2024 High School Winners

Ranye Ezenekwe is in the 11th grade at Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, Colorado. She first heard about the World of 8 Billion student video contest in her AP Human Geography class two years ago. She won 2nd place that year for her video, “Repurposing Weeds to Combat Desertification” and has participated in the competition since. Last year, she also won a State Honor for Colorado for her video, “Upcycling Textiles to Promote Girls’ Education Access.” Ranye said “the competition has been a way to use [her] voice to amplify the issues that we need to address around the world.” She chose the topic health because she does a lot of advocacy and activism around health literacy legislation. She currently holds a position in Colorado Youth Advisory Council (COYAC) and is interested in pursuing a career in medicine.

Ranye engages in environmental advocacy for the Global Co Lab Network as a teen ambassador, where she has focused on Goal 15 – Life on Land and how we can use Earth’s resources effectively and sustainability to mitigate human impacts. She got the idea for her video on bioplastics from a combination of her work with the Global Co Lab Network and an experiment in her AP Chemistry class where they made bioplastics. Ranye is really interested in graphic design and animation and has built up her skills each year she has created a video. Ranye shared that the most difficult part of creating a video is making it concise, digestible to a general audience, and inclusive of everything you want to say in the short time limit. Her advice to future participants is to “tackle an issue that you are really passionate and desire to learn more about. With this competition you have the freedom to choose an issue that you are interested in and become an active agent to solve it.”

On top of being a leader in COYAC and the Global Co Lab Network, Ranye plays the clarinet and is a state champion tennis player. She is also the president of the Black Student Union, head coach of the Science Olympiad, and president of the environmental club at her school. Her 9th grade innovations teacher, Ms. Letter, inspired her to get involved in competitions where she has the opportunity to think about solutions to real world challenges. Ranye is also one of ten global winners in the Teens Dream Video Challenge, a Pete Conrad Scholar in the Conrad Challenge, and received highest honors in the SDG Metaverse Prize Competition. Ranye encourages teens to use their voices and become engaged in opportunities and to not be deterred by the requirements or acceptance rate. She hopes that teens will “get involved in their community and reach out to senators to make change about issues that need to be solved.”