Roy Ahn ’25 Wins United Nations Youth Video Award

Millbrook School attracts talented high schoolers from all over the world. Case in point: international student Roy Ahn ’25.

A budding artist, Roy made an animated video over the summer that was selected by the United Nation’s PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival.

Sponsored by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), PLURAL+ collects thousands of multimedia submissions. Then, a jury of international entrepreneurs and creatives select the best few in age- and topic-based categories. Project themes cover global diversity and inclusion in relation to migration.

Roy’s video, an animated collage of scenes depicting crowded streets and subway cars narrated by background noise and subtitles, climaxes in a classroom with a new student from another culture being introduced to the class. The narrator takes the initiative in welcoming the student to class, and the video closes with a profoundly simple tagline: “Just talk.”

According to Roy, he wasn’t looking for a contest to enter. Rather, the opportunity fell into his lap while he was at home in South Korea for the summer:

“I found out about this through one of those spam mails,” he said. “It looked cool. I didn’t know there was going to be an award like this, but I just I just came up with an idea really quickly and started drawing.”

For having his project selected, Roy received an all-expenses-paid trip to the PLURAL+ Ceremony in Portugal during the upcoming Thanksgiving break. Included in the festivities is a dinner with the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Roy said he is excited to travel to Portugal, as it has been on his list of places he wants to visit.

Roy's award-winning production will be posted on the PLURAL+ YouTube channel after the ceremony. 

The Millbrook community is proud that one of its own is being recognized for his creative and socially impactful abilities. Everyone is excited to see what’s next for Roy after he graduates in the spring.