Sonam Wangchuk

“Ladakhi life is very fine-tuned with nature. We don't want it to become like cities.”

“I find it strange that our children, teenagers are kept captive listening in classrooms. Earlier education was for career and livelihood. Now, it has to rise to solve the crisis facing the earth and nations have to pay attention to the education of children to save this planet.”

“Let Ladakh change the world rather than the world change Ladakh.”

“We in the Himalayas have the problem of glaciers melting away and we had to make our own glaciers and I don't consider them proud or great achievement. It is only mainly to adapt to the problems that we have caused in this planet; The real solutions lie elsewhere; maybe people in the big cities of India, China and US can solve it.”

“Paper knowledge, paper evaluations, paper degrees all too papery and all too theoretical; it has very little that prepares us for real life in the real world.”

“Private schools cannot be the answer to nation's needs. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway are leading examples where government schools are world acclaimed.”

“We try to make children problem-solvers. That gave birth to solar-heated mud buildings, using greenhouses to grow things and ice stupas - artificial baby glaciers.”

“When I started my engineering, I had to support my education expenses; I was then studying in what is now the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar.”

“Don't blame the child for forgetting lessons; make the lessons unforgettable.”

“Young people in their twenties spend three-four years doing things that are behind the times. We're capturing such people in a classroom for a lecture. We need to reground ourselves and see how evolution has taught us.”

“The idea is to freeze the water in the winter and use it in late spring. The conical tower shape ensures that the surface exposed to the sun is minimal, so premature melting is avoided.”

“Things that work in New York or New Delhi do not work in the mountains. We have to find our own solutions for our problems.”

“Sports stars connect with youth. So, Viacheslav 'Slava' Fetisov's coming to Ladakh was a natural thing.”

“The world needs real-world universities, 'doer' universities. We're going to set up one model of it in Ladakh. And if it is successful, we hope it'll have a ripple effect from New Delhi to New York.”

“I always say please live a simple life in the city so that we can lead a simple life in the mountains.”

“I believe that schools of today with all their answers on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, above everything else, take us back to the industrial revolution in time, when people thought that nature could be conquered and consumption or production could be unlimited.”

“People know crowdfunding, but they know it as something where one pays money for a cause or for products and so on. This is something where you contribute, but not money.”

“Many people have uninstalled Chinese apps. So when crores uninstall apps. It will be a message for the Chinese government when they are intruding into India.”

“Yes, though trained as an engineer, I shifted to education as I realized that the system needed to be changed; I saw so many of the bright minds caged.”

“I hope the conduct of Indians can become an example for the rest of the world to follow.”