Leading the Way from a Young Age

Quan Hongchan, 16, China

Anyone with even a passing interest in the Olympics will have heard about Quan Hongchan, the (at the time) 14-year old diver from China. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, Hongchan was the youngest member of China’s contingent and she became a viral sensation in her home country after winning gold in the individual 10-metre platform event. 

Living in Guangdong in southern China, Hongchan was scouted for diving while playing hopscotch at just seven years old. She has had to deal with instant celebrity status, with her small village becoming an overnight tourist attraction. However, this hasn’t derailed her diving career, which has seen her go from strength to strength; though it is difficult to top a gold-medal winning performance at your first Olympics! In September 2021, Hongchan helped her province to win two golds at the China National Games in Xi’an and, last summer, she competed at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest and again took the gold, this time with fellow teenager Chen Yuxi (who won the silver medal in Tokyo) in the 10-metre synchronised dive. Hongchan is already preparing for the 2024 Olympic games in Paris, and we can’t want to see what she achieves.

Gitanjali Rao, 17, US

Gitanjali Rao makes me want to quit my job and become an inventor. Her passion for science and the ways in which it can make the world a better place is so inspiring. Based in Denver, Colorado, Rao was TIME magazine’s first ever ‘Kid of the Year’ at fifteen years old. She has also been recognised as America’s Top Young Scientist for her innovations and in the Forbes 30 Under 30 for her community service. Serving the community is certainly something that Rao takes seriously. Her inventions themselves have this idea at the heart of them, from helping people to access safe drinking water with her device, Tethys, that detects lead in water based on carbon nanotube sensor technology (yes, we don’t know what that means either) to an anti-cyberbullying service based on AI/Machine Learning.

Aside from the actual research and development, Rao is also an author, fencer, social activist and STEM promoter. She has inspired over 40,000 students globally by sharing her process and tools in weekly innovation sessions, and has now condensed this knowledge into a book; A Young Innovator’s Guide to STEM. Rao herself was first inspired by a chemistry set she received from her uncle when she was around four years old, and for someone still so young, she understands the importance of giving time to her passions and ensuring she stays motivated and excited by her work. Her current projects include finding a solution for opioid addiction and she hopes to eventually study genetics combined with computer science and product design. 

Mehliya Cetinkaya, 17, Canada

Seventeen-year-old Mehliya Cetinkaya lists spoken word poet among her many talents. But we’re including her on this list for a different reason. Born in Canada, Cetinkaya is one of the youngest Uyghur activists campaigning today. Working as Student Liaison for Canada at the Campaign for Uyghurs, she has organised protests, conferences, photo galleries and more in her hometown of Edmonton. Cetinkaya is following in her mother's footsteps, who left East Turkestan in 2002 in order to fight for her freedom and raise awareness about what’s happening to her people.

The Uyghurs are a majority Muslim ethnic group from East Turkestan (which the Chinese government refers to as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) who have faced discrimination and prosecution for practising their religion and culture. There are reports of horrendous treatment in re-education style camps and this is exactly what Cetinkaya is fighting against. Not only active in the Uyghur community, Cetinkaya also campaigns for womens’ rights, climate activism and Black Lives Matter. We are so inspired by her commitment, and her plan to study law in the future means that she is certainly going to be a force to reckon with. 

Sophie Cruz, 13, Mexico

Sophie Cruz safely makes the list as one of the youngest activists in the world. Cruz was born in the US to undocumented immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico and, at just five years old, she travelled with her parents from their home in LA to Washington DC to campaign to the Pope on behalf of undocumented immigrants. Breaking through security barriers (she was stopped by security before being ushered forward by Pope Francis), Cruz handed the pope a letter addressing the issues her family, and the more than 22million US households where at least one undocumented person lives with U.S. citizens, face on a daily basis. Around one in twenty households in the US live in fear that a family member or loved one will be deported and Cruz is working to change that. Her conversation with the Pope changed his agenda at congress, where he spoke about encouraging more openness for refugees and immigrants.

The following year, Cruz was invited to speak at the Washington Women’s March in front of tens of thousands of people. She was just six years old. She has not stopped campaigning since and has visited the White House to speak with President Obama and sat in Supreme Court Hearings. Cruz is now thirteen years old and with her experience already surpassing many people four-times her age, we’re sure she’ll make a mark on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in America and beyond. 

Oluwatoni Adesanya, 14, Nigeria

Winning a prestigious international writing competition is impressive. Winning when you’re only 13 is the next level. Writer Oluwatoni Adesanya achieved second place (and a $500 prize) in the Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation essay competition in 2021.

From Lagos, Nigeria, Adesanya’s focus has been on writing about the human experience and social injustices. The Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation (KHREF) is a non-profit corporation established in 2008. It seeks to motivate students to contribute their effort towards creating a world where everyone’s human rights are realised, by sponsoring essay contests and other human rights-oriented academic activities. Adesanya’s essay was titled Human Rights Violations Masquerading As Covid-19 Interventions: The Nigerian Experience and gained her second place against approximately 100 other essays submitted by students from seventeen countries. She has noted that her essay was written to enlighten the public on how some COVID-19 policies breached human rights, and how low-income and poor Nigerians have been badly affected by these policies. You can read the essay here. Raising awareness of the important issues of our time is something we aim to do at Qissa, and Adesanya certainly does a great job of that!