50 Innovators for 50 Years
As part of our 50th birthday, we’re recognizing 50 contemporary changemakers who are shaping the future – right here, right now. Throughout 2025 and 2026, we’ll unveil a special series of lego-block minifigures modeled after our winners to celebrate their innovative contributions to Minnesota and beyond.
Round Two
Announcement Date: 1.23.2026
Dillon White
Dillon White, a lawyer, screenwriter, and dad, uses social media to talk about the struggles and triumphs of parenting. Through a combination of humor and honesty, he helps other parents feel connected and supported.
María Isa Pérez-Vega
María Isa Pérez-Vega, a State Representative from St. Paul, brings her Puerto-Rican culture and experience in government together through rap. Her music makes the work of the government exciting and accessible to more people.
Paige Dansinger
Paige Dansinger uses virtual reality programs to build interactive and participatory digital museums that empower people to create digital art, follow their curiosity, or learn a new skill, no matter where they are in the world.
Victoria Kyereme
Victoria Kyereme realized that very few of her coworkers in the tech industry looked like her. She decided to try to change that by starting a non-profit that provides girls and young people of color the opportunity to learn coding and develop their tech skills.
Megan Gunnar
Megan Gunnar is a leader in the field of developmental psychology. Her research on childhood stress helped to define and explain the effects of stress on early development, with impacts on many aspects of our lives, including public policy and medical practice.
Art Fry
Art Fry was frustrated that his notes and bookmarks kept falling out of his books. When scientists at 3M developed an adhesive that wasn’t all that sticky, he saw an opportunity to solve his problem. He added the adhesive to a bit of yellow paper and invented the Post-it Note.
Jose & Milena
Jose Cruz & Milena Nunez Garcia knew some reasons kids don’t grow up to be healthy adults are poor nutrition and lack of swimming skills. To reduce these risks, they developed a program that teaches healthy food and gives swimming lessons to families who wouldn’t usually have access to them.
Jian-Ping Wang
Jian-Ping Wang helped invent magnets that contain no rare-earth materials. Most magnets are made from materials extracted from the ground in damaging ways, but this new kind of magnet is made from common materials, greatly reducing its environmental impact.
Jason Dayton
Jason Dayton was in the business of brewing cider when state laws changed and opened up a new market. He and his team were among the first to produce THC-infused beverages, marking the beginning of a new industry in MN.
Jennifer Arndt-Johns
Jennifer Arndt-Johns leads an organization that helps Korean immigrants and people adopted from Korea connect to and preserve their heritage through language, culture, and support programs, building a stronger sense of identity and community.
Round One
Announcement Date: 10.10.2025
David Bowen
David Bowen is an artist who combines robotics and nature to create kinetic art (sculptures that move) by interpreting data from the natural world into movement, sound, or visual representations.
Katy Boyd
Katy Boyd, who is legally blind, discovered that sailing made her feel free and empowered. To share her experience, she started an organization that helps other blind and vision-impaired people learn to sail.
Cory Cove
Cory Cove, a local radio host, invented “The Initials Game” as a fun send-off for his co-host. It was a hit on the radio and was soon turned into a card game that you can play with your friends.
Peggy Flanagan
Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, is the first Native person elected to be Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor, and is currently the highest-ranking Native women in an elected executive office nationwide.
Jillian Hiscock
Jillian Hiscock wanted to watch and celebrate women’s sports with her friends but couldn’t find a welcoming space, so she started a new kind of sports bar dedicated exclusively to women’s sports.
Jam & Lewis
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis were instrumental in creating the “Minneapolis Sound”, a mix of funk, rock, and synth-pop genres that was fundamental to the musical landscape of the 1980s and 90s.
Dave Kapell
Dave Kapell was experiencing writer’s block when he decided to try a new idea. He wrote down some words and stuck them to magnets so he could play around with their order, inventing Magnetic Poetry.
Scott Olson
Scott Olson and his brother Brennan wanted to play hockey all year-round. They developed a new material for inline roller skate wheels and attached them to an ice hockey boot, inventing Rollerblades.
Sean Sherman
Sean Sherman realized that there was no representation of Native cuisine in restaurants, so he started an organization and a restaurant that feature and promote de-colonized Indigenous foodways.
Angela Teeple
Angela Teeple is a scientist who founded Nibi-Clear, a water-testing service for tribal governments that empowers Native communities to initiate improvements to the health of their water, land, and people.
Nominate An Innovator Today.
There are only THREE rounds left!
Nominate a local, living innovator to give them the recognition they deserve.
Inspiring Innovation Across Minnesota
An innovator is an individual who creates a new product, method, or idea. Often, innovation occurs to solve a problem in a specific industry or community.
A simple strike of curiosity and creativity can inspire an innovator and lead to new artistic movements, inventions, discoveries, or business practices.
That’s why we’re tipping our hat to big thinkers on our 50th birthday. If you know someone deserving of the honor, nominate them today.
