Founder, FacePrint Three years ago, Erin Smith was watching a video of Michael J. Fox and made an observation that she couldn’t stop thinking about. “Whenever a Parkinson’s patient would laugh or smile, it came off as really emotionally distant,” she says. The Lenexa, Kansas, teen reached out to clinicians and caregivers, and she learned […]

Cofounders, Trashbots Sidharth and Rohit Srinivasan love solving problems. The brothers frequently participate in robotics competitions and have traveled from their home in Austin, Texas, to India to teach STEM courses at orphanages. In 2015, that’s where they discovered their most intriguing problem yet: “The schools didn’t have an affordable way to teach robotics,” says […]

Founder and CEO, Jack’s Stands & Marketplaces, and Teen Hustl Five years ago, Jack Bonneau desperately wanted the LEGO Star Wars Death Star, which cost $400 — way more than he had in his wallet at the age of 8. So he set up a lemonade stand at his local farmers’ market. “In 12 weeks, […]

Cofounder and CEO, ScholarMe Four years ago, at 16, Femi Adebogun was building his first startup. He hired five remote employees — and because he wasn’t sure how they’d react to working for a teenager, he just decided to omit that piece of information. “I was really good at hiding my age,” he says. But […]

Founder and CEO, SmartCane When Riya Karumanchi saw her friend’s visually impaired grandmother struggling to move around her own home, she knew there had to be a better way. The white cane — that simple tool that helps the blind identify obstacles — hadn’t really changed in nearly 100 years. “I thought that was insane,” says the […]