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GENERATION
20 UNDER 20:THE KIDS THAT ARE
CHANGING THE WORLDUNDERSTANDING A NEW GENERATION
WWW.THESOUNDHQ.COM
20 UNDER 20: 2014 EDGER’S OF THE YEAR
A little over a year ago we introduced the world to Generation Edge, the generation after Millennials and one we feel is unlike any other...
...this generation are resilient, self-‐starting reformers. They’ve got a view of the way they want the world to be and understand that they are going to have to be
the ones to change it!
We like to think of 2014 as the year of Edge and the talented, tenacious, tech-‐empowered guys and girls you’ll see over the next 20 pages exemplify what Edge is all about, they are....quite literally, changing the world as we know it!
SHOW THE BOYS HOW IT’S DONE...Mo’ne Davis
Davis shot to fame this year after becoming the 3irst girl in Little League history to pitch a winning game for the Taney Dragons, a shutout at that, leading them to a 4-‐0 win over Nashville.
With her 3irst Sports Illustrated -‐ who named her sports kid of the year -‐ cover under her belt she’s now turning her attention to basketball and ful3illing her dream of becoming one of
Geno Auriemma’s Huskies at the University of Connecticut, a dream she’ll have plenty of time to work towards as Mo’ne is due to graduate from Middle School next year!
"I never thought at the age of 13 I'd be a role model. I always wanted to be a role model, but being a baseball role model is really cool."
Mo’Ne Davis, speaking to ESPN
MOST LIKELY TO
COOK UP A STORM...Flynn McGarry
At 10 he decided he wanted to cook, by 11 1/2 he was running his widely acclaimed Eureka supper club out of his parents home.
Understanding -‐ as Edgers do -‐ that honing your craft is crucial to success, McGarry -‐ now 15 -‐ home schools, giving him time to spend up to 160 hours a month plying his trade in prestigious
kitchens such as Eleven Madison Park, Alinea and Alma.
Which is just as well, as the shy kid from South California plans to open the worlds best restaurant by the time he hits 19!
“Flynn’s focus, passion, and interest in cooking are rarely found in any cook—let alone a thirteen-‐year-‐old.”
Daniel Humm, chef, Eleven Madison Park
MOST LIKELY TO
STYLE IT OUT...Tavi Gevinson
Illinois native Gevinson founded her 3irst blog -‐ Style Rookie -‐ at the tender age of 11. Soon after it was attracting over 30,000 readers a day and a star was born.
Tavi has since broadened her reach through Rookie magazine, which she founded 3 years later in 2011 and has used to speak to wider issues affecting teenage girls with the help of guest
contributions from the likes of Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham.
"…personal style is an opportunity to kind of create your own fantasy. And that can be -‐ and this word is so overused -‐ but empowering in a way, especially when you feel like
you have a certain force Gield around you to the outside world." Tavi Gevinson
MOST LIKELY TO
MOST LIKELY TO
TAKE CENTER STAGE...Quvenzhané Wallis
With a presence and con3idence that embodies Edge while belying her tender age, Wallis -‐ too young at the time -‐ had to lie about her age as she beat out over 4000 contenders to land the role of Hushpuppy in critically acclaimed movie “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, her 3irst ever
acting role.
A role that would land her the youngest ever Best Actress nomination at the 2012 Academy Awards, at just 9 years old, and one that provided a platform for subsequent performances in more Academy Award winners such as 2013’s “12 Years a Slave” and a Golden Globe nominated
performance for this years Annie.
“Nothing else matters except that I have fun, and I'm still having fun.”Quvenzhané Wallis
BUILD A BETTER FUTURE...Shubham Banerjee
"I just wanted to help the visually impaired. I had a Lego Robotics kit, so I asked, 'Why not just try that?”
Not your typical Silicon Valley start up and not your typical teenager. This was Banerjee’s response when he realized the cost of Braille machines and promptly founded Braigo labs to
ensure they were more accessible to all.
It’s a cause that computer giant Intel have backed, making Banerjee the youngest ever recipient of venture capital and helping him land Time Incs. “Innovation of the Year” for 2014.
"Shubham Banerjee is among a couple dozen entrepreneurs who received funding from Intel Capital on Tuesday, but he is probably the only one whose father had to
drive him there" Silicon Valley Business Journal
MOST LIKELY TO
RUN FOR PRESIDENT...Asean Johnson
Johnson became somewhat of an internet sensation after a video of his speech protesting school closures in Chicago went viral, a popularity that grew even further after his rousing display
during 2013’s Realize the Dream march, aged just 9 years old.
Some tip him as a future Mayor of Chicago in 2025 -‐ when he will have just turned 21, he hopes to become a politician or scientist with a particular interest in preserving our water supplies -‐
all this while managing his honors workload in 5th grade!
“I am marching for education, justice and freedom. All over the country public education is under attack. Every school deserves equal funding and resources.”
Asean Johnson
MOST LIKELY TO
SHAKE THE INDUSTRY...Lorde
Her breakthrough hit “Royals” off the widely popular Pure Heroine album has garnered her as much attention as it has industry accolades -‐ including 2 Grammies in 2014. But it’s the way
Lorde has gone about it that gives her a distinct Edge!
Seen as the anti-‐thesis to the “dumbed down” or over sexualized path many of her peers embody, she’s been named Billboards new queen of alternative and has been celebrated for
forging her own path on the way to global success.
"But the popularity of Pure Heroine suggests all is not lost. It says there's still an intellectual, polished and important place for pop, that doesn't rely on open letters,
open legs, Twitter, twerking and obscenely desperate electro hooks”Clash Magazine
MOST LIKELY TO
SHINE IN THE DARK...Ann Makosinski
When Ann Makosinski found out that her pen pal in the Philippines was failing school as she had no electricity, and therefore light at home to help her study -‐ she set about 3inding a solution to a
problem that affects over 1 billion people worldwide.
Her hand-‐heat powered “Hollow Torch” has been hailed as a stroke of genius and has gone a long way to solving this problem and providing a giant leap forward for thermo-‐electricity.
3 Ted Talks and an appearance on Jimmy Fallon later sees her continuing to work on improving her 3lashlights brightness and ef3iciency and looks to shine a light on everyone’s world!
“I was always taking garbage from around the house, taking things apart and putting them together. I just wanted to make things better.”
Ann Makosinski
MOST LIKELY TO
MOST LIKELY TO
FEED THE WORLD...Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow
Inspired by stories they had read about the 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa, these three county Cork natives looked for ways they could try and help to improve food production world wide.
A 3 year study, using and studying Diazotroph -‐ a naturally occurring soil based bacteria -‐ provided them great success, speeding up the germination process and has the potential to
increase crop yield by up to 74%.
The trio took home the grand prize at this years Google Science Fair and in the process have unearthed 3indings that will aid the global food poverty battle immeasurably.
“The girls determined that the bacteria could be used to speed up the the germination process of certain crops, like barley and oats, by 50 percent, potentially helping fulGill
the rising demand for food worldwide. Oh—and they’re 16 years old.”GoogleBlog, September 22nd 2014
MAKE A STAND...Joshua Wong
Wong -‐ along with schoolmate and friend Ivan Lam -‐ established Scholarist in 2011 to protest against “moral and national education” curriculum proposed in his native Hong Kong. The call was heard by over 100,000 protestors and the plans were promptly withdrawn while Wong received
acclaim and notoriety in equal parts for his role.
Earlier this year, he was detained for 40 hours for his role in the student protests against the NPCSC’s decision on the proposed electoral reform.
He remains the face of this political activism, all the while insisting that the real heroes are “every Hong Kong citizen.”
“He’s so young but so wise that you can’t help but have a lot of time for him … He is every mother’s son – Gilial, polite, principled, hard-‐working.
Michael Vidler, Human Rights Lawyer
MOST LIKELY TO
BE HAPPY...Logan LaPlante
LaPlantes 2013 TedX speech at the University of Nevada has received over 7.5 million views on YouTube alone and speaks to his idea for the future of education....HackSchooling.
When LaPlante grows up he’s focusing on something simple...on being happy -‐ something he feels many 14 year olds -‐ like him -‐ aren’t being prepared for.
The 3lexibility and creativity his “hacked” education and schedule has afforded him have seen him pursue competitive skiing, intern and later design for Big Truck Brand and spread the
HackSchooling approach wherever he goes!
“They (hackers) are innovators, they challenge and change the systems to make them work differently, to make them work better”
Logan Laplante
MOST LIKELY TO
MAKE SOME NOISE...Unlocking The Truth
Malcolm Brickhouse, 13, Jarad Dawkins, 12, and Alec Atkins, 13 have had a passion for Metal since they were seven years old.
However, growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Birthplace to established rappers such as Talib Kweli and Busta Rhymes, it isn’t the most obvious rise to musical notoriety.
Neither is leveraging Times Square performances -‐ that subsequently went viral -‐ into becoming the youngest artists ever signed to Sony in a $1.8 million deal.
But then these aren’t your average teenagers and they’re certainly not your average band!
“Music is music, and as long as you can express yourself in a way that you think is good for people to hear then it’s something you should do. I wish everybody could not be
afraid to do the things they want to do.”Jarad Dawkins, Unlocking the Truth
MOST LIKELY TO
TO KEEP IT REAL...Julia Bluhm
Using Change.org as a platform and having heard too many of her peers in ballet class commenting on their own weight, enough was enough for Julia Bluhm.
Her petition “Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images of Real Girls” urged the magazine to re-‐think the imagery it was purporting and think on the consequences of their actions.
As a result of the 80,000+ signatures her cause attracted, Seventeen Magazine pledged to “celebrate every kind of beauty” by ensuring they use only real images, girls and models within their pages -‐ a
huge step forward which has now been widely adopted by other major publications.
As for Julia, she harbors dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer but continues to have her voice heard as a contributor to the SPARK movement and blog!
"I've always just known how Photoshop can have a big effect on girls and their body image and how they feel about themselves,"Julia Bluhm, speaking to the Huffington Post
MOST LIKELY TO
INSPIRATIONAL...Malala Yousafazai
Born into a family that ran a chain of schools in her native Swat Valley (Pakistan), Malala advocated for education and for women from an early age. Aged just 11 she wrote -‐ under pseudonym -‐ a blog for the BBC
that spoke to her life under the Taliban regime.
After Adam Ellick picked up her story and made a documentary for the New York Times about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the area Malala quickly became a face for the movement, giving several interviews and picking up a nomination for the International children's peace prize from Desmond Tutu.
Then, shockingly, on October 9th, 2012 a Taliban gunman boarded the bus Malala travelled to school on, asked for her by name and shot 3 times. She was taken to England for life saving surgery and her recovery resulted in a massive outpouring of support. Despite remaining a terrorist target she remains a staunch activist, penning an auto-‐biography I Am Malala in 2013 and becoming the youngest ever recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.
“A brave and gentle advocate of peace who through the simple act of going to school became a global teacher.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
MOST
REWRITE THE RULES...Jazz Jennings
At age 2, Jazz Jennings began voicing her feelings that “she was a girl”, by 5 she had become the youngest person ever to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria -‐ a signi3icant unease with the characteristics of ones gender while readily identifying with the opposite gender -‐ while it
hasn’t always been easy, she hasn’t looked back since.
She’s met Bill Clinton been interviewed by the likes of Barbara Walters and Katie Couric and is considered by many as “The New Face of Transgender Youth”.
Earlier this year she co-‐wrote her 3irst book, “I am Jazz”, the 3irst children’s book aimed at helping kids understand what transgender is -‐ as she says within the pages “..this is
transgender, I was born this way”.
"I am happy. I am having fun. I am proud! I am Jazz!"Jazz Jennings
MOST LIKELY TO
GO VIRAL...Nash Grier
No-‐one -‐ perhaps -‐ better exempli3ies the role of celebrity in the digital age than 16 year old Nash Grier
With over 20 million followers across various social media platforms, most notably Vine, where his 6 second clips around the minutiae of high school fans have earned him throngs of loyal fans and made
him the most followed user!
That’s not to say his rise to fame has been without controversy. He’s been called sexist, racist and homophobic for Vines and Tweets he has since purged and apologized for
Whether these are the mis-‐steps of an adolescent on a rise to super stardom or a crushing fall remain to be seen -‐ one things for certain Grier is here and he’s leading new wave of digital celebrities!
“For a certain class of adolescent, if you tried to design the world’s most viral human, you couldn’t do better than Nash.”
Bianca Nosker, Huffington Post
MOST LIKELY TO
RALLY THE TROOPS...Talia Leman
In 2005, Talia saw news coverage around Hurricane Katrina and knew she wanted to help -‐ her idea, TLC (which stands for trick or treating for the levee catastrophe) was to mobilize her peers around the country and trick or treat for coins instead of candy to help those affected by the hurricane.
Her efforts snowballed quickly and Talia -‐ in her role as Chief Executive Optimist -‐ quickly found herself at the helm of an effort that raised over $10 million.
From there -‐ with the help of her family -‐ she set up RandomKid.org, a website designed to give kids like her the ideas, resources and tools to give back and make a difference. Something she continues
to do, working with over 12 million youths across 20 countries since RandomKids inception!
"The moment when the random youth who come to us realize that we are here to work FOR them. That’s what makes me happiest"
Talia Leman
MOST LIKELY TO
GO FOR EXTRA CREDIT...Erik Finman
Taking a $1000 birthday gift from his grandma, Erik Finman invested it in a -‐ then -‐ obscure digital currency called Bitcoin.
Less than 2 years later and Finmans investment had matured, signi3icantly, to the tune of $100,000.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Erik fed the money into his start up Botangle which aims to remove any limitations on learning experiences whether, as Finman comments “they're from rural Idaho, New
York or even Africa."
He now employs a staff of 20 and caters Botangle’s offer to be specialized, one on one and open to all!
"What a lot of people don’t understand, young or old, is that you can create anything you want with no barrier to entry on the Internet."
Erik Finman
MOST LIKELY TO
CONNECTED...Nick D’Aloisio
Nick D’Aloisio epitomizes the self-‐starting, tech empowered Edge generation like no other.
He founded Summly in 2011 -‐ a news summary app which condenses news articles down to a paragraph, perfect for the 140 characters or less crowd.
Widespread success and a $30 million acquisition from Yahoo followed in 2013 and so D’Aloisio set his sights on the next evolution of Summly -‐ the Yahoo News Digest which launched in Jan
2014 and won critical acclaim and an Apple Design Award later that year.
The future looks bright for one of GQ’s “Most connected men” of 2014 as he continue to sit at the forefront of the digital revolution.
"There are so many resources available online that the primary goal of someone wanting to succeed should be to teach themselves all of the necessary skills"
Nick D’Aloisio
MOST
DRESS FOR SUCCESS...Isabella Rose Taylor
She began making her own clothes at just 8 years old after taking a sewing class in her home city of Austin, Texas.
However, it was the runaway success at her 3irst trunk show -‐ at a local boutique the following year -‐ that had Isabella and her parents feeling there could be a business in this.
It looks like they were right! Isabella became the youngest person to have her creations carried by retail giant Nordstrom in 2014, and ticked another dream off her to-‐do list but debuting her Spring 2015 collection at this years New York Fashion Week, months after turning the ripe old age of 13.
"Blood because it takes a lot of passion and sacriGice. Sweat because of the time and hard work you must do. And glitter because of the imagination and creativity. There
must be a dream behind your business."Isabella Rose Taylor - on the ethos behind her business
MOST LIKELY TO
....BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
Mo’ne Davis: Watch ESPN Sports
science break down the Davis fastball
Flynn McGarry: See inside Flynn’s Eureka
restaurant
Tavi Gevinson: Check out the latest from
Rookie Mag
Quvenzhane Wallis: See Quvenzhane in Annie
Shubham Banerjee: Learn more about
Braigo Labs
click on the images below to learn more about our featured Gen Edger’s
Asean Johnson: See Asean in action
Lorde: Listen to our favorite
Lorde track
Ann Makosinski: Hear Ann talk about how
she inspires
Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey & Sophie Healy-Thow:
See how the girls found their solution
Joshua Wong: Listen to Joshua speak
Logan LaPlante: Check out Logans TedX
talk
Unlocking the truth: See the guys on the
Colbert Report
JuliaHear more from Julia and
the SPARK movement
Malala Yousafzaki: See Malala giving thanks
Jazz Jennings: Hear things from Jazz’s
perspective
click on the images below to learn more about our Edgers
Nash Grier: Take a look at Grier’s crazy popular Vine
channel
Talia Leman: Find out more about
RandomKid
Erik Finman: Check out the Botangle story
Nick D’Aloisio: Get a little more information on
Nick and Summly
Isabella Rose-Taylor: Browse Isabella’s
collection
RESOURCES
RESOURCES - Images
SLIDE 4 http://elitedaily.com/sports/mone-davis-little-league-phenom/704173/
SLIDE 5 http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-flynn-mcgarry-pop-up-at-fifty-seven-20140611-story.html
SLIDE 6 http://fangirlsarewe.com/2014/09/20/feminerd-tavi-gevinson/
SLIDE 7 http://fashionbombdaily.com/2014/06/29/fashion-bomb-news-breakdown-backstage-armani-junior-quvenzhane-wallis-shoot-prabal-gurung-collaborates-mac-met-launches-recalling-charles-james-feature/
SLIDE 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braigo
SLIDE 9 http://talkrealsolutions.com/asean-johnson-from-boys-to-men2/
SLIDE 10 http://www.3news.co.nz/entertainment/lorde-announces-new-zealand-tour-2014081919
SLIDE 11 http://therebelution.com/blog/2013/07/ann-makosinski-age-15-invents-battery-free-led-flashlight/
SLIDE 12 http://writeparagraphs.blogspot.ca/2014/10/a-stroll-with-ciara-judge-emer-hickey.html
SLIDE 13 http://time.com/3608696/occupy-hong-kong-joshua-wong-mong-kok-obstruction/
SLIDE 14 http://metropotam.ro/La-zi/logan-laplante-pustiul-de-13-ani-care-a-vorbit-la-tedx-a-renuntat-la-scoala-si-care-vrea-sa-crestem--art6248506998/
SLIDE 15 http://free2luv.org/extraordinary-peep-of-the-week/extraordinary-peep-of-the-week-archive/unlocking_the_truth-2/
SLIDE 16 http://mobile.nytimes.com/images/100000001526856/2012/05/04/nyregion/seventeen-magazine-faulted-by-girl-14-for-doctoring-photos.html?_r=0
SLIDE 17 http://samirashackle.com/2012/10/30/malala-extremism-and-pakistans-response/
SLIDE 18 http://www.people.com/article/jazz-jennings-picture-book-transgender-kids
SLIDE 19 http://swaggernewyork.com/2014/07/08/vine-star-nash-grier-calls-gays-fags-says-theyre-responsible-for-hiv/
SLIDE 20 http://www.thewomenseye.com/2014/01/19/top-10-giving-new-meaning-to-girl-power/
SLIDE 21 http://blog.alanpowdrill.com/
SLIDE 22 http://reinventioncliq.com/interview-summlys-nick-daloisio/
SLIDE 23 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/isabella-rose-taylors-nordstrom-launch-2014-3
