Litong Deng

EdJOYcation 
Founder and Director

Litong Deng is a teenage advocate for global issues such as crisis preparation and response, education inclusion and media disinformation. Through selecting an interdisciplinary approach to upskill on behavioral sciences, mathematics and technology, he aims to foster cultures, through effective resources collection and allocation, which are collaborative, equitable and trust-based.

One of the lessons that he learned is that “if you don’t fit in somewhere, it might be the environment’s problem, not his own”. Sometimes he feels as if he doesn’t belong at school because he’s too “nerdy” or “studious,” but after having the experience of being surrounded by other STEM “nerds” and feeling like he finally fit in, he has had much less concern about fitting in in his normal school environment. 

He currently leads a junior high Health and Wellness class at his high school. In this class, he introduces middle schoolers to various topics in physical and mental health and exposes them to different professions in the medical field. He is the Founder of EdJOYcation, where he aspires to prevent education burnout with intergenerational multi-stakeholder alignment for creating transformative joy through education.

Looking ahead, Litong aspires to take on a leadership or mentorship role as a global institution, such as a university, a corporate or an international think tank, and share his knowledge with others passionate about his subject. Achieving higher academic and experience based learning would allow him to learn from both his peers and real world leaders, pushing him to improve in every aspect of his life and drive him closer to his goals, such as innovating towards solutions for climate change and improving pandemic preparedness. 

In the long run, he aims to transform education through building connections between educators, parents, learners, organizations and policymakers, promoting delayed gratification, and empowering learners to believe in their own potential.