Seriously talented: Young guns on the rise in 2021
From future CEOs to some of our most passionate activists, we round up 21 of the nation’s brightest stars.
They are the bright young stars with bold ideas Australia needs as we usher in 2021.
Undeterred by the year that was, these extraordinary young people have shown they are forces to be reckoned with as we face some of the biggest issues the world – let alone the nation – has ever seen. As we shine a light on some serious talent and drive, The Australian has rounded up 21 of the nation’s promising generation of future CEOs, leaders, philanthropists and activists (aged 21 and under) to look out for in the year to come.
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1 Nathaniel Diong, social enterprise founder, VIC
During the COVID-19 pandemic Australia’s youth unemployment soared to more than 16 per cent, propelling 19-year-old Nathaniel Diong to take action. The Monash University student had started a social enterprise, Future Minds Network, three years earlier, to help boost the skills of young people to not only enter the job market but also create new career pathways.
As increasing numbers of young people lost their jobs in 2020, Diong rolled out more than $90,000 worth of subsidised programs to support educators through remote learning and inspire youth.
This included virtual summits for “teenpreneurs” in the UK, global hackathons and career-readiness workshops across Australia.
He also linked 10,000 disadvantaged women in tech with employment at a virtual careers fair.
Diong says 2020 and COVID had “pushed everyone past their limits”. But he said it had also shown the resilience of young people. “It’s challenged us to think outside of the box and innovate,” Diong tells The Australian.
“It’s given renewed hope that, despite all challenges, together, we can shape a future.”
The commerce/global studies student who sits on eight not-for-profit boards has been selected as one of four nominees for the Victorian Young Australian of the Year 2021 and was also a finalist for Youth Champion at the Melbourne Awards. Diong says he hopes 2021 will be “a year of transformation”.
“I hope we can realise how much more we can achieve when we work together,” he says.
“We’ll continue supporting thousands of young Aussies to build the skills, mindset and their own jobs through entrepreneurship. It’s an exciting time for education and I can’t wait to see what’s next.”
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2 Luke Williams, founder of Lend a Hand to Hugo, TAS
Luke Williams, 20, has a singular mission: improving the lives of children living with autism and accessibility challenges.
Williams started the Lend A Hand To Hugo charity in 2014 to help bridge the gap for therapy costs for his nephew, Hugo, who had been diagnosed with autism. He won corporate sponsorship and set up a charity cricket match with donation boxes in businesses across Hobart. Within a year, the charity began helping other families in need – filling the therapy cost gap or acquiring resources for homes and schools. And in recent years it has evolved with its All Abilities Sporting Programs, which ensure kids of all abilities are included and celebrated.
So far, Lend A Hand To Hugo has distributed more than $100,000 to families across Tasmania as well as their educators, carers and health professionals. Williams is Tasmania’s nominee for Young Australian of the Year.
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3 Macinley Butson, scientist and inventor, NSW
Twenty-year-old Macinley Butson is a prolific inventor and scientist. The 2018 NSW Young Australian of the Year became the first Australian to win an award at the INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair at age 16.
Her winning idea, Smart Armour, was a shield for breast cancer patients to protect their non-treated breast while undergoing radiotherapy. Butson, now a student at the University of Wollongong, first began coming up with ideas as a seven-year-old and has taken home science awards for other exceptional ideas, including a system that collects solar power and filters water at the same time. Last year she spoke on the future of the workforce at the Governance Institute of Australia’s National Conference.
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4 Josh Green, 20, basketballer, NSW
Sydney-born Josh Green has made it to basketball’s big time. An AFL prospect as a teenager, Green joined the GWS Giants’ academy but turned to basketball as his full-time sport when his family relocated from western Sydney to the US in 2014.
Both his parents had played basketball at a high level and Green’s father had also worked as a professional coach. The switch from AFL paid off after the 20-year-old guard was picked up by the Dallas Mavericks with the 18th pick in the NBA draft in November 2020. The former Arizona college player is set to earn more than $3 million in each of his first two seasons in the NBA.
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5 Billie-Jean Hamlet, model, WA
Billie-Jean Hamlet, 20, spent her early years in a remote Indigenous community in the Kimberley region but always dreamed of becoming a model.
After moving to Sydney a year ago she is now one of the industry’s most promising young faces and appeared in a 16-page fashion editorial for Vogue Australia in 2020. The proud Walmadjari/Yamatji woman is determined to use her growing profile to shine a light on mental health. “I think just by sharing my stories and experiences, it can break down the walls of stigma,” she told Vogue Australia in November.
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6 Jordan Petaia, rugby player, VIC
Jordan Petaia was the first millennial to be selected in a Wallaby squad.
Born in Werribee, Victoria and raised in Brisbane, Petaia only started playing rugby in 2013, but has been labelled “Australian rugby’s most exciting prospect”.
Petaia plays for the Queensland Reds in the Super Rugby competition and now for Australia in international games. The 20-year-old had his first Wallabies run-on start against the All Blacks in October.
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7 Vivian Pham, author, NSW
The Coconut Children, the debut novel written by Vivian Pham, aged, 19, and published last year, sparked a bidding war among Australian publishers when she finished the manuscript. Pham, the daughter of refugees who hails from Sydney’s southwest, started writing her first draft in 2017 when she took part in a novella program at not-for-profit creative writing centre Story Factory in Redfern. Rather than write a short story she wrote a whole novel. The story focuses on two Australian-Vietnamese families living in southwestern Sydney’s Cabramatta in the 1990s. Main character Sonny is a 16-year-old girl who watches the world from her bedroom window and has a habit of falling hopelessly in love with just about anyone.
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8 Max Anderson Loake, Rhodes Scholar, WA
Surf lifesaver and competitive ironman Max Anderson Loake will swap the beach lifestyle for Oxford after being named Western Australia’s Rhodes Scholar for 2021.
Anderson Loake, 21, completed a Bachelor of Philosophy and Honours in mathematics and statistics at the University of Western Australia and plans to study a Doctor of Philosophy in Modern Statistics and Statistical and Machine Learning at the University of Oxford. He will examine the importance of big data in natural disaster response and recovery.
“Predictive modelling was heavily used during the 2019 bushfire season to anticipate the spread,” Anderson Loake says
“This sort of research is incredibly relevant to all kinds of disasters, including hurricanes and even pandemics.”
Anderson Loake is due to travel to Oxford in September in time for the start of the European academic year. “I’m hoping to get over there but there is still some uncertainty,” he tells The Australian, referring to the situation with COVID-19.
Anderson Loake, who volunteers as a patrol captain at the City of Perth Surf Life Saving Club, says he might also give rowing a try at Oxford, given he will be living so far from a beach.
“I think the experience will be absolutely incredible. I went to UWA (University of Western Australia) living at home and then just studying so I think living on campus at college at Oxford will be amazing and the cultural experience of that, getting to meet so many people and to immerse myself in everything Oxford has to offer,” he says.
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9 Keeley Johnson, charity co-founder, VIC
When she was only 13, Keeley Johnson, from Ballan in regional Victoria, founded a charity to help other children like her. Keeley’s autism and learning difficulties meant she had struggled to learn using paper-based methods despite being able to perform the same tasks well using an iPad.
This inspired Keeley and her mum to create Keeley’s Cause — a charity that provides iPads pre-loaded with tailored education plans to children with autism or an intellectual disability.
Within two years, Keeley had raised more than $70,000 and presented 103 iPads through donations and sponsorship, merchandise sales and sausage sizzles. Last year, she was awarded the prestigious Diana Award, which continues Princess Diana’s legacy by recognising young people’s extraordinary achievements.
“I couldn’t believe I had received an award this massive,” she tells The Australian.
“She (Diana) was a beautiful woman who did amazing things for others, I‘m so grateful for being a part of her legacy in assisting others as well.”
Keeley, a Victorian nominee for Young Australian of the Year 2021, says she hopes for a better year ahead after the difficulties of 2020.
“I‘m hoping to run some events to bring disability families together and to start enjoying life again while supporting my charity,” she says.
“There are a lot of children with disabilities still doing it tough and needing iPads to learn and be able to communicate with their families. “I’m hoping to raise more money next year to help others.”
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10 Charlie Johnstone,entrepreneur, QLD
Sixteen-year-old Charlie Johnstone, from Logan in Queensland, is passionate about helping others. As a 14-year-old he won the national Origin LittleBIGideas competition and as part of the prize he flew to NASA to have lunch with an astronaut.
At 15 Charlie founded a program called Kid to Kid to help build the entrepreneurial capabilities of young people.
Charlie was shortlisted for the Premier’s Climate Change Ambassador Position and is a Gold Medal winner in the International World Scholars Cup. Charlie received the 2019 Young Citizen of the Year Award for Logan.
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11 Zoe Terakes, actor, NSW
Actor Zoe Terakes, who is openly trans, is breaking down barriers to bring the change they want to see in the industry.
Terakes, aged 21, from Sydney, scored their first role three years ago, starring opposite Marta Dusseldorp in legal drama Janet King, then went on to play trans character Reb Keane in Wentworth.
Terakes now has a recurring role opposite Nicole Kidman in Hulu’s miniseries, Nine Perfect Strangers. Based on Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s latest book, the series takes place at a boutique health-and-wellness resort and was recently filmed in Byron Bay.
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12 Daisy Jeffrey, climate activist, NSW
Daisy Jeffrey, 18, has become one of the most recognisable faces of the School Strike 4 Climate movement. She is a climate activist and organiser who released a book in 2020 titled On Hope, detailing her experiences about being a young person fighting for a better world.
Her passion for the environment started at a young age and as a seven year-old she created a blog called The Environmental and wrote a letter to then shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull after watching the 1992 UN address of Canadian teen Severn Cullis-Suzuki about saving the planet.
In her book, Jeffrey writes about what prompted the strike action and why she is choosing hope over indifference.
Jeffrey says she has a “new found hope” for 2021, following a year where she felt the momentum she had built in 2019 “run away from us”.
“We’ve had this year to adjust to a new way of thinking and we have now surpassed this debate over whether the science around climate change is real or not,” she tells The Australian.
Jeffrey hopes in the new year the federal government will respond to the challenge of creating a strategy to combat the harmful consequences of climate change. “Instead of sitting about and debating the viability of science, we need to have parties in the federal parliament competing on the best climate change policy,” she says. “We have this opportunity to be world leaders on climate and currently we aren’t taking that opportunity, and it’s incredibly disappointing and distressing.”
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13 Bob Bramley, solo flight record-holder, TAS
As a 16-year-old, Bob Bramley, now 18, attempted to become the youngest person to circumnavigate Australia solo by plane. After almost losing two close friends to suicide, he wanted to raise awareness and funds to prevent youth suicide in Australia, particularly in regional areas like his hometown, Kindred, in Tasmania.
He formed an organisation called Surviving Turbulence and began planning his mission – to fly around Australia to promote positive discussions around mental health in rural communities.
Bramley completed his first solo flight in 2018 and the following year took off on his 15,000km unassisted journey around Australia.
Bramley also developed the first aviation training program for Scouts in Tasmania and became the youngest person ever appointed Tasmanian State Co-ordinator for Scout Air Activities.
When COVID hit, Bramley was forced to rethink his organisation’s entire strategy to maintain the discussions he had built around mental health.
“It came down to reconnecting with young people through online meetings, which meant I was able to reach out to communities in different states and countries,” he tells The Australian.
“In the end, we were able to expand our net to catch and connect with communities we hadn’t been able to reach before.”
Bramley, another Tasmanian nominee for Young Australian of the Year 2021, says the COVID crisis has shown how important it is to dismantle the barriers surrounding youth suicide as the nation sits on the cusp of a mental health disaster.
“Our message about youth suicide prevention is more important than ever before,” he says “COVID is having a huge impact on everyone – young and old – and our message is to break down the stigma around youth suicide.”
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14 Ali Kitinas CEO, actor and model, NSW
Ali Kitinas, 19, started two businesses all before the age of 16.
Her first venture was a social media marketing agency at 11 before launching the social enterprise Freedom Scrub at age 14. Freedom Scrub recycles used coffee grounds into bodycare products. The sale of these products helps support women rescued from human trafficking and modern-day slavery in Australia. Last year, in response to the pandemic, Kitinas launched a line of reusable face masks, donating 50 per cent of proceeds to Variety Australia.
Kitinas, from Sydney, is a keynote speaker, dancer and actor. The teenage CEO also got to meet Sir Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands in 2017 when she spent a week there with 33 other global entrepreneurs and business leaders.
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15 D’Arcy Witherspoon, not-for-profit founder, QLD
D’Arcy Witherspoon has found that by looking after others he was also able to help himself after suffering from depression.
The 20-year-old Woolworths worker and student from Brisbane is the founder of not-for-profit Down to Earth that provides healthy hot meals and clothing to vulnerable members of the community. He regularly drives his van to Brisbane parklands to cook hot food for homeless locals.
D’Arcy also works for OzHarvest and his latest initiative is to collect donated cans and bottles, which he then delivers to marginalised community members, so they can take them to be recycled and earn money.
He also recycles cans and bottles in exchange for vouchers that can be used to buy groceries.
Witherspoon is a Queensland nominee for Young Australian of the Year 2021.
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16 Sycco, Singer, QLD
Singer-songwriter Sycco, aka Sasha McLeod, has had a huge year despite COVID bringing the live music industry to its knees in many parts of the country.
The 19-year-old Brisbane artist of Indigenous descent took out a spot at Laneway Festival early in 2020, released three singles and has been signed to record label Future Classic.
The signing coincided with the release of Sycco’s new single, Germs, which was funded through a triple j Level Up Grant the singer earned in July. Sycco was also named as one of the 50 most played artists on triple j in 2020.
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17 Tea Devow, entrepreneur, ACT
Aged just 13, Tea Devow runs a business sharing Aboriginal culture through words and images on clothes, hats and bags. The business, Tea and Belle, was started with her friend, Belle Cooper, in 2018.
Tea came up with the idea for the business after noticing racism at school and wanting to raise awareness about Indigenous culture.
“I hope people will understand that even though we come from many different cultures … we are all still human and basically the same people,” she told The Academy for Enterprising Girls.
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18 Zohair Kazmi, health advocate, NSW
Sydney student Zohair Kazmi, aged 21, is working to narrow healthcare gaps in Australia. Kazmi, who studied oral health at the University of Sydney, was selected to represent Australia as a Global Voice Scholar at the 2020 World Health Assembly in Geneva — held online. Kazmi is completing a policy fellowship and writing a paper on the path to universal dental care in Australia. He is also a founder of the charity Saath Youth, a society for arts, activism, teamwork and humanitarianism. In 2020 the organisation partnered with Red Cross Australia in a blood drive to respond to the global shortage of donations due to the pandemic.
Kazmi wants to continue to grow as a clinician and young leader in 2021. “I hope to work in a clinical capacity as an oral health therapist and continue to treat the dental needs of my patients,” he tells The Australian. “I also aim to conduct further study in dental public health and seek out research opportunities within the fields of paediatric dentistry and health service delivery.”
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19 Alexis McDonald, HerHelp app founder, WA
In 2019, Alexis McDonald launched an app with the aim of “encouraging, supporting and empowering girls through daily challenges”. The venture, funded out of her own pocket, was borne out of McDonald’s observations during high school of the struggles many girls had with body image and bullying.
The 18-year-old, who now studies communications at Curtin University, wanted to give young women a safe space.
The interactive app includes a networking forum to chat and share advice, along with support for issues around confidence and relationships.
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20 Madison Birtchnell, youth advocate, QLD
Madison Birtchnell, 19, from the Gold Coast, is devoting her efforts to promoting social justice and youth engagement. A volunteer since she was six, Birtchnell represented Australia in the Women Deliver Young Leaders Program in 2018, where she helped shape programs and policies that improve the lives of young girls and women. Birtchnell, a business student at QUT, volunteers with the National Council of Women of Queensland and presents empowerment workshops to marginalised young people in multicultural communities. She has also established a free International Women’s Week Conference with a Queensland government grant. .
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21 Sallee Shepherd, leader, SA
Sallee Shepherd, from Tailem Bend in regional South Australia, is the ultimate all-rounder. The 18-year-old is Mayor of the Murray Bridge Youth Council, runs her own cupcake business, participated in the Coorong Connection Youth Network and volunteers for her local community centre.
In 2020, Shepherd worked on a program called Impact Youth Kickstart Loans, designed to support young people to stay and work locally in Murray Bridge. The program gave budding entrepreneurs aged 12-25 mentoring and a $2000 loan. “Even if the coronavirus didn’t happen and this year was like the many that come before it, this project would still would be my proudest achievement,” Shepherd says. “Our three-person council managed to pull off a massive-scale project, which is going to continue to benefit the community for years to come.”
Shepherd received the Australian Defence Force Long Tan Youth Leadership and Teamwork Award and the Scouts SA Leadership Award in 2020.
“If I learnt anything from this year it was that you cannot plan everything and have to make the most of every little opportunity, even if at the time it seems crazy,” she says. “Completing Year 12 during this year really highlighted the value of slowing down and appreciating learning for what it is, something we easily take for granted.” Shepherd is looking forward to attending university in 2021 and following her passions, including youth leadership.