Chhay No from Cambodia, Catherine Chen from New Zealand and Tony Srivashirapornchai from Thailand will return to Brisbane to attend the week-long summit, offered by International Education Services (IES) and Emmanuel College, in June 2015. Their prize also includes a range of leisure activities in Brisbane.

“These students have shown their future leadership potential with a higher level of thinking and problem-solving that took them to the top”

They were congratulated by Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Graham Quirk for their outstanding leadership qualities.

“These students have shown their future leadership potential with a higher level of thinking and problem-solving that took them to the top in the Global Youth Challenge,” he said.

High school students from 20 countries were flown to the Australian city a week before the G20 Leaders Summit to compete in the grand final, having completed two English lessons and a short essay on globalisation via the Massive Online English Course (MOOEC) platform in the first round.

Working with teams from local high schools, the international competitors were challenged to respond as a business would to three issues that might be discussed by G20 world leaders: global warming, global epidemic and an ethical dilemma.

In total 120 students from Australia and overseas competed in the final, which was produced by Study Brisbane in partnership with Emmanuel College.

“It was inspiring to see the students working so collaboratively in a virtual world, while also forming real cross-cultural friendships in person – and all the while learning life lessons about leadership,” commented Chris Evason, Managing Director of IES.