Introduction
All 35 of these people are doing exciting work that could shape their fields for decades. But they’re solving problems in remarkably different ways. We consider some of them to be primarily Inventors; they’re immersed in building new technologies. Others we call Visionaries, because they’re showing how technologies could be put to new or better uses. Humanitarians are using technology to expand opportunities or inform public policy. Pioneers are doing fundamental work that will spawn future innovations; such breakthroughs will be taken up by tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs, people who are building new tech businesses.
Everyone on the list was nominated either by the public or by MIT Technology Review’s editors. Some got our attention when they were picked by our international publishing partners as Innovators Under 35 for their regions. After our editors pared the roughly 500 nominees to 80 finalists, outside judges rated the originality and impact, or potential impact, of their work; those scores guided the editors as they crafted the list.
The Judges
David Berry, Partner, Flagship Ventures; Edward Boyden, Associate Professor, MIT Media Lab and McGovern Institute; Yet-Ming Chiang, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT; James Collins, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University; John Dabiri, Professor of Aeronautics and Bioengineering, Caltech; Jennifer Elisseeff, Professor of Biomedical; Engineering, Johns Hopkins; Javier García-Martínez, Director of Molecular Nanotechnology Laboratory, University of Alicante, Spain; Julia Greer, Professor of Materials Science and Mechanics, Caltech; Eric Horvitz, Managing Director, Microsoft Research; Hao Li, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Southern California; Cherry Murray, Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University; Kristala Jones Prather, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT; Carmichael Roberts, Entrepreneur and General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners; John Rogers, Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science Engineering, University of Illinois; Umar Saif, Vice Chancellor, Information Technology University, Punjab; Laura Schewel, Cofounder and CEO, StreetLight Data; Rachel Sheinbein, Managing Director, Balfour Asset Management; Sophie Vandebroek, CTO, Xerox; Ben Zhao, Professor of Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara
The List
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Fadel Adib
, 25Here’s how you can use Wi-Fi to track people moving around in other rooms.
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Emily Balskus
, 34More precise knowledge of the bacteria in our guts could lead to better-targeted treatments for chronic conditions.
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George Ban-Weiss
, 33A USC professor who studies climate and pollution influences policy in California.
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Miles Barr
, 30The CEO of a solar startup hopes you never see his product.
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Ayah Bdeir
, 31Electronic blocks that link with one another also connect art and engineering. (+video)
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Kuang Chen
, 34A novel way to get data off paper records and into the digital age.
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Rumi Chunara
, 32Crucial information about disease outbreaks can be gleaned earlier.
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Emily Cole
, 31Can we cheaply convert carbon dioxide into something useful?
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Tanuja Ganu
, 31Simple devices allow consumers to cheaply and easily monitor India’s rickety power grid.
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Shyam Gollakota
, 28An expert on wireless technology figures out how to power devices without batteries.
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Severin Hacker
, 30A novel approach to learning languages is making the Web more accessible.
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David He
, 28This watch could finally get your blood pressure under control.
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Kurtis Heimerl
, 30Inexpensive boxes could help bring mobile coverage to the billion people who lack it.
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Rand Hindi
, 29Guiding your life using the power of big data.
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Sarah Kearney
, 29A financial innovator is crafting a way for foundations to invest in clean energy.
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Duygu Kuzum
, 31Brain-inspired chips could mean better computer processing and neural implants.
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Quoc Le
, 32Frustration with waiting for computers to learn things inspired a better approach.
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Jinha Lee
, 27Finding more powerful ways to manipulate and interact with digital data.
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Aaron Levie
, 29The founder of Box wants to reconfigure the way we work.
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Alex Ljung
, 32SoundCloud is changing how music gets made.
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Palmer Luckey
, 21If you can make virtual reality affordable for consumers, things fall into place.
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Megan McCain
, 31Heart on a chip paves the way for personalized cardiac medicines.
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Maria Nunes Pereira
, 28Patching holes in the hearts of sick infants.
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Manu Prakash
, 34Imaginative inventions liberate science from the ivory tower.
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Michael Schmidt
, 32There aren’t enough data scientists to go around—unless you automate them.
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Julie Shah
, 32This MIT engineering professor is turning robots into ideal colleagues for humans.
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Maryam Shanechi
, 33Using control theory to build better interfaces to the brain.
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Bret Taylor
, 34The former CTO of Facebook is reimagining the word processor.
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Kay Tye
, 33Identifying how the connections between regions of the brain contribute to anxiety.
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Santiago Villegas
, 29An online reporting system encourages crime victims and witnesses to speak up.
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Jonathan Viventi
, 32A high-resolution interface reveals the brain storms of people suffering seizures.
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Kathryn Whitehead
, 34A systematic search discovered nanoparticles that could improve drug delivery.
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Tak-Sing Wong
, 33Carnivorous plant inspires solution to “sticky” problems.
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Hui Wu
, 31Cheaper and more powerful batteries could help reduce China’s deadly air pollution.
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Guihua Yu
, 33Electronic gels could lead to sensors and batteries that are more like biological tissue.
