I became a social entrepreneur at 14, working in partnership with other students to make our high school a more welcoming home to students with disabilities. We saw what the adults did not: Bullying and harassment could not be wished away with detentions and scoldings. The change required students standing up for one another, changing our school culture one relationship at a time.
For more than 30 years I have supported over a million young people working to change the world. From a water filtration system that uses garbage and a malaria test that uses enzymes, to a training program to reduce violent interactions between youth and police, young people name problems and organize around them. They build solutions long before adults give them much credit. We talk about young people as “the future.” Yet we rarely treat them as innovators worth backing now. Especially those without privilege and connections.
Venture funding offers one example of how concentrated our search for innovation can become. In 2025, California, New York, and Massachusetts together accounted for nearly three-quarters of the dollars invested, according to the National Venture Capital Association.
These established hubs produce extraordinary talent, but our reliance on familiar networks and credentials can become a shortcut for deciding which ideas deserve attention. Access is not innovation.
WE BACK PEOPLE WHO ARE EASY TO FIND
Innovators with the right connections get noticed sooner. Early attention leads to early funding and broader networks. Over time, the same signals keep getting rewarded because they already feel familiar.
Joshua Ichor, a 25-year-old Nigerian hydrologist and founder of Geotech Water, shows what that system can miss.
After being hospitalized from drinking contaminated water in his community in Nigeria, Joshua studied hydrology and built Geotech Water, technology designed to help communities monitor water quality, detect contamination, and keep water infrastructure working.
His advantage was proximity to the problem.
Joshua understood firsthand what unreliable access to safe water could mean for a community. It gave him knowledge an outsider would have needed time to learn, one reason RIVET is providing him with funding support.
Pitch fluency shows that someone knows how to communicate an idea, while not proving they have identified the strongest problem or built the most robust solution.
The reverse also holds. Strong ideas still need testing, execution, and evidence. The point is to stop confusing familiarity with quality.
WE UNDERVALUE PROXIMITY AS A FORM OF EXPERTISE
Walter Okwir saw how limited access to menstrual products affected girls in his Ugandan community. Girls were leaving school, marrying early, and having children younger, creating wider risks for their education and future.
Walter understood those connections because he lived close to the problem. His own sister had dropped out of school when she began menstruating. She was married with four children before the age of 20.
After receiving a small amount of catalytic funding from RIVET, he bought four sewing machines and began producing reusable sanitary pads, allowing more girls to stay in school, delay marriage, and reduce teen pregnancy. What intrigued me most about Walter’s approach is his decision to teach every boy in his community to make pads for their friends and sisters, which fundamentally shifts who is responsible for menstrual health.
Early funding gave Walter room to act on an idea shaped by his understanding of the community: an understanding of what people needed, what they would use, and where earlier approaches fell short.
That knowledge deserves more weight when we judge potential. Degrees matter. Technical skill matters. Execution matters. So does lived experience.
Promising ideas still need access to funding, expertise, and opportunities to demonstrate their potential. For many young innovators, that starts with a small grant and a mentor, as well as a chance to test an idea.
3 WAYS TO PLACE BETTER BETS
Working with young innovators like Joshua and Walter has taught me that recognizing potential requires looking beyond the people and places we already know. Here are three ways leaders can put that lesson into practice.
1. Look beyond the usual places.
Expand your search to include schools, youth groups, community organizations, and grassroots networks alongside established universities and startup programs.
The goal is to widen the field of promising innovators before applying rigorous evaluation criteria.
2. Give proximity more weight.
Ask how well the potential innovator understands the problem, whether the people affected trust them, what they have already tested, and what they learned from trying. Then evaluate whether they can execute, whether the solution works, and whether there is evidence the solution can grow or deepen its impact.
Proximity should be part of the rigor.
3. Make smaller, earlier bets.
Not every promising innovator needs a large check. A modest grant, a pilot, a mentor, or one strong introduction can give someone enough room to prove what works.
Companies already make early bets on new technologies. They should get just as comfortable making early bets on problem-solvers who did not come through the usual doors.
The next time you complete a performance review, plan a project, or seek input, ask how you can bring the insights of young people with lived experience to the table.
BUILD A BETTER INNOVATION MAP
For more than three decades, I have watched young people take on hard problems with urgency and imagination. I know they can build meaningful solutions and want to ensure others know how to recognize those solutions, when coming from outside the places and networks we already trust.
While innovation is widespread, opportunity is not equal. Successful leaders can change this by expanding their field of view. There are billions of young people ready to change the world. Are we willing to bet on them?
Eric D. Dawson, EdD is CEO and founder of RIVET.