{"id":811168,"date":"2026-08-12T13:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/811168\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T13:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:20:18","slug":"international-youth-day-record-breaking-kids-who-have-changed-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/811168\/","title":{"rendered":"International Youth Day: record-breaking kids who have changed the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

12 August is International Youth Day, a day dedicated to spotlighting young people, and especially those who are driving change and actively helping shape a better future.<\/p>\n

At Guinness World Records, we love celebrating young leaders who\u00a0prove that greatness has no age limit, and use their talents, curiosity and creativity to fix real issues.<\/p>\n

Here are some inspiring examples.<\/p>\n

Human Calculator<\/p>\n

15-year-old prodigy Aaryan Shukla<\/a> from Maharashtra, India<\/a>, has left the world speechless by achieving multiple world record titles with his incredible maths skills. He can do mental maths quicker than you could type it into your calculator!<\/p>\n

Namely, he holds the record for the fastest time to mentally add 50 five-digit numbers \u2013 a mere 25.19 seconds (that\u2019s about one addition every 0.5 seconds!) \u2013 and the fastest time to mentally add 100 four-digit numbers \u2013 30.9 seconds.<\/p>\n

Today, Aaryan is one of the founding board members of the Global Mental Calculators Association (GMCA)<\/a>, impacting the world positively by helping to improve brain health and providing free, accessible STEM education globally.<\/p>\n

TIME\u2019s Kid of the Year<\/p>\n

\"gitanjali<\/p>\n

When she was only 10 years old, Gitanjali Rao from Denver, Colorado, USA<\/a>, started developing a small device, named Tethys, that can detect if there is lead in water, a chemical that is unsafe for humans to drink or eat.<\/p>\n

One of her more recent inventions, named Kindly, is a computer technology that helps stop cyberbullying. She\u2019s really making the world a better place, one invention at a time!<\/p>\n

So, after achieving so much at such a young age, Gitanjali set the record for becoming the first TIME Magazine<\/a> Kid of the Year.<\/p>\n

Gitanjali said: \u201cTake risks, find your own talent and use it. There\u2019s no limit to the amount of times we can fail, and we still have time to succeed in our endeavours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more stories about record-breaking innovations in our\u00a0Science and Technology section.<\/a><\/p>\n

Youngest fashion designer<\/p>\n

On 18 November 2023, at the age of 7 years 266 days, Max Alexander<\/a> from Denver, Colorado, USA, became the youngest runway show designer, after he was offered a spot at Denver Fashion Week \u2013 and his career has skyrocketed ever since.<\/p>\n

Today, Max is a huge advocate for sustainable fashion, and has a talent for showing people how beautiful deadstock materials can become instead of going into landfill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to encourage people to use recycled materials. It\u2019s better for our environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Youngest MBE<\/p>\n

\"carmela<\/p>\n

Carmela Chillery-Watson from Dorset, UK<\/a>, was only 11 years 78 days old when she became the youngest Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), a prestigious royal honour given by the King for outstanding services to the world.<\/p>\n

At the age of four, Carmela was diagnosed with a rare progressive muscle-wasting condition called LMNA congenital muscular dystrophy (L-CMD) and, since then, she has raised over \u00a336,000 for charity by completing various fundraising projects.<\/p>\n

For example, in 2020 she covered 10 km (6 mi) every day for a month dressed as the comic-book superhero Wonder Woman!<\/p>\n

Awarded conservationist<\/p>\n

\"dara<\/p>\n

Dara McAnulty<\/a> is a naturalist, writer and environmental campaigner from the UK. In 2019, he became the youngest recipient of the RSPB Medal for conservation, joining a long list of renowned naturalists like Sir David Attenborough.<\/p>\n

He was just 15 years 209 days old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my passion to help protect our environment by teaching others all about animal conservation. I especially love birds!\u201d Dara said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking together to bring about the changes we so desperately need for a healthy planet needs everyone to understand what\u2019s at stake and I do feel that young people have elevated that, in partnership with experts and organizations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So happy International Youth Day \u2013 we can’t wait to see the positive impact that these young leaders\u2019 efforts will have on the activists, artists, scientists and innovators of tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"12 August is International Youth Day, a day dedicated to spotlighting young people, and especially those who are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,220880,35917,451,344150,344221,220881,344222,3,344220,452,453],"class_list":["post-811168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-guinness-record","tag-guinness-world-records","tag-headlines","tag-international-youth-day","tag-invention-records","tag-kids-records","tag-maths-records","tag-news","tag-record-breaking-kids","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}