What is light?
I used to think it was a bulb. Then I thought it was warmth. Now I think it’s the ability to see someone else.
A Naive Beginning
I printed my first lamp out of a discarded plastic bottle. I sold it, and used the money to buy headlamps for children in the mountains of Sichuan’s Liangshan — so they could see the road to school in the dark. I thought the job was done.
Later I learned the headlamps weren’t on the road at all. They were hanging by the stove, lighting the cooking.
So I didn’t stop sending lamps — I started teaching the kids to make videos instead. A way to be seen, on their own terms, again and again.
- Sent a light for the road.Found it lighting a stove.
- Thought the job was done.It had only just started.
- A tool, handed over.A life, still unseen.
- Gave what she had.Asked what was needed.
What they needed wasn’t light.
It was to be seen.
Building Bridges
One lamp can only light one person. A community can light a city.
I started the Youth Venture Alliance — no family name behind me, just enough stubbornness to connect a thousand high school founders who wanted to build something that mattered.
I stopped being a single point of light. I became a wire, carrying whatever I had toward whoever had an idea worth it.
The Inner Light
A lamp burns out. A trend passes. A thought doesn’t.
I wrote about animal rights for the John Locke Institute, researched green business through IPQ, and renamed the interview show I ran — once just 17 Interviews — to Light Talks.
Not for the views. For the record of what business could be, if it meant well.
From the smoke over a stove in Sichuan, to the warmth left behind in a stray cat’s shelter, to the conviction in a founder’s eyes when someone finally believes them —
I think I’ve spent my life chasing light, and slowly becoming it.
I used to think leadership meant giving orders.
Now I know it means giving light.
And sometimes, that light is just listening.
Irina — Class of 2031