Today (January 6) Forbes released its annual lists of the top 30 under 30, which includes 450 game-changing individuals and teams across 15 industries.
The education list was introduced in 2012 alongside other categories that now include everything from tech and science to sports and Hollywood chock full of innovative people changing the world.
Two of the top 30 millennials overhauling education are New Orleans-based. Katie Beck is the COO at 4.0 Schools, the local education incubator. Elliot Sanchez founded mSchool to provide community centers with effective online learning tools.
Shane Kupperman, Director of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, topped the sports list, ranking among other big names such as Shaun White, Lebron James and Rob Gronkowski.
Read what Forbes had to say about each New Orleanian below:
Kupperman is a former student manager at Indiana University rose through NBA ranks as a statistical guru who implemented advanced analytics of Pelicans (formerly Hornets) performance.
Beck heads the day-to-day for this early-stage education incubator that brings educators, entrepreneurs, and technologists together. Their alumns have launched 25 new ventures and won prizes such as a Facebook/Gates Foundations HackED 2.0 Award. The Harvard grad’s first job was as a 5th grade English teacher in New Orleans, where she joined Teach For America, most recently working as regional director of strategy and innovation.
Sanchez’s mSchool has earned a slew of honors, including Teach for America’s 2013 Social Innovation Award. The appeal of mSchool is that it is a one room schoolhouse for the 21st century. Its mission is to help community centers open accredited, state-funded classrooms that primarily use adaptive personalization learning software. So far he’s opened 14 mSchools in Louisiana, with pilots scheduled in early 2014 in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Florida, and 20 more pending, including sites in South Africa, Australia and Canada. Sanchez is a former math teacher who served as a cabinet-level consultant to two Louisiana state superintendents.