3 Lessons from the Next Generation of Changemakers

Since 2022, the YouthMADE Festival (Youth Making, Activism, Art and Design in Education) has invited youth, educators, advocates, and organizations all over the world to celebrate youth creativity and innovation. During this year’s festival, we celebrated several student teams who received a $3,000 Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award to sustain and scale their student-led projects.

The Ciena Solutions Challenge student panel featured a group of brilliant young leaders dedicated to creating community-based solutions. The students shared meaningful reflections on their individual paths, offering vital lessons for students working toward meaningful change.

Students spoke about the reality that overcoming roadblocks and mastering new skills takes time and patience. Whether they were learning how to code from scratch, deciphering complex data and statistics, or figuring out how to coordinate a team, nothing came instantly, and their projects required learning new things and tapping on community members for help.

“We have no background in creating a website,” said Justine D., a student from Laguna, The Philippines “We started from scratch. We had to learn everything one step at a time, but it was a process that required time; it cannot be done overnight. At the end of the day it was worth it because we learned and we can further improve it in upcoming years.”

Students emphasized that their technical solutions should serve people, not the other way around. Whether leveraging basic digital tools or building low-cost artificial intelligence (AI), their team’s innovative ideas were driven entirely by accessibility, inclusion, and having empathy for their local communities.

Udita L., a student from West Bengal, India, spoke about her proudest moment while working on using AI to help enable early oral cancer detection in communities with limited medical infrastructure: “A proud moment for me is when we surveyed our community. The trust, the relationship we’ve built with them is more precious than anything. Talking to them, explaining these things to them, and seeing a smile on their face is precious, because at the end of the day, the most important thing out of any project, out of any scientific invention, is how you can help people. Everything we’re doing is for humanity at the end of it all,” she said.

Putting forth a new idea to the world is no small feat. Panelists reflected on their wins and proudest moments during their project journeys, and each shared a similar sentiment: remembering to pause and celebrate the wins. Whether their action concept was fully realized or they were able to get positive feedback in real-time from their communities about their innovative ideas, youth creativity is not only powered by their ideas and efforts but also by taking the time to pause and reflect on the wins they did experience so that they can continue to feel inspired to keep creating.

“The most exciting moment was when we successfully generated the electricity from the fruit waste and worked along with the air purifier, which shows that our idea could both produce energy and contribute to a cleaner environment,” said Anvi S., a student from Punjab, India, whose project addressed air quality and responsible waste management. “It made our efforts feel truly worthwhile.”

“Our proudest moment was being on Fox News presenting my project to so many people…which hopefully being featured on TV can help solve many different problems in our world,” said Brandon Q., a student from California, United States.

The Ciena Solutions Challenge panels were a fantastic way for students to showcase their projects and connect with peers around the world, while inspiring and motivating attendees to take action locally.

To hear and watch insights from the teams who participated in the Ciena Solutions Challenge panels, watch the recordings in our 2026 YouthMADE Festival playlist.

Visit the Ciena Solutions Challenge Gallery to learn more about all of the student projects. Educators can register to learn more about the next round of the Ciena Solutions Challenge, which opens in September 2026.

To stay connected, sign up for the YouthMADE Festival newsletter and follow @YouthMADEFestival on Instagram for updates, upcoming events, and more!