Meet the Carnegie Young Leaders Making Change Right Now

We’re proud to introduce the first class of Carnegie Young Leaders—100 teams of young people, ages 14–24, from 27 states and D.C., who are building real-world solutions to urgent issues in the communities they know best. Meet a few of the team leads and hear about their projects in their own words.

David Jen, 18, Pennington, NJ

Project: Learn AAPI History Project

Problem, Meet Solution: David’s team is increasing access to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history education by creating student-friendly AAPI history resources, hosting workshops, and advocating for school curriculum reform.

Check out the Learn AAPI History website to learn more about their work.

“We came up with the idea after the pandemic, when we saw a rise in hatred towards the Asian American community. That ended up affecting my family and my community personally and I felt like I had to make a change. We were trying to find the root cause of the problem and it really led back to education or the lack thereof – the lack of talking about Asian Americans in the classroom and how there has been racism throughout the years towards our community.”

Patricia Mathu, 25, Sheldon, IL

Project: Iroquois County Community Dinner

Problem, Meet Solution: Patricia’s team is hosting community meals and bipartisan conversations to spark conversation about the future of food systems in Illinois.

“One thing that makes my project special is there’s a lot of people behind it supporting it. In addition to the five of us on the team, there’s other people that are involved in the farm that I live on. There’s community members that support us and we’re in network with and we have mentors that support our personal and professional trajectories.”

“It’s nice to be connected to other young leaders. Our country is really big and wide and so it’s helpful to meet with all these different youths that have pulses on really different community things and to learn from each other.”

Imre Huss, 17, Cleveland, OH

Project: Govvy: The Future of Youth Civic Engagement in Northeast Ohio

Problem, Meet Solution: Imre’s team is developing and deploying Govvy, a digital civic engagement platform that makes local government more accessible to young people through mobile-first design, AI-powered bill summaries, and integrated civic education tools.

“I’ve done a lot of work in the depolarization space and seeing how we’ve been using technology to better connect people across divides has been really impactful. Looking at my community, [I thought] that maybe we can use technology here. I think we’re entering this period where AI is making technological solutions way more accessible. We can work with high school and college students who have some experience to leverage AI to develop these platforms that can have a big impact on our community.”

Delnaz Kazemi, 20, Oklahoma City, OK

Project: Improving Civic Engagement and Education Through the Incorporation of Media Literacy

Problem, Meet Solution: Delnaz’s team seeks to address the lack of knowledge that young people have surrounding mis-and disinformation, specifically around the topic of politics and elections, by creating an 8-week long virtual program for high school students.

“…Near the 2020 US election, I was noticing how people were being influenced by false things online, whether it’s Facebook, TikTok or Instagram. And I knew immediately that was super harmful to democracy and I wanted to do something about it, but I didn’t know what. So I was brainstorming and to put it shortly, there was a girl on a program that I was on, unrelated. She also mentioned that she was interested, and I immediately jumped up and said, ‘Let’s figure something out.’ And so we did.”

Angela Li, 17, Tustin, CA

Project: Canvas the Vote

Problem, Meet Solution: Angela’s team is addressing the lack of accessible civic education and political participation support among youth through artistic expression.

“I think our project is special because we’re also focused on voter education and getting voter registration, but we’re trying to integrate that with art, so in this way, we’re kind of making the process interactive. Most of the time, I know students don’t want to hear, like, boring facts or sit through workshops, so we try to do art fairs and events and partnering with lyric magazines for contests. I think this way, people have incentive to go and come to our events.”

Kimberly Sipanela, 22, Greenwood, SC

Project: Bearcat Drop Shop and Tax Workshop

Problem, Meet Solution: Kimberly’s team is collecting gently used dorm items from students at Lander University and donating them to students in need, helping reduce cycles of waste. They also aim to create a safe space for international students to learn about tax filing who need additional support.

“My team is mostly international students and some American students, so we just want to have a collaborative space for a lot of people from different cultures. College is hard and not everybody has the funds to manage being in college. So we want to just help other people with that because we’ve been through that and we know how it looks.”

Shambhavi Sinha, 15, San Marcos, TX

Project: Breathe Well Campaign

Problem, Meet Solution: Shambhavi’s team is improving air quality in vulnerable communities by distributing  “Breathe Well Bags,” donating air purifiers, and providing multilingual resources.

“My background is really important for this project because I have asthma. When I was younger, I had to use a nebulizer just to be able to breathe because the air quality was so bad. That made me want to start working towards fixing this issue. I saw Carnegie Young Leaders, and I was like, wow, this opportunity is so perfect for me to actually implement this in my community.” 

Nyra Govan, 24, Saint George, SC

Project: A Town of Friendly People Getting Back the Basics

Problem, Meet Solution: Nyra’s team is leading a health movement to promote physical activity and well-being in their rural community.

“I’m really passionate about getting people in my hometown physically active. I know there’s a lot of issues when it comes to people dying from curable diseases and so I want more people to be proactive. I really want our communities to look at how urban designs are needed to enhance their environment when it comes to building more sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike lanes.”

Ashleigh McKenna, 24, Lancaster, PA

Project: New Voters

Problem, Meet Solution: New Voters will expand their voter registration resources to include a political discussion toolkit that trains high school students on how to effectively navigate bias in the media and conversations with their peers.

Check out the New Voters website to learn more about their work.

“New Voters works in three arms. We have coalition building, research network, and then our bread and butter, which is our voter registration drive. So we really try to look at voter registration holistically and include everyone who may or may not already be civically engaged to make sure we’re reaching every high school. […] We want this to be something that’s not necessarily part of the curriculum, but part of the overall education and experience of being in high school.”

“The Carnegie Young Leaders fellowship has already opened so many doors through partnerships, through keynote speakers. I’m learning so much and connecting with so many young people who have brilliant ideas.”