Created to identify and promote the world’s most innovative entrepreneurs, the award honours five leaders – aged 35 and under – who have been judged on the positive social impact of their ventures and how they are inspiring others with their leadership.

The winners will be presented with the award at the One Young World 2023 Summit, in front of 2,000 young leaders from more than 196 countries – gathered to discuss global challenges alongside world leaders and generate innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. This year, the Summit will take place in Belfast, UK.

The winners have been selected by a panel of international judges from across the business world, chaired by Stephen Prince, CEO, TFG Asset management. This year’s judges included:

• Stephen Prince, CEO of TFG Asset Management
• Angela F. Williams, President and CEO of United Way
• Elio Leoni Sceti, Co-founder and Chief Crafter of The Craftory
• Firdaous El Honsali, Global Vice President of Dove External Communications and Sustainability.
• Luis Javier Castro, Founding Partner of Mesoamerica Investments
• Masami Katakura, Chairwoman and CEO of EY ShinNihon

Chair of the judging panel, Stephen Prince, CEO, TFG Asset Management commented: “We are thrilled to announce the final five winners of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award: supported by TFG Asset Management. The judging panel was impressed by the innovative and creative ways these exceptional young individuals are all working to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. By receiving this award and attending the Belfast Summit, we hope that they will further inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

The winners are:  

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE is a prodigy in every sense of the word. Aged 11, she was the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing, and was just 20 years old when she received her Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford.

Since then, she has forged an enviable CV, including positions at Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard and Deutsche Bank. Then there are the Honorary Doctorates from Open University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Kent University, Bristol University & Coventry University and an Honorary Fellowship at Keble College, Oxford. She is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland and sits on the Council of Research England as well as being the current President of the British Science Association.

It is this wealth of experience and pioneering spirit that led her to co-found the Stemettes, an award-winning social initiative dedicated to inspiring and promoting the next generation of young women and non-binary people in the STEM sectors. Since its inception 10 years ago, it has exposed 60,000 young people across Europe to Anne-Marie’s vision for a more diverse and balanced science and tech community. In 2022 she released her new book She’s in CTRL a guidebook for women to take back tech.

In recognition of her influence and achievements, Anne-Marie was awarded an MBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to young women and STEM sectors. In 2020, she was voted the most influential woman in tech in the UK by Computer Weekly.

Everette Taylor

Everette Taylor is CEO of Kickstarter, the world’s premiere crowdfunding platform. Everette is a creative entrepreneur who is passionate about art, supporting creatives and entrepreneurs, and helping people bring their dreams to reality.

Before joining Kickstarter, Everette served as the CMO of Artsy, the largest online marketplace for fine art. During his time at Artsy, he was named by Forbes as one of the World's Most Influential CMOs due to the business seeing all-time record revenue growth during his tenure.

As a marketing executive, he led both on-demand rental car company Skurt as their CMO and software company Qualaroo to successful acquisitions. He also led growth and co-founded GrowthHackers.com which became the largest community for growth marketers. He also helped e-commerce company Sticker Mule see its largest growth as a company as their youngest CMO ever and oversaw growth strategy of new social products for Microsoft China.

As an entrepreneur, Everette started his first company at the age of 19 called EZ Events which was successfully acquired in 2011. He then went on to establish ET Enterprises in 2013, a diverse portfolio of companies that includes PopSocial, MilliSense, ArtX and more. As CEO of PopSocial, he was recognised as Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018 for his innovation in the social media marketing space.

In 2019, Everette received an honorary doctorate degree from Shaw University upon recognition of his “meritorious contributions to human society and welfare for humanity”.

Mateo Nicolás Salvatto

Mateo Salvatto is a 24-year-old tech entrepreneur from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When he was 17 he achieved Argentina's first ever International Robotics Championship in Israel, and a year later created his first company: Asteroid, whose first product, the Háblalo app, already assists more than 375.000 people with communication disabilities in 65 countries, entirely for free. Meanwhile, Asteroid works side by side with companies and governments to transform them into more inclusive organisations using technology. Their mission is to turn society into a more accessible place for all through their "Inclusion Revolution".

Mateo also serves as a teacher in innovation & entrepreneurship to young kids at ORT Schools. His book "The Battle for The Future", written to motivate the new generations to collaborate for good, has sold +70k copies and became #1 Best Seller in 2021. For his many appearances on national and international media pronouncing about the importance of technology as a force for good,he is recognised as one of the primary young voices in Argentina, having been awarded, for example, with the national Golden Eikon to the Communicator of the Year in 2022.

He was also recognised as Humanitarian Innovator of the Year by MIT Technology Review, Best Social Innovator Worldwide by Peking University and Outstanding Entrepreneur by National Congress, among many other important awards. Asteroid was selected in 2020 as one of the Top 100 Startups Worldwide by the Global Entrepreneurship Network in Saudi Arabia.

Lately, Mateo was included in the "MERCO Ranking" as the 38th most influential businessman in Argentina (youngest in history on the ranking).

Odunayo Eweniyi

Piggyvest is a Nigerian fintech startup founded in 2016 by Somto Ifezue, Joshua Chibueze, and Odunayo Eweniyi. It started as a simple online savings platform, allowing users to save small amounts of money periodically, but it has since evolved into a robust personal wealth management platform.

Piggyvest offers various services, including automated savings, micro-investments, and budgeting tools. The platform enables users to set savings targets, lock away funds for a specified period, and earn competitive interest rates on their savings. It also provides investment opportunities in pre-vetted, low-medium-risk ventures, allowing users to grow their wealth. By leveraging technology, Piggyvest has made financial planning and management more accessible and convenient for its users. The platform appeals primarily to young, tech-savvy individuals who want to take control of their personal finances, save towards specific goals, and build a secure financial future.

Their vision is to establish a comprehensive and inclusive digital wealth management ecosystem tailored to the unique needs of young people in Nigeria and expand to other emerging markets. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and user-centered design, they aim to revolutionise personal finance management and general financial services for millions of individuals, fostering financial stability and empowering them to build a prosperous future.

Piggyvest now proudly serves more than 4.5 million users, managing assets exceeding $250 million. Their innovative payment products have successfully processed transactions worth over $1 billion while catering to the needs of over 2 million users and supporting a network of over 1,000 active merchants.

Sara Wahedi

Sara Wahedi is the CEO and Founder of Ehtesab, Afghanistan’s first civic technology startup. In 2022, Sara Wahedi was named as one of TIME Magazine’s ’Next Generation Leaders’, MIT Technology Review’s ‘Innovators under 35’ and the BBC's 'Top 100 Women', for her work in democratising access to information for Afghans.

Ehtesab has been providing near real-time security and city service alerts to Afghans through the ‘Ehtesab App’ (meaning “accountability” in Dari and Pashto) since June 2020, which expanded from five cities to nationwide coverage in 2023. The application also allows users to send reports on incidents which occur in their vicinity - becoming the first citizen engagement platform in Afghanistan’s history. Due to the Taliban’s crackdown on women’s and girls’ education and self-agency, Ehtesab is working on providing instant-access digital guides instructing women about the procedures for dealing with threatening or emergency situations, providing women with tools to safely de-escalate, disrupt, and record their grievances in a method which will be integral for future accountability purposes.

By allowing citizens, especially Afghan women and youth, to engage and inform – in giving the right information and then disseminating that to local communities – the app is focused on providing viable civic technology solutions to serve the needs of communities and those who reside within them. This ensures that the impact of these practices in the technological landscape in Afghanistan is to increase democratic access to information, documentation of human rights violations, and a safe, simple and easily accessible method to report anonymously. The app is completely youth-led, with the team’s average age of 21.