Humans of YSI: The Faces Behind 190,000 Changemakers

Young Social Innovators Turns 25!

This year, Young Social Innovators (YSI) celebrates 25 years of youth-led change - a quarter of a century of backing young people to lead real impact in real communities. Since 2001, YSI has empowered tens of thousands of young people to turn ideas into action, tackling social and environmental challenges locally and globally. These changemakers have reached millions, proving what happens when young people are trusted, resourced, and supported to lead.

As part of our 25th anniversary, we’re launching Humans of YSI, a storytelling series showcasing the people behind the numbers. Across 2026, we will feature 12 individuals - participants, guides, employees, and partners - whose experiences put faces to 190,000 changemakers and show what is possible when young people are empowered early. These stories highlight leadership, creativity, resilience, and impact and they demonstrate how YSI continues to lay the foundation for the next 500,000 changemakers.

First Feature: Ahmed Jouda

YSI Years: 2017, 2018
School: Portmarnock Community School
Project: Global Citizens Mapping the Future

Briefly describe your YSI project. What issue were you trying to address?
Global Citizens MTF is a non profit team that originally aimed to make better quality maps for countries that could not afford Google Maps. We picked Lesotho and with the help of local government and world renowned mappers, we taught the people of Lesotho how to use open source software to map their own county and reach the level of Lesotho being the best mapped country in Africa (map quality). Then we started working on use cases on top of this data we built, for example we created an emergency services app that helps emergency services reach within the golden hour anywhere in the country with our maps. In addition to disaster mapping and using the maps to find entrepreneurial opportunities.

Standout memory from YSI experience:
Representing Ireland at the SAGE World Cup and winning first place in Ukraine in 2017 with the YSI team.

“YSI Made Me…”
...realise the ability of young people to make change,, YSI made me believe in my ability to make impact at a global level,, YSI made me addicted to working on things that give back to the community

What are you doing now?
I am currently working as a Digital Consultant for government and private clients, advicing them around digital strategy and overseeing implementation.

Do you see any connection between your YSI experience and where you are today?
Of course
Ability to lead change- this believe in myself started at a young age thanks to YSI in addition to practicing the needed skills to lead a program
Enablement- teaching people and empowering is excatly what we did in YSI, this is the essence of consulting work - we aim to always do a project and create the launchpad for our clients and give them back the steering wheel so that they can be self sustainable
Giving back and impactful work- I always choose projects that touch the lives of citizens and try to do them with excellence, the reason I am in the field I am in now is because YSI made me realize that a doctor might be able to touch the lives of hundreds of patients, but with technology and change management we can touch the lives of millions.

Impact participating in YSI had personally:
YSI came into my life at a very decisive stage when I was choosing my university course, since I come from a family of healthcare workers I was leaning towards that, however, after I saw the impact technology can have on people I decided to pursue computer science - so YSI helped shape my entire career.
In addition, YSI personally helped me have a purpose during my teenage years, which are formative years in any person's life and I am glad I had a higher purpose to serve at the time which taught me discipline.

Skills or values from YSI that stay with you today:
Giving back
Discipline
Presenting
Leadership
Change management

Advice to young people starting their YSI journey now:
Jump on every opportuinity you get as YSI provides you with invaluable experience at this age which essentially works as a headstart in life later on - at a career level and at a self development level.
Put your all into and make sure if you are building something, build something you are proud of in 10 years.
Tell people about it, advocate, learn from your elders and you will be suprised how many people would love to be part and help, from your parents to the mayor of the city.