This month Seattle Inno is showcasing young local leaders in the tech ecosystem. The 2022 Seattle Inno Under 25 class features 12 teen and 20-something rising stars, ranging from startup founders to investors to researchers.
A slideshow of the winners is below, and short profiles of each winner are at the bottom of the page.
Inno Under 25 2022
Eighteen-year-old Hyun, who lives in Federal Way, founded Balanced Media in April 2020. The nonprofit makes a web extension that allows users to rate the political bias of articles they read. Using the crowdsourced ratings, Balanced Media identifies how the article leans politically, if at all, and to what degree.
Sajnani, a 17-year-old Bellevue resident, founded Bellevue Bites in 2020 to connect consumers with deals at local restaurants. The goal is to help restaurants and consumers avoid third-party food apps that take a cut of the profits.
DeWitt is a researcher at the University of Washington and a West Seattle resident. The 23-year-old is helping design tech that supports the health and development of children by working with parents of children from underserved communities
Ajimine, a Seattle resident, co-founded LifeAt in October 2021. The 25-year-old's company makes a productivity tool designed to foster deep work. LifeAt uses both soothing videos and task management tools, he said.
Rad, 25 years old, is the chief technology officer and co-founder of LifeAt, along with the company's CEO Devin Ajimine. Rad, who lives in Ballard, said he and Ajimine came up for the idea for LifeAt during the pandemic while they "stared at the same white wall day after day.
Sizov co-founded her agriculture technology company in 2019. The 25-year-old Belltown resident's company helps monitor the ripeness of produce with an aim to reduce food waste.
Gupta, a 20-year-old Redmond resident, co-founded Cledge in November 2020. The company makes a college advising tool designed to provide the same information advantages as a private counselor, according to Gupta.
Khatri, who founded his company in October 2021, says Highlight helps engineers fix issues on their web apps. The 25-year-old, who lives on Capitol Hill, came up with the idea when other platforms didn't provide the necessary visibility.
Smith's organization, Sea Potential, aims to increase diversity in the maritime industry. Smith, a 25-year-old Greenwood resident, launched Sea Potential with fellow co-founder Ebony Welborn after facing barriers while pursuing careers in marine science.
Vadlamannati, 16, launched the Linguistics Justice League in February 2020 to create bilingual education material for language learners. The Mercer Island resident says the program started as a STEM program for refugee children but pivoted when the organization realized many didn't have the language skills to take advantage of the program.
Goel, a 24-year-old Capitol Hill resident, started at the Seattle venture capital heavyweight Madrona in June. He says he got into venture capital to be at the forefront of tech like artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
The Seattle Inno and Puget Sound Business Journal team selected winners based on community outreach, previous reporting and research. Winners must be making an outsize impact in their fields.
Don't see your favorite young entrepreneur on the list? Seattle Inno has multiple awards and showcases throughout the year, including Inno Madness and the Fire Awards, so stay tuned for future announcements.
CALEB HYUN, founder of Balanced Media
Age: 18
Hometown: Federal Way
Current residence: Federal Way
When did you found the company? April 2020
What does Balanced Media do? Balanced Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating incentives for media companies to incorporate varying perspectives from across the political spectrum. Balanced Media uses crowd-sourced data to recommend articles that include balanced perspectives.
How did you come up with the idea? In 2020, the Biden-Trump election became my disheartening introduction to politics. American culture seemed to be deserting civil conversation. I created Balanced Media to encourage empathy and understanding in our society.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Ideas are powerful. When I became interested in solving the problem of political division my sophomore year, I assumed I’d be working on my own. As I talked with others about my idea, I realized that there are many willing to take steps to solve big problems.
What are your other interests? I play first doubles for Federal Way High boys tennis. When I’m not on the courts, I enjoy hiking and cooking. I’m a student researcher at Northwest Nuclear Laboratories, a program in Federal Way which allows high schoolers to operate on and conduct research with a nuclear fusion reactor.
SOPHIE SAJNANI, founder of Bellevue Bites
Age: 17
Hometown: Portland
Current residence: Bellevue
When did you found the company? 2020
What does the company do? Bellevue Bites is a platform that connects people with deals for local restaurants when they order directly, avoiding third-party food apps that take a cut of profits. Bellevue Bites also raises money for restaurants and charities through food crawls and other events.
How did you come up with the idea? The idea came to me when I heard about how Uber Eats was charging restaurants high convenience fees for delivery. I wanted to create a way to encourage people to order directly from restaurants and hopefully turn them into repeat customers in the process.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Developing relationships with your community is important. You never know where a connection may lead.
What are your other interests? I love coding, and I teach a class every Thursday at my local middle school. Volunteering and connecting with students is something I look forward to every week.
AKEIYLAH DEWITT, doctoral candidate at the University of Washington
Age: 23
Hometown: San Jose, California
Current residence: West Seattle
Research description: Co-designing a technology intervention to support the health and development of children
What is your research about? I engage with parents of young children from underserved communities to design phone-based interventions that promote their child's healthy developmental growth. We use a collaborative approach where our research team and parents work together.
How did you come up with the idea? While working with parent support groups in Seattle, I learned that racially and economically marginalized groups in King County experience the lowest screening rates for delays in child development. In my family, developmental screening helped us identify early on that some family members needed additional support. That early identification enabled my family members to thrive in the long term.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Be flexible when planning for the future. I've spent my life trying to plan for every possible outcome. However, these past few years taught me that while I can plan broadly, my time is better spent focusing on things as I experience them.
What are your other interests? I am a kite enthusiast. I own four kites of different shapes and sizes and spend the week wishing for a windy weekend. I am also a classically trained musician. I played oboe for eight years and recently rekindled my love for instruments by playing the ocarina my partner gifted me and the melodica I bought myself.
DEVIN AJIMINE, CEO and co-founder of LifeAt
Age: 25
Hometown: Oahu, Hawaii
Current residence: Seattle
When did you found the company: October 2021
What does the company do? Our productivity tool combines soothing video content from creators with task management tools to create a deep work environment. In a short time, we became one of the largest productivity communities on the internet.
How did you come up with the idea? While stuck at home as a remote worker and getting tired of looking at the same wall every day, I hacked together a simple website to change my digital second monitor to a beach that stayed on for the entire day. After going viral on social media, it turns out remote workers and students wanted that same feeling of escapism. The rest is history as we joined Y Combinator.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Customers are really bad at telling you what to build. We can create any type of software, but the best products that people actually need are the ones that have a jobs-to-be-done with problems that need to be solved.
What are your other interests? I enjoy free diving and surfing, and once in a while taking photos of landscapes while outdoors.
POUYA RAD, CTO and co-founder of LifeAt
Age: 25
Hometown: Vancouver, Washington
Current residence: Ballard
When did you found the company? October 2021
How did you come up with the idea? We were working from home during the pandemic and were feeling stuck as we stared at the same white wall day after day. We wanted to freshen up our environment with beautiful and fun content, along with the tools we were already using daily.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? It is a very tricky process to discover what we should build next. Building exactly what your users directly ask for (i.e. new features) isn't always the optimal thing to do. An important lesson we've learned is to focus on behavior patterns that indicate underlying reasons why people would benefit from the next thing we build.
What are your other interests? I'm an audiophile, movie-goer, reader, and a martial artist of over 10 years and have earned my black belt. These days I spend a lot of time doing things that improve my mental and physical wellbeing.
KATHERINE SIZOV, CEO and co-founder of Strella Biotechnology
Age: 25
Hometown: Alexandria, Virginia
Current residence: Belltown
When did you found the company? 2019
What does the company do? Strella creates technology that predicts the ripeness of produce. We use this information to reduce food waste and improve quality in the food supply chain.
How did you come up with the idea? I read the staggering statistic that 40% of food is wasted before it’s consumed and couldn’t believe that number existed in the 21st century. So, I stopped applying for neuroscience graduate programs and decided to learn more about our food supply chain. After speaking with growers, suppliers, distributors and retailers, the idea for Strella was born. We believe that the key to reducing food waste is to connect the supply chain with data.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Your team makes or breaks you.
What are your other interests? Fencing, hiking and going on adventures
AYAN GUPTA, co-founder and CEO of Cledge
Age: 20
Hometown: Redmond
Current residence: Redmond
When did you found the company? November 2020
What does the company do? Cledge is developing an affordable AI-powered college advising platform to increase access to crucial information traditionally only provided by for-hire private college counselors. Cledge will level the playing field and make applying to college a transparent, equitable process.
How did you come up with the idea? After applying to college myself, I started informally helping other students apply. I realized that in the Eastside we live in a bubble of hyper-preparedness. However, for a vast number of other regions, applying to college comes up a lot later. Families end up being misinformed about the process, leading to lost opportunities.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? I have learned how to not let my GPA dictate how much I study, rather how much the practical learnings are relevant to me. For my startup, I have learned how to delegate and trust others to lead parts of the team.
What are your other interests? I work on music-synchronized holiday light shows. I also volunteer at my local temple, Vedic Cultural Center, where I help with various smart lighting projects and events such as Ananda Mela, the largest festival of South Asian culture in the PNW.
JAY KHATRI, founder and CEO of Highlight
Age: 25
Hometown: Lakeland, Florida
Current residence: Capitol Hill
When did you found the company? October 2021
What does the company do? Highlight is a monitoring platform that helps engineers debug issues on their web applications using novel replay-based technology.
How did you come up with the idea? We thought of the idea of Highlight after using several monitoring platforms that didn't give us the visibility we needed.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Hiring good people early on can shape the future.
What are your other interests? I ski, play piano and play guitar.
SAVANNAH SMITH, co-founder and director of youth engagement at Sea Potential
Age: 25
Hometown: Renton
Current residence: Greenwood
When did you found the company? Dec. 21, 2020
What does the company do? Sea Potential is cultivating a full cycle of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) representation in maritime, which we define as any career path related to water. Sea Potential helps youth foster heart-based connections to marine environments by acknowledging individual and generational trauma around water, sharing tools for healing, creating more opportunities in the community for positive experiences around water, and doing maritime career exploration programming. Within the industry itself, we are promoting representation over assimilation by consulting on workplace culture and helping businesses strengthen their relationships within community.
How did you come up with the idea? My co-founder and I grew up on opposite ends of the country but faced similar barriers and frustrations while pursuing a career in marine science as Black women. We were not adequately represented or respected along our pursuits, and we knew changes needed to be made in order to support future generations. With the uprise of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, we felt immediately called to figure out how we could use our passions and skills to uplift community.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? It is OK to ask questions. I spent a lot of time along my educational and career paths afraid of admitting what I didn't know due to imposter syndrome and then expending extra time and energy researching topics on my own opposed to tapping into the people and resources around me. Another key affirmation was that no one knows everything and there were plenty of things I knew that others didn't.
What are your other interests? Tidepooling, jewelry making, listening and dancing to live music (In the words of my dad: "It's gotta be funky."), playing soccer and meditating.
SUBHA VADLAMANNATI, founder of the Linguistics Justice League
Age: 16
Hometown: Mercer Island
Current residence: Mercer Island
When did you found the company? February 2020
What does the company do? Linguistics Justice League’s (LJL) mission is to build fun and engaging bilingual educational content and apps for language learners. Our primary focus is on low-resource languages and English. Apart from language learning, we drive awareness and an increased understanding of international cultures.
How did you come up with the idea? LJL started out providing STEM programs to refugee kids. We soon realized that many kids couldn’t take advantage of our programs due to their lack of language skills. Additionally, we observed that there weren’t sufficient education resources for speakers of low-resource languages.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Focus on STEM education without providing a base in language skills is futile. Language learning can be accelerated if one takes advantage of learner’s proficiency in their native language. Do not underestimate the generosity of volunteers.
What are your other interests? I love traveling and experiencing new cultures and trying out local ethnic food. My dream is to visit every country in the world at some point. Additionally, I enjoy drawing anime characters digitally while listening to Chopin’s compositions.
PALAK GOEL, investor at Madrona Venture Group
Age: 24
Hometown: Fremont, California
Current residence: Capitol Hill
When did you start at Madrona? June 2022
What does your role entail? I focus on finding and evaluating new tech startups we want to know and supporting the growth and strategy of current portfolio companies. I’m particularly interested in AI-powered applications and next-generation infrastructure.
What made you want to get into venture capital? New technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing will dramatically improve the way we work and the way we live. I wanted to partner with and learn from entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of this wave.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? There is nothing more important in product and company building than solving customers’ problems. Customer empathy should always be at the center of every business decision.
What are your other interests? I’m an avid squash player and recently been all-in on pickleball. When I’m not playing sports, I enjoy listening to audiobooks, trying out new recipes and meeting new people.
SABRINA WU, investor at Madrona Venture Group
Age: 25
Hometown: Elk Grove, California
Current residence: Seattle
When did you start at Madrona? November 2021
What does your role entail? Finding and investing in early-stage technology companies. After making the initial investment, we partner with founders and founding teams for the long run to help grow and build enduring companies.
What made you want to get into venture capital? I really enjoy learning about new technology, products, companies and markets. I also love the passion and excitement that early-stage companies and founders bring to the table.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? Always be intellectually curious and open to new approaches and ideas.
What are your other interests? Being in the outdoors. I love to go skiing, long-distance road and trail running, hiking and backpacking.
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
