Amanda Cua, a Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia 2024 List Honoree (Facebook)

Seven individuals from the Philippines were included in the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia 2024 List, which recognized the contributions and achievements of young people under the age of 30 across a variety of industry categories.

Sifting through thousands of online nominations and recommendations, the Forbes Asia team and a panel of acclaimed investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders selected 300 of the best the Asia-Pacific region can offer.

These young entrepreneurs, artists, and leaders were evaluated based on funding and/or revenue, social impact, scale, inventiveness, and potential.

The 30 Under 30 List for 2024 includes 30 honorees in each of the ten categories, which include Arts (Art, Style, Food, and Drink); Entertainment and Sports; Finance and Venture Capital; Enterprise Technology; Media, Marketing, and Advertising; Consumer Technology; Industry, Manufacturing, and Energy; Social Impact; Retail and Commerce; and Healthcare and Science.

Of the 300 young individuals, seven Filipinos made their stamp on the global stage.
 

Amanda Cua

Cua is the founder of Backscoop, a media startup that offers a free newsletter on the business and startup scene in Southeast Asia.

Instead of pursuing a college education, Cua bravely traversed through an untrodden path—starting her company at only 19 years old.

In her column for Manila Bulletin, the young founder shared that she only spent P3,000 to kickstart Backscoop’s website and weekly newsletter.

Now 22 years old, Cua is a success story. Backscoop became a go-to source for rising startups in the region, earning tens of thousands of subscribers.

According to Forbes, her content and One More Scoop podcast have been invaluable to startup founders in their efforts to find investors.
 

Chia Amisola

Amisola is a multimedia artist known for website-specific art that brings together nostalgia, computing, coding, and politics into one welcoming space.

Amisola founded Developh, a non-profit community that seeks to promote the use of technology as a tool for liberation rather than oppression.

Established in 2016, this community oversees the Philippine Internet Archive which seeks to preserve digital work, movements, cultures, and art amid threats of historical revisionism and disinformation.

One of Amisola's recent website art projects is the “Ang Bantayog”, which commemorates victims of human rights abuses in the 1970s when the Philippines was under Martial Law.

Their work has been exhibited all over the world reaching San Francisco, London, Berlin, Toronto, and Manila.
 

Abigail Marquez 

A popular TikTok content creator and chef, Marquez is known to promote Filipino cuisine and culture nationwide and beyond with her sheer charm and passion.

Crowned as the “Lumpia Queen” for her obsession with the delicious Filipino fried appetizer, she boasts a follower tally of over three million.

With cooking being her ultimate passion since the age of four, Marquez went through the ranks of the cuisine world before moving into videography, where she now runs a cooking channel on TikTok.

After less than two years on the platform, she bagged TikTok's Creator of the Year for Food award in 2023

Recently, Marquez won a Webby award and was nominated for the James Beard 2024 Media Awards.
 

Ramon Christian Larga 

Larga is another popular TikTok content creator who informs the public about the various functions and aspects of medicine in an easily digestible, entertaining manner.

Also known as Arhsie, he is a licensed pharmacist who works in his family's pharmacy in the island province of Marinduque.

With his grounded approach to talking about medicine, he has garnered over four million followers.

He also provides free medicines for those in need and recently started fundraising through social media to pay the bills of customers who can't afford them.

In 2023, Larga received the TikTok Philippines' award for best educational content creator.
 

Ezekiel Miller

Popularly known as Ez Mil, the rapper has caught the attention of rap legends Dr. Dre and Eminem.

Miller rose to fame in 2021, after his viral performance of “Panalo (Trap Carinosa)” on the Wish Bus USA radio.

His tracks “Panalo” and "Up Down" were enough to capture the interest of a global audience. Eminem even performed on Ez Mil's 2023 album "DU4LI7Y: REDUX”.

Last year, the Filipino-American rapper signed a record deal with major labels Shady Records of Eminem, Aftermath Entertainment of Dr. Dre, and Interscope Records.

Born in Olongapo, Ez Mil was raised under the roof of a musically inclined family. He is now based in Las Vegas in the United States.

Mikaela Reyes

Reyes is a co-founder of Parallax, a cross-border payment startup, which makes payment move around the globe easier and cheaper through cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Launched in 2023, Parallax was a result of Reyes' experiences as a freelancer and the hassles of getting paid by another country.

Initially targeting users from the Philippines, it now has customers from over 150 countries.

In September last year, Parallax raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round led by Dragonfly Capital. The funds will be used to grow the team, scale operations, and expand into other use cases.

In an Instagram post, Reyes said she hopes that she can be an inspiration for Filipina founders, especially in male-dominated industries such as fintech and crypto.

Joshua Serafin 

Serafin is a Bacolod City-born, Brussels-based contemporary artist who combines dance, music, and theater with live performance that explores concepts of cultural identity, transmigration, and queer representation. 

Serafin was recently invited to participate in the 60th Venice Biennale, an international cultural exhibition. 

They have also performed at the ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival in Finland, the TONO Festival in Mexico and the HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin.

Their latest performance, “Void”, earned high praise from critics for its “captivating infusion of rich mythologies, otherworldly sounds, and precise choreography”.

Serafin is a permanent house artist at the Viernulvier Arts Center in Belgium, and has been featured in publications such as L'Officiel and ArtReview.