Arun Daniel Yellamaty Kumar

Yellamaty was raised by a single mother alongside four sisters and has described a childhood marked by financial hardship and hunger; he began working at the age of eighteen to pay for his education. He took a bachelor's degree covering communications, political science and journalism, and later a master's degree in social work specialising in family and child welfare.

Yellamaty worked as a journalist for close to seven years, including a period as a reporter at the Deccan Chronicle in 2012, and wrote columns for national newspapers. He also taught journalism part-time for four years and spent time in corporate communications.

He founded the Youngistaan Foundation in 2014, at the age of 28, after becoming concerned about the treatment of homeless people in Hyderabad. Early programmes included a Sunday meal distribution serving around a thousand homeless people, a project called The Transformers in which volunteers offered street dwellers baths, haircuts, clothing and hygiene kits, and Bright Spark, a weekend teaching programme in city orphanages. The organisation has since expanded to other Indian cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai.

Yellamaty received a COVID-19 Warrior award from the Government of Telangana and was named Young Achiever of the Year for social service by Sakshi Media in 2020–21. In 2022 he was selected by the United States Department of State, through the US Consulate in Hyderabad, for the International Visitor Leadership Program. In October 2023 the Meridian International Center in Washington, DC gave him its Meridian Global Citizen Award.[2][3][4][5][6]