Steven Gonzalez
The Survivor Games
Founder CEO
Steven Gonzalez, founder of The Survivor Games, was diagnosed with AML Leukemia at 12 years old and given a 2% chance of survival. Though he had the best medical care (and most supportive family) in the world, video games were the only thing that helped him bridge the social isolation between him and his peers. As a result he created a video game at 13, distributed donated games to hospitals as an Eagle Scout, and at 17 did a TEDx talk and started writing for the Huffington Post. He's already been written up in Polygon and Mashable. He’s now a healthy, thriving college sophomore at the University of North Texas and founder of his own nonprofit working to ensure that no teen survivor will ever have to endure cancer alone.