The POCIT Innovators Index 2025
Last year, POCIT launched its first-ever Innovators Index, recognizing the changemakers among us who are driving change in tech and beyond. Now in its second year, the Index returns with an extraordinary cohort of founders, investors, engineers, and storytellers reshaping what’s possible across tech and beyond.
This year’s honorees are closing wealth gaps, exposing discrimination, advancing life-saving science, rethinking education, and building more sustainable systems, from fashion and beauty to climate and community.
Tade Oyerinde
Revolutionizing college education
Tade Oyerinde is the founder and chancellor of Campus, a community college startup built around a network of adjunct professors from prestigious universities. Campus has raised over $100 million from investors, including the founders of OpenAI, Discord, and Figma, and this year acquired Sizzle AI, an AI learning platform founded by former Meta AI chief Jerome Pesenti, who joined as CTO.
Melissa Bradley
Closing the wealth gap
In March, Melissa Bradley, a serial entrepreneur and investor revealed she had been discreetly leading the $50 million Black Economic Alliance Venture Fund, which invests $1 million to $3 million in seed-plus to Series A companies working to close the wealth gap. She was also the visionary behind 1863 Ventures, a nonprofit supporting founders of color, which she closed in 2024 to launch New Majority Ventures, a for-profit entity.
Aliyah Jones
Exposing racism in hiring
After being told she wasn’t corporate enough, Aliyah Jones posed as a white woman on LinkedIn to expose racial bias in corporate hiring. The digital storyteller documented the eight-month experiment in her Corporate Catfish docuseries, which resonated with hundreds of thousands online. Now, she’s expanding that work into a full-length documentary exploring what it truly means to be Black in corporate America.
Nathaneo Johnson & Sean Hargrow
Redefining social networking
In April, Yale juniors Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow raised $3.1 million in 14 days for Series, an ‘anti-Facebook’ networking platform using AI agents to make meaningful introductions between users who offer mutual value. Conceived in January and launched as an MVP with 100 beta users in February, Series gained momentum after a viral LinkedIn trailer drew major investor interest, including from former a16z investor Anne Lee Skates.
April Curley
Holding Big Tech to account
In 2022, April Curley, a former Google employee, proposed a class action lawsuit that accused the tech giant of systemic racial discrimination against Black workers. The lawsuit alleged they were funneled into lower-level roles, paid less, given poorer performance reviews, and denied career development. In a landmark settlement reached in May, Google agreed to pay $50 million to resolve the class action on behalf of more than 4,000 Black current and former employees.
Tracy Gray
Empowering women to invest in women
Tracy Gray is the founder and managing partner of The 22 Fund, investing in women- and minority-owned clean-tech manufacturing and exporting companies. She’s also the founder of We Are Enough, a nonprofit educating women on investing in women-led businesses. Earlier this year, it launched the 3.3.3 Challenge to inspire three million women to invest $3 billion over three years with a “gender lens” and create the world they want to see.
John Imah
Reshaping fashion
This year, John Imah‘s fashion tech startup, SpreeAI, reached a valuation of $1.5 billion after a funding round led by The Davidson Group. The AI-powered clothing try-on app has garnered support from icons like Naomi Campbell, who sits on its board alongside entrepreneurs Bob Davidson and Larry Ruvo. It has also secured partnerships with MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and others.
Joseph Nguthiru
Turning plants into plastic alternatives
This year, climate-tech engineer Joseph Nguthiru was named a UN Young Champion of the Earth for tackling invasive water hyacinth and plastic waste. He co-founded HyaPak, which turns water hyacinth from Kenyan lakes into biodegradable alternatives to single-use plastics. He also founded M-Situ, an AI early-warning system for deforestation and wildfires.
Ciara Imani May
Making beauty safe and sustainable
After experiencing itching and scalp inflammation from synthetic braiding hair, Ciara Imani May created Rebundle as a healthier, more sustainable alternative. Rebundle is the first US-based, plant-based braiding hair company, with ‘braidbetter’ extensions made from banana stems. This year, in a major milestone, May secured a patent protecting the core innovation behind braidbetter.
Crystal Brown
Developing new drug treatments
Crystal Brown left a six-figure career in the automotive industry to start over in biotech. Her first startup failed, and she even lost her house, but she kept going. Now she’s raised $3.3 million for CircNova, her biotech company whose proprietary AI platform designs and evaluates circular RNA molecules as potential therapies for diseases like ovarian cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.
