Bright Future Prize
Empowering and investing in the next generation of community leaders.
Launched in 2021, the Bright Future Prize empowers and invests in the next generation of leaders and innovators – those exceptional young people who are committed to driving positive change and inspiring others around the world.
Having lived in both Brazil and now Portugal, Aditya wants to use his experience to make a difference caring for the climate – with the dream of specialising in environmental robotics. His project, Rowbot, is a semi-autonomous robotic buoy which provides real-time data of various aspects of water quality, including temperature, pH and pollution levels. Already, Aditya has prototyped his design and is now ready to create a full-scale, working model, alongside creating a platform to host the Global Water Dashboard which will host data collected.
Work placements can be incredibly important to help get a flavour of various career choices and to develop experience. Murphy has created a student-led digital platform, Gradify, to help young people access work placements, insight days and career opportunities. He developed the initial app in just a month – after being hit by inspiration in his own school where he saw that academic excellence alone wasn’t the only way to develop career skills – and just four months after that had almost 1,000 users.
Jin’s project, Equistart, is born from her belief that displacement should never determine the potential of a young person. Refugee and migrant youth are much more likely to experience challenge in school and reduced confidence, which can impact their long-term future.
Harnessing her family’s own experience, Jin has navigated creating a new life in Australia, with all its challenges along the way. Equistart seeks to support this journey to establish new roots by combining resources with a structured community mentorship programme.
A lyricist, musician and creator, Rosalie uses song to capture the spirit of two cultures close to her own roots – Ni Vanuatu Pasifika and Māori (New Zealand and Vanuatu indigenous peoples respectively). She seeks to inspire young people in the community to preserve and be proud of their heritage, and through her music shares themes of identity, culture and belonging. Under her artist’s name, Lehali, Rosalie is creating a collection of music to empower ideas of mana wāhine (power, authority, dignity, and prestige of Māori women) to uplift and help people feel seen.
Having grown up in a region where internet connection was not consistent, João has experienced the challenges of getting online to learn – inspiring his project, Pré Parei (“Prepared”). Pré Parei is a hybrid, 100% offline educational program which João has been developing over the past two years – with the aim to now expand to rural and low-connectivity schools in his home state of Alagoas. Using a portable solar kit to generate a local Wi-Fi hotspot, the project combines with an education app focussed on literacy, tutoring, and logic at each student’s individual pace and learning style
Mackenzie aspires to improve systems to better support young people’s health and wellbeing, particularly those from culturally diverse background and the LGBTQIA+ community. She’s seen how difficult it can be to understand and access support, which is where The Aletheia Project steps in. Named after the Greek goddess of truth and sincerity, The Aletheia Project aims to address the gap between access and provision of support. At its heart, the project is a youth-led health literacy and inclusion initiative which improves young people’s confidence to navigate health and mental health systems.
Harnessing her passion for engineering technology and her own experience of disability, Gwendoline has developed Spoonfullness – an app with independent living at centre. Day to day, many of us would not consider accessibility when it comes to making our breakfast or cooking for friends. Spoonfullness considers accessibility at every step, from its interface with adjustable fonts, colours and display options, recipe filters that take into account sensory needs, and cooking methods tailored to varying physical needs. Gwendoline is breaking down barriers to help young people learn to cook and care for themselves with confidence.
A budding engineer, Santusht is passionate about tackling sustainability challenges by developing systems to lead long-term change, with waste recycling being a key element. Santusht sees food wate not as waste at all, but a resource with potential – and which has led him to develop Waste Fellows.
Alongside Young Founders’ Summit in Singapore, Santusht has built what began as a small-scale experiment on breakfast waste into engaging with local farms and restaurants to create a closed-loop system to recoup value from waste by collecting food waste and then processes it into fertiliser to go back into food production.
Bright Future Prize is open to young people aged 15 to 21 years old who live anywhere The Ardonagh Group has a presence, including Angola, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Dubai, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Malaysia, Malta, Mozambique, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and USA.
Discover all our alumni from 2021 to present on our dedicated Bright Future Alumni page.
Each of our four prize categories connect to a different way young people can make a difference to the world around them. The winners of our categories will share the £40,000 prize fund to help make their bright idea for a community project a reality.
This category is all about the people you share your world with – whether that’s by location or a network you are connected to. Your project idea might be related to a societal issue, health, education, wellbeing or something else that is important to your chosen community.
Perhaps your bright idea is about caring for the world we live in – nature, wildlife, or the climate. Your project might support green spaces, enable new ways to live sustainably, provide solutions to energy, or something else to protect the Earth’s future.
This is all about harnessing new ways to create lasting positive impact. Your project might centre around a new technology, use advocacy to drive change or use entrepreneurial spirit to enable a better and smarter way to live and engage with the world.
Sharing your passion means even more people can enjoy, learn and benefit from it too. Perhaps your project is about improving access for those who are less able to take part, promote outreach, or further inclusivity so that even more people can experience what you love.
The Bright Future Prize was launched in the memory of Freddie Williams, the son of Ardonagh colleague David and his wife Sarah.
In 2015, aged seven, Freddie was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. When Freddie died four years later, the contents of his money box were donated to ACT with the message: “To help pay for special treats for the next poorly child.”
Freddie pictured flying over Anfield, the home ground of his favourite football team, Liverpool FC.
The Williams Family – Freddie together with his parents, David and Sarah, and his siblings Jack and Megan.
This simple act led to the creation of the Bright Future Prize, which enables young people to realise their dreams to make a positive impact in the communities that matter to them.
To continue Freddie’s legacy, David and Sarah help the ACT Trustees select our Bright Future Prize winners every year.