The South African who won a Google prize and started a Silicon Valley AI company at 22
Former Albertonian Kiara Nirghin is making a name for herself as an AI technologist, tech entrepreneur, and author and is rubbing shoulders with industry heavyweights and celebrities alike.
At 25 years old, Nirghin has been featured in numerous well-known publications and has been a keynote speaker and panellist at major tech and science-focused events.
Nirghin was raised in Meyersdal, Alberton, as the youngest of four children to a businessman father and housewife mother.
She made headlines in South Africa in 2016 after winning the Google Science Fair Grand Prize in Gr. 11 for creating a natural and cheap superabsorbent polymer to help crop soil stay hydrated during droughts.
She told Numéro Netherlands the experience taught her that innovation paired with advocacy could have a meaningful impact.
“Since then, I’ve been focused on how technology, like AI, can be harnessed to create scalable, sustainable solutions for the planet,” she said.
In a 2017 TEDx Talk titled “Are we wasting our brains?”, 17-year-old Nirghin explained that her hospitalisation with bilharzia and bacterial meningitis at age 13 drove her passion for learning.
“I thought if this is the immense pain that my brain can endure, just imagine the possibilities if this powerful machine is used for something more productive?” she said.
She said that after getting out of the hospital, she started researching the makeup of “insignificant” objects to try to understand how they work.
Eventually, she set about trying to come up with a solution to help address the impact of droughts on farming.
It was when she saw her older sister changing her baby’s diaper that she learnt about the potential of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) for storing vast amounts of liquid.
After more research, she discovered that polymers were already being used in the agriculture industry, but they were not ideal as they were not biodegradable and costly.
She started reading academic journals to understand what characterised commercial SAPs and discovered that orange peels had the same absorbent properties.
After experimenting for five or six months, she found that combining various natural materials, including avocado oils with the peels, resulted in more effective and environmentally friendly SAP.
Studies and accolades in the US
Nirghin used the $50,000 (R680,000 at the time) scholarship funding prize money to pursue a Computer Science Degree at the prestigious Stanford University in the US in 2018.
She completed her Master’s degree in Computer Science with a focus on AI and Human Computer Interaction in 2023.
In her first year at university, she was appointed to the Facebook Tech Sustainability Board, where she remained for three years. She has also served on the Google Impact Fund Board since 2019.
She also became a Fellow of Thiel Capital, backed by Palantir co-founder and principal OpenAI investor Peter Thiel, as well as the 776 Foundation backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
Nirghin’s most recent venture is AI startup Chima, which she co-founded with her older sister Nikhara in 2022. Kiara serves as chief technology officer while Nikhara is chief executive officer.
A qualified actuary, Nikhara Nirghin also has an impressive curriculum vitae that includes stints at Liberty, Deloitte, and Goldman Sachs.
Chima is an AI-focused startup with $5 million in financial backing from Y Combinator, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Soma Capital that has reported generating over $40 million in profit.
The startup builds generative “human reasoning” AI agents for enterprises designed to augment marketing, customer support, sales, operations, compliance, and other divisions.
Nirghin has also featured in Time Magazine and The Guardian’s Most Influential lists, was named as one of Glamour Magazine’s College Women of the Year in 2019.
Most recently, she made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for people in AI. During her second year of studies, she also published a book, “Youth Revolution: Be The Change,” with Penguin Random House.
Nirghin is a passionate advocate for more female representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, about which she has spoken at the United Nations headquarters and L’Oreal events.
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