Hi Everyone! A few weeks ago, I attended the European Education & Sustainability Leadership Summit in the Netherlands. At the end of the summit, there was this activity where students from various schools are required to quickly brainstorm proposals and commitments for sustainability projects. To be honest, most of the project ideas that we came up with in 2 hours do not look promising and will not probably never work out; rather, the exercise felt more like a form of self-assurance. As a result, for our group project of UWC Maastricht, we identified our problem statement as: "Most student-led projects fail". We highlighted the problem briefly covered possible reasons. I made a concluding note, reminding every one of the difficulty of making true impact in the context of student projects. You can find my script and main points here on my personal website. Reflecting on this, I realized it echoes a broader issue I've consistently observed during my UWC experience: Most student-led projects fail. Being at two UWC Schools for nearly two years, I have both seen and been part of numerous student projects -- yet most of them are done merely to satisfy school requirements, or pad college applications. Not to deny that quite a few are indeed working great -- a lot of themare turned into regular activities like organizing a TedEx, a conference, or volunteering to teach in rural areas. However, beside from the fact that it could be hard to measure the true impacts of these projects, I still felt like something is missing -- is that what all we as UWC students can achieve? Yet at the same time, I've encountered quite a few genuinely inspiring ideas from passionate peers, who are actively thinking of solutions to community problems, or dreaming of changing the world. Unfortunately, limited resources, IB pressures, or lack of targeted support often prevent these promising projects from realizing their full potential. The lack of cross-campus communication also make isolated student projects hard to reach one another and prevent oppotunities for collaboration and scaling. I truly believe it is a pity that certain student projects do not get the support to flourish, while lots of them are using resources that are wasted. This is not just a loss for individual students, but missed (and wasted) opportunities for the entire UWC movement. From a larger picture, I believe that student projects are the ultimate "outputs" of this global education movement called UWC -- we put all kinds of funding and resources in, just so we want to see great projects and change-makers coming out, through the empowerment of education. In this sense, the achievement of student projects measures the achievement of the UWC movement. As a result, I have been constaly thinking about what can we do. What is it that we are lacking or that is obstructing student projects from working out? For now, I came to believe that important skills such as system thinking, management, complex problem-solving are entirely missing in our curriculum, and students are not equipped by the outdated IB curriculum with the right mindset and thinking tools to identify problem and effectively solving them. However, while it could be hard to tackle from the curriculm aspect, this is I've been thinking': simlar to Y Combinator -- the startup accelerator, imagine a project accelerator for UWC students -- one that pool our network's expertise to help students turn their ideas into fully-working and impactful project, and facilitating them in creating greater and lasing impact. This is just one rudimentary idea, and I don't yet have a solution to all the problems I raised. But still, I would love to share my thinking with you using this wonderful yet relatively under-utilized platform. Everything above was based on my personal experience and observations, and only reflects my personal perspective. I am open to any feedback or alternative stories. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you think. Let's discuss what can we do together to make UWC not just two years of school but a truly empowering and effective education movement with impactful outcomes to the world.