Innov8tiv’s 50 Young Visionary Men To Watch In 2015
One month down, eleven more to go for the year 2015. As we countdown these remaining months, the Innov8tiv team decided to do the male version of our 50 Visionary Women to watch for the year 2015. We have now compiled for you, our readers, the top 50 Visionary Men to watch in 2015.
The list was compiled by Lisa Leid, Felix Omondi and Anie Akpe. Without further fluffs lets delve right into it:
1) Anthony Frasier + James Lopez
Co-Founders of The Phat Startup (@ThePhatStartup) Education for aspiring entrepreneurs. Interviews, coaching, and multimedia resources. Inspired by Hip Hop
2) Benjamin Jealous
Was the former president and CEO of the NAACP and now is the Partner of Kapor Capital(@KaporCapital) is a venture capital investment arm of the Kapor Center for Social Impact in Oakland, CA. The company has invest in seed stage technology companies that generate economic value and positive social impact
3) Van Jones
Founder of #YesWeCode (@YesWeCode) is a national initiative to help train 100,000 low-opportunity youth to code.
4) Cliff Ward
Founder and President of The Health Zone Network (THZN) is comprised of three ethnic targeted health focused networks within a larger health network. Black health zone (@BlackHealthZone), Latino Health Zone and Gay Health Zone (@GayHealthZone)
5) Daniel Fountenberry
Founder and CEO of Books that Grow (@BooksThatGrow) Adaptive, Common Core-aligned books for digital natives – personalizing instruction with a tap or a click.
6) Kalimah Priforce
Is the co-founder of Qeyno Lab(@Qeyno) Leading the way in harnessing the STEM interests of high potential youth from low-opportunity settings through radically inclusive hackathons.
7) Hamet Watt and Stacy Spikes
Co-founders of MoviePass (@MoviePass) unlimited movies in Theaters Nationwide for a Low Monthly Fee!
8) Frederick Hutson
Is the CEO/Co-Founder Pigeonly (@Pigeon_ly) a platform that identifies and organizes data on the incarcerated
9) Jon Gosier
Gosier is a Partner in Third Cohort (@ThirdCohortFund) is an angel investment fund offering capital to early-stage tech companies and Cross Valley Capital (@CrossValley_vc) We bet on great teams using data and technology to radically push forward industry. We especially focus on teams working in areas of health and wellness, devices, and emerging markets
10) Jason Crain
Co-Founder/ COO of Partpic (@Partpic) provides a simple way to find and order parts using images, which is a relief when the name or part number is unknown. Our proprietary technology can be the power that aids your customer service representatives in the sell process.
11) Barry Givens
Co-founder and CEO of Monsieur (@getMonsieur) is an artificially intelligent robotic bartender that makes great tasting cocktails that keep people happy and businesses profitable.
12) Marlon C. Nichols
VC at Intel Capital (@intelcapital) Our mission is to spur innovation and inspire entrepreneurial spirit in support of Intel’s vision: to create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth.
13) Larry Baker + Charlie Tribbett
Co-founders of Bolstr (@bolstr) is a marketplace where emerging consumer, retail, and manufacturing businesses can raise funding for expansion from real investors.
14) Bruce Lincoln & Clayton Banks
Co-Founders of Silicon Harlem (@SiliconHarlem) is a social venture that has been designed to transform Harlem in to a technology and innovation hub. This includes establishing co-working spaces, gigabit infrastructure, securing investment capital, and hosting monthly meetups.
15) Brian Brackeen
Founder & CEO – Kairos (@LoveKairos) is creating a world without fraud via facial recognition.
16) Joah Spearman
Spearman is the Co-founder & CEO of Localeur (@Localeur) is a community of locals who want to help you experience the best places to eat, drink, and play.
17) Evin Robinson
Robinson is the Co-founder 0f Brooklyn On Tech (@BrooklynOnTech) a non- profit organization where its mission is to inspire the next generation of tech thought leaders emerging from the borough of Brooklyn, New York.
Appiah is a co-founder and Director of the GhanaThink Foundation, a think tank that prides itself of being in the front line in human resource development across Ghana. This organization has led to the setting up of other platforms such as BarCamp, Kumasi Konnect, JuniorCamp, and DiasporaCamp. All of which work on boosting the individual in terms of personality, entrepreneurship and career development.
19) Hans Mayo
Mayo is the Co-Founder of Lineapple (@LineappleApp) a super easy way to hold your place in line on your smartphone. LineappleApp is turning wait time into vacation time. Down load the app and skip waiting in Lines!
20) Tristan Walker
Walker is the Co-Founder of code2040 (@CODE2040) where the mission of this program is to bring diversity to Silicon Valley by bringing in talented minorities, who are in school for engineering, to Silicon Valley for the summer, mentoring them and finding them positions with companies.
21) Matthew Burnett
Burnett is the Co-Founder of Maker’s Row (@MakersRow). Maker’s Row’s mission is to make the manufacturing process simple to understand and easy to access. From large corporations to first time designers, they are providing unparalleled access to industry-specific factories and suppliers across the United States.
Chinedu Echeruo is a partner and head of Principal Investing at Constant Capital, a West-Africa based investment bank. He founded two U.S-based internet companies; HopStop.com and Tripology.com.
Marek Zmyslowski is the Managing Director of Jovago.com. Jovago is a part of Africa Internet Group (AIG). He established the first Jovago branch in Africa in August 2013. Before AIG, he successfully co-founded and exited two online ventures in Poland before moving to Nigeria. Zmyslowski has essentially boosted E-Commerce within Nigeria.
Omojuwa (@omojuwa), is a Nigerian blogger, socio-economic and political commentator, social media expert, environmental consultant and a mentor. He is also a columnist with one of Nigeria’s most respected newspaper, The Punch (@MobilePunch) and The Metropole Magazine (@MetropoleMag).
Ndugu (@ToneeNdugu) is the founder of the Kytabu (@kytabu) that uses mobile money payment to lease textbooks; he has also included encryption security in order to protect publisher’s content.
Founder of RLabs (@RLabs), that acts as an environment for community driven innovation and reconstruction.
Thakkar (@AshishJThakkar) is the founder and MD of Mara Group, a diversified conglomerate operating in various industries such as financial services, ICT, agriculture, manufacturing and real estate. The company has presence in 19 countries across the 46 sub-Saharan acountries.
Founder and Chairman of Africa 2.0 (@Africa2point0), an advocacy group whose goal is to bring together emerging leaders from across the African continent and the diaspora, who share a common vision with regards to the future of Africa.
Founder and CEO of the African Media Initiative (AMI), a pan-African organization whose goal is to strengthen Africa’s media space. He is also a co-Founder and Chairman of AllAfrica Global Media, Inc, that operates AllAfrica.com.
30) Dr. Nicolaas Duneas and Nuno Pires
The two South African came up with the Osteogenic Bone Matrix (OBM) innovation. The world’s first injectable porcine derived BMP (Bone Morphogenetic Proteins) medical device. The product can be used in the treatment of bone injuries voids by using generative biological implants.
31) Brian Gitta, Joshua Mulessi, Simon Lubambo and Josiah Kavuma
Founder of the Matibabu App (@matibabu8); a revolutionary non-invasive malaria diagnosis method that uses custom built hardware (Matiscope) to diagnose malaria fast.
32) Ali Kone, Kwame Andah & Amadou Daffe
Coders4Africa (@Coders4Africa)–Support a pan-African community of competent, internationally certified IT professionals who develop IT tools to address Africa’s challenges with regards to agriculture, business, education, health care and governance among other social needs.
A co-Founder of Mkito.com (@MkitoDotCom) a music download service started in Tanzania that offers listeners their favorite jams but attached with short ads to ensure artists gets compensated for their efforts. Mkito also plans to add streaming services to its platform.
Gbenle (@oladapo_gbenle) is the CEO of D8ONE8 Technologies Ltd. credited for the Integrated MEDICs. A user friendly, multi-functional web based Medical Information Management System referred to as Medics. It is designed to computerize all hospital classes while taking into considerations all the complexities of the medical industry.
35) Derek Blair and Yves Niyonshuti
Blair is a co-Founder of the Jifunza app. An app that can help travellers across the African continent learn with ease the local native languages. According to his interview with Innov8tiv, Blair mentioned the app will launch with 30 native languages and grow to include more languages as more users submit their native languages with time.
Canino (@CasCanino) is the Co-Founder of the largest Africans in Diaspora award show dubbed Nigerian Entertainment Awards (NEA). He also launched the UnderDaRock (UDR) internet radio station said to be touching the four corners of the world.
37) Bayo Puddicompe and Zubair Abubakar
The duo are the co-founders of Chopup, an in-game-payment platform that help developers from across the African continent monetize their ideas and manage them like any other profitable venture.
38) Robert Lamptey and Badu Boahen
The duo are the co-founders of Saya (now acquired by Kirusa) a messaging application that reduces the cost of SMS and give feature phones access to functions like Facebook chat, location-based chat, group discussion as well as exchanging multi-media.
39) Churchill Nanje Mambe
Founder of Njorku, an online job search for Africans worldwide. The platform employs high end and custom technologies to overcome the various expensive barriers that stand in the way of the average sub-Saharan African startups.
40) Sangu Delle
Co-founder of the Golden Palm Investments, a company that invest in African startups especially those in the field of real estate, agribusiness, health care and technology.
41) Leslie Addae
The founder of TedxAcrra that has been featuring a lot of influential people both inside and outside of Ghana. He is also a co-founder and CTIO of ProMobileGH
42) Mark Essien
Founder, Hotels.ng, the biggest hotel booking portal in Nigeria.
43) Ofo Ezeugwu
Founder and CEO, Whoseyourlandlord.com. Whose Your Landlord mission is to hold home providers accountable for their practices and to give tenants a say in regard to their home and overall well-being.
44) Michael Devore, Ifeanyi Kalu, Eddie Massey, & Sakshyam Dahal
Founders of Live Chair – The Barbershop App geared towards reducing empty chairs in a Barber Shop
Author of @TheModernCEO, Founder @NBITLO, Urban Tech Weekend and CEO West Innovation Group.
46) Michael Henderson
Founder of Doing Development, a company whose mission is implementing programs that provide insight and solutions to those who can benefit the most – the under-served in both the local community and the developing world.
Founder of Kylar a mobile app that enables people to connect and share information.
Founder ClaimItApp!, A product giveaway platform. More specifically Claim it! is a weekly sweepstakes of awesome free stuff people can claim from their smartphones.
49) M. Cole Jones & Michael Flanigan
Co-Founders of Covello, a collaborative growth company which helps it’s clients think differently, execute, and explore the unknown. They are advocates of collaboration and disciples of simplicity.
50) Roderick Scott & Levon Myles
Co-Founders of TechGuySmartGuy.com, a digital site dedicated to educating consumers on their technology purchases.
