Celine Qin is a globally-recognized, award-winning youth changemaker, social impact founder, and activist. At just 13 years old, Celine founded The Reclamation Project (est. 2020), a nonprofit social justice organization spearheading youth-led movements and forging resilient communities for systems-change, equity, and liberation. As a leader and speaker to 400,000+ youth and allies across 171+ countries worldwide, Celine has reached the stages of the United Nations, TEDx, and multiple globally-renowned universities, such as Harvard and Princeton. Through The Reclamation Project, she has advised nearly $20 million dollars in grants and private and government funding partnerships to establish life-affirming resource networks in historically-underrepresented communities. Celine’s stewardship has spearheaded racial and economic justice, immigrant/refugee youth empowerment, climate, environmental, and tech justice/access, youth innovation/collaboration, and multicultural social development at grassroots, national, and global scales, including directly procuring and reinvesting $600,000+ towards mutual aid and multi-year civic leadership and social entrepreneurial pipelines for California youth impacted by trauma, violence, and poverty. Under her vision as Executive Director, The Reclamation Project has mobilized 270,000+ community members for social change, built a coalition of 3,200+ long-term youth mentees and 185+ civic/social partner organizations, and successfully directed 280+ in-person events, projects, hybrid campaigns, and programming. Honored by e.l.f Beauty's 22 Under 22 Awards and as 1 of 20 top U.S. female founders selected as a fellow by Vital Voices Global Partnership, recognized alongside women leaders such as Amanda Gorman and multiple Nobel Peace Laureates, Celine empowers marginalized communities to reimagine society in their boldest truths. In 2026, she was hand-selected as 1 of 35 thought-leaders nationwide as a Network Changemaker at the AI + Human Connection Summit, now working to advance innovative, cross-sector strategies centering youth agency, humanity, development for good, and workforce prosperity in the age of AI, alongside executives, program directors, builders, and policy makers at Google DeepMind, Encode Justice, OpenSeat, the Rithm Project, Teach for America, UC Berkeley, Streetcode Academy, and prev-Instagram and Meta. Celine is additionally the Founder of Youth Power Network, a social impact accelerator funding and empowering young founders in social enterprise and nonprofits, investing $25,000+ per year in historically-marginalized leaders through seed grants and paid fellowships/internships, while directing guest speaker events with top industry professionals and brand executives, startup founders and CEOs (Forbes 30 Under 30, Stanford/MIT/Harvard, YC), philanthropic funders, and distinguished public service leaders for social good. With VC, impact investing, and venture philanthropy experience across TIME, Fortune, and Forbes-listing companies such as Autodesk, Energy Innovation Capital, and further private and public benefit enterprises, Celine’s high-impact leadership mirrors her unwavering mission of societal transformation through innovation and intention. Celine’s work has been recognized by Princeton University’s Prize in Race Relations, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, Taco Bell Foundation, members of the United States Congress, U.S. Departments of State and Treasury, California Department of Public Health, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, United Nations Economic and Social Council, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Her Campus, NPR’s Cap Radio, Porte Global, and the International Organization of Youth. She is additionally an Alexander Hamilton Scholar, Brandon Harrison Living Legacy Award Winner, and the youngest recipient of the California Youth Rising Trailblazer Award presented by The California Endowment and Urban Strategies Council. Now 19, Celine is a first-generation college undergraduate at Stanford University and a proactive builder in social impact investing, social enterprise, fund development, and movement organizing and strategy.

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β€œWho am I when the world shakes? I was born to prove my livelihood unconquerable. I was born hungry for agency in a type of world that exists to take it. I was born parched for answers in a system dissipating the richness of a political peoplehood, culture, and resistance. I vow myself to create without defined borders. I break trajectories assumed unto myself, my people, my history, and systems-impacted youth and women of color who know firsthand what it means to try and find oneself in an unfathomably difficult society. I learn every day to stretch the meanings of love. I found myself in social change, activism, leadership, innovation, and world-buildingβ€”-organizing a community from the grassroots and touching lived experiences with transformative diligence. I found myself in a perpetual pursuit for knowledge and solutions. I found myself in unwavering solidarity, unity, and self-discovery. I found my soul in fearlessness.”

- Celine Qin