Benjamin Kapelushnik
Brandon Boynton
Kids who are bullied are often terrified to tell anyone. No one knows that better than Brandon Boynton, whose middle school years were full of mental and physical torment. At age 16, he put his passion against bullying together with his skills at coding and developed a mobile app called The BullyBox, which allows students to anonymously report bullying or other safety concerns to their school administrators.
"It gives those being victimized by bullies a voice," he told Entrepreneur, "the ability to be empowered 'up-standers,' instead of powerless bystanders, without catching a bunch of negative flack for speaking out."
Today, his company, MostBeastlyStudios, pledges to create apps that make a difference.
Cory Nieves
What started as a 6-year-old's quest to get his mom a car has since turned into a full-fledged cookie business, run by Cory Nieves, now 13, and his mother, Lisa. Business is growing enough that the mother-son pair snagged a much-coveted meeting with Amazon.
Haile Thomas
Haile Thomas was only 12 when she founded Healthy Active Positive Purposeful Youth (HAPPY), with its mission to bring free and low-cost plant-based nutrition and cooking skills to underserved communities. A plant-based diet had helped reverse her father's type II diabetes. "I learned so much from helping my dad," Thomas told Food & Wine, "and I felt like the knowledge I had was a birthright to everyone."
Today, she is the youngest certified integrative nutrition health coach in the United States, and none other than former first lady Michelle Obama said, "Haile is an example for all of you, what your little powerful voices can do to change the world."
Photo via Haile Thomas
Isabella Rose Taylor
Nordstrom. The Gap. Where most girls who are Isabella Rose Taylor's age simply shop, she sells clothes. Taylor learned to sew at age 8 and hasn't looked back since, debuting at New York Fashion Week in fall 2014, at age 13—the youngest talent to show there, ever. Her new home decor line, with PBTeen, debuted just last year.
Mercer Henderson
Emojis and clothes-swapping won't change the world, but under the leadership of teen entrepreneur and app-maker Mercer Henderson, they might help. Henderson's two apps, Audiots, which adds sounds to emojis, and FriendIts, a clothes-swapping app, which she developed at age 13, were just the start.
Last year, she hosted the first teen entrepreneur and social media conference in San Francisco, and she remains committed to raising money for social good. Henderson told Forbes, "I love creating things and making it easier for my friends and me. It's allowed me to have fun experiences and give presentations. My mom and I work together to create a schedule on the way to school at the beginning of every week to make sure I'm balancing everything I love—entrepreneurship, music, hanging out with my friends."
Mikaila Ulmer
This is no ordinary lemonade stand story—not only because this one features a $60,000 investment from "Shark Tank." Mikaila Ulmer's company, Me & the Bees Lemonade, is a full-fledged family-owned business in Austin, Texas, with product in the likes of Whole Foods. The name comes from an unfortunate week when Ulmer, at age four, was stung by a bee—twice. Today, at 13, 10 percent of her profits go to saving the bees, and she has also founded a nonprofit.
