Meredith Perry: Founder and CEO, uBeam

Age: 25

About: When Meredith Perry was an astrobiology student at the University of Pennsylvania, she one day showed up to class with a dead laptop and no power cord. She was so annoyed that she ended up creating a solution — in the form of a wireless charging system called uBeam. Fast forward three years, and Perry's company now has $1.7 million in seed funding from big-name investors like Marissa Mayer and Andreessen Horowitz.

uBeam technology converts electricity to sound and sends it through the air via ultrasound. A receiver catches the sound waves and converts them back to electricity to wirelessly charge devices in the room.