Founders of an Atlanta media company and a technology-focused nonprofit are among local innovators featured on this year's Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Atlanta University Center graduates Ernest Holmes, Jaycee Holmes and Tavis Thompson, who created the nonprofit CodeHouse to inspire tech careers for students of color, made it into the social impact category. Offbeat Media Group founders Bailey Grady, Shep Ogden, Christopher Travers were featured in the social media category.
The annual Forbes list, released on Nov. 29, featured 30 honorees in each of the 20 categories, which includes music, science, venture capital, enterprise technology and more. This year’s honorees have raised over $5 billion and have 613 million social media followers, according to Forbes.
This isn’t the first batch of Atlanta locals named among the list’s honorees. Christian Zimmerman and Nate Washington, co-founders of financial startup Qoins, made its social impact category in 2021. Ben Jackson, founder and CEO of transportation startup Bunjii, was featured in the consumer technology category in 2020.
Codehouse launched in 2019 to encourage high school students to take on more careers in technology, particularly by obtaining an education at an HBCU. The nonprofit has received over $3 million in funding from companies including PayPal, Google and Microsoft, according to Forbes.
Jaycee Holmes, a former program manager for Microsoft, and her brother Ernest, a technical program manager at Google, run the program alongside Tavis Thompason, a product manager at Zillow.
Founded in 2018, Offbeat creates content for social media using “virtual humans." The company has received investments from Shark Tank billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, as well as seed-stage firm Atlanta Ventures. It has raised $2 million and scored partnerships with McDonald's, Twitch, Netflix and Samsung, according to Forbes.
Last year, both organizations were featured in Atlanta Inno’s Inno Under 25.
