Porte Global

Ruhaan is a student at Vanderbilt University who grew up in Dubai. His project didn’t begin as a career move, it began with a family conversation.

His grandmother and mother were the first people to suggest turning his love for sketching and pop art into something tangible. Around the same time, Dubai was entering its Year of Sustainability, banning plastic bags and rolling out city-wide awareness campaigns ahead of COP28. Everywhere he looked, companies were shifting toward greener practices.

The idea clicked:
“Tote bags are something people use unanimously—they’re everywhere. How can I make a change with something I love doing?”

Read about Ruhaan’s entire journey in our link in bio!

Celine didn’t set out to start a nonprofit. She set out to respond to the inequities she was witnessing around her. What began as frustration during distance learning turned into action through late nights on a Google Doc and virtual organizing with other young leaders who shared the same urgency.

That effort became The Reclamation Project, a 100% youth-run grassroots social justice organization dedicated to empowering trauma and system-impacted youth.

Since 2020, her leadership as Executive Director has mobilized 270,000+ community members, launched 280+ initiatives, grown a network of 2,000+ youth mentees, 175+ organizational partners, and 250+ volunteers across her home state and globally.

Read her full story in our bio!

in the middle of her freshman year of high school, Margarita watched from afar as her homeland was pulled into war. She was just 14 years old—but the moment wasn’t lost on her.

“I remember watching everything unfold on the news,” she said. “There were already so many organizations sending short-term aid. But I wanted to create something long-term. Something that could rebuild Armenia’s future from the ground up.”

That “something” became Armenian Youth Education Aid (AYEA)—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on expanding education access in Armenia’s rural and border communities. Since launching, AYEA has raised over $50,000 and supported a wide range of grassroots initiatives.

Read about her whole project in our bio!

Bruno didn’t expect debate to change his direction.
In middle school, he tried just about everything—art, sports, clubs—but nothing really stuck. Then, he stumbled into his school’s small debate program.

By the time high school returned to in-person learning after COVID, Bruno knew debate wasn’t just another activity. That curiosity eventually led him to launch Start With SPAR, a program designed to make debate accessible for students who might otherwise never try it.

Watch his whole interview in our bio!

At seven years old, Lexie Scibilia put together her first care package for a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer.

She wasn’t sure if it would make a difference—until her friend’s mom told her the gift had made her daughter smile for the first time in weeks.

That moment stuck with Lexie. Years later, she discovered Cancer Kids First—a youth-led nonprofit founded by Olivia Zhang that brings care, joy, and a sense of normalcy to pediatric cancer patients—and everything clicked.

Now a rising junior at Villanova University, Lexie serves as Chapter Director of Cancer Kids First, supporting 120+ chapters and over 40,000 volunteers across 80 countries.

Read her interview and see how you can join Cancer Kids First in our bio!

Malaika founded Empower With Literacy, a global youth-led nonprofit that has already reached more than 24,000 youth across 13+ countries. 

From tutoring Nigerian girls who’ve been told school isn’t for them, to teaching women in Asia how to run their own small businesses, Malaika has turned personal pain into global purpose.

Watch her interview in our bio!

Watch Sophie’s (UPenn) full interview in our bio! We post weekly features & frameworks from students attending Top 20 Colleges on our newsletter.

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Carolyn He (incoming at Stanford University) founded “A Sustainable Future” (ASF) to help schools across the U.S. cut down on paper waste and shift toward more mindful, sustainable systems. Her mission began with a simple question: why do schools still print so much when tech alternatives already exist?

Since then, “ASF” has saved schools over 21,000,000+ sheets of paper, tailored its curriculum to the needs of 90+ campuses, and equipped a new generation of students to lead environmental change in their own communities.

Learn how she built this initiative from the ground up in our bio, & follow for more!

Siyeon was never great at STEM. In fact, growing up, her report cards said she was “below average” in science and math.

But by senior year, she turned a literature review on algae in space into a full-fledged astrobiology experiment. By senior year, she had lived solo in Chicago to research how smoking alters gene expression & anti-cancer research.

Want to learn how she did it? Watch her interview in our bio