Anyone remember the Whitney Houston song, “The Greatest Love of All”? (Remind me to tell you about the time I sang it for a middle school talent show…and lost). 😬 Trite though it may be, one stanza focuses on a common belief that “the children are our future.” While we might roll our eyes or laughingly recall moments of enthusiastic moms cheering on their children (we ALL get a trophy!), in many ways, this sentiment is true. Literally, it’s today’s children that will be tomorrow’s leaders. Thankfully, there are many organizations that fully invest in this notion and have begun programs investing in the future.

My first client as a solo project manager was with one such organization: the Chief Science Officers, an initiative under SciTech Institute. Many of you may know that my favorite thing (besides re-organizing a cabinet so that all the coffee mugs and thermoses are arranged by height, color, and material) is working with students.

Just last week I got to sit down with one of my former students at Starbucks as she updated me about her life, which now includes being in the Army Reserves and attending college. Since I taught her in 7th and 8th grade, I was so excited to share in her successes and proud of all she has and is working to accomplish. Plus, as an educator, there’s always a feeling of pride when those you taught still want to talk to you, hahaha.

Today, I had a virtual meetup with one of the CSOs I met while working on Youth STEM Congress, the event I managed and led logistics on for SciTech. We chatted for at least an hour - and even made a plan to meet up weekly - so I feel great about myself. I’m like one of the cool kids now, right?

Ahem, back to the topic at hand. The 2024 Changemakers in STEM Virtual Youth Congress was an important, fulfilling, and interesting opportunity in several ways. 

The future is taken care of y’all. This event captured the thoughts, plans, and experiences of more than 300 students from around the world, and the amount of creativity and enthusiasm for using STEM to solve social challenges such as sustainable living and the responsible use of AI, while collaborating alongside peers from different backgrounds was nothing short of beautiful and inspiring. There were plans to start a community fridge so that food insecurity would no longer be an issue; creating a student-friendly website regarding job resources, openings, and more to improve the school-to-work pipeline, especially for those who perhaps chose not to attend college; and hosting a community workshop teaching people how to create reusable water bottles, thereby cutting down the use of plastic.“Sit” in a room of 5-8 kids who’ve been working over the last 3 months, (joining 3 Saturday calls and then independently finding time to develop a community service project for each of their different locations), as they pitch their idea to you, and it’s amazingly simple to recall certain lyrics of Whitney Houston’s song and become immediately hopeful about the state of the world. 

"I believe the children are our future

Teach them well and let them lead the way

Show them all the beauty they possess inside

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier

Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be"

We’ve taught them well, and I’m so grateful to watch as they lead the way.