Academic Summit for Young Leaders
The OG Academic Summit for Young Leaders (ASYL) is a unique event that blends intensive academic short courses with opportunities to tackle pressing global challenges. Aimed at ambitious high school students, ASYL offers in-depth courses on subjects rarely explored at school, helping participants gain new skills and apply them to real-world issues.
Beyond the classroom, the summit challenges students to think critically about problems such as climate change, technological innovation, and social justice, while fostering leadership and cross-cultural collaboration.
In 2025, OG collaborated with partner organisations to host ASYLs in both Dubai and Shanghai, bringing together young leaders from across the globe. Each edition inspires students to combine academic inquiry with practical solutions, preparing them to become the changemakers of tomorrow.
The PROGRAMME
ASYL is structured around subject streams, each dedicated to a different discipline and its application to solving real-world challenges. This approach allows students to explore their studies beyond the classroom, showing how academic skills can be translated into practical impact and empowering them to see themselves as future global leaders. Past streams have included mathematics, chemistry, psychology, biomedicine, economics, and computer science.
Courses are taught by researchers from Oxford, who guide students in deepening their subject knowledge while also developing academic writing, research, and presentation skills - pushing them towards the standards expected of Oxbridge undergraduates.
COURSE STRUCTURE
Each stream combines daily lectures from stream leaders with small-group discussions led by course facilitators, modelled on the Oxbridge tutorial system. The course culminates in the writing of a group essay - chosen from a set of topics introduced at the start - and a presentation on the same theme. Through this process, students strengthen not only their academic writing and presentation skills, but also their ability to collaborate and work effectively in teams.
At the end of every ASYL, the prize-winning essays are published in a dedicated journal, available on the event’s page as a showcase of the impressive understanding and writing ability demonstrated by participants.
Our goal is that every ASYL graduate leaves the programme with not only deeper subject knowledge, but also greater confidence in communication, sharper academic skills, and an empowered sense of agency to confront and solve the global challenges of the future.
