FigureAsia 35 Under 35 · AI
Sneha Revanur
Age 21 · Civil-society founder and policy advocate · United States; youth-governance work with international policy relevance
Giving Young People Standing in the AI Policy Debate
- Age at the edition eligibility date
- 21
- Field
- Youth participation and AI policy
- Country or region
- United States; youth-governance work with international policy relevance
- FigureAsia U35 Assessment
- 86.0 / 100
Profile
Career and documented record
Sneha Revanur has built an advocacy institution around a simple democratic claim: the generation that will live longest with advanced AI deserves a role in governing it. In 2025, that organisation moved from youth consultation into coalitions behind enacted safeguards.
Sneha Revanur founded Encode while still in secondary school, arguing that young people should be treated as policy participants rather than symbolic consultees in debates over artificial intelligence. By 2025, the organisation she leads had become part of legislative coalitions working on frontier-model safety and harms from synthetic media. Encode was one of three organisations named as sponsors of California’s SB 53, signed into law in September 2025. The statute established transparency duties for large frontier developers, protections for employees reporting serious risks and a mechanism for reporting critical safety incidents. Credit belongs to the bill’s legislators, sponsors, staff, advocates and negotiating parties; Revanur’s supportable role is that she led one of the sponsoring organisations. Encode also joined a broad coalition supporting the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, which addressed non-consensual intimate imagery, including digital forgeries, and was signed in May 2025. Revanur’s distinctive achievement is organisational: she has created a durable route through which younger citizens can enter technical policy debates, develop proposals and work inside coalitions with experienced legislative actors.
FigureAsia selection
Why Sneha Revanur is on the list
FigureAsia selected Revanur for building credible political agency around a constituency routinely invoked but rarely empowered. Her record is not important because youth alone confers authority; it is important because she converted representation into sustained policy work and coalition membership. Encode’s sponsorship of SB 53 provides a concrete, independently documented outcome. The selection carefully separates leadership from authorship: Revanur did not personally pass the law, and specialist staff and partner organisations carried substantial responsibility. Her distinction is creating the institution that gave young advocates standing in that process.
Verified work
The 2025–26 record
Verified contribution 01
Under Revanur’s leadership, Encode was one of three organisations officially named as sponsors of California SB 53, signed on 29 September 2025; authorship and passage were shared across lawmakers, staff, sponsors and negotiators.
Verified contribution 02
Encode joined the documented civil-society coalition supporting the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed on 19 May 2025; this establishes organisational participation, not sole causal credit for enactment.
Verified contribution 03
Continued to lead Encode as Founder and President through 2026 as the organisation expanded youth participation, policy research and state-level advocacy; programme claims remain organisation-reported unless independently corroborated.
Field context
The work in its field
Although its clearest legislative results are in the United States, Encode frames youth participation and frontier-AI governance as international questions. Revanur has brought a generational perspective into global policy forums, while the organisation’s model can be adapted by youth networks elsewhere.
Revanur’s family connection to India and her cross-generational governance work speak to a large Asian youth population whose future will be shaped by AI policy written today.
FigureAsia U35 Assessment
Assessment breakdown
86.0out of 100
Defining contribution
21 / 25
A completed piece of work, institution or system that materially changes what the field can do.
Demonstrated impact and reach
17.6 / 20
Observable adoption, scientific use, policy consequence or operational reach, with self-reported metrics labelled as such.
Personal agency and attribution
13.5 / 15
Evidence that the individual shaped the result, separated from team, employer and investor halo.
Technical or institutional originality
13.05 / 15
A new method, product form, research direction, governance mechanism or deployment model.
Durability and field-shaping influence
8.3 / 10
The likelihood that the contribution will remain useful beyond a single news cycle or model release.
Evidence integrity and responsible practice
8.1 / 10
The quality of the record, the precision of claims and the seriousness with which limitations and harms are addressed.
Asia–world relevance
4.45 / 5
A documented connection to Asia, impact on Asian systems, or clear importance to the region’s place in the international field.