YouTube NextUp Winners Announced, 25 Creators to Get $35k

YouTube announced the winners of its first ever NextUp Creators contest to identify 25 video creators to make up the network’s inaugural NextUp class. Each of the winning creators will receive $35,000 to help fund future video production as well as attend a 4-day YouTube Creator Camp (also a first) in New York City for “personalized training and mentoring to build their brands and improve their content.”

This is the first major initiative out of the team that came over from the company’s acquisition of NY-based Next New Networks in March. Next New Networks was known to have a 70-page handbook on mastering YouTube that it shared with its creators, though its likely to have some updates now that they have some hands on time with the inner workings of the platform.

Amongst the winning creators are some names Tubefilter readers will recognize like Peter Bragiel (aka pdrop) who created the travel web series In Transit and pitched it at a Tubefilter pitch camp last fall, Josh Sundquist (joshsundquist) who has been on the rise lately, Travis Betz (thereceptionist) who also won Kia’s branded talent search last September, and Matt Koval

The 25 winning creators, all of whom are YouTube partners, range from musicians to comedians to a trick basketball shooters, a makeup artist, a skateboarder and a screencasting Final Cut wizard:

Travis Betz (thereceptionist)
Peter Bragiel (pdrop)
Luke Conrad (lukeconard)
Casey Curtiss (ShotScience)
Radek and Diego Rodrigues (RadekPlus2)
Ingrid (missglamorazzi)
Sheila Ada-Renea Hollins-Jackson (OnyxBeauty1988)
Joel Jutagir (Metro236)
Zach King (FinalCutKing)
Matt Kovalakides (MattKoval)
Kwangsook “Maangchi” Kim (Maangchi)
Sabrina Abu-Obeid and DJ Monopoli (TeraBrite)
Ethan Newberry (TheSampler)
Bryan Odell (BryanStars)
Franchesca Leigh Ramsey (chescaleigh)
Richard Ryan (RATEDRR)
Lisa Schwartz (lisbug)
Constance (“Stan”) Kowtna (SaraTheFilm)
Josh Sundquist (joshsundquist)
Meghan (Strawburry17)
Meghan Tonjes (tonjesml)
J. Brent Coble (ItsBrent)
Matt Giudice (stonebreakers10)
Jimmy Wong (Jimmy)
(TheCraftyGemini)

Each of the winning creators were acked to create a little video intro of themselves, here are some of them, while the full 25 are on the NextUp Creators channel: