Why under twenty.

A gift is what you were given. Effort is what you do with it. Put them together and you get talent, which is the part the world can see.

But talent on its own does not become a calling. Love does that. Love in two directions: the love you have for the work itself, and the love shown to you by people who take you seriously.

Most young people have the gift. Many of them supply the effort. What is missing is the second kind of love. Someone who notices. Someone willing to say, in public, that this is real and worth continuing.

That is what 20 Under 20 is for.

Anyone can nominate. A teacher, a mentor, a parent, a friend, or the student themselves. A self-nomination is read exactly the same way as any other.

We check what we are told. Where a claim can be verified, we verify it, and where it cannot, we say so or we leave it out.

We interview the student. Not the résumé, the person. Most of what ends up in a feature comes out of that conversation rather than the nomination form.

Our editorial board writes the feature. The Changemaker reads it, corrects it, and approves it before it publishes. Nothing goes live over someone's objection.

Nothing on this site can be bought. There is no sponsored placement, no paid feature, no fee to be nominated and no fee to be named. If that ever changes, this paragraph changes with it.