"Age is just a number" is what people say when they don't want age to get in the way of what they seek to accomplish.
But this year's batch of BostInno's 25 achievers under the age of 25 has turned the platitude on its head, demonstrating that no one's ever too young to accomplish great feats.
One is developing an electric motor for the $170 billion boating industry. Another is planning an overhaul of the health care system. Still another worked on the team that produced the first-ever image of a black hole, while another is developing nuclear safety initiatives. These bright young individuals are sure to be tomorrow’s talk of the town.
To get to know them ahead of time, we’ve compiled a list of 25 local innovators aged 25 years old or younger—presented in alphabetical order—who are going places in business, health care, tech and more.
Here are BostInno’s 25 Under 25:
Abhishek Balakrishnan (23) – Student CEO at Northeastern University's venture accelerator, IDEA
While growing up in Dubai, Balakrishnan always knew he wanted to be part of the startup scene. At Northeastern University, where he is now a senior, he initially got into IDEA as a venture analyst and was offered the role of CEO by the preceding CEO and head of the school.
After graduation, Balakrishnan wants to work in an accelerator in either New York, San Francisco or Boston. He loves to cook and eat—his favorite dish is coconut lamb curry.
Andrew Breiter-Wu (24) – President and Founder of Breiter Planet Properties
Breiter-Wu has worked in the solar industry since his first job in high school. More recently, he decided to found his own company after working as an energy consultant at Tesla. Seeking control over his own life and career, he decided to leave both his job at Tesla and his in-progress mechanical engineering degree at Wentworth Institute of Technology to found Breiter Planet Properties.
Today, the company is a solar development and finance firm that provides solar panel installations to businesses and homeowners. Since the company’s start in 2017, Breiter-Wu has overcome a number of challenges in getting to a point where his company was turning any kind of profit. But he owes his success to his hard work ethic as well as to the help of the people around him, who he cites as the reason for him being able to start his company in the first place.
Aidan Burke (18) – Creator of Lookool
“My art is just a visual representation of what I’m about,” said Aidan Burke, the South Shore-based artist behind Lookool, a clothing brand he founded sophomore year of high school. It all started with a block of plain white T-shirts Burke brandished with the word “LOOK” in bold and all caps.
Lookool now offers a variety of clothes—hoodies, stickers and even overalls—on an artsy site sprinkled with photos Burke took with disposable cameras. As a freshly minted legal adult and freshman at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Burke looks forward to marketing his brand to a new lot of creative customers. He admits he is a “music kid at an art school” and can play guitar, piano, bass and drums.
Pooja Chandrashekar (22) – Founder of ProjectCSGIRLS
As a first-year Harvard Medical School student, Chandrashekar has already conducted research to transform care for high-risk, high-cost patients and helped build a virtual reality platform for autistic teenagers. Those two endeavors barely scrape the surface of her lengthy list of accomplishments.
Through each project, the Fulbright Scholar wants to use technology to improve the health care system and spur social change. A Virginia native and daughter of two engineers, Chandrashekar is working to instill a love for technology in girls like her through ProjectCSGIRLS, the educational nonprofit she founded six years ago. On her few and infrequent off days, she usually writes, dances or tries out a new food.
Deborah Cohen (23) – Founder and CEO of Yad
Growing up in Guatemala, Cohen wanted to create an outlet for people with intellectual disabilities, like her best friend. So while she studied at Babson College, Cohen founded Yad, a startup that imprints the work of Guatemalan artists with disabilities on home décor, which is then sold in the country’s retail stores.
“Artwork, for me, it brings life,” said Cohen. “It’s a great medium for people to express themselves.” Her company is part of this year's MassChallenge Boston cohort, and Cohen is in talks with American retailers to expand the reach of her 17 current artists. Behind art, Cohen’s second love is traveling—her favorite places are Israel and Shanghai.
Rachael Durant (25) – Senior Account Executive at InkHouse Media and Community Board Member at She's Local
When Durant attended the Massachusetts Conference for Women in 2016, she was instantly enamored with She’s Local. She’s Local is a company that creates conferences for women in various local communities to listen to the success stories of female leaders in business. Durant graduated from Hofstra University with a double major in public relations and psychology and, in the three years since, has helped She’s Local inspire women.
“I’ve met women at our conferences from all walks of life with all kinds of ideologies, of all ages,” Durant said. “It's amazing that we can all come together and make our community stronger.” When she’s not supporting local women, Durant enjoys reading, attending book club meetings and crocheting.
Joseph Farah (19) – Student at University of Massachusetts-Boston
“Knowing that I was one of the first people in history to see what a black hole looks like was a surreal feeling.” Those words come directly from Farah, who, as an undergraduate student at UMass Boston, was part of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration that took the first-ever image of a black hole in April.
"Black holes are the most exotic objects in the universe," Farah said. "The mystery of it intrigued me." Farah was part of the team that processed the data and turned it into a picture. Subsequently, Farah won the highly coveted Goldwater Scholarship for undergraduate research, which awarded him with a scholarship of $15,000. When not at work, Farah is also a digital 3D artist who likes to rock climb and drag race his Mustang.
Steve Flanagan (20) – CEO and Founder of Bountium
A computer science major at Northeastern University, Flanagan's inspiration for Bountium came from his experiences doing freelance software development. Much to his dismay, clients he worked with would often attempt to add features into the final product that they hadn't agreed to pay for in their contracts. Flanagan wanted a better contract—a smarter contract. So he founded Bountium, a blockchain business management platform that uses smart contracts to help businesses work more efficiently with suppliers and independent contractors. He describes the platform as one that delivers blockchain-based solutions for "non-blockchain people." In his spare time, Flanagan is a jack of all trades and enjoys running, carpentry, welding and painting.
Alison Furneaux (24) – Director of Marketing and founding team member of CyberSaint
In 2017, when she was finishing up her bachelor's degree in economics at Boston University, Furneaux met the founders of CyberSaint, who had just formed the company. She helped them bring CyberSaint's product to the commercial market. Today, CyberSaint is a full-fledged company that helps businesses and organizations simplify the process of adopting cybersecurity best practices and compliance standards.
Furneaux is passionate about ensuring that her company that can provide everyone, especially small businesses, with cybersecurity. “It's really important that we build things that matter and build them with intention and thought on how they're going to impact and protect the world, because we have that opportunity,” Furneaux said.
James Hamet (25) – Co-founder and Lead Software Architect at Neurable
A lover of languages and a former ice sculptor, Hamet is one of the faces behind Neurable, an interface company that is reimagining the applications of brain wave technology. Hamet and his team use electroencephalography, or EEG, sensors to delve into consumer analytics, observe reactions to advertising and, most recently, measure mental fatigue in the hopes of improving driver safety.
“Right now, people are limited,” said Hamet. “We are only able to use technology in the way that we know technology works.” Under Hamet, Neurable is on the path to improve this restrictive relationship by teaching technology to preemptively understand people’s needs. A University of Michigan graduate, Hamet holds an electrical engineering degree and a longtime love for entrepreneurship. In his free time, he enjoys reading old science fiction novels and improving his newest language: German.
Severin Ibarluzea (24) – Co-founder of WorkAround and CollegeAI
Ibarluzea lived in a fraternity house in upstate New York with other CollegeAI co-founders when funding for that first startup wore thin. The program predicts which college high school students will attend, but it runs in the background now, as Ibarluzea focuses on his primary, Boston-based project, WorkAround.
In its third year, WorkAround connects artificial intelligence companies with a reliable workforce mostly comprised of displaced refugees. With a profound passion for programming and technology, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate is consumed with his work, even in his free time.
Rohan Kapur (18) – Founder of Myxtape
Kapur is a senior at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., as well as the founder of the startup Myxtape. Myxtape is a music data company that can create enterprise products for WeWork and other coworking spaces, as well as playlists of your friends' favorite songs. Kapur began working on Myxtape just this year with a development team in India. His next plan is to add digital advertising to the app so the user's favorite song can play in the background of the ads they hear. Some of Kapur's favorite hobbies are football, snowboarding and playing guitar.
Amelie Kharey (23) – Materials Engineer at Form Energy
When Kharey was growing up in Louisiana, she had never heard of materials science.
But when she was accepted to MIT, she realized it was the perfect major for her: the ideal combination of both biology and chemistry, the two types of science she loved most. After graduation, Kharey went on to work for Form Energy, a Somerville-based startup designing a new type of battery to store renewable energy at a fraction of the cost of lithium-ion batteries. Kharey says her curiosity is what drives her to innovate and inspires her work on Form Energy's team. In her free time, she enjoys going camping and reading fiction.
Ryan Laverty (21) – COO at Arist
In his junior year at Babson College, Arist founder Laverty and his team stumbled upon research that proved text messages are an effective learning method. Now a senior, Laverty runs Arist, a successful text message learning service that partners with companies to create corporate learning programs that deliver once-per-day texts on any given topic. Arist also offers its own courses and collaborates with nonprofits to provide free learning systems to students around the world.
“When we started doing this, a lot of people thought that it was interesting, but they weren’t really sure what the applications were or how it would be used in an academic setting,” Laverty said. “Now, text messages are the future of learning.” Laverty, a triplet, is also an avid skier, hiker and podcast listener ("Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History" is his favorite).
Richard Okyere Mensah (23) – Student at Hult International Business School
After graduating with first-in-class honors and an undergraduate degree in computer science, Mensah moved from his home country of Ghana to Boston, where he became a student at Hult International Business School. Previously, Mensah had founded three startups—Origma, Menotice and HireSail—in the media, adtech and human resources industries. Once he moved to Boston, he participated in the IXL Innovation Olympics with a project focused on reducing racial income inequality. It ended up winning first prize in the competition. Mensah's team's proposed solution would allow minority-owned enterprises to tap into young talent and help students gain real-world experience.
Katie Mulligan (23) – Associate at Pillar VC
After graduating from Northeastern University in December 2018, Katie Mulligan returned to the same company where she had completed her final, eight-month-long co-op: the venture capital firm Pillar VC. “I fell in love with the startup ecosystem when I worked here and decided to come back,” said Mulligan.
Pillar works to ease the tense relationship that often exists between investors and entrepreneurs. It is led by 22 successful CEOs from companies including Wayfair, Circle and Netezza. As a part of the platform team, Mulligan handles the aftermath that follows the firm’s initial investment in a business. When she isn’t working, she can be found sailing, advising women entrepreneurs at her alma mater or visiting her family in Connecticut.
Mia Nguyen (20) – Co-founder of Women’s Interdisciplinary Society of Entrepreneurship (WISE) at Northeastern University
Nguyen, a junior finance major at Northeastern University, was inspired to found WISE after she noticed how difficult it was for female leaders to succeed in the male-dominated world of entrepreneurship. WISE is a student-led organization that helps women develop entrepreneurial skills through panels, an incubator and a mentorship program among underclassmen, upperclassmen and alumni.
“Sometimes, it takes a village to let women know they have a voice,” Nguyen said. “WISE is here to help women develop an innovative mindset and to show them all the entrepreneurship opportunities there are in New England and the Greater Boston Area.” When she isn’t supporting women in entrepreneurship, Nguyen enjoys supporting women in a different way: through participating in events with her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Anjali Palepu (16) – Co-founder of Pinpoint Donation
Palepu, a junior at the Winsor School, started the nonprofit Pinpoint Donation with her co-founder Salma Ibrahim, who is also 16, when her school held a week dedicated to trash and the environment. Palepu noticed that people had plenty of extra goods in their possession but not much knowledge on which charities needed them. Originally an app and now a website and Facebook page, Pinpoint Donation connects donors with charities to make the act of donating easier.
"It's great to see all of the interactions between people on the Facebook page, and to really get an idea of the impact you're making," Palepu said. In her spare time, Palepu enjoys running track and cross-country, making art and singing in her school's chorus.
Marc Printz (22) – CEO of GrowBox
Printz started by making pesto. Using the hydroponic and vermi-composter systems he built in high school, Printz would grow food in his home and distribute it to friends and neighbors. His love for agriculture carried on through his years at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. With graduation approaching, Printz and his co-founder Nathan Rosenberg founded GrowBox in January to help mend the operations of local, organic farms.
The startup leases semi-automated container farms to small farmers so they can make their crop yield consistent and compete with larger, commercial producers. “It’s been a long time coming,” said Printz. “We want to support farmers so they can produce veggies year-round, which helps money go back into the local economy.” Away from work, Printz is a lover of the outdoors and is planning a 125-day hike from Georgia to Maine.
Eli Richmond (17) – Founder of MentorBuddies
In early high school, Eli Richmond began profiting off his prowess in chess by tutoring students in the sport on a weekly basis. He realized his tutoring success could expand to other subjects when he founded MentorBuddies. “It was really nice, as a teenager, to teach younger kids and see the impact on the world,” Richmond said of his early tutoring days.
With MentorBuddies, parents can book individual lessons in academics, sports, music and other activities with one of the mentors registered in the MentorBuddies system for $25. As a senior at Newton North High School, Richmond is now applying to college, playing basketball in his free time and still dabbling in chess when he can, though not competitively.
Priten Shah (24) – CEO at United 4 Social Change and Co-founder of DryErase Ventures
After graduating high school, Shah took a gap year before his freshman year at Harvard to continue running a nonprofit he had started in high school. The nonprofit was focused around SAT tutoring, and Shah began struggling to find fellow peers to volunteer for it who weren’t simply fulfilling National Honor Society requirements or trying to pad their resumes. In response, and with his sister Chandani’s help, Shah founded United 4 Social Change, a nonprofit focused on educating students about the importance of democracy and civic leaders.
“I want more people to actually care about civic issues, know about them, and actually take some action towards them,” Shah said. In addition to his nonprofit work, Shah enjoys cooking and reading.
Benjamin Sorkin (23) – CEO and Founder at Flux Marine
For Sorkin, who began volunteering at an environmental education center at the age of 8 and had a boating license at the age of 10, founding a company that sells electric motors to recreational boaters was a moment when it all came together.
A Princeton University grad, Sorkin founded Flux Marine to provide clean, sustainable and reliable electric motors for the recreational boating industry. With humble beginnings as Sorkin's undergraduate research project, the firm now employs Sorkin's childhood friend Daylin Frantin and fellow Princeton grad Jonathan Lord. The company gave Sorkin an opportunity to marry his interest in the marine industry with rigor to work toward a cleaner future. When Sorkin isn’t working 80 hours a week, he enjoys playing men’s league hockey with Frantin. His goal for the rest of 2019 is to raise seed funding for Flux Marine.
Nikin Tharan (21) – CEO of Medsix
As a 9-year-old in Bangalore, India, Tharan fell into good graces with his neighbor who worked an electronic labs affiliated with the Border Security Force. After helping with a few of the lab’s pilot programs, he skipped two grades and landed at Northeastern University at 16 with a full scholarship.
Tharan is no stranger to overachievement. He has won six hackathons, co-founded an experiential learning nonprofit called WISE and worked at Guardion on radioactivity detection and nuclear safety initiatives. Now, he heads up Medsix, a medical device startup that is revolutionizing patients' postoperative recovery. Any leisure time he has is spent mentoring young entrepreneurs in MIT’s LaunchX program and nurturing his love for history.
Sarah Wooders (24) – Founder of Allparel
During her time at MIT, Wooders grew increasingly frustrated with unhelpful search results when she was online shopping. “I would put in two words, like 'crop' 'V-neck,' into the search bar, and two items would come up,” she said. “And when I would actually scroll through all the tops, there would be like 20 things that should have showed up in my search.”
So, she created Allparel, a website that uses artificial intelligence to identify over 300,000 pieces of clothing by their picture, rather than their name. A fan of lifting, Wooders is exploring the possibility of selling her technology to retailers and continually improving Allparel to make everyone’s online shopping indulgences just a bit easier.
Brian Zitin and Will Denslow (24) – Founders of Reggora
Boston University roommates turned business partners, Zitin and Denslow co-founded Reggora, a startup that provides software to speed up the appraisal process for mortgage lenders and real estate appraisers. It wasn't their first venture. After founding a real estate brokerage called Sonder Partners their senior year, the pair realized the inefficiencies of the appraisal business and were inspired to found Reggora. So far, they’ve raised $5 million in venture funding.
“We basically went from two people graduating college in 2017 to signing national lenders on our platform that lends in all 50 states,” Zitin said. “That’s probably our biggest achievement so far.”
Update: On 9/25, this article was edited to reflect that Alison Furneaux was a late founding team member of CyberSaint, and that she helped bring its product to commercial market.
