Computer Science students and alumni inducted in Forbes 30 under 30 list

Monday, December 9, 2024

University of Waterloo students and alumni are changing the game by launching companies with global impact for humanity and our planet. Their remarkable achievements have earned them spots on this year’s illustrious Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.  

The annual list highlights young entrepreneurs who are making a difference in their fields. Waterloo-linked founders were named in artificial intelligence (AI), green tech, education, food and drink and manufacturing categories. 

Category: Education

Holden Beggs (BASc ’2020) and Jackson Mills (BCS ’2021), co-founders, The Zero Experience 

The image shows two portraits side by side of individuals with blurred faces. The person on the left is a brunet wearing a dark zip-up sweater, while the person on the right is a brunet wearing a black jacket with a hood. The background of the left image is a warm-toned studio setting, and the background of the right image appears to be outdoors with a grayish sky.

Driven by a shared vision, Holden Beggs (left) and Jackson Mills (right) founded The Zero Experience — a nonprofit with a mission to impart entrepreneurial skills to students at post-secondary institutions, including the University of Waterloo. The program emphasizes starting from scratch, teaching young innovators to execute their ideas even before they have a groundbreaking business concept. Since its inception in 2020, The Zero Experience has engaged 4,600 students, guiding them to develop practical solutions to pressing issues such as climate change. 

Category: AI

Serena Ge and Charley Lee, co-founders, Datacurve AI 

During a machine learning internship at Cohere, Waterloo computer science student Serena Ge noticed a significant lack of quality data for training advanced AI models. To tackle this issue, she partnered with another budding computer scientist Charley Lee, to launch Datacurve earlier this year. Datacurve provides companies with data to train AI in coding through a gamified platform where contributors earn money by solving problems, thus generating valuable data for enterprises. The co-founders were involved with Velocity on campus through various events and programs and have recently joined Y Combinator, a prestigious startup incubator in Silicon Valley. 

To learn more about other Waterloo students and alumni included in the list, please read the full article on Waterloo News.