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35 Innovators Under 35
Some members of our latest list of young innovators from around the world have developed consumer Web services you might have used, such as Spotify or Dropbox. Others are making more fundamental breakthroughs that have yet to be commercialized, such as more efficient engines or improvements in optical communications. And a few are blazing trails in fields that didn’t exist before, like pop-up fabrication of tiny machines, or cameras that can see around corners. But all 35 of them have something significant in common: their work is likely to be influential for a very long time. We hope that these stories about them surprise and inspire you. —The Editors
2012 TR35 Winners
Ryan Bailey
Shining a light on faster, cheaper, more accurate medical tests
Sarbajit Banerjee
Windows that block heat—but let it through when you want them to
Burcin Becerik-Gerber
Using cell phones to negotiate energy-efficient settings in office buildings
Qixin Chen
Improving demand forecasting for electric power to save fuel and reduce emissions
William Chueh
Pulling hydrogen out of water with the help of concentrated sunlight and an inexpensive material
Mircea Dincă
Using sponges to improve and store alternative fuels
Daniel Ek
Making online music a paying business, without forcing people to pony up for one song at a time
Rana el Kaliouby
Teaching devices to tell a frown from a smile
Ken Endo
Adding spring to robotic limbs by doing away with some of the motors
Christina Fan
Prenatal testing for genetic conditions from a sample of the mother’s blood
Abraham Flaxman
Combining different types of data in new ways in order to track and slow the spread of disease in developing countries
Danielle Fong
Making clean energy pay off by storing it as squeezed air
Saikat Guha
Letting advertisers send targeted pitches to your mobile phone without ever seeing your personal information
Chris Harrison
Liberating us from the touch screen by turning skin and objects into input devices
John Hering
Securing our smartphones from spyware and rogue apps, with a little help from the crowds
Drew Houston
Hiding all the complexities of remote file storage behind a small blue box
Prashant Jain
Tuning nanocrystals to make tinier, more efficient switches for optical computing and solar panels
Bryan Laulicht
Finding an adhesive that protects vulnerable skin
Nanshu Lu
Soft, flexible electronics bond to skin and even organs for better health monitoring
Shishir Mehrotra
Turning a Web video phenomenon into a profitable business by making ads optional
Shannon Miller
Making engines super-efficient by getting them to run at extremely high pressures
Ren Ng
By tracking the direction of light, a camera takes pictures that can be refocused on different objects in a scene
Juan Sebastián Osorio
Monitors specially designed for premature infants help detect breathing problems
Joyce Poon
A tiny roller coaster for light could help keep data centers cool
Hossein Rahnama
Mobile apps that tell you what you need to know before you have to ask
Ben Silbermann
A smartly designed social network for sharing images and interests
Christopher Soghoian
On a tear against bad privacy practices online, he urges companies to change the way they operate—and sounds alarms if they don’t.
Pratheev Sreetharan
Mass-producible tiny machines snap into place like objects in a pop-up book
Leila Takayama
Applying the tools of social science to make robots easier to live and work with
Bozhi Tian
Artificial tissue that can monitor and improve health down to the level of individual cells
Eben Upton
His ultracheap computer is perfect for tinkering
Andreas Velten
Spotting tiny problems with help from an ultrafast camera
Zheng Wang
Slowing light to help chips cope with optical data
Baile Zhang
A new type of invisibility cloak made from a common material can work with larger objects
Weian Zhao
Spying on cells in their native habitat to develop better tests and drugs
