Minne Inno presents its 2020 Inno Under 25

Minnesota's startup and tech scenes are nothing if not passionate. And that passion is driven especially by the young entrepreneurs and technologists who push their colleagues and peers forward.

Each year, Minne Inno recognizes are group of deserving people under the age of 25 that are local startup leaders. This year, we've picked 11 such leaders who have made news and impressed us. Some are college students, while some are already creating and leading their own projects.

The Minne Inno Under 25 for 2020 are:

Bailey is the senior business-development representative at BetterYou, a digital coaching app that helps users manage their digital time. A graduate of University of St. Thomas, Bailey booked a record number of product demonstrations in her first year with Better You and helped it grow from eight customers to 50 in that year. The startup raised its $1.8 million seed round a year ago and was recently a finalist in the 2020 Minnesota Cup.

Kate is the program manager for gener8tor Minnesota and gener8tor's OnRamp Insurance Accelerator. A previous Inno Under 25 honoree, she's worked with dozens, if not hundreds, of startups since she joined gener8tor in Madison in 2016. She attended Indiana University and was promoted to program manager last year after she graduated. She's now a speaker on panels at Twin Cities Startup Week and on podcasts.

Abenezer is the founder and CEO of BraillEazy, a smartphone app that translates and teaches Braille to the visually impaired. BraillEazy has won awards from groups like Founders Live Minnesota and the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge. Born in Ethipoia, he came to Minnesota to study at the University of St. Thomas, where he's an electrical engineering major and an entrepreneurship minor, as well as the president of the local chapter of the National Society of Black Entrepreneurs.

Amy is the co-founder and CEO of Solupal, a company that makes a 100% water-soluble plastic bag and a 2018 Minnesota Cup finalist. It wasn't her first startup. As a senior in high school, Amy started Skyrocket, which connects senior citizens with entrepreneurship. Skyrocket helped Amy get the University of St. Thomas' Schulze Innovation Scholarship; she's currently a junior at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship.

Dick is a founder and chief growth officer of Online Growth Systems, a media company that helps firms with social media advertising and website design. Dick started the company in 2016. Before that, he was a founder of Minnesota Cup semi-finalist Rhino Tools, which he founded at 16. He's now a gener8tor mentor as well as the winner of awards like the Advertising Federation's "32 Under 32" award and a member of the Founders Live Minneapolis board.

Precious is the director of the gBeta Greater Minnesota St. Cloud accelerator. She co-founded skin care startup Perk while she was still a student at the College of St. Benedict. A former Finnovation Fellow at the Finnovation Lab in Minneapolis, Precious joined gener8tor in 2019 and recently recruited the gBeta Greater Minnesota St. Could accelerator's second class of startups. She also recently recorded a TEDx Talk called "Who Gets To Be Called An 'Entrepreneur' and Why It Matters."

Daniel is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Onedesk, which helps schedule, manage and pay commercial-cleaning services for offices. At the age of 18, Daniel was hired by Minneapolis' Agosto; after two years there, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to grow MyEtherWallet, a Blockchain wallet company where he was chief technology officer. He moved back to the Twin Cities and founded Onedesk in 2019. Daniel is a Thiel Fellow, a two-year program that gives young people a $100,000 grant to skip college in pursuit of a project.

Anaa is the CEO of Didómi, a social-impact startup that tackles the water crisis in developing countries with fashionable, reusable water bottles. A student at Pomona College in California, Anaa was named the Minnesota and Midwest Youth of the Year by the Boys and Girls Club of America and was a finalist of the National Youth of the Year. Fifty percent of Didómi's profits go to nonprofits aligned with their vision. It recently took first place in the Wisconsin Big Idea Tournament and won a cash prize of $2,500.

Braden is the founder and CEO of Sparrow Marketing, which is a reporting tool for marketing agencies. A graduate of the University of St. Thomas, Braden cofounded Jabb Labs, an event finding app, while he was in college. He worked for PayPal, where he filed dozens of patents and was named the company's Top Innovator of 2016 before returning to Minnesota to start Sparrow in 2019. Sparrow has been a member of local accelerators like Beta.MN and gBeta and raised a pre-seed round of venture funding earlier this year.

Zachary is a co-founder and CEO of Easy EMDR, an app that makes EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, more accessible to mental health professionals, a boon during the Covid-19 pandemic. Zachary started Easy EMDR while a student at Macalester College. A repeat Under 25 winner, Zachary has committed to giving a minimum of 5% of Easy EMDR's profits to the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

Kelly is the operations lead at Beta, a local startup ecosystem builder. Kelly interned for the nonprofit while a student at the University of Minnesota and was hired full-time at the start of this year, after she graduated. She helped take Beta's events virtual during the Covid-19 pandemic and oversaw a team running Twin Cities Startup Week and training speakers on how to use the events software.