Lauréats du lycée 2021

Rana Duan is currently a senior at Dulles High School in Sugarland, Texas. She was born in Ohio and lived in Michigan for a few years before settling in Texas. In the fall semester, Rana is planning on attending the University of Texas at Austin and majoring in economics. She is hoping to understand the economic system and help to play a role in reforming it. Rana would like to work for the government one day and create policy around important environmental issues. Of the three topics, Rana chose to create a video about Promoting Environmental Justice due to the rigorous research she conducted on inequality in climate change in her environmental science class. As a result, she wanted to explore the topic further.

This is not Rana’s first experience with filmmaking as this is her third time winning the World of 7 billion contest, which practically makes her a veteran! In 2019, she won an honorable mention for her video titled “The Threat of Outsiders” for the Preserving Biodiversity topic. Last year, she won another honorable mention for her video “The Unjust Killer” submitted under the Improving Climate Resiliency category. This year, Rana drew inspiration for her video from an impromptu speech one of her team members gave on the debate team about food deserts that she found “really interesting”. Even as a World of 7 Billion contest veteran, she found it challenging to condense all of the information in a one-minute video. As a third-time winner, Rana recommends that future participants find a topic they’re interested in because it makes the research easier. For next year’s contest, she would like to see a topic on “global inequality in relation to population and the Earth”, adding that “when we talk about climate change, we don’t realize that more developed countries are creating a lot of impact on climate change that developing countries have to face and deal with.” Rana hopes to see more media coverage on this issue.

In her free time, Rana enjoys watching crime shows on Netflix. She likes teaching and is a part of “Sci-now”, a club where she and other members go to elementary schools and teach kids science after school. She is also trying to learn how to play the guitar. Rana is inspired by her older sister, Nika, who works in investing in projects for the greater good.