Country of Residence
United States
Age
16
Project title
Literature Diversified
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Literature Diversified empowers underserved youth by delivering culturally inclusive, globally diverse reading curricula to schools that lack them; building literacy, representation, and civic identity one classroom at a time.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://literaturediversified.com/
Project Category
My project is an existing project started by another young person that I am replicating
Project Stage
Established (We have regular weekly or monthly impact that we are reliably measuring)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
Growing up Indian-American in Austin, I spent years looking for myself in the books my school assigned and mostly coming up empty. The stories we read were good, but they rarely reflected my culture, my family, or kids who looked like me. I didn't have a word for it then, but I knew something was missing. Everything clicked when I had a conversation with Literature Diversified's founder. Their vision: reimagining school curricula to actually center the voices that have always been left out, felt like exactly the problem I'd been sitting with my whole life, just finally named out loud. I joined as Co-Executive Director and threw myself into the work: helping build curriculum, grow partner classroom relationships, and expand our reach globally. Talking directly with students made it real. One told me that Literature Diversified gave underrepresented students "a platform to feel like they have a voice" and honestly, that's exactly what I wished I'd had. Seeing that response, watching schools say yes, and helping grow the org to 15,000+ students, 760+ partner classrooms, and 25+ global chapters made me certain this was worth pushing further. I'm not done. I want every student who picks up a required reading list to find a story that says: you belong here too.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Students of color make up nearly 57% of U.S. public school students, yet more than half the books they're assigned are by White authors featuring mainly White characters. Research consistently links this representation gap to lower engagement, lower literacy rates, and a sense that school simply wasn't built for them. I felt this personally. As an Indian-American student in Austin, my school reading lists were full of great books, but almost none of them reflected my world. I absorbed the lesson without realizing it: literature is for other people's stories. This matters beyond individual classrooms. In a country as diverse as ours, a curriculum that reflects only one slice of human experience is a civic problem, not just an academic one. Students who don't see themselves in school are less likely to engage, less likely to graduate, and less likely to believe that institutions including democracy itself; were built for them. Literature Diversified exists to fix that. Not by replacing what's taught, but by expanding it, adding the voices, histories, and perspectives that make a curriculum actually reflect the world students live in. Because when every student finds themselves in the stories their school assigns, something shifts. They don't just learn to read. They learn that their story matters.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Literature Diversified tackles the representation gap directly, not through book donations, but through curriculum. We build free, educator-ready lesson plans, novel guides, and workshops that center historically excluded voices across subjects like US History, English, Financial Literacy, and Social Action. Teachers don't have to choose between rigor and representation. We give them both. Here's how it works in practice: a partner educator signs up, accesses our library of 70+ lesson plans and research collections, and integrates diverse texts into their existing curriculum without overhauling what they already teach. We also run webinars and conferences that train educators on culturally responsive pedagogy, so the impact goes beyond a single unit or semester. For students, we created Chapters: local community groups where young people lead conversations about literature, identity, and civic life. With 25+ global chapters now active, students aren't just consuming diverse content; they're producing it. Our "Stories of Our Youth" publication gives student voices a real platform, and our children's book World of Stories brings inclusive literature directly to younger readers. The results speak for themselves. One partner educator told us: "LiteratureDiversified has transformed the engagement in my classroom amongst minority students." Another, a first-generation American himself credits our resources with helping him build a genuinely inclusive classroom for the first time. To date, we've reached 15,000+ students across 760+ partner classrooms in 25+ global community chapters. Every number represents a student who finally found their story in school.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
The numbers tell part of the story: 15,000+ students reached, 760+ partner classrooms, and 25+ global community chapters. But the real impact lives in what those numbers represent, students who walked into class and, for the first time, found a story that reflected their life. Partner educators have felt the shift. One English teacher told us: "Literature Diversified has transformed the engagement in my classroom amongst minority students." A first-generation American AP teacher credits our diverse novel lists with helping him build a genuinely inclusive classroom for the first time. Beyond classrooms, our chapters have turned students into leaders facilitating discussions, writing for our "Stories of Our Youth" publication, and championing diverse literature in their own communities. Recognition has followed: honored by the Diana Award, Princeton Prize in Race Relations, Prudential, and Ashoka, and featured on NBC, CBS, and Yahoo Finance. As Co-Executive Director, I helped drive this growth, and I'm focused on what comes next: deeper school district partnerships and ensuring our curriculum reaches every underrepresented student who needs it.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Most efforts to address representation in education focus on book donations, getting diverse titles onto library shelves. That's necessary, but it's not sufficient. A book sitting on a shelf doesn't change what gets taught. Literature Diversified's innovation is working upstream: directly into the curriculum itself. We don't just recommend diverse books. We build free, educator-ready lesson plans, novel guides, and workshops that make culturally inclusive content easy to integrate into existing courses: US History, English, Financial Literacy, Social Action without asking teachers to rebuild their entire curriculum from scratch. That's the key difference: we reduce the barrier to adoption to almost zero. A second innovation is our student-led chapter model. Most education nonprofits treat students as recipients. We treat them as co-creators. Our 25+ global chapters give students ownership over how diverse literature gets discussed and championed in their own communities turning consumers of content into advocates for change. Students write for our publication, lead discussions, and build the case for inclusive reading in their own schools. Third, we think globally. With chapters across multiple countries and curriculum used by hundreds of educators worldwide, Literature Diversified isn't building a local program, it's building a movement. The problems of representation in education are not unique to the US, and neither is our solution. Finally, everything we offer is free. Equity can't have a price tag. That single design decision, no cost to educators or students, is what allows our reach to scale to 15,000+ students without pricing out the communities who need it most.
How many people are on your team?
4
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Literature Diversified is led by a core team of 4. Our chairman, now an undergraduate at Stanford University, sets the vision and drives the organization's mission forward. I serve as one of three Co-Executive Directors, each overseeing key areas including curriculum development, school partnerships, chapter coordination, and educator outreach. Leadership is genuinely shared; we collaborate on major decisions while our 25+ chapter leaders drive impact independently in their own communities.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, Literature Diversified has three clear priorities. First, deeper school district partnerships. We've proven our model works across 760+ partner classrooms, now we want to move from individual teacher sign-ups to formal district-level adoption, where our curriculum becomes part of the standard offering for entire schools. We're actively pursuing relationships with districts where the representation gap is most acute. Second, expanding our multilingual and international reach. With 25+ global chapters already active, we know the demand exists beyond the US. Our next step is adapting curriculum for non-English-speaking communities and building chapter infrastructure in new countries. Third, growing our student voice platform. "Stories of Our Youth" is just the beginning. We want to expand our student publishing program so more young people from underrepresented communities have a real outlet for their writing, not just a reading list that includes them. Underlying all three is a commitment to keeping everything free. As we grow, we're pursuing grants and partnerships to ensure cost never becomes a barrier. The Carnegie Challenge award would directly accelerate each of these goals helping us reach the next 15,000 students faster.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Engaging others isn't an afterthought for Literature Diversified, its core to how we're built. For educators, we lower the barrier to entry as much as possible. Our free curriculum library, webinars, and professional development workshops mean a teacher can go from discovering us to using our resources in their classroom within a single afternoon. Word spreads naturally: one partner educator brings in colleagues, and a single school becomes multiple classrooms. That's how we've grown to 760+ partner classrooms across hundreds of educators worldwide. For students, our chapter model is the engine. We don't just invite young people to participate; we give them leadership. Each of our 25+ global chapters is student-run, meaning the people most affected by the representation gap are the ones driving the solution in their own communities. Students recruit peers, facilitate discussions, and become local advocates without needing us to orchestrate every step. We also engage through our "Stories of Our Youth" publication, which gives student writers a real audience and turns readers into contributors. Our children's book World of Stories brings the mission to younger audiences and families. Across all of this, we've engaged 430+ student members and 15,000+ students reached. Every person who joins doesn't just benefit, they become part of spreading it.
