Time magazine has published their annual list of the 30 most influential people under the age of 20.
There’s the usual Instagram-famous trendsetters and taste makers, the children of actors and fashionistas, and awesome onscreen idols like Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown. But there are also more than a few unique additions; those operating perhaps more outside the limelight, but making an impact equally (or more so) important.
Like Mikaila Ulmer, age 13, who sells her lemonade sweetened with local honey (her grandmother’s recipe) at community business fairs and donates 10% of her profits to help save declining honeybee populations.
Or Rayouf Alhumedhi, age 16, who first proposed, and then campaigned for, the creation of Apple’s new headscarf emoji to help better represent an increasingly diverse population of smart phone users.
And Shibby de Guzman, 14, who is taking on Duterte’s corrupt war on drugs in a potentially dangerous Philippines by protesting in the streets with cardboard signs similar to those left on the dead bodies laying on her sidewalks.
Big moves by some not yet even in high school.
And we aren’t all that surprised. As we discussed in Gen Z, the “Pivotal Generation,” and their quest to change the world, the coming generation is more than equipped to right the wrongs of past ones; and maybe Whitney Houston was right, and children really are the future in more than just the literal sense.
Regardless, it’s a group worth celebrating.
See Time‘s full list of the 30 Most Influential Teens here: The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2017
