The session began with an introduction to sustainability in its truest sense, not as a buzzword, but as a way of thinking, living, and building. We walked them through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, breaking each one down with real-world examples, hands-on activities, and engineering-focused insights. What followed was remarkable: students stood up one after another, offering their own solutions to global challenges, from clean energy and climate resilience to waste management and responsible production. Their ideas were bold, imaginative, and filled with the spark that only teenagers possess, unfiltered belief in possibility.

Combining sustainability with engineering and entrepreneurship skills, the workshop became a space where awareness transformed into action and to solve real-world problems. We didn’t just teach concepts; we helped them to experience it. After the workshop, we designed a program along with the TeenInterns team, recorded lessons, conducted live online classes, and assigned real-time sustainability tasks. From these two batches, 7 students had successfully completed live sessions, activities, and eight recorded modules with assignments. During their internships, they worked on solving critical gaps in the industry on waste-to-energy, sustainable factory design, building B2B marketplace, sustainable tourist home, recyclability of different plastic wastes, studying imported machinery and creating a sustainable innovation framework. Outstandingly, one of the students even designed his own waste-plastic-to-energy machine. Through these real-time, industry-aligned projects, the students gained practical clarity on how innovation contributes to environmental change, and discovered how they can actively contribute to the planet at this young age.