One Young World Releases Shortlist of 15 Entrepreneurs Considered for its Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for 2020

One Young World has announced a shortlist of 15 Entrepreneurs selection for consideration for the One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year 2020.

One Young World is a UK-based not-for-profit organization that gathers young leaders from around the world to develop solutions to the globe’s most pressing issues. The annual One Young World Summit convenes the brightest young talent from every country and sector, working to accelerate social impact. Delegates from 190+ countries are counseled by influential political, business, and humanitarian leaders such as Justin Trudeau, Paul Polman, and Meghan Markle, amongst many other global figures. The One Young World Summit 2021 will take place in Munich, Germany from 23 to 26 April 2021.

15 young entrepreneurs have all been shortlisted because of the tremendous impact of their business ventures and how they are inspiring others with their leadership.

The One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award recognizes five of the world’s most promising entrepreneurs aged 18 to 35. The award highlights the work of revolutionary young business leaders whose enterprises are shaping the world around them and inspiring others to launch their ventures.

The shortlisted nominees are currently being reviewed by One Young World’s expert judging panel.

The five winners will be announced in mid-June and will be presented with this award at the One Young World 2021 Summit in Munich.

The Shortlist

Abasi Ene-Obong, 35, Nigeria

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 54gene, a genomics research, services, and development company established to significantly improve the inclusion of African populations in clinical global genomics research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 54gene under the leadership of Dr. Ene-Obong also created the ‘Nigeria COVID-19 Fund’ which raised $500,000 to purchase on-demand vital testing equipment for public laboratories across the country.

Alexia Hillbertidou, 21, New Zealand

Founder and CEO of GirlBoss New Zealand – a network of 13,500 young women who are determined to rewrite the rules in leadership, entrepreneurship, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). GirlBoss has inspired more than 50,000 young people through speaking engagements (including One Young World 2019) and workshops into more than 100 schools in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and Australia.

Andy Ayim, 32, United Kingdom

Andy Ayim is the founder of The Angel Investing School and also consults large organisations in highly regulated industries on how to build Product teams that work with agility to create products customers love using his Product Playbooks. Andy believes that potential is widely distributed but the opportunity is not. This is why he is proud that The Angel Investing School had 45% female intake and 60% people of colour. Prior before that, he was the Managing Director of Backstage Capital where he helped raise $2.5M and invested in 25 underrepresented founders in the US, UK, and Africa. Outside of this, Andy is a Board advisor to YSYS, a community of young diverse entrepreneurs Flipside Project, a non-profit dedicated to helping young people from underserved backgrounds get training and work experience in the creative industry. 

Antonio Espinosa, 30, Spain

Founder and CEO of AUARA, the first beverage social enterprise in Spain, born with the mission of investing 100% of its profits in sustainable water access projects in developing communities around the world. In less than 4 years, AUARA has provided sustainable water access for more than 42,000 people through 70 projects in 16 countries that have had an enormous positive impact especially on women and children, and we have recycled more than 10 million plastic bottles. During the Covid19 sanitary crisis, AURA launched the campaign #AguaparahospitalesCOVID19, being able to donate more than 1.2 million water bottles to hospitals in a time of critical need.

Assaf Ben-Or, 35, Israel

Founder and CEO of Greeneum, a blockchain-based patented platform for renewable energy applications with activity in Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, the U.S, and more. Assaf’s mission for Greeneum is to build and empower communities using blockchain (DLT), data security, and AI to foster the use and efficient implementation of renewable energy in the local and global markets.

Brianne West, 33, New Zealand

Brianne West is the founder and CEO of Ethique, the world’s most sustainable lifestyle, and beauty brand. Ethique has, to date, prevented the manufacture and disposal of over 8 million plastic bottles worldwide. Ethique is New Zealand’s highest-ranking B-Corp, living wage certified, carbon positive plants one tree for every order and donates 20% of annual profits to charity.

Daniela V. Fernandez, 26, Ecuador

Founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, award-winning social entrepreneur, thought leader, and international speaker on the entrepreneurial mindset, ocean innovation, and technology, youth empowerment, and sustainability. SOA has created the world’s largest network of young ocean leaders – by establishing a presence in over 185 countries and has successfully launched the world’s first Ocean Solutions Accelerator to develop technological solutions that can address the greatest threats facing our planet.

Gino Tubaro, 24, Argentina

Gino Tubaro is an Argentine inventor and founder of Atomic Lab, an NGO present in more than 44 countries that aims to improve people’s quality of life through the latest technologies. His most prominent project, pioneering in 2012 is called “Limbs” through which 3D-printed prostheses are created. To date, the project has delivered more than 1,500 prostheses for free for those who are in need and throughout its platform and strong community more than 100 000 downloads all over the world.

Iman Usman, 28, Indonesia

Iman Usman is the Co-Founder and COO of Ruangguru, the largest tech-enabled education provider in Southeast Asia – serving over 20 million students, 300,000 teachers, with 4,000 employees across Southeast Asia. In addition to its business activity, Iman also oversees Ruangguru Foundation – managing multi-million-dollar grants and funding to improve the quality of teachers, employability, and access to learning, impacting +500,000 beneficiaries since 2018.

Jamie Crummie, 29, Ireland

Jamie Crummie co-founded Too Good To Go (UK), a social impact company focused on fighting food waste, in 2016. The core mission of Too Good To Go is to inspire and empower everyone to fight food waste. Too Good To Go is now active in 14 countries, with over 22 million Waste Warriors who have rescued over 35 million meals collectively from over 40,000 partnering businesses. It has had a hugely positive environmental impact, so far saving over 87,000 tonnes of CO2e which is the equivalent of the CO2e emitted from 17,000 flights around the world.

Jessica O. Matthews, 32, U.S/Nigeria

Founder & CEO of Uncharted Power, an award-winning, power access company, that transforms the ground beneath us into smart, secure, and cost-effective infrastructure for renewable energy access. Founded by Jessica at the age of 22, the company’s proprietary suite of technology creates the “internet for decentralized energy” that can easily interconnect decentralized power applications (residential solar, electric vehicle charging stations, IoT sensors, etc.) into one sustainable network, bridging the power access gap between current grid and o-grid solutions. This technology holds the potential to transform the power grid as we know it and spur smart city and smart neighbourhood development.

Justine Hutteau, 26, France

Co-founder of the French natural brand Respire, which has developed, from scratch with a pharmaceutical doctor, a range of natural personal care products, clean for the body, easy to use, and sustainable for our planet. Respire has sold more than 800 000 products, which you will be able to find now in more than 1000 shops, including in the French retailer Monoprix and in all Sephora stores in Europe.

Sergio Pachón, 32, Colombia

Founder and president of Kiwibot, a semi-autonomous robot system used for last-mile deliveries, transporting objects from point A to point B in a safe, efficient, and economical way. Kiwibot is the company that has made the most deliveries using robots (more than 100.000) and that has generated the most interactions between humans and robots during the history of humanity. Sergio has worked with over 1000 young people through his volunteer and entrepreneurship programs. One of his goals is to empower youth throughout Colombia and all of Latin America to show that they’re talented and ambitious enough to create high-quality technology products that can compete not only in the region but globally.

Shay Wright, 30, New Zealand

Co-founder of Te Whare Hukahuka, one of the only Maori-owned social enterprises enabling indigenous Maori leaders and community organisations to grow self-sustaining enterprises and create an impact in their communities, on their terms. The community organization serves more than 300,000 Maori people and has raised more than $1.8 million towards strengthening Maori organisations and community enterprise. Partnered with Shopify Global to grow the programme globally for indigenous people and is currently offering $412,000 of scholarships to indigenous businesses to participate

Yuet Kim Lim, 30, Malaysia

Co-founder of PichaEats, a food business that helps refugee families support themselves instead so they can afford to send their kids for education. We started with 1 family from Myanmar and soon with Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, and Pakistanis too. So far, we have worked with 25 chefs and impacted 125 lives, making sure they can cover rental and put food on the table. Since PichaEats started, awareness towards refugees has definitely increased especially in the city centre. Our work proves to young people that it is possible to take on social entrepreneurship as a full-time career.