Who are the Albanian founders listed in Forbes “30 under 30”?

Dean celaj dhe Erblin Ribari

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"30 under 30" Forbes list, is a ranking that includes 30 people under the age of 30 who get listed every year by the prestigious Forbes magazine. In this ranking are listed, each year, people who have succeeded in business and have had a significant impact on society.

This year, the list also included two Albanian boys, Dean Çelaj and Erblin Ribari, respectively in the category of Social Impact and Finance.

Dean Çelaj founded Akademi.al in 2019 in an effort to improve the education system in his home country, Albania. Operating similarly to Khan Academy, Akademi.al publishes video lessons from teachers that students can watch for free. When Covid-19 hit, Akademi.al signed contracts with the governments of Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia to become their official distance learning platform. It now has over 545,000 users and 23,000 educational videos in Albanian.

Erblin Ribari, based in Kosovo, is the CFO at dua.com, an app that offers matchmaking and payment services enabling peer-to-peer transactions. It has raised $4.75 million in funding and is valued at $32 million, with 130,000 active users on the app. Ribari received an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and dua.com was incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs.

Let's not forget that Geri Çupi, founder of Twig and co-founder of Hajde App in Albania and Kosovo, was also listed in Forbes "30 under 30" in 2020.

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