Every week we spotlight the talents and accomplishments of amazing young professionals across various ethnic Diasporas and professions. This week we’d like to highlight successful young professionals across time and regardless of their ethnicity. Young professionals have the ability to succeed early on in life, and here’s some proof (in addition to the over 500 interviews we’ve published to date) that anything is possible. Let’s break it down by age, shall we?

At Age 21:

• English chemist Humphry Davy discovered nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”), and suggested that it may have use as an anesthetic.
• College dropout Steven Jobs co-founded Apple Computer.
• French mathematician Evariste Galois developed group theory (and many other theorems) before his death at the age of 21.

At Age 23:

• John Singleton directed his first film, “Boyz ‘N the Hood.”
• Orson Welles produced and performed his “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, terrifying millions of people. He also got his face on the cover of Time Magazine.
• Francois-Louis Cailler manufactured the world’s first eating chocolate to be commercially produced.

At Age 25:

• By this age, Charles Chaplin had appeared in 35 films.
• P. T. Barnum bought a “160-year-old” slave woman and began a career in show business.
• Bavarian painter Aloys Senefelder invented the lithograph.

At Age 27:

• Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.
• Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.
• Memphis millionaire Frederic W. Smith, whose father built the Greyhound bus system, founded Federal Express.

At Age 29:

• The Buddha decided to renounce the world and abandon family and possessions. Seven years later, he realized this brought him no closer to the wisdom he sought.
• Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first complete sentence by telephone.

At Age 31:

• British physician Thomas Wedgwood produced the first photograph.
• Eli Terry produced clocks with interchangeable parts. He also introduced the free-trial, no-money-down sales method.
• Gregory Pincus achieved in-vitro fertilization of rabbits. Later he invented the birth control pill.

At Age 33:

• Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone.
• Successful merchant Cyrus West Field retired at age 33 to devote himself to laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his essay, “Nature,” encouraging readers to see the miraculous in the common.

At Age 35:

• Frederic William Herschel, an English astronomer, invented the contact lens.
• Amedeo Avogadro developed Avogadro’s hypothesis.
• Margie Profet proposed a new theory of menstruation which claims that menstruation protects against infection and won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.

Next week we’ll spotlight all the even ages from 22 to 34! So stay tuned for Part 2.