Rishi Jaitly, Detroit program director for Knight Foundation, is being featured in Crain’s Detroit Business’  2011 “40 under 40” awards.

Jaitly, who joined Knight Foundation in March, works with local leaders to find and invest in opportunities for fostering an informed and engaged Detroit.

“To call Rishi Jaitly’s résumé diverse is an understatement,” Crains writes.

Before joining Knight Foundation, Jaitly co-founded and led Michigan Corps, a social network for local and global Michiganders committed to advancing education and entrepreneurship in their home state. Michigan Corps, along with ACCION USA and Knight Foundation, were successful in launching Kiva Detroit, the first in-country branch of Kiva, which brings microloans to Detroit small businesses.

Jaitly also spent four years at Google, both as a speechwriter for Eric Schmidt and as a public affairs specialist in India, where he worked on a voter information project and persuaded the Pakistani and Bangladeshi governments to stop blocking various social media platforms.

In the profile, Jaitly says his goal is to see:

“More Detroiters acting, growing and seeing themselves as leaders — and I mean that across issues, across geographies, from big-business leaders to young people.”

Crain’s “40 under 40 awards” were launched 20 years ago, its goal is to honor the best and brightest in Southeast Michigan who have made their marks in business before age 40.