25 and Under in Northern Europe

Criteria and Results

There were 5 essential criteria for evaluating candidates:

• Profile: an active leader who is a founder, co-founder, or top executive of his/her business, an entrepreneur, business leader, author, blogger, or other thought leader who is remarkable in his/her field AND 25-years old or younger (as of 2018).
• Work: this was the driving criteria for our jury members to evaluate potential candidates. What is he/she working on? Why is it of interest? Factors include the originality, practicality, reach, and impact of his/her work.
• Responsibility: the individual must be intentionally creating a positive socio-cultural and/or industry and/or environmental impact. This can be a personal effort or a professional effort, depending on the individual.
• Results: the significance of his/her contribution to the world and/or industry so far. Factors include the development stage of a business or idea, the amount of press/media coverage, idea offshoots, his/her impact on the chosen field and/or on consumers.
• Future potential: the longevity of the individual’s idea/business/entrepreneurial spirit. Essentially, this criterion questions the likelihood of an individual to change his/her field over the next 50 years? Factors include financial viability, operational scope, internationalization plans, etc.

Candidates were submitted from nine countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia – based on a national jury panel. From dozens of nominations, the final 25 candidates include entrepreneurs, business leaders, and activists that have made outstanding contributions to society by the age of 25 or less.

It is often said that youth is wasted on the young, but this list of 25 young adults proves that they are the ones with the drive and ingenuity to make real change happen. Encapsulated in these 25 people are individuals working to integrate technology into classrooms, to using computing programming to reduce food waste, to redefining the feminine voice in politics, to conquering the fashion accessory market. The world is going through a paradigm shift; our newest generation of leaders has grown up in a fast-paced world of technology and are integrating its lessons for survival into the new business models of the future, which has become an indicator of successful societies.

The final 25 candidates reflect those individuals who have made outstanding achievements at such a young age, as well as commendable efforts to challenge traditions and unapologetically stand up for their professional passions (and create positive change). The challenge for the selection committee was comparing the diverse industries and backgrounds of each individual; no two stories are the same, and no two people are equally comparable, so the whole picture needs to be taken into account.

Russian entrepreneur Vitalik Buterin came in at number one, owing to his groundbreaking work with cryptocurrencies and blockchain innovations. Further down the list, youth empowerment leaders Elin Nørve (#11) and Maiuran Loganathan (#12), and startup champions Marija Ručevska (#15) and Andreas Saari (#21), have made the list for their passion-driven work ethic, and their progressive views on doing business in the modern world.