Meet the rising stars of autonomous cars and trucks who are developing the self-driving future

Meet the first class of autonomous driving's rising stars.

Business Insider's transportation team searched for the brightest young minds behind self-driving cars and trucks making significant strides in the fledgling industry despite - or in many cases thanks to - their relative youth.

From drifting an autonomous DeLorean and modeling forest fires to building ocean-exploring robots and winning international coding competitions, no rising star's background was the same. Dozens of nominations spanned academics, professional training, nationalities, and inspiration.

For the same reasons, culling the list to select the best of the best was no easy task.

Our criteria: We asked that nominees be 30 years old or younger, work in a field directly related to the development of self-driving vehicles, and stand out from their peers in some meaningful way. Editors made the final decisions.

From massive companies like Google and Uber to nimble startups like Aurora and Kodiak Robotics, here's the inaugural list of the rising stars of autonomous driving.