A non-governmental organisation, Rise Initiative, is set to empower teenagers, who are talented, creative and ready to excel.

An initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, Rise is the anchor programme of a $1 billion commitment by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, to find and support global talents.
Through the scheme, young people around the world, aged between 15 and 17 years, are encouraged to participate in the Rise Challenge.

Rise is a programme that finds promising young people and provides them with opportunities that allow them to work together to serve others over their lifetimes.

Unlike many traditional applications, the firm is using videos; projects and group interviews to ensure applicants have multiple opportunities to showcase their potential.

According to the organisers, applicants can introduce themselves through videos, create an individual project that demonstrates their talents and benefits their communities, and peer review other applicants’ projects, among other activities.

The programme encourages a lifetime of service and learning by providing support that may include need-based scholarships, mentorship, networking, access to career development opportunities, and the potential for additional funding as Rise Global Winners work to develop bold ideas for public benefit.

After completing the challenge, the firm selects up to 500 finalists to advance to ‘Finalist Days,’ where they demonstrate their motivations, problem-solving abilities and teamwork skills in an innovative interview format.

From the finalists, the group selects up to 100 Global Winners, who will attend a residential summit and receive other benefits.

The organisation emphasised that country, background or academic experience of applicants does not matter, provided they are interested in science, innovation, technology, art, policy and community organising, or any other discipline, they can apply.

According to the group, applicants automatically join a community of peers and are invited to take part in specially curated opportunities from its partners around the world.

They listed the benefits accruable to Rise Global Winners to include a fully funded in-person residential summit with other members, higher education scholarships, funding for ideas on a competitive basis, access to a network of other winners, community members and partner organisations, as well as career development programming, among others.