Shivansh Gupta

Hailing from Haryana, India, Shivansh, 17,  is a changemaker challenging patriarchal norms, redefining the scope of economics, and building platforms that empower thousands. Raised in a traditional Marwari household, Shivansh’s early exposure to the “invisible labour” of caregiving inspired a lifelong commitment to feminist and gender economics. He has since authored three groundbreaking research papers with academic leaders at Oxford, Columbia, and Wesleyan, analyzing intra-national care drain, the economic value of unpaid labour, and how conservatism shapes gender dynamics in India and the U.S. His research has been published in SocArxiv, Curieux, and AJHS.

But Shivansh’s work goes far beyond theory. His work with the Government of India’s Women and Child Development Department and Haryana Skill Development Mission helped deliver financial literacy and employability programs to women across 40,000+ rural households. His curricula have empowered thousands to open bank accounts, start self-run ventures, and access insurance schemes – effectively breaking cycles of economic dependency.

Shivansh is also the founder of The Teen Debater (TTD), a non-profit that has trained over 10,000 students across 250+ schools in critical thinking, debate, and public speaking – especially empowering youth from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. TTD has delivered 300+ hours of free programming, launched a global podcast (Beyond the Gavel), and become one of India’s largest youth-run debate education platforms. For this, he was recognised with the 2025 Young Changemaker Award by ET Now and featured by 200+ media outlets including The Tribune and was also invited to speak on All India Radio.

Driven by both empathy and engineering, Shivansh also developed ParkinStep, a $5 wearable device that detects Freezing of Gait (FoG) in Parkinson’s patients and triggers multisensory cues to prevent falls. Inspired by his great-grandfather’s struggle with Parkinson’s, the device won the Gold Medal and Best in Category Award at South Africa’s Eskom Expo and was named one of the Top 100 innovations at India’s IRIS National Fair.

An exceptional scholar, Shivansh is a full-score (42/42) IB Diploma student and was selected among the Top 5 economics students nationally to represent India at the 2024 International Economics Olympiad, where he helped win a Silver Medal and scored 100/100 individually. He is also a published author, self-taught multi-instrumentalist, and nationally ranked debater who has represented India at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, and Toronto.

Through innovation, advocacy, and education, Shivansh is building sustainable systems that uplift others – from rural women and elderly patients to first-generation learners across borders. If Shivanish wins the Global Student Prize, he plans to expand his economic empowerment programs, improve the accessibility of ParkinStep, and scale The Teen Debater to reach even more under-resourced students across India and beyond.

At just 17, Shivansh is proving that transformative change can begin with a single question: What if we made the invisible, visible?