Last night was one of the most inspiring of the year for me — the Goldman Environmental Prize Ceremony. Every year, the Goldman family awards a prize to six grassroots environmental activists from all around the world.

This year, awardees included the amazing Ursula Sladek from Germany, who created her country’s first cooperatively-owned renewable power company and Prigi Arisandi from Indonesia, who started a local movement to stop industrial pollution from flowing into the river that provides drinking water to three million people. You can read about all the other prize winners and watch their videos on the Goldman website.

Their stories and struggles are amazing — most of these people have been working tirelessly for half their lives to fight for environmental protection for their communities.

But listening to each of these stories, hearing their grateful acceptance speeches, and feeling the excitement in the audience was not what was most inspiring for me.

Instead, it was the three people I was sitting next to: Mia Szarvas (a recent ACE Scholarship winner from Analy High School in Sebastopol, CA), Pratima Manga (an amazing seventh grader from Chaboya Middle School in San Jose), and Adarsha Shivakumar, head of ACE’s Youth Advisory Board.

Sitting next to these three amazing youth, I had an overwhelming feeling that in 10 or 20 years, I could be back at that same seat watching any of them walking up on stage to receive this award. Its amazing to think that so many of the 750,000 students ACE has touched in its first 2 years in existence may go on to careers in environmental service and a lifetime of inspiring those around them.

Thanks Mia, Pratima and Adarsha for joining me last night, and inspiring me every day with your hard work and dedication. And of course, a hearty congratulations from ACE to all this years Goldman Prize winners!