Anastasia Santoreneos

Artificial intelligence is still hot on the agenda for 2025, as are new frontiers for computing and neurological enhancements, according to research firm Gartner.

The national carrier will compensate three staff as a test case, with full compensation to be determined in November.

After trawling online nominations and tapping industry resources and alumni, we have identified 30 of the brightest young entrepreneurs, stars and leaders in their field.

She’s dropped a new album, finished a 20-date tour in North America and Canada and played a festival tour – just in the last six months. Zimbabwe-born, Australia-raised musician Tkay Maidza has had a whirlwind rise to success – and it’s just the beginning.

Hannah Ferguson really, really hated studying law at university. And that had nothing to do with the course material, but rather the culture she was suddenly surrounded by. 

Davie Fogarty is perhaps Australia’s most well-known young retail mogul, thanks to the viral success of his sleepwear brand, The Oodie. Now, with $600 million in sales, a coaching business, a Shopify course and a seat on Shark Tank Australia, he’s on hisway to becoming a household name. 

24-year-old mechatronics engineer Grace Brown has been building robots since she was just 15. But her hobby became a business in 2022 when she launched Andromeda Robotics with a view to deploying the first empathetic robotic throughout nursing homes in Australia: Abi. 

A tech-whiz-turned-bot-blocker, Sam Crowther, is behind Kasada, a tech platform that helps organisations mitigate bot risks. So far, the company has raised $39 million to continue its mission and was recently recognised as one of the most significant solutions in the industry. 

Computer science whiz Dylan Coyne sparked up an idea for a telehealth platform in 2021 when he realised working a 9-5 didn’t leave you with much time to see a doctor. Three years later, Updoc, the company he co-founded with Clifton Hodgkinson, has served more than 200,000 customers to date and banked $20 million in funding.

23-year-old Annie Liao has had a few careers in her young life: a data scientist, consultant, venture capitalist, community builder and now start-up founder. Liao talks about Build Club, a community-turned-accelerator-turned-AI-education-platform, which has just closed its first capital raise.