Music

Ultra Music Festival 2018 Plays a Safe Game With Strong Cards in 20th Anniversary: Op-Ed

Content Courtesy of: billboard.com

Written by: Kat Bein

Photo by: Getty Images

Marshmello performs on stage at Ultra Music Festival 2018 at Bayfront Park on March 24, 2018 in Miami. 

Milestones are reflective moments, and after 20 years of historic sets, surprise guests and forward-thinking design, Ultra Music Festival's 20th flagship event couldn't help but look back at its greatest moments for inspiration. The three-day celebration ran like a highlight reel of stalwart stars and hometown heroism, but for all its talk about “expect the unexpected,” this year's Ultra often felt delightfully familiar.

Right from the start of Miami Music Week, the shadow of the past crept across Ultra's face. The kick-off press conference announced the festival had officially acquired Winter Music Conference, the 33-year-old industry gathering that had once been the impetus for the festival's own birth. It's because of WMC's initial success that Ultra founders were able to tap international dance talent and fans for its inaugural year in 1999, and as focus on its panels and showcases faded behind the brightness of surrounding parties and events, Ultra saw an opportunity for reinvention.

WMC is now a three-day conference held the days leading up to UMF's opening bell. The concentration of the effort and its association with Ultra -- presumably its speaker and panelist pool will overlap with UMF's lineup -- should lead to a higher participation rate and regeneration of WMC's industry importance. It's wild that the once-new kid on the block now bought the old boss, but it just goes to show how far Ultra has come in its two decades.

The brand is now international, but Miami is the biggest and baddest event on the Ultra calendar. Nostalgia played prominently at the heart of many performances, from Porter Robinson's Virtual Self audio-visual love letter to the early aughts, to Carl Cox's scene-stealing drop of Daft Punk's “Rolling and Scratching.” Fischerspooner titillated with politicized sexuality while reminding fans of dance music's gay male roots. Julian Marley and The Wailers were a new face on the bill that represented an old sound. Even Marshmello's surprise performance of “Miami” with Will Smith celebrated a generational throwback.

This year's edition saw facelifts to the Carl Cox, World and Main stages, though the names that lit marquees were long-standing Ultra favorites. Three things are certain in life; death, taxes and Tiesto playing Ultra. The Dutch DJ debuted five new tracks, while The Chainsmokers brought a bass-riddled sound to rival its earliest sets. OG headliner Rabbit in the Moon took UMF full-circle at the live stage, while the secret guest closer was anything but a surprise. Swedish House Mafia is perhaps Ultra's most famous star, having bookended its three-year career with UMF main stage performances.

Until the moment three figures emerged under the bright lights, there were whispers in the crowd that it might be elusive French duo Daft Punk. But this weekend, Ultra wasn't so much gunning for a shocking new storyline in 2018 as it was highlighting its accomplishments and triumphs of the past.

In 20 years, Ultra has survived growing pains and changing trends to go from dance scene upstart to industry pace setter. The crowd is more stripped down and the stages more souped up. Surprise guests have become routine and blinding pyrotechnics expected, but there's yet something magical about its flag-waving masses that travel the world to take part in this vibrant carnival.

As it closed the chapter on its second decade with what was essentially an exciting (though expected) rerun, it begs the question; in what direction does Ultra now grow? No one can tell the future, but with such a storied past as a road map, Ultra should be anything but lost.

ART

Content Courtesy of: artnews.com/

Written by: Barbara Pollack

Willem de Kooning, Untitled XII, 1975, at Lévy Gorvy’s booth.

COURTESY BY: ART BASEL

The eighth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong opened to select guests last month with a bang—a $35 million bang.

Within the first hours of the VIP preview, Lévy Gorvy Gallery, which has outposts in New York and London, sold Willem de Kooning’s abstract painting Untitled XII, 1975, consigned from tech billionaire (and ARTnews“Top 200” collector) Paul Allen for $35 million to a private collector—so private the gallery would not even disclose whether the person was from Asia, Europe, or the United States. According to Dominique Lévy, the gallery had been in discussions with the buyer for some time, but he came to Art Basel Hong Kong to confirm his interest and the sale was finalized.

That big-ticket sale was one sign of a fair that has matured into an art-market powerhouse.

“I think the energy here is different this year,” Lévy said. “There is a wider range of people coming from everywhere and I think the fair is much better organized and much more sophisticated.  The galleries are making a much bigger effort. In the first few years, people brought things that were second rate, but in the last two years, people have been really stepping up.”

The de Kooning was her way of stepping up—a painting you would be more used to seeing at the 48-year old mothership fair Art Basel in Switzerland in June. “We wanted to bring a painting that no one had seen,” Lévy said, “that was fresh to the market and sort of show honor and respect because there is an extraordinary group of collectors here and they deserve to have the best.”

Art Basel Hong Kong’s director, Adeline Ooi, agreed that the fair has entered a new phase.

“I’ve only been here four years and I would never have thought that something would sell in that price range when I started my work here,” Ooi said. “But here we are four years later. You know how time changes in Asia and everything is accelerated here.”

The booth of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, of New York and Rome, with Mark Handforth’s Dog Star (2018) at front.

COURTESY  BY: ART BASEL

New Galleries

If people didn’t look quite as jet-lagged as in past years at the VIP preview, it was likely because they’d flown into Hong Kong a day earlier, for gallery openings on Monday night, including the new gallery building at H Queens on Queens Road, where David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth opened for the first time in Asia, joined by Pearl Lam, Tang Contemporary, Ora Ora, and Pace, which already had a small gallery in the city.

Pace had a successful opening day at the fair, selling Yoshitomo Nara’s In the White Room, a 2003 work on paper, for $750,000, Zhang Xiaogang’s brand new painting The Boy Standing on a Chair for $300,000, and Qiu Xiaofei’s work Willow Field No. 3 (2017) for $160,000, among many other pieces at lower price points.

This year marks Pace’s tenth year in China. The gallery opened a huge space in Beijing’s 798 gallery district in 2008.

“This year Beijing business is normal, in keeping with previous years,” said Pace’s Asia president, Leng Lin, who runs the outpost in the capital city. “It developed, but the speed cannot compare with that in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the fastest development. Pace now has two galleries [here] so you can judge the amount of business at this moment.”

Pace’s president, Marc Glimcher, was on hand for Art Basel, and the opening of his second Hong Kong space.

“Western collectors are too slow,” Glimcher said. “They can’t keep up. Mostly it’s been Chinese collectors so far. Hong Kong is a meeting place. It’s a place where people who do this—curators, writers, collectors—want to be.”

Oscar Murillo’s día mundial de las aves migratorias (2017–18), which David Zwirner sold for $400,000

COURTESY BY: THE ARTIST AND DAVID ZWIRNER

Chinese Collectors, International Artists

David Zwirner, also celebrating his Hong Kong gallery opening, had a major display of work by Jeff Koons in his booth,  including paintings with blue mirrored balls and a trio of sculptures with prices ranging from $2.5 million to $8.5 million, including an artist’s proof of Swan (Inflatable), 2011–15. Koons himself was on hand, hamming it up for a very well-attended photo-call. The gallery also had works by Oscar Murillo, Luc Tuymans, Sigmar Polke, and Josh Smith, a recent addition to the Zwirner stable.

Zwirner’s new Hong Kong gallery is headed up by dealer Leo Xu, who closed his own gallery in Shanghai to join Zwirner.

“I’m sad to lose my gallery, but I’m happy about my future,” Xu said.

Asked what was the gallery’s strategy for bringing works to the fair, he said, “We will bring works that will respond to the current context of this region and try to deepen the conversation. The context has to do with the complexity of Asian culture, Asian countries and identities, but also, there’s a learning curve from the local audience. We are very much interested in that and speaking to a learning audience.”

Indeed, this year Chinese buyers seem particularly open to investing in works by international artists, something that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

Hauser & Wirth sold out its entire show of Mark Bradford paintings at its inaugural exhibition at its new space in H Queens. Success followed the next day at the fair with sales including Paul McCarthy’s WS, White Snow Flower Girl #2, for $575,000, and a piece by Takesada Matsutani for $85,000, both to an Asian Foundation. McCarthy is having a major exhibition of 47 videos at M Woods Museum in Beijing, including his provocative Snow White, shown two years ago at New York’s Seventh Regiment Armory. This will be his first show in China; getting it past the censors is probably the result of the savviness of the museum’s founders, Wanwan Lei, Lin Han, and Michael Xufu Huang. “The show in Beijing will really explain the depth of McCarthy’s work to an audience that might have only heard about him,” Iwan Wirth, the gallery’s co-founder, said. McCarthy, who had attended his opening in Beijing, was present at the fair.

“We’ve been coming to China ever since the fair opened but we have been busy in mainland China for almost two decades,” said Wirth, who has been representing Shanghai artist Zhang Enli for more than 15 years.

On opening the new gallery in Hong Kong, Wirth said, “A few things came together. And when the stars aligned, we didn’t hesitate. We signed a lease and, within two months, we renovated the space, and now we are open.”

“This year there’s more of everything at ABHK,” he added. Hauser & Wirth also sold a piece by Rashid Johnson to a collection in Hong Kong for $215,000. “More Western collectors but more Asian buyers as well,” he said. “Major sales and lots of energy for all the work we brought.”

Liu Wei, 180 Faces (detail of work in 10 parts), 2017–18.

COURTESY BY: THE ARTIST AND SEAN KELLY

New York gallerist Sean Kelly also seemed happy on VIP preview day.

“It’s too early to tell, but it seems like there are a lot more Western people here than we’ve seen in previous years,” Kelly said. “It certainly feels very good. I’m optimistic about it.”

Kelly’s booth attracted major interest from a foundation and a museum for the modest sized paintings of faces by Liu Wei, who will be having a show of 180 of them at the gallery in New York in May.  The works were shown together at the Ullens Center in Beijing this past year.  They are being sold in groups of ten for $250,000. Large-scale paintings by the artist rarely come on the primary market but at auction can bring anywhere from $450,000 to several million, according to the gallery.

A Strong Showing by Asian Galleries

A veteran of Art Basel Hong Kong, Chinese dealer Pearl Lam brought paintings by Zhu Jinshi, who also shows with American gallery Blum & Poe, in the $250,000 price range, plus a trio of paper sculptures from the 1990s priced between $50,000 and $90,000. Beijing’s Long March space devoted its booth to a retrospective of works by Yu Hong, from the early 1990s to this year.  One painting, A New Century (2017), measuring about 8 feet by 30 feet, is slated for the artist’s solo show at Shanghai’s Long Museum later this year.

Shanghai gallery Antenna Space mixed recent paintings by Allison Katz with paintings by Zhou Siwei priced from $12,000 to $15,000, and there was already a reserve on a painting by young painter Cheng Xinyi who lives in Paris. Antenna also had two sculptures by Guan Xiao, who recently had a solo exhibition at ICA London, selling for $23,000 each.

“They are very reasonably priced because we work with younger artists,” said Antenna Space’s director, Simon Wang. With Leo Xu closed, Antenna is now the most influential young gallery in Shanghai. “We had a few reserves and I’m sure they will confirm by the end of the day,” Wang said. “Collectors were interested in everything in the booth.”

Beijing Commune was showing a video by Song Ta, currently in the New Museum Triennial in New York, at $23,000, and cyanotypes of pin-up girls from 1970s magazines, forbidden in China at the time but smuggled in from Japan, for $8,000 apiece. Todd Smith, director of the Orange County Museum of Art in California, was eyeing them, as well as a video installation of Zhang Pelli at Boers Li Gallery for $50,000.

“This year, there’s a lot of new and exciting work that I haven’t seen at other fairs, and the quality is as strong as I’ve seen it,” Smith said. “I am interested in seeing the work that we haven’t seen stateside and work that helps our collection, which is pan-Asian, and being exposed to artists who have not had much exposure in the States yet.”

Other museum professionals at the fair included Guggenheim Museum senior curator Alexandra Munroe with a group of museum patrons, Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, and MoMA PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach.

Jeffrey Deitch was also seen wandering around the fair, spreading word that Ai Weiwei will be the opening show at his new Los Angeles gallery.

Summing up her fair’s VIP preview, Adeline Ooi, the fair’s director, said, “I honestly feel that the dialogue between art from Asia and the rest of the world has come together this year. I enjoy the convergence and the overlaps. Art Basel Hong Kong is a great way to see the world differently.”

FASHION

Content Courtesy of: wwd.com

Written by: Tiffany Ap

HONG KONG — The weeks between Christmas and Chinese New Year are a sort of business and social limbo. With the two holidays being such key occasions and both offering a week off for weary city-dwellers, brands tend to lie quiet as Hong Kong hovers in vacation mode.

But in March, the energy of the city fully transforms as Art Basel rolls into town, bringing with it a high-flying crowd that the fashion world is more than happy to tap into. With an exceptionally high concentration of the wealthy milling about — a Willem de Kooning piece sold for $35 million within hours of the fair opening — brands didn’t miss an opportunity to show off their arty side, with Dior, Cos, Louis Vuitton, Moda Operandi and others putting on all manner of art installations, talks, dinners and parties.

On March 19, Porter magazine got things going by hosting a chat at the Upper House. Executive brand editor Sarah Bailey moderated the panel focusing on “Incredible Women in Art,” before taking the crowd to the beachside in Repulse Bay for dinner, which saw French actress Ana Girardot and designer Vivienne Tam among the guests.

Inspired by Keith Haring, Coach hosted an art walk in Wan Chai’s Lee Tung Avenue, and watch brand Audemars Piguet, as an official sponsor of Basel, hosted its annual bash. Louis Vuitton, meanwhile, invited architect Andre Fu for its “Objets Nomades” exhibition, a series of travel-related items.

There was also the amfAR gala, which this year featured performances from Kylie Minogue and Tove Lo, while honoring the artist Kaws, although it was appearances from Aussie stunners Shanina Shaik and Liam Hemsworth, which seemed to have the ballroom buzzing.

Liu Chih Hung working on his rendition of the Lady Dior bag.  

---

In Shanghai, Dior has been busy staging a couture show and the release of a new art book, but in Hong Kong, the French house situated itself on the third floor of the Basel fair for its Lady Dior exhibition, where more than 30 different takes of its signature bag were on display, using materials from glass to wood and even pheasant feathers. Taiwanese artist Liu Chih-Hung was one of the new artists the brand tapped, using rusted metals and lights in a throwback to the mosquito-lanterns of his childhood.

“The idea comes from the mosquito-catcher which is very common in Asia. You see the light? It’s used to catch mosquitos and other insects, it’s similar to a luxury product, attracting the gaze of shoppers,” Liu explained.

At Art Central, a fair focusing on more affordable artworks, Off-White and Jimmy Choo took over a corner for a “floral guerilla moment” in an exhibition titled “Hand & Rose.” Created by artists Sarah Lineberger and Awol Erizku, the two juxtaposed a truck in the backdrop with bright flowers erupting all around it, with viewers able to take away custom bouquets until April 1.

The satellite fair also worked with Lane Crawford for its art program enabling people to create their own digital masterpiece using motifs from cult graphic design art duo Craig & Karl. And although not explicitly doing an art theme, Jil Sander’s Lucie and Luke Meier were also passing through town — entertaining at a cocktail and dinner to celebrate their collaboration with Joyce.

MARKETING AND BRANDS

Content Courtesy of: adage.com

Written by: Adrianne Pasquarelli

LULULEMON STRETCHES DIGITAL MARKETING WINGS, SEES SUCCESS

A scene from Lululemon's recent campaign.

Credit by: Lululemon

Despite the sudden exit of its CEO, Lululemon Athletica is seeing sales success thanks to a focus on digital improvements and brand marketing. The Canadian yogawear marketer reported an 18 percent increase in fourth-quarter net revenue to $928.8 million, along with a 12 percent increase in comparable sales.

Net income in the fourth quarter was $120 million, down 11 percent from the year-earlier period.

But after relaunching its website at the end of the third quarter, just before the start of the holiday shopping season last year, Lululemon saw a 42 percent lift in e-commerce revenue compared to the fourth quarter of 2016. The chain also doubled its email subscribers in 2017, executives said.

"We're getting smarter in how we're being able to engage our guests via email and other social media," said Stuart Haselden, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, on a conference call Tuesday evening.

The sales uptick comes on the heels of the February departure of Laurent Potdevin, who was CEO for four years and left for a failure to meet "standards of conduct," according to the company. Celeste Burgoyne, a 12-year Lululemon veteran and executive VP for the Americas, was assigned to oversee brand marketing when Potdevin departed.

Oliver Chen, a retail analyst at Cowen & Co., said in a research note that Lululemon's new site included better content, storytelling and product imagery. "We agree that the majority of the momentum generated by Lulu during 4Q and extending into 1Q is being driven by exceptional product innovation, a solid omnichannel strategy with an improved website, and investments in marketing," wrote Chen.

Yet analysts are still concerned about the open CEO role. Glenn Murphy, executive chairman, said Tuesday that the brand has met with candidates to fill it.

"While there are a number of initiatives in place to drive sustained growth, we view the risk/reward as balanced, particularly without a CEO in place," wrote Canaccord Genuity consumer analyst Camilo Lyon in a recent research report. "While Lulu appears to be hitting on all cylinders, we can't ignore the fact that at least once per year since 2014, it has hit a speed bump that has derailed its momentum and caused it to lower guidance."

Indeed, beginning with the sheer-pants debacle of 2013, Lululemon has had a history of challenges including lackluster product, excess inventory and increased competition. Lululemon increased selling, general and administrative expenses by $42.2 million last year, primarily driven by the digital marketing push, according to financial documents, and debuted its first global campaign in 2017 with "This is Yoga."

~ ~ ~ CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misidentified the Lululemon CEO who left in February as Laurence Potdevin. His first name is Laurent.

Adrianne Pasquarelli

A reporter with Ad Age since 2015, Adrianne Pasquarelli covers the marketing strategies of retailers and financial institutions. She joined Ad Age after a dozen years of writing for Crain's New York Business, where she also focused on the retail industry. Over the course of her career, she has won awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the National Association of Real Estate Editors and the Jesse H. Neal Awards.

HOSPITALITY 

Content Courtesy of: wsj.com

Written by: Chris Kirkham and Kate O’Keeffe

Steve Wynn Sheds Entire Stake in Casino Giant He Co-Founded

Sale is final step in exit after female employees made allegations of sexual misconduct against former CEO

Steve Wynn sold his entire stake in Wynn Resorts Ltd. on Wednesday and Thursday, the company said, the final step in a dramatic exit after female employees made allegations of sexual misconduct against the casino giant’s co-founder.

The sale of $2.1 billion worth of stock over two days followed a series of moves he and the company made in recent weeks to allow Mr. Wynn to untangle himself from the casino corporation amid a series of investigations by state gambling regulators.

 

 

 

 INNOVATION

Content Courtesy of: smithsonianmag.com

Written by: Emily Matchar

Ten Female Innovators to Watch In 2018

These inventors, startup founders and businesswomen have exciting things happening this year. Stay tuned!

We may not yet have a female president, but women are running the show in all kinds of ways. Now that the number of companies with female founders multiplied by eight between 2009 and 2016, these entrepeneurs need a greater share of the venture capital. (Last year, women-led startups only got a tiny fraction of it—we’re talking 2 percent.) Here are 10 innovative women leading the charge, from sustainable energy to women’s health.

 

Alice Zhang

Like several notable innovators before her (think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg), Alice Zhang left a prestigious university to follow her dream. She withdrew from a PhD program at UCLA to launch Verge Genomics, a company that uses machine learning to develop drugs for complex diseases. Verge brings together mathematicians, neuroscientists, computer learning experts and biotech professionals to accelerate understanding of disease and push for novel solutions. Verge is currently focusing on neurodegenerative disorders, and recently announced several public-private partnerships to create massive databases of information on ALS and Parkinson's disease.

"At Verge, we believe that breaking down the barriers that exist between industry, academia, computation and biology is critical to fully realizing the potential of AI in drug discovery," Zhang said, in a press release.

Zhang's work has already been receiving plenty of attention and accolades. In 2012, she received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, given to immigrants and children of immigrants who have made major impacts in their fields. Last year, she was named one of Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30.

Rebecca Kantar

Another dropout making good, Rebecca Kantar left Harvard after two years to launch Imbellus, a company that hopes to bring down standardized testing as we know it. Kantar is interested in developing tests that measure problem-solving ability, not just whether an answer to a specific multiple choice question is right or wrong. The company recently raised $4 in venture capital, and has partnered with CRESST, the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. Kantar and her team hope to begin by creating skill-assessment tests to help job seekers guide their search. Kantar thinks improved assessments could ultimately help improve the entire education system, which in turn could perhaps develop “minds capable of saving humanity from man-made extinction,” as she explains in this 2017 video.

“The SAT and most other assessments have made the mistake of comparing everyone to an average that is no one,” Kantar told Business Insider. “The problem is that grading model doesn’t take context into account. You don’t necessarily need the same set of skills to apply for a job at Goldman Sachs as you need to be successful at the Rhode Island School of Design.”

Alyssa Ravasio

Alyssa Ravasio was just looking for a sweet little patch of Big Sur beachfront to pitch her tent and watch the sunrise. But finding a camping spot was harder than she expected. So Ravasio got the idea for Hipcamp, a search platform for connecting campers with spots. Ravasio attended a 10-week coding bootcamp, developed the site, and launched in 2013. Originally only available in California, the site is now nationwide—and this year it’s poised to go international.

Ravasio and her team see Hipcamp as more than a Hotels.com for campsites. They hope the site can connect campers with the owners of private land willing to allow camping. It’s a potential win-win: campers get a place to sleep and land owners get cash to potentially help conserve their properties.

Zim Ugochukwu

There are thousands upon thousands of travel-focused Instagram accounts. Flip through and you’ll see attractive millennials doing yoga poses in the desert, swimming the cerulean waters of the Mediteranean, sipping wine in sun-dappled vineyards. Almost all of the travelers are white.

Zim Ugochukwu wanted to see more young black people like herself represented in travel media. So in 2013 she founded Travel Noire, a site dedicated to travel stories and tips for people of color. Here you’ll find stories from lists of the best black-owned restaurants in America to essays on what it’s like to travel solo as a Moroccan woman. The site now reaches some two million viewers a month. It earned Ugochukwu, the Minnesota-raised daughter of Nigerian immigrants, a spot on Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list in 2016. Last year, Travel Noire was acquired by the black lifestyle brand Blavity, with Ugochukwu staying on as chief brand officer. Says Fast Company, the acquisition should help turn Blavity into “the go-to site for black millennials looking for travel pointers and recommendations” in coming months and years.

Alisyn Malek

The future, complete with self-driving buses, is here, and Alisyn Malek is one of the people to thank. The co-founder and COO of May Mobility is helping to bring fleets of automous vehicles to the streets of Detroit—and soon, the world. Late last year, the company piloted a self-driving bus service in downtown Detroit, and it plans to launch a permanent service this summer. This makes it the first company of its kind to replace an existing transportation system with a self-driving one.

“Communities everywhere are facing transportation challenges, and we’re ready to solve them with our fully-managed, right-sized microtransit service,” said Malek, an engineer by training who also holds an MBA, in a press release.

The company will be launching other pilot projects in coming months, and recently raised $11.5 million in seed funding, reports Forbes.

Afton Vechery and Carly Leahy

It’s difficult to be a young professional woman and not hear about fertility, whether it’s your mother asking when you’re going to give her grandkids or a news headline insisting your eggs will all be bad by the time you’re 35. What is the truth? If you want kids, how long can you safely wait before trying?

Afton Vechery , a veteran of several startups, and Carly Leahy, who worked in creative strategy at Uber, wondered exactly that. So last year they launched Modern Fertility, a company that allows women to get basic fertility lab tests done simply by dropping by a local lab, making the process cheaper and easier. These tests can help give an indication of how fertile a woman is—though how useful they are is a subject of debate—which can help when making family planning decisions. These are the same tests any woman seeking fertility treatment would likely get as a first step, but at only $149 and without the need to book a doctor’s appointment.

“We spend our lives talking about prevention rather than preparing for pregnancy,” said Leahy, speaking to Venture Beat, noting that the testing is also useful for women who don’t want children. “The concept should be introduced early on, like your pap smear.”

Prerna Gupta

Millennials don’t read? Tell that to Prerna Gupta, the co-founder and CEO of Hooked, an app which claims to be “redefining fiction for the Snapchat generation.” Hooked sends readers short stories in the form of chat messages. You tap the screen for the next message; after 30 messages, the app makes you take a break to build suspense.

The app has topped the Apple and Android charts, breaking some 40 million downloads last year. It’s also attracted some high-profile, somewhat unusual investors (think Snoop Dogg). Expect more and wilder stories from Hooked this year, from tales of strangers on trains to creepy secret admirers to text messages from the dead.

Gupta, a Stanford graduate, grew up the child of Indian immigrants in rural Oklahoma.

“I was an outcast, without any real friends,” she told CNN. “High school was tough for me, and I got into a lot of trouble. What saved me was literature.”

Back in 2008, Jessica Matthews, then a junior at Harvard, was asked as part of an engineering course to develop a product for the developing world. Matthews and her team created the Soccket, a soccer ball that uses the kinetic energy from being kicked to charge a battery. The power could then light a lamp for hours, a boon in places where electricity is scarce. After graduation, Matthews and one of her teammates launched a company, Uncharted Play, to commercialize similar products.

Today, Matthews, a duel U.S.-Nigerian citizen, is founder and CEO of Uncharted Power, a company which looks for kinetic energy solutions to generate clean energy. Projects include a speed bump that stores up the energy generated from being driven over and sidewalk panels that harness energy from people walking on them. The company plans to launch pilot installations of several projects this year.

Sabrina Mutukisna

Young people who have been in foster care have a harder time getting and keeping jobs than those who have grown up in biological families. Sabrina Mutukisna hopes to give them a leg up with her company, The Town Kitchen, which gives former foster kids and once-incarcerated youths culinary training and fair wage jobs.

The startup caters lunch events around the Bay Area, offering boxed lunches prepared by the young people it employs. For ingredients, it contracts with food producers who are female or people of color. It partners with community organizations to help its young workers access housing and education services; many former employees are now in college.

Mutukisna, who has worked in both education reform and the food industry, hopes to take the company nationwide. With options ranging from hot buffets of Burmese food to roast beef wraps with handmade chips, any city would be lucky to taste what The Town Kitchen is cooking.