Future 50 Awards winners — These are the most influential people in tech today

The Future 50 2021 Awards winners
(Image credit: Future)

Every year the Future 50 Awards takes a look across consumer tech and highlights 50 people that are making a significant impact on the industry.

A panel of tech journalists from across Future Publishing select the winners which include individuals from a number of different categories:

  • CEOs & executive leadership
  • Product managers, designers and engineers
  • Content creators
  • PR, communications, marketing & advertising
  • Young professionals - under 40 years old

There are some names here that everyone will recognize including Elon Musk, Phil Spencer, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook, but perusing the list of this year's winners you will find some amazing innovators that you've almost certainly never encountered before.

Read about all of the 2021 Future 50 Awards winners

It's easy to see the impact that the CEO of Amazon, Disney, Apple, and Google (to name a few) have on the tech industry, but innovation doesn't have to come from massive companies. Teen scientist Neha Shukla from this year's Future 50 invented Six Feet Apart, a wearable that helps to encourage social distancing. Nyla Hayes is another young member of the 2021 Future 50 who at 12 has earned over $3.4 million selling NFTs.

Some Future 50 Awards winners are helping to shape the culture around it rather than pushing the technology itself. Tristan Harris the co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology seeks to help people to interact with tech without getting lost in it. God-is Rivera, Global Director of Culture and Community at Twitter is working to make the social network a better place for marginalized communities. 

You can spend a few minutes looking over the full list of winners on the Future 50 page and if you are interested in the gadgets that won over Future panelists this year the Future Choice awards winners are worth your time as well.

Sean Riley

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was as a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more.  Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Mag, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.