BYU students Jonah Lindsay, Brin Openshaw, Kaylee Packer and Parker Willis won the ILO Award for the International Labor Organization Youth Congress in the inaugural year the award was presented.
The four BYU students presented their call-to-action project: a contest where students from around the globe present at the International Labor Organization Youth Congress to show a project that helps with global innovation for safety, health and well-being.
The team presented a hypothetical app called CoolClock—an app that would alert workers when it is time to take a break at scheduled intervals, alongside reporting to managers the best time to allow breaks for their workers by sampling local weather forecasts.
Three awards were given out to the teams that participated, with Lindsay, Openshaw, Packer and Willis being the only team at the competition hailing from North America.
The team was the first in history to win the award from the International Labor Organization, with the ILO Youth Congress being the first time a call-to-action competition was held at the World Expo.
Lindsay, a member of the team, said, “It was really awesome. We were super excited. I didn’t think that our project would make it this far, let alone get an award. So it was super high emotions.”
The team began work on the project back in January 2025. Through the entire application process to being selected to win the award, the team has felt they have grown a tremendous amount.
“We’ve really grown to be more comfortable in our own skin … academically and professionally too … and introduce ourselves to these professionals on a worldwide scale,” Lindsay said.
Meeting people from all over the world at the Expo exposed the team not only to new people but also to different ways to look at life.
Lindsay mentioned how important it is to take into account every individual culture and country when working to make the world a healthier place.
“Each culture has its way of doing things. And sometimes the interventions that you make to keep people healthy and safe are not appropriate for the culture … There are a lot of things with culture that we have to consider when doing public and global health … So just that lens of cultural awareness and sensitivity was really cool,” Lindsay said.
The different cultural ways of looking at the world and the future were a huge inspiration to the team. Different countries at the Expo all showed different booths displaying ways that the world can be safer and healthier. Japan showcased their unique worker suits that pump air conditioning into the suits to cool down workers, while Germany presented how they are working to move toward clean energy and creating sustainable materials.
The Expo showed the team a larger global scale that is working together to help advance the world so people can be healthier and safer—and was a source of inspiration as they returned to BYU.
The largest aspect of the Expo that the team took back to their lives was the importance of talking to different and unique individuals within their own industry.
“It’s not as scary as people make it out to be, to make connections with professionals all over … I’m the president of the BYU Occupational Health Association … I think that we could be not just as a club but as people more bold in making those connections and saying yeah, I trust in my own ability … and I also want to learn from other people,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay also mentioned the importance for students in the public health field to take the initial step and see what incredible things can happen.
“I say make connections with people, make relationships, find professionals in your field that can help you and also pray. Because we couldn’t have done any of this without the help of God.”
What these four BYU public health students have achieved already on a local, national and global scale is incredible and shows the power that any individual student can have. These four have blazed a bright path forward in the public health space that other students are lucky to follow.
Learn more about this year’s expo and how to get involved at: https://www.expo2025.or.jp/en/overview/purpose/