Navaneeth V. Ganesh (22), a final year M.Tech student of VIT (Vellore Institute of Technology) University, was adjudged the youngest Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) in India last July by Toastmasters International (TMI, estb.1924), a California-based non-profit which operates 15,900 TMI clubs worldwide with an aggregate membership of 345,000. The prime objectives of TMI are to promote public speaking, communication and leadership skills. 

“Greatly impressed by the organisational skills of VIT’s TMI chapter in staging the India Emerge Youth Summit in 2012, I signed up as a member and went on to chair the 2013 summit which attracted over 1,000 delegates. Since then over the past four years, our team has helped set up seven TMI clubs with an aggregate enrolment of 350 members,” says Navaneeth.

The elder son of C.V. Ganesh Kumar, a Coimbatore-based real estate businessman and homemaker Bhanurekha, Navaneeth enrolled in VIT’s five-year integrated computer software engineering degree programme in 2012 and completed a coterminous MBA (finance) programme last year. “I am lucky VIT encourages co-curricular education and allows high achievers to write exams despite low class attendance. Chairing conferences and TMI events would never have been possible without the active support extended by the VIT management,” he acknowledges.

Navaneeth has ambitious plans to empower youth with digital skills using social media as a platform. “Because of my DTM activism, I received several job offers but I have chosen to work for UK-based digital services start-up Digiryte in Chennai. I believe my experience in VIT has equipped me with the entrepreneurial skills required for promoting the company of my dreams. Simultaneously, I’m engaged with extending the TMI initiative to under-privileged students to help them acquire employability skills,” he says. 

A toast to you!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Coimbatore)