Every year, Forbes releases their long-awaited list of young innovators shaping today’s world. This year marks Forbes 30 Under 30’s 13th annual list of entrepreneurs.
The list featured a handful of Black people innovating in tech, from tackling toxic language online to working on the first crewed space mission to Mars. So, let’s meet some of them.
Tony Morino, Co-Founder of Wiseday
Morino co-founded Wiseday in 2021 to help Canadian homeowners get the best and cheapest mortgage rates.
Morina co-founded the company with his friends and long-time acquaintances in 2021 and secured $5 million in seed funding.
The company automates financial background checks to reduce costs and uses AI to “qualify” and “disqualify” candidates. The startup claims to have processed billions in mortgages for 10,000 customers.
Saadia Gabriel, Founder of MARS Lab
Gabriel founded and runs the MARS Lab, which aims to counter the spread of false or toxic language online by empowering everyday users with tools to improve safety.
She collaborated with researchers at Microsoft to develop (De) Toxigen, a software product that uses generative AI to detect hate speech better and assist content moderators.
Matthew Clarke, Assistant Professor
Clarke researches developments for the future of aircraft as an assistant professor at University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
While doing his doctoral work at Stanford, he developed a design tool used by over 10,000 aerospace engineering professionals, including NASA and Airbus.
His new lab explores the interaction between aircraft and the environment to make more sustainable designs.
Clare Luckey, Aerospace Engineer
Luckey is the co-lead of the Crew Transit Operations within the Mars Architecture Team, which is working on what the first crewed mission to Mars will look like.
In addition to her work on Mars missions, she regularly does outreach in underserved communities to encourage students to pursue careers in STEM and space.
Nialah Wilson-Small, Industry Assistant Professor
Wilson-Small, an industry assistant professor at New York University, creates coordination algorithms for human-robot interactions using touch as
Touch can potentially expand robots’ use as assistive devices, and her research looks to apply it in situations like crowd control, search and rescue, emergency evacuation situations, independent exercise or therapy, and workplace human-robot collaboration.
Brandon Greer, Director of Corporate Development at Hubspot
Greer leads corporate development at HubSpot, the publicly-traded marketing software business he joined in 2018.
He launched HubSpot’s $100 million fund for front-office SaaS founders and has led more than 40 investments.
Proudly Black and gay, he recently joined the board of Fenway Health, a medical center focusing on healthcare access for LGBTQIA+ people.
Nebyou Zewde and Robert Ross, Co-Founders of Lume
Zewde, Ross, and their friend Machado built Lume, an AI platform that automates building data integrations.
The co-founders, who have worked at Meta, Google, and Opendoor, said they bonded over their shared experiences as minorities and immigrants and built the company while at Y Combinator earlier this year.
The San Francisco-based company has since raised $4.2 million from Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst.
Pictured: Nebyou Zewde, Clare Luckey, Saadia Gabriel, Nialah Wilson-Small, Robert Ross, Tony Morino
