Six Seasons of Young Citizens of the World — And We’re Just Getting Started
Six years ago, Young Citizens of the World began with a wonderfully simple idea:
What if children were given the opportunity to ask extraordinary people their own questions?
Not questions written by journalists. Not questions designed by adults to make children sound like adults. Their questions — about life, courage, creativity, failure, science, music, the planet and the future they will inherit.
That idea became Young Citizens of the World (YCW).
Today, as we begin Season 7, our community has grown to more than 1.5 million students, 12,000 educators and 7,300 schools across 37 countries.
But numbers tell only a tiny part of the story.
Season 1 — An Idea Takes Flight
In 2020, the world suddenly became much smaller.
Classrooms closed. Children were separated from friends, teachers and many of the experiences that normally make childhood exciting.
Yet Zoom also created an unexpected possibility: if everyone was meeting through a screen anyway, why couldn't a child in an ordinary classroom meet someone extraordinary?
Season 1 became our experiment.
Could students prepare thoughtful questions? Could remarkable guests speak directly to children? Could a ten-minute conversation become something a teacher could use in a classroom thousands of kilometres away?
The answer was yes.
And YCW was born.
Season 2 — Building a Community
By our second season, this was no longer simply an experiment.
Teachers were sharing interviews. Schools were joining. Children were discovering that the people they saw in books, on television or in the news were not unreachable figures.
They were people they could talk to.
YCW began developing the format that still defines us today: short, meaningful conversations built around children's questions.
The goal was never celebrity for celebrity's sake.
It was connection.
Season 3 — The World Gets Bigger
Season 3 showed us how far this idea could travel.
Our community continued expanding beyond Canada, connecting classrooms and educators across borders.
Scientists, artists, athletes, humanitarians, explorers and leaders brought very different stories to our students, but a remarkably consistent message emerged:
Extraordinary lives rarely follow straight lines.
People fail. They change direction. They struggle. They keep learning.
For children wondering what they might someday become, that matters.
Season 4 — Extraordinary Conversations
By Season 4, something else had changed.
YCW had accumulated not simply a collection of interviews, but a growing archive of human stories.
Our students had opportunities to encounter people such as Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrea Bocelli, astronaut Chris Hadfield and Ringo Starr, among many others.
Sometimes the smallest exchanges became the ones we remembered most.
A child's question could produce an answer no adult interviewer would ever have thought to ask for.
That became part of YCW's magic.
Season 5 — Beyond the Interview
YCW increasingly began moving beyond the computer screen.
Our journey brought us to extraordinary places and partnerships, including experiences connected with Cirque du Soleil and the One Drop Foundation, Ringo Starr's birthday celebration in Los Angeles, and GIMS at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The project that had started in classrooms was becoming something much larger — while still remaining centred on children.
And remarkably, it continued to be built largely through teachers, volunteers, partners and people willing to say one enormously powerful word:
Yes.
Season 6 — A Breakthrough Year
Season 6 took YCW somewhere we could scarcely have imagined when we began.
Our interviews with artists connected to K-Pop Demon Hunters reached millions of viewers, introducing enormous new audiences to our students and their questions.
In May 2026, after five years as a Vice-Regal Patron organization under Governor General Mary Simon, YCW was honoured at Rideau Hall.
Then our journey carried us across the Pacific.
Composer Yu-Peng Chen, whose music has reached millions through Genshin Impact, shared his story with our students.
And another conversation was beginning that would eventually lead to something none of us expected.
Japan.
Season 7 — Four Questions Became a Concert
On September 14, 2026, we began Season 7 in Yokohama.
Our plan seemed simple.
Ask legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu four questions.
Instead, those four questions somehow became an interview, a gathering of students and families, and an unforgettable live concert with Uematsu and conTIKI.
Backstage, Uematsu signed something especially meaningful for YCW.
On a treasured Celtic Moon jacket, he wrote:
“For all the children of the world.”
It would be difficult to imagine a better message with which to begin our seventh season.
And Japan isn't finished with us yet.
Our next confirmed guest is Hiroki Kikuta, the legendary composer behind Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, who will meet our students on October 15.
Once again, children will have four questions.
After what happened last time, perhaps we should be careful what we wish for.
What Comes Next?
We don't know.
And perhaps that is the most exciting part.
There are extraordinary people we are speaking with now. There are invitations sitting in inboxes around the world. Some will become interviews. Many won't.
There are children in our network whom we haven't met yet who will ask questions we haven't imagined yet.
There are probably opportunities ahead that don't even exist today.
YCW began with the belief that geography, wealth and circumstance should not determine whether a child gets to encounter extraordinary people and extraordinary ideas.
Six seasons later, we believe that more strongly than ever.
We have learned something else, too.
Sometimes all it takes to create something remarkable is a teacher, a child with a good question, and somebody on the other side of the world willing to say yes.
Six seasons are behind us.
Season 7 has begun.
And there are still millions of questions left to ask.
Students Ask • Leaders Inspire