On the heels of our Fire Awards honoree celebration is another, equally important, group deserving of recognition. Each year, Charlotte Inno honors a group of the area's top young innovators, those who are well on their way to making an impact in the local tech and startup ecosystem.
To highlight these bright tech leaders, Inno has compiled a list of the most promising and notable entrepreneurs and technologists age 25 and under. They include a founder who hasn't yet begun her education, current students, established founders and program directors at notable tech firms. This year's list, based on community nominations and Inno's editorial selection process, features 10 of the Charlotte area's brightest innovators ranging in age from 4 to 25. Do we need any more proof that age is just a number?
Keep scrolling to read more about the Charlotte Inno Under 25, class of 2021.
Andrew Ashur, 25, co-founder of Lucid Drone Technologies
Ashur is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Lucid Drone Technologies, a tech startup that builds industrial drones for labor-intensive tasks. As CEO, Ashur, who graduated from Davidson College in 2019 as a double major, manages the overall operations, including product development, strategic partnerships and investor relations. In October, Lucid leased its tech to the Atlanta Falcons for use in disinfecting Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Ashur was named earlier this year to Forbes' 30 Under 30 in Manufacturing and Industry, alongside co-founder David Danielson and former co-founder and 2020 Inno Under 25 winner Adrian Mayans.
Amogh Bandekar and Allison File, both 19, co-founders of SolCooking
File and Bandekar, both current UNC Charlotte students, founded SolCooking in 2020 as a social enterprise and health startup focused on reducing the number of lives lost each year to open-fire cooking. The startup produces sustainable and cost-effective solar cookers that are used mainly for emergency humanitarian relief and aid. Bandekar said their inspiration for the startup came after seeing first hand the conditions many of the city's homeless live in while he volunteered as a clinician at a low-cost clinic at the height of the pandemic. They were one of six teams to win UNCC's 49er Impact Pitch Competition last year. Bandekar and File have received $8,500 in grants and funding for their company through the National Science Foundation, United Nations, Charlotte Venture Challenge and EPIC Innovators Challenge.
Jasmine Boyce, 22, program manager at RevTech Labs
Boyce graduated from UNC Charlotte last year and immediately took on the role of program manager at RevTech Labs, a Charlotte-based accelerator program that focuses on fintech health tech and insurtech programming. She manages logistics for RevTech's programs that support the incubation, acceleration and scaling of the startups involved. Additionally, Boyce does social media and marketing work for PitchBreakfast, where early-stage entrepreneurs are invited on a monthly basis to pitch to a panel and audience.
Brie'anna Brown, 21, program specialist at INTech Camp for Girls
Brown, a 2021 graduate of UNC Charlotte, started with INTech Camp for Girls in May 2020. INTech, founded in 2014, is a local nonprofit with a mission to inform and inspire young girls through technology. As the INTech program manager, Brown works to financially empower marginalized communities through technology, education and entrepreneurship.
Jayla Hawthorne, 4, co-founder of Jayla's Heirlooms
The youngest ever member of Inno Under 25, Hawthorne helped create Jayla's Heirlooms, a curated collection of handmade dolls, with her mother Nicole Hawthorne in 2020. Though she's not quite old enough to dive into the company's tech development, Hawthorne holds one of Jayla's Heirlooms most important jobs — quality assurance. "She's our little QA. She makes sure the dolls are safe and picks out which ones are her favorites. She plays with them and makes sure the other kids will love them," Nicole Hawthorne told Inno.
Holly Leslie, 23, founder of Adla
A native of London, Leslie came to the states to launch her clothing rental platform, Adla. She took the startup through the Y Combinator accelerator program last March before relocating to Charlotte. Using what she learned there, she created a platform that uses machine learning and data to curate the right clothing styles for its customers. Adla launched first at High Point, Elon and Duke universities and will launch this fall at UNC Charlotte, Johnson & Wales University — Charlotte Campus, Queens University of Charlotte and Davidson College, as well as Wake Forest University, UNC Chapel Hill and Wingate University.
Curtis Motes, 25, application developer at SeedSpark
Motes, who graduated from the College of Charleston in 2018, first worked as a freelance web developer and indie game developer. In 2019, he was hired as a junior developer for SeedSpark, a Charlotte-based company that uses technology to help businesses solve problems and build strategy. Now, as a lead developer, Motes has worked on dozens of application development projects aimed at improving workflow for thousands of employees in a variety of industries.
Zach Ofsanik, 18, developer with Career Snapshots
Ofsanik, now a freshman studying computer science at UNC Charlotte, helped in the development of Career Snapshots shortly after local schools switched to remote learning due to Covid-19. Career Snapshots is a digital tool aimed at empowering teens to engage in career awareness and research from home and learn how to find local apprenticeships, paid internships, jobs and co-ops. The digital tool features short career exploration videos that are submitted by practicing professionals and employers. Since its launch across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in February, the website has generated more than 2 million hits.
Cristian Ponce, 19, YTAC program director at Carolina Fintech Hub
In two short years, Ponce went from a participant in the first cohort of Carolina Fintech Hub's Youth Technology Apprenticeship Camp to its full-time program director. After winning the major STEM competitions during his YTAC cohort, he was offered a part-time position helping to run the incoming group. He was an instrumental part of changing YTAC's focus from education-focused to career pipeline-focused and was eventually promoted to program director before his 19th birthday. Ponce was recently accepted to the California Institute of Technology where he plans to study computer science with a focus on either artificial intelligence and machine learning or biocomputation.
