St. James Sec­ondary School cap­tured the top prize at the 2026 RBC Young Lead­ers pro­gramme, with its project, WORM – Waste Op­ti­miza­tion Re­silience Move­ment.

The ini­tia­tive earned the school $100,000 to tack­le school waste through bi­o­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion and prac­ti­cal de­sign.

Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege se­cured sec­ond place and $50,000 for de­sign­ing a pro­gres­sive school-based ecosys­tem fea­tur­ing plant walls, a green­house, and re­cy­cled-ma­te­r­i­al seat­ing, all sup­port­ed by rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and sim­ple ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems. Bat­tery-pow­ered sen­sors al­low stu­dents to col­lect re­al-time tem­per­a­ture and air qual­i­ty da­ta, turn­ing the cam­pus in­to a liv­ing sci­ence lab.