Zuckerberg, Lady Gaga among top US young achievers

Wednesday, 21 December 2011 00:38 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, human rights activist Ronan Farrow and pop stars Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber are people to watch, according to Forbes magazine’s list of top-achieving people under age 30.

Artist JR, 28, who creates large scale guerrilla photo installations, film producer David Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison who has funded films like “True Grit,” and the upcoming Brad Pitt movie “World War Z,” also made the “30 Under 30” list of people in 12 categories that the magazine predicts will be tomorrow’s brightest stars.

“While many on this list are well-known, others like Danielle Fong, a Canadian-born science prodigy who entered a Princeton Ph.D. program at age 17 before founding alternative energy company Lightsail at 20, are just getting their first taste of the limelight,” Forbes Executive Editor Michael Noer said in a statement.

“But it is nearly certain that we will all be hearing much more from them in the decades to come,” he added.

Farrow, a U.S. State Department policy expert who was recently named a Rhodes Scholar, is the only biological child of actress Mia Farrow and director Woody Allen. He made the law & policy list.

Donald Glover, Jonah Hill, Jennifer Lawrence and 13-year-old Jaden Smith, the daughter of actor Will Smith, were on the entertainment list, while the music category features British singer Adele and U.S. pop stars Katy Perry and Rihanna and American rapper Lil Wayne. Other categories included art & design, energy, food & wine, media, social/mobile and technology, which included Peter Cashmore, the founder and CEO of the tech news site Mashable.

In the property realm, Alex Hodara, 24, got a nod for starting the first student-run brokerage in the U.S. and Goldman Sachs’ Kunal Shah, 29, was named for becoming the company’s youngest managing director at age 27.

Winemaker Gavin Chanin, 25, who has been making wines since he was 21, has earned high ratings with his Chanin Wines. Forbes asked its readers, as well as 12 panels of industry experts in areas ranging from law/policy and real estate to entertainment, science/innovation and finance to weigh in on those likely to influence the world of the immediate future.

Thirty people were chosen from each category. The full list is available at www.forbes.com/under30 and will be published in the January edition of the magazine.