Social Impact

YanLearn

From Grade 9 (July 2023), I volunteered to teach beginner coding courses (I taught over 230 students). However, I quickly realized that with my ambitious goals, I simply could not do this alone. Thus, I founded a free tutoring organization, YanLearn, to serve this vision. I relentlessly reached out to and shared my idea with qualified tutors, many of whom were motivated to join. These figures may be impressive, but ultimately they are not the reasons why I am proud of YanLearn. I am proud because my goal evolved into our goal.

Volunteer Tutors

Courses

644

Hours Taught

499

Total Enrollments

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Coding for SickKids

Ethan Yan Xu holding an oversized SickKids VS cheque made out to the SickKids Foundation for $8,821, in front of the Hospital for Sick Children sign. — Presenting an $8,821 cheque to the SickKids Foundation outside the Hospital for Sick Children, May 2026.

Five members of the YanLearn team in branded shirts, seen from behind, in front of the Hospital for Sick Children. — Part of the YanLearn team at the hospital on presentation day.

I created “Coding for SickKids” from February 2024, a fundraising campaign that runs alongside YanLearn, where student donations go directly to the SickKids Foundation.

In grade seven, I felt a sharp pain in my right abdomen on what was supposed to be an ordinary Monday night. Two hours later, I was wheeled down the long corridor to the operating room for acute appendicitis. The nurses helped wheel me out of the surgery room, comforted me afterwards, and even gave me ice cream and other treats. When I started teaching voluntarily in grade 8, I told my mom that I wanted to do something for the hospitals. This is how the Coding for SickKids fundraiser was born. Through this experience, I was helped by strangers even when my mom and I had nothing to offer them, and I have been trying to do the same ever since, just from the other side.

$18,443raised

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St. Robert Coding Club

Curriculum Coordinator in G10, created AI courses in G11, Co-President in G12. Throughout these years, I had always noticed members leaving the club each school year, and usually it was because the content became difficult too quickly. By May, we would only have roughly half of the members we had in September. Thus, I separated the club into the junior and senior streams to ensure every member could learn at their level. I also created stroj so that we could have our own online judging platform that allowed us to upload our problems for our members to do. I even introduced a rating system and biweekly rated contests so that members could compete against other members and executives could have an objective way of weighing members’ performance for executive applications.

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Community Service

Waterloo Youth Accompanying Learning Community Group

197

Tutoring Hours

131

Sessions Hosted

551

Total volunteering hours

Schoolhouse

222

Tutoring Hours

192

Sessions Hosted

151

Learners Impacted

Countries Reached

1052

Positive Ratings

580

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