When I was in 10th grade, I started noticing something in Lima and across Peru: thousands of domestic workers spend most of their lives taking care of other families' homes, while many of them still can't meet basic housing needs in their own. I wanted to do something different from volunteering or one-time help, but I didn't know what social entrepreneurship was, or how to turn a question into a real solution. That same year, I applied to VTSP for the first time, and I didn'

I first came across the Venture & Tech Summer Program (VTSP) on Instagram in a reel. When I saw it offered a 100% scholarship, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had a chance. Coming from a small city in Pakistan, a developing country, I had almost no access to opportunities like this. My family’s finances meant we could not afford application fees or participation in a program like this, but I decided to apply anyway. I borrowed the application fee from my aunt in Australia

My motivation for applying for VTSP was my continuing desire to learn more about the use of technology, particularly artificial intelligence. I have always had a strong interest in learning, and in role of innovation I wanted to find out how technology like AI can bring more efficiency and creativity to our day-to-day life, but when I got the opportunity for VTSP it felt like the chance I was waiting for to think deeper about education with technology and entrepreneurship. Th

Dear Reader, My name is Prasanna Chandankhede, I’m 15 years old, originally from India but currently living in Ghana, Africa. Growing up between two cultures has shaped me into someone curious, adaptable, and eager to take on new challenges. I’ve always thrown myself into opportunities - Model UNs, student initiatives, and community projects, but for a long time, I didn’t know where exactly I was headed. Science never felt like my future, yet I hadn’t found the right directio

My story begins in India, where as a child I witnessed children my own age begging on the streets. Those images stayed with me. I realized early that I wanted my life’s work to create social impact: something that could shift opportunity into the hands of people who didn’t have it. In Year 6, I discovered entrepreneurship and innovation as a way to channel this desire. At the Dubai STEM Olympiad, I helped design a device to aid the visually impaired in navigating roads. Later

If I had to choose a starting point for my story, I would say it begins with curiosity. Since I was a child, I wanted to understand how the world worked. While other kids were distracted with cartoons or games, I was intrigued by how things were organized: how a local market survived, how people exchanged products, how even a small street stand played its part in something bigger. I saw life as an ecosystem, every detail necessary for the whole to exist. That curiosity natura

A year ago, if you had asked me what I had planned for my future, I would have said something along the lines of engineering or medicine. My mind was fully focused on the natural sciences, innovation, and research. Business and startups didn’t seem to fit into the STEM world that I pictured myself in, so imagine my surprise when I applied to the Venture & Tech Summer Program (VTSP), a entrepreneurship and innovation-based program. What was I thinking?! I didn’t like economics