🌱 The truth about e-waste & how teen startups can fight it NOW

E-waste, or electronic waste, encompasses discarded electrical and electronic equipment at the end of their useful life. This includes a wide range of items like computers, televisions, and even household appliances. E-waste is a growing concern due to the hazardous materials it contains, potential environmental damage from improper disposal, and the loss of valuable resources. 

Every year:
🔌 Over 50 million metric tons of e-waste is generated worldwide
📉 Only 17.4% gets properly recycled
⚠️ The rest ends up in landfills or shipped illegally to developing countries, causing toxic pollution and health hazards.

Here is why YOU should care as a teen entrepreneur:

1️⃣ Your gadgets need rare materials like gold, cobalt, and lithium: mined in ways that harm communities and the environment.
2️⃣ Designing products without planning for recycling or repair leads to mountains of waste.
3️⃣ Companies ignoring e-waste laws face fines, banned sales, and consumer backlash.


How to build an e-waste-conscious startup today:

✔️ Design for easy disassembly: create products that can be taken apart for repair or recycling (think: modular phones like Fairphone).
✔️ Use recycled or upcycled materials in your components.
✔️ Create take-back or trade-in programs to reclaim old devices and reuse parts.
✔️ Educate your customers about how to responsibly dispose of your product.

Example:
Fairphone uses conflict-free minerals and designs phones to last longer and be repairable, cutting down on e-waste and saving customers money.


Quick win challenge for this week:

💡 Sketch a product or service idea that includes a take-back or repair plan. It could be a tech gadget, fashion item, or even a packaging system.

Build smart. Act green. Be responsible.

Yours, Ecostain 🩶

🎯Wharton global high school investment competition 2025-2026!

Are you ready to compete on a global stage with the world's future financial leaders?

Join the Wharton global high school investment competition, a FREE experiential learning challenge hosted by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Over 10 weeks, high school students from around the world will build strategies, manage a $250,000 virtual portfolio, and compete for a spot at the Global Finale in Philadelphia, USA.

📌 Key info:
• Teams: 4-6 students from the same high school
• Advisor: Must be a teacher/educator at the school
• Open to high schoolers aged 14–18 worldwide
• When: Sept 29 - Dec 5, 2025
• Judging: Based on strategic insight & communication (not portfolio size)
• Top 10 teams will present live at Wharton (April 25, 2026)

New updates are being added. You are encouraged to stay tuned on the official site throughout the summer!

🔗 Register via your advisor: https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/investment-competition

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🤍

🌿 Biodesign: when nature becomes your co-founder

Biodesign is where biology meets design, using living systems like mushrooms, algae, or bacteria to create products that are renewable, compostable, and often shockingly beautiful. It is innovation without extraction.

🧬 “Biodesign is not just about designing with nature—it’s about designing like nature.” –Design Council

That means creating systems that are regenerative, circular, and deeply connected to the ecosystems they live in.


🌱 What does that actually look like?

🦠 Bacterial leather to replace animal hides
🍄 Mycelium packaging stronger than Styrofoam, yet completely compostable
🌊 Algae ink and bioplastics made from ocean blooms
🏠 Buildings that grow themselves from fungal bricks or moss


Why teen entrepreneurs should care:

1️⃣ Biodesign is not science fiction, it is a startup opportunity
2️⃣ You do not need a factory, just creativity and a small-scale lab setup
3️⃣ Consumers crave radical sustainability and brands with a soul


Teen-founded example:
🌊 MarinaTex — Invented by a 23-year-old, it’s a plastic alternative made from fish waste and red algae. It decomposes in 6 weeks and beats plastic in strength tests!


So, we can conclude that biodesign is more than a trend, but a mindset shift. As nature designs without waste, so can we.

Build with biology. Think like an ecosystem. You can also look at the pictures above to understand what it is really about.

Your Ecostain 🧪

🎯 The Knowledge Society (TKS) 2025-2026

Interested in artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, space tech, or startups? Want to build real skills that schools do not teach, and work on problems that actually matter?

TKS (The Knowledge Society) is a 10-month global program for students aged 13-17 who want to explore emerging technologies and gain experience solving real-world problems in areas like healthcare, climate, education, and more.

You will learn directly from experts, collaborate with like-minded teens around the world, and complete real projects you can showcase.

📌 What you need to know:
• For students aged 13-17
• Open to applicants worldwide 🌍
• 10–15 hours/week from September 2025 to June 2026
• Virtual (Global program) or In-Person (in cities like Toronto, NYC, and London)
• No grades, no tests (just hands-on learning, mentorship, and real projects)
• Fin. aid. available (up to full-tuition)

📆 Final deadline to apply: July 31, 2025

🎓 TKS alumni have interned at companies like Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX, spoken at global conferences, and even launched startups before turning 18.

🔗 Find out more & Apply here: https://www.tks.world/

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🩶

💡Neurotech for the Planet

What if we told you that fighting climate change is not only about solar panels and recycling, but also about hacking the human brain as well?

Welcome to neurotechnology where neuroscience overlaps with behavior, and startups are using it to rethink how we think, feel, and act towards the planet.

Neurotech is already being used to improve focus, reduce stress, and even get people to love sustainability. Sounds nuts? It is, but it is happening.


What does that look like in practice?

🪴VR experiences that make people feel like they are immersed in nature, proven to increase eco-behaviors by 40%
🧘 Brain-computer interfaces monitoring stress and nudging users into low-waste habits
📱Climate apps using neuroscience-based design to turn eco habits into addictive rituals
🚀 Startups using EEG data to beta-test what exactly eco-campaigns actually change people's minds


Why teen entrepreneurs need to care:

1️⃣ The climate crisis is not so much a science problem. It is a psychology problem.
2️⃣ No lab space needed, only laptop and a mindset that combines behavioral science + design + mission.
3️⃣ Eco startups who understand how humans do actually behave will forever catch up with those who just apply facts.

Teen example?
Most current neurotech climate tools are adult-centric, but that is the space. Here is where Gen Z can lead the way: creating apps, campaigns, or tools that combine climate and cognition.

So we can conclude: Neurotech will not just change the way we live. It can also change the way we care.

Your Ecostain 🌱

👩‍💻 TechGirls 2026

Love coding, engineering, or science? Want to level up your STEM skills while spending summer in the U.S. with girls from 35+ countries?

TechGirls is a fully-funded, 4-week exchange program for high school girls passionate about tech and innovation. You will take part in workshops, explore U.S. culture, and connect with a global sisterhood of future STEM leaders.

📌 What you need to know:
• Girls aged 15–17
• Must live in eligible countries (Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, and U.S.)
• Takes place July-August in the United States 🇺🇸
• Includes 1 week of tech workshops at a U.S. university + 2 weeks of cultural immersion + 1 week with a host family
• Full financial support (visa, flights, housing, meals, workshops)

📆 Applications open: October 2025
📆 Deadline: Around December 2025

🎓 TechGirls alumnae have launched NGOs, taught coding to other girls, and gone on to study STEM at top universities.

🔗 Learn more & prep to apply: https://techgirlsglobal.org/

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🤍

🌍 How your online life pollutes the environment

You have certainly heard of your carbon footprint (maybe not). Nevertheless, what about your carbon shadow?

It is the digital dirt 🧹 you leave behind each time you use your phone (e.g. scrolling, searching, or saving). It is not there, but it is real.

📱All those selfies you store in the cloud?
🎮 All that gaming time in games?
🎧 All your playlists you listen to?

They are all powered by massive data centres. (which draw a lot of power, sometimes from fossil fuels)

🧠 But here is the best part, though: Teen entrepreneurs are already hacking digital habits for sustainability.

So, what is happening?

💻 Green coding: teens nailing the writing low-energy code
☁️ Sustainable cloud startups: building eco-hosting for youth-led platforms
📊 Apps that track your digital CO₂ like a fitness score
🎯 AI technologies eliminating excess data in digital products images, emails, code

Why it matters:

1️⃣ The internet can seem free, but it runs on real-world energy.
2️⃣ The more digital the world gets, and it will have to get so much the more climate-sensitive that its technology can allow.
3️⃣ Most climate action overlooks this space. That is where innovators take the lead.

Teen spotlight?

An Indian high school team created a Chrome extension that reduces webpage energy use by 20% just by compressing images and pausing autoplay videos.

🌀 Imagine this: Imagine the next sustainable startup…
was not offline, but online?

If you want to fight climate change, start with your screen 👀

Yours in pixels & purpose,
Ecostain 🌱

🚀 LaunchX 2026

LaunchX is a 4-week entrepreneurship program on U.S. college campuses (MIT, Northwestern, BU, Bay Area) where high school students turn ideas into startups through hands-on learning, team mentoring, and a final Demo Day pitch to real investors.

📌 What you need to know:
• Open to high school students aged 14-18 from anywhere in the world
• Hosted either on respected university campuses or online
• Application requires essays, extracurricular activities, optional financial award application + Interview
• Tuition-based, starting from ~$1,995 (online) to ~$9,995 (on-campus), with financial aid available

📆 Key application deadlines for Fall 2025 programs:
• Financial Award Deadline: August 6, 2025
• Final Deadline: August 13, 2025

🔗 Learn more & prep to apply: https://www.launchx.com/programs

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🤍

💊 Pills, pollution, and the price that we pay

We do not usually think of medicine as a pollutant. However, pharmaceutical waste is harming both our environment and our economy.

Every time you flush expired pills or your body excretes not used medication, those chemical compounds enter our waterways. Most wastewater plants cannot filter them out, meaning substances such as hormones, antibiotics, and antidepressants flow into rivers, lakes, and even drinking water systems.

🧪 What is the cost?
• Fish populations disrupted by synthetic hormones
• Rising antibiotic resistance (a growing public health and economic crisis)
• Expensive water purification infrastructure funded by public money
• Ecosystem damage that weakens local economies (especially in agriculture and fishing)

📉 The economic model behind pharmaceuticals is linear: make, sell, discard. However, what we need is a circular approach where drugs are designed to degrade, disposed of responsibly, and do not pass costs into society.

As always, the good news is that teen innovators are stepping in where policy lags behind:
1️⃣ a group of students in the U.S. is developing bacteria-based filters to absorb pharmaceutical waste
2️⃣ teens in Germany and India are launching local takeback programs for expired meds
3️⃣ a young Brazilian researcher is testing plant-based drug compounds that break down harmlessly after use

So, what can we do?
✔️ Never flush medicine down the toilet
📦 Push for school, pharmacy, or city-wide drug takeback systems
🌱 Support research and business models that focus on low-impact drug design
📣 Start talking about pharma as part of our climate and economic future

With love, Ecostain 🌍

🌊 True Blue Fellowship 2025

The True Blue Fellowship empowers youth worldwide to protect our ocean, waterways, and climate 🌎 through the power of creative arts whether it is visual storytelling, performance, music, or design, your vision can lead real environmental change in your community. Selected fellows receive up to $2,500, mentorship, and global support to launch their impact-driven projects.

📌 What you need to know:
• Open to youth aged 13-24 (yes, globally!)
• Completely free to apply + participate
• Focused on youth-led, arts-based action for climate and ocean health
• Perfect for creators, activists, and changemakers

📆 Deadline to apply: September 1, 2025

🔗 Dive in: https://bowseat.org/programs/true-blue-fellowship/

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🩶

🍽️ Food waste: a $1 trillion problem we need to solve

We often do not realize just how much food gets wasted around the world. In fact, nearly 1/3 of all food produced never gets eaten. That is not only a huge waste of food, but also of the water, energy, and effort used to grow, transport, and store it.

When food is thrown away and ends up in landfills, it produces methane:

a greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to climate change.

Here is what that looks like in numbers:
• Enough food is wasted each year to feed 2 billion people
• Over $1 trillion in economic value lost globally
• Farmers, retailers, and communities face serious financial impacts
• Increased greenhouse gas emissions harming the planet

The encouraging part? Young people everywhere are finding creative ways to fight back:
1️⃣ Teens in the UK use apps to rescue surplus food and redistribute it (🖇️ link)
2️⃣ Students in Kenya turn food scraps into compost for local gardens (🖇️ link)
3️⃣ Young entrepreneurs in the U.S. create snacks from imperfect fruits and vegetables that usually go to waste (🖇️ link)

What can we do to help?
✔️ Plan meals carefully and buy only what you need
🍏 Support food rescue organizations and zero-waste stores
♻️ Compost food scraps to reduce landfill waste
📣 Talk openly about food waste because it is both a climate issue and an economic one, and together we can make a difference

Together, we can fight food waste for a greener future, Ecostain 🌍🤍

🤖 Veritas AI by Lumiere Education – Fall 2025

Ready to level up your skills in artificial intelligence?

Veritas AI is an international program created by Harvard University alumni for ambitious high school students who want to explore AI and machine learning in depth.

Work with expert mentors, dig into real-world datasets, and build your own AI project to showcase in your university portfolio. 🚀

📌 What you need to know:
• Open to high school students worldwide
• Learn AI + machine learning fundamentals
• Hands-on projects with real datasets
• 1:1 mentorship from Harvard-affiliated experts
• Build a standout portfolio for college applications

❗️Financial Aid is available

📆 Deadline to apply for Fall 2025: August 31, 2025 – 11:59 PM EDT

🔗 Apply now: veritasai.com

#Opportunity

With love, Ecostain 🤍

💻🌍 AI, the Internet, and the invisible carbon we do not see

When we think about climate change, we picture smokestacks, flights, or landfills. However, our digital lives contribute to pollution, too. Every scroll, stream, and AI chatbot response relies on huge data centers (warehouses) packed with servers that consume massive amounts of electricity and water.

📊 The hidden footprint looks like this:
• The internet causes 3 to 4% of global emissions, which is similar to aviation ✈️
• Streaming a movie for two hours is like driving 12 kilometers in a car 🚗
• Training one large AI model can emit as much CO₂ as five cars over their entire lifetime ⚗️
• With rising demand for AI, U.S. data centers could use up to 12% of all electricity by 2028 💡

📌 That sounds alarming, but there is hope. Innovators are already creating real solutions.

✨ Youth-driven and entrepreneurial solutions:
1️⃣ Green data centers such as AirTrunk in Malaysia uses rooftop solar and a 30MW solar farm. Digital Realty powers 1GW of its servers with wind and solar, avoiding 1.8 million tons of CO₂ (🔗 link).
2️⃣ Startups like Submer in Spain and ZutaCore in the USA reduce cooling energy needs by up to 50% using immersion and direct-on-chip cooling (🔗 link).
3️⃣ Sweden's EcoDataCenter pipes heat from servers into homes and greenhouses. UK startup heata turns server warmth into free hot water for families. (🔗 link).

💡What we can do:
✔️Delete unused files and emails to reduce storage needs
✔️Stream consciously, using lower quality when it does not matter
✔️Support tech companies investing in renewable-powered data centers
✔️Advocate for "green AI" in schools, startups, and communities

Our future will not just be physical; it will also be digital. To achieve a greener planet, we must ensure that our digital world operates cleanly.

Together, we can code, stream, and scroll for a sustainable future.

Your Ecostain 💚