Not sites. Not grants. People — on both sides of the border, most of them young, all of them part of the same chain: learn, teach, lead, repeat.
The Coordinator
A Mexican national based in Mexico City, Andrea came to Chicago as a hosted U.S. State Department fellow to study the YTC model — and ended up leading YTC Mexico. The same fellowship pipeline built YTC's Global Alliance across Africa. She stayed.
Today she coordinates every Durango school, the Boys & Girls Club sites, the relationship with the U.S. Embassy, and the exchange itself — the person every teacher, principal, and host family knows by name. When the program reports its numbers, they are numbers Andrea collected, site by site, week by week.
Story to gather: Andrea's own telling — how a CSP fellow from Mexico City ended up running YTC's largest international program. Interview slot reserved.
The Student-Teacher
A Morton East robotics student — and twice a week, a teacher. Christian's sessions reach the Mezquital groups on the other end of the Zoom line, the same municipality the 2006 mission reached by truck.
YTC's own organizational history singles him out as the student who "demonstrates the complete Learn-Teach-Lead-Repeat cycle" — one of the organization's four forms of proof that the model works. He learned in the clubroom where the Durango story began, and now he's the one carrying it.
On the Other End of the Line
Named in the Embassy impact report. Each one is a fuller story waiting to be told — profile interviews reserved for the next reporting cycle.
CBTA 173 · NUEVO IDEAL, DURANGO
At the agricultural-technical school whose robotics cohort grew by half in one year — from 16 students to 24.
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB · ESTADO DE MÉXICO
The youngest named student in the program — at the club whose 2026 cohort posted 100% attendance.
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB · SAN LUIS POTOSÍ
From the Peñasco community, in the program's newest classroom — launched February 2026, 21 Arduino kits, perfect attendance.
COBAED 29 · CANATLÁN, DURANGO
At the site that posted the highest evaluation score of all nine — 90% in 2026.
The Team
An all-female team from the Universidad Tecnológica del Mezquital entered Durango's State Robotics Tournament with an autonomous maze robot — and took 3rd place in the state. Their classmates built an AI forest-fire detection system and presented it to Durango's Ministry of Natural Resources.
Three more UTM students did something no grant required: they translated the robotics curriculum into Audam, O'dam, and Huichol. UTM's students don't just take the classes — they teach three rural schools in the Mezquital themselves. Learn. Teach. Lead. Repeat, in three more languages.
The Lineage
Juan Z. joined YTC as a Morton East sophomore who had never opened the inside of a computer — he taught his peers over Zoom, was selected for the Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship, spoke for YTC at SXSW EDU, earned a master's in electrical and computer engineering, and serves today as YTC's volunteer Chief Technology Officer. Noemi S. went from student to cross-border virtual mentor, and is now majoring in engineering at UIC. The students on this page are standing where they stood.