambassador. As the Outreach Team Leader and Facilitator at the UNCSD MGCY, he has been working to mobilize children and youth to take an active part in the Rio+20 conference, and the UNEP Governing Council. He is actively involved in various youth and environmental initiatives as the President of “Wake up Call India” and is also an elected member of the Global Board at Plant for the Planet.
He is also the initiator and host of ‘Inspiration’- one of India’s most sought after annual inter-school events.
Well, to your amazement his hard work and achievements are not only confined within the organization Green the Gene, but, he has been working equally hard to judicious with his passion for technology. It may not be wrong to state that he has already achieved what many of the youth today dream of. He is a model student in the prestigious institution of IIT Kharagpur and is currently studying as a visiting undergraduate in the most eminent institute on the globe “Harvard University”. Just to mention some of his achievements, he has been a KVPY fellow, of course aced the JEE entrance exam and bag a seat in the CS department at IIT Kgp, had his internships at NIC as a software engineer, then a Crows Source Developer under Stanford University, intern at IBM as a software engineer where he worked in the field of AI and apart from this has been at some important positions in many organization. Many of our goals simply find a fancy place in his LinkedIn profile.
For most of us this might appear as a story of complete life time, but Madhav datt has accomplished it at such a young age. He has combined the elements of modern scientific education and moral values which, to be truthful is very hard in the current scenario.
The path to such accomplishments is very difficult and requires great enthusiasm and motivation but he has made the hard way look easy, with his vision, simplicity and hard work. The most fascinating stuff in his story is that he started at a very tender age. This reminds us of the very famous quote by Jordan Belfort- ‘without actions the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions’. So now if anyone of you has an intention to bring about a change in our nation or on our globe, you know what to do- start acting.
Just to remind you, the prodigy is just out of his teenage years. Yeah, you read that right! He will be returning right here in IIT KGP in the very next semester and would have a lot of experience to share with us and we are looking forward to knowing about his future goals and the vision of the future that he is going to create, not simply enter.
