Our Bureau
London
Uday Bhatia, 18 years, founder of Uday Electric, and Manasi Gupta, 24, founder of Huesofthemind Foundation, are the winners of the Diana Legacy Awards. Alongwith 20 worldwide recipients, they received their awards from Prince William at an awards ceremony in London’s Science Museum.
Taking place every two years, the Diana Legacy Award is a prestigious accolade for exceptional young people from around the world for their social action or humanitarian work. This year’s Legacy Award marks the start of The Diana Award’s 25th Anniversary year – a charity set up in memory of Diana, the late Princess of Wales and her belief that young people have the power to change the world.
The 20 Legacy Award recipients have been chosen by a prestigious independent judging panel, chaired by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who had the difficult task of selecting just 20 from a pool of exceptional individuals, already recognized for their impact on society with The Diana Award in 2022 or 2023.
Impacting over 50,000 lives through her nonprofit, the Huesofthemind Foundation, Manasi Gupta has created an empathetic community focused on mental health support. In collaboration with over 200 stakeholders, Huesofthemind delivered innovative campaigns, projects and events globally. She has personally delivered 100+ sessions globally to encourage an emphasis on mental health support. Her work during the COVID-19 pandemic was recognized and awarded by the former Health Secretary of India at the IHW Digital Health Awards. Manasi created an illustrated book to raise funds and increases awareness through social media, reaching more than 1.2 million viewers in the past 4 years.
In 10th grade, when Uday began mentoring students in the slums of Bichpuri, he saw how frequent power cuts rendered children unable to study or even fulfil their basic needs. To tackle the power crisis, Uday developed his groundbreaking invention, the Outage Guard bulb. This low-cost solution is designed to provide uninterrupted lighting for up to 10 hours during power cuts and has resulted in 950 families receiving stable and reliable power, boosting their educational and employment opportunities.
