Meet The Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Making An Impact In 2022

These leaders from across Europe are tackling issues like climate change and racial equity.

The refugee crisis stemming from Russia’s war against Ukraine hits very close to home for Tiera Sahar Ataii. The 25-year-old was born in London to undocumented Iranian refugee parents. As a teenager, she turned down an offer from Cambridge University to instead travel the world helping refugees. Then, like many others on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, she turned to entrepreneurship.

Ataii started making T-shirts with pro-refugee slogans and delivering them by bicycle in 2017, using the proceeds to pay for legal aid for refugees. Her initiative, SolidariTee, now works with 80 universities across the world, including Harvard University, Science Po and the University of Melbourne, and has helped give 100,000 refugees legal aid. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, which has displaced more than 11 million people, Ataii has taken on a position as a humanitarian advisor for the U.K. charity War Child in addition to running her non-profit.

Ataii is just one of the leaders on the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Impact list using their voices and entrepreneurial drive to make an impact. Members of this year’s list were selected from of hundreds of candidates and scored by panel of three judges: Steven Chapman, chief impact officer at the IKEA Foundation; Romina Boarini, director of the OECD Center for Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE); and Ashleigh Ainsley, a cofounder of U.K.-based nonprofit Colorintech, which aims to make Europe more inclusive for underrepresented groups in the technology industry. Ainsley and cofounder Dion McKenzie appeared on the list in 2020 and are now working with Meta, formerly Facebook, to make the metaverse more equitable.

The common thread among the entrepreneurs on this year’s list is that they’ve all used creativity—drawing on their backgrounds, surroundings or studies—to tackle complex global issues. Take Yang Liu, the 29-year-old cofounder of JustWears: The inspiration for her sustainable underwear startup comes from her childhood growing up in Southeast China in an area that struggled with droughts because of its reliance on cotton, a crop that needs a lot of water to grow. Her innovative solution, developing material using natural alternatives like corn and mushrooms, has proven popular with shoppers: Since launching on Kickstarter in 2017, Liu and over-30 cofounder Alexander Walsh have raised $4 million in capital and sold more than 250,000 pairs of men’s underwear.

Liu isn’t the only social entrepreneur hoping to make our lives more sustainable. Raymon Pouwels, the 28-year-old founder of Dutch transportation firm GO Sharing, has raised $55 million to expand his company’s fleet of shared electric mopeds, e-bikes and electric cars across Europe, while François des Beauvais, the 29-year-old founder of Pxyo, is helping major companies in France, like McDonalds, switch to reusable packaging. Racial equity is also a priority for this year’s listmakers. Through her startup accelerator Foundervine, Izzy Obeng, 29, is providing mentorship, training and financial support to underrepresented founders. Flair Impact, cofounded by Nii Cleland, 28, and Darrell Coker, 27, uses anonymous surveys and other data points to measure racial bias inside companies. It’s currently being used by big-name clients like Ernst & Young and the Premier League.

These are just a few individuals on this year’s list, which includes a diverse array of change-makers, ranging from trailblazing British Parliament member, an actress knocking down barriers for Muslims in Norway, a woman who helped get free sanitary products in England’s schools and the founder of the world’s largest Covid-19 volunteering organization.