This article was written by the original owner of startupguide.com, Ryan Allis, and published on his website in 2012. Read more about why Ryan was happy to hand over his website domain to us here.

1. Mark Zuckerberg. The billionaire co-founder and CEO of Facebook is responsible for the most successful social networking website on the internet, born while he was studying at Harvard.

2. Dustin Moskovitz. A former co-founder of Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin left Facebook to found Asana, the web-based productivity software.

3. Blake Ross. The pioneering founder of the Mozilla Firefox project, the successful open-source browser, Blake also worked at Facebook as head of product.

4. Matt Brimer. Matt is the co-founder of General Assembly, a global education company that provides entrepreneurs with opportunities and education in technology, design, and business.

5. Jay Kimmelman. Jay is the co-founder of Bridge International, a nonprofit designed to bring low-cost high quality education to those living on less than $2 a day.

6. Ben Rattray. Founder and CEO of change.org, the online petition site focused on social change. Ben has been named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 rising young business leaders.

7. Leila Janah. Leila is the founder and CEO of Samasource, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to connect poor women and youth to the digital economy and “harness the untapped potential of the world’s poor.”

8. Daniel Epstein. Co-founder of Unreasonable Institute, a “boot camp” for social entrepreneurs from around the world, Daniel offers successful applicants the opportunity to connect with mentors and potential investors and access the resources to make their dreams a reality.

9. Pete Cashmore. Founder and CEO of Mashable, Pete is responsible for one of the most influential blogs and one of the world’s largest websites.

10. Elliott Bisnow. Elliot is the founder and CEO of Summit Series, an innovative conference series for entrepreneurs based in Utah.

11. Jack Andraka.  Born in 1997, Jack has already changed the world with the innovation he produced at the age of only 15. Jack has developed a new potential way of detecting pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer during the early stages when there is a much higher likelihood of a cure.

His inexpensive method, which could save countless lives, won the 2012 Gordon E. Moore Award, the grand prize of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

12. Eesha Khare. Eesha is another impressive young innovator, who at the age of 18 created a tiny device that could charge a mobile phone in 20-30 seconds—a revolutionary technology she calls a “super-capacitor.”

She won the 2013 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award for her invention, and plans to use the prize money to pay for her tuition at Harvard and continue her work as an inventor.

This is the second in a three-part series of articles that gives an overview of the greatest innovators up to the present day. Read the next part, which lists the greatest innovators in the last 30 years, here.

Main photo: Unsplash/Tim Bennett

*This article was originally published on October 17th, 2018 and updated on December 11th, 2018.