This week, Forbes released its annual 30 under 30 list, celebrating the best young minds that span a number of industries, including consumer and enterprise tech, finance, media, healthcare, and social entrepreneurship.
In total, Forbes recognized more than 600 people for the list who were chosen from an initial pool that topped 15,000 nominees. Of the winners, 11 Chicagoans made the cut.
Last year, 15 Chicago representatives made the list.
The youngest of Chicago’s representatives, 22-year-old Daniel Yu, founded
in 2012 in an effort to improve global standards for quality of life by improving access to healthcare. Reliefwatch works with NGOs that operate health clinics in developing nations to overhaul inventory and disease case records, all through basic mobile phones.
Other familiar faces from Chicago’s tech scene included viral content king and
According to Forbes, Chicago honorees represented three percent of the overall list (with the entire Midwestern region accounting for just eight percent). Compared to San Francisco’s 20 percent and New York City’s 25 percent, Chicago has room to grow.
Forbes polled this year’s winners for insights on some of the most successful Millennials. 50 percent of respondents defines success as “liking myself and what I do,” while only two percent said “wealth and power.” 63 percent grew up in middle class households, and 20 percent come from working class families.
Check out all of this year’s honorees from Chicago:
Nick Cromydas (29), cofounder of
Taylor Feelhey (26), University of Chicago PhD Candidate
Cary Hayner (29), cofounder of
Josh Kahn (28), senior creative producer at the Chicago Bulls
Gabriel Nakashima (28), founder of the Charter Substitute Teacher Network
Aneesh Sohoni (27), project director at The New Teachers Project (TNTP)
Emerson Spartz (28), founder of
We're in a great, convenient River North location that's close to brown and blue line CTA stops.Anna Stork (26), cofounder of
Iliana Vargas (28), Northwestern University PhD Candidate
Yasmine Yousaf (23), DJ/Producer of Krewella
Jahan Yousaf (26), DJ/Producer of Krewella
Daniel Yu (22), founder of
Image via Forbes.
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