Overview

I’m Art Qorraj, a sixteen-year-old high school senior from Deçan, Kosovo, and if you asked me what I want to be when I grow up, the answer would always be an engineer. My curiosity about how things work started when I was seven or eight. I used to watch YouTube videos of people tearing apart old electronics and sketchy DIY channels building gadgets with DC motors. Eventually, I started building my own projects.While I have been following the rise of AI for a while now, my real love is hands-on work. There is a specific kind of joy that comes from actually putting a project together and seeing it function for the first time. That feeling of making something work is why I do what I do.

The Road to the Program

I recently participated in the On-Demand Youth Leadership Program: Excellence in AI and Global Leadership Exchange (EAGLE).

The application process was long and slightly cumbersome, but that is usually the case for international programs of this caliber.

I had to share my extracurriculars, my school subjects, and answer four essay questions that really dug into who I am as a person.

After the application, there was a shortlist of students who got interviewed, from which the final batch would be selected.

My best advice for anyone looking to apply for something like this is to be genuine. Keep it concise and highlight your skills, but make sure there is a human element there. Be honest, be specific, and stay true to who you are. You do not have to be a perfect applicant; you just have to be real.

Three Countries and One Big Experience

The program brought together six students each from Kosovo, South Korea, and the United States. While we were there to learn about artificial intelligence and leadership, the cultural exchange was the part that stayed with me.

Spending time with people my age from across the globe was incredible. We talked about our schools, our everyday lives, and our traditions.

It was eye-opening to see how much we actually had in common despite coming from such different backgrounds. When we worked in teams, those different ways of thinking made everything we did more interesting.

We spent three weeks traveling together. Two weeks were in Seattle staying with American host families, followed by one week in Washington, D.C. Living with a host family was a great experience. I got to see what life in the United States is actually like, rather than just being a tourist looking at the surface of things.

Seeing Engineering at Scale

In Seattle, we visited some of the biggest names in tech like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. For a future engineer, the highlight was definitely getting to talk to the people who already do what you aspire. Seeing engineering in person made everything I had studied feel tangible. It is one thing to read about these things, but it is another thing entirely to hear it from the people who are building the future of tech and AI as we speak.

When we moved on to Washington, D.C., we visited the U.S. Department of State. Speaking directly with officials there gave me a new perspective on how these massive institutions function.

The program also changed how I think about technology. I realized that AI should be a helping tool, but we have to use it responsibly. It is not just about who has the most powerful tech. It is about the choices we make and the responsibility that comes with that power.

Growth and Looking Forward

The leadership side of the program was phenomenal. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to communicate with people I had never met before. I became much more confident in my social and professional interactions. I tried to make the most of every conversation, whether I was talking to a professional at a tech giant or just chatting with my host family.

Right now, I am planning to build an AI-powered tool to help students figure out what to study after high school. The EAGLE program helped me refine how I would actually build that and showed me how AI can solve problems for people my age.

Looking back, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It changed me in more ways than I expected. If you are thinking about applying for an exchange like this, just go for it. Show your curiosity and explain why you care about your work. You never really know where that honesty can take you.