D-PREP Open World 2026

Open World is D-PREP's flagship student-run event. As Student Body President I took overall responsibility from the first vision conversation through to live execution on the night of February 6th.

I owned the top-level direction across specialized committees covering operations, technical production, multimedia, finance, performers, and emcees. The leadership pipeline underneath that was roughly 100+ secondary students working in parallel under tight deadlines.

Setting the creative vision and scope. Mediating between committees with competing priorities. Making budget and scope decisions on where to scale ambition up or down. Serving as the main public-facing point of contact with school administration and parents.

A planning window of one to two months meant the calendar was unforgiving and the cost of late decisions was high.

A significant part of the role was people leadership rather than logistics. Keeping inexperienced or hesitant team members engaged. Resolving conflicts between committees as pressure increased. Mentoring younger students into real ownership of their areas. Sustaining momentum across the compressed planning window when motivation naturally dipped.

Leadership on the night was live crisis management: handling last-minute issues across multiple teams in parallel while keeping the production on track and the wider team calm.

Outcome: every ticket sold out, strong community and parent response, and successful execution of the major creative and technical centerpieces including the light show.

Significant personal growth in leadership, communication, and high-stakes decision-making under compressed timelines. The biggest specific lesson was around mentoring without micromanaging: giving committee leads room to own decisions, while staying close enough to catch issues before they cascaded.