The Washington, D.C. area is full of young and ambitious people, eager to change the world. That's as true for innovation and entrepreneurship as it is in government and non-profit work. The younger set may not always strike gold with their first idea, but they still represent the vast potential of the region's tech startup future and they are worth getting to know. Meet 25 of the area's startup founders 25 and under:
1. Scott Block (23), 2. Avi Eisenberger (25) VentureBoard - Block and Eisenberger founded VentureBoard with fellow UMd students Justin Searles and Jordan Goldstein as a way to help student entrepreneurs connect with each other and build startups together. Users create profiles to help them create teams and find the tools and resources they need to plan and launch their startups, with feedback from other users along the way. UMd is involved with VentureBoard, keeping an eye out for companies it may want to be involved with, and the eventual goal is to create similar setups at other schools.
2. Rachel Koretsky (23) upace - Koretsky build uPace as tool for university campus gyms and the people who go to them. It provides an interactive management, monitoring and scheduling software system, letting students can know peak gym times and when the fitness center is less crowded.
3. Joe Belsterling (22), 4. Cale Sennett (21) MajorClarity - Created as a way to improve how students plan for life after graduation. It combines an online test for career compatibility with a network of data and tools to help figure out things like salary, best majors and where to go to get the internships and other experience that can help them get the jobs they want.
5. Emily Rasowsky (24) Women in Tech Campaign - Rasowsky helped create the international Women in Tech Campaign as way to change how people think about women in technology. Rasowsky, who works at Social Driver, wants to expand the thinking about careers at tech companies beyond simply coding skills. The campaign encourages women to get involved with digital and tech companies and share their stories to improve gender diversity in the field as a whole.
6. Carolyn Yarina (25) 7. Gillian Henker (26), 8. Katie Kirsch (25) Sisu Global Health - Sisu has developed a hand-operated system called Hemafuse capable of removing blood from a patient with internal bleeding and re-transfusing it safely into their veins. The team won a $100,00 pitch competition with Steve Case earlier this year.
9. Alex Wirth (22), 10. Jonathan Marks (23) Quorum - Founded while they were in college, the founders of Quorum wanted to build an online legislative data analysis and aggregation platform that provides quantitative insight for qualitative policy questions. Originally based in Cambridge, Ma., the team moved its headquarters to D.C.
11. Tim Hwang (23), 12. Gerald Yao (23), 13. Jonathan Chen (23) FiscalNote - The three founders of FiscalNote created the startup as an analytics tool applicable to politics. It's best known for its legislative searching, tracking and forecasting product, Prophecy, and recently raised $10 million.
14. Jeff Hilnbrand (21) Minimill - Hilnbrand launched Minimill as a design agency for mobile and Web brands, but he's been involved in startups in many aspects, including founding the Startup Shell student incubator at UMd.
15. Philip Wong (22), 16. Ann Yang (21) Misfit Juicery - Part of the "ugly produce" movement, Misfit takes the fruits and vegetables that aren't good-looking enough for most restaurants and stores and uses them to make juice instead of having them go to waste. Wong is currently part of the Halcyon Incubator.
17. Max Friedman (20) Happening - Created by Friedman, a GW student, Happening is an event finder app using Tinder-esque swiping and filtering system to help people find events to go to and the people that will be there.
18. Diana Tsai (25), 19. Leah Wald (25) Veterati - Veterati helps veterans returning to civilian life find fulfilling careers by connecting them with mentors who can help guide them through the process of finding and pursuing jobs and the training they need to get them.
20. Lauren Ruvo (23) TheFitnessU - Ruvo created TheFitnessU as a network for college students and young professionals trying to create a healthy lifestyle. It offers advice for physical and mental health. It grew out of Ruvo's studies in psychology and an interest in seeing how improving a mindset can improve other kinds of health.
21. Ciera Gallub (25) Pelonkey - A platform for entertainers and event planners to find each other, Pelonkey was built by Ciera and her sister Nicole, growing out Nicole's work as DJ Neekola. It helps ground entertainment in the business world by holding each side accountable, solving a frequent problem in the industry.
22. Myles Field (22), 23. Josh Strupp (23) The Rival - A new media publication for college students, The Rival is made up of a network of college students across the country. At the moment the site is bringing in between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors a day. It offers individualized sites for each campus it operates on, working as an alternative to the standard student newspaper.
24. Allen Gannett (24) TrackMaven - Gannett's data analytics firm, named for his corgi, Maven, is one of the hottest startups in the area. It offers competitive analysis and intelligence to digital marketers, helping them remain ahead of their rivals. In the last year, the company closed a $14 million funding round and moved to a new office space, four times the size of its previous space, that could accommodate its growing numbers.
25. Rory Stolzenberg (24) Foodio - Foodio creates mobile apps and websites for restaurants to arrange take-out and delivery services. The startup basically makes it easier for restaurants—whether unique or franchises of bigger brands like Dunkin Donuts—to have a high-quality app and Web service without having to go through the process of building it themselves.
