Our History
Our Bright World was established in 2019 to give teenagers a platform to be part of the solution to many of the world’s challenges and enable them to channel their raw inventiveness and innovative spirits into groundbreaking and community-changing significance. The organization is the brain-child of a high school student who felt that the most creative, uninhibited, open-minded, and free-thinking age group–teenagers–is left behind and not being encouraged to bring their ideas to reality, to seek and obtain support from the private or public sectors, and not have their great ideas be positively reinforced, recognized, and celebrated.
Since its founding, Our Bright World has been working with students and communities on ideas and projects of significance, building an endowment for scholarships to honor students with the best ideas and innovations, and building a network of volunteers and partners who support student inventions, innovations, programs, and projects.
Statement of Purpose
“I realized that what was missing from society trying to address many of the world’s challenges was a platform for teenagers to be part of the solution―one that would enable them to channel their raw inventiveness and innovative spirit into projects of groundbreaking and community-changing significance. There are all sorts of experts, resources, and funding for universities, labs, companies, and other entities, but the most creative, uninhibited, open-minded, and free-thinking age group in society—adolescents and teenagers—is left behind.
Our Bright World supports and celebrates efforts developed and driven by junior high and high school students to find solutions to critical science and social science issues. We are working on building out our mission and full vision, but the time is now. The best way to create lasting, positive changes in our world is to harness and channel the untapped ingenuity and unrestrained creativity of adolescents and teenagers. Our Bright World is trying to help put great ideas on paper and transform them into reality, while also incentivizing, channeling, and recognizing the young people who are doing just that.” —Lauren Bartel, founder and president