Pierce Lowe
Pierce joined the STAND Changemakers Academy at a crossroads, midway through an MSc he wasn't sure was right for him, with a growing conviction that the world's most urgent problems were calling him somewhere new. What happened next surprised even him.
From Engineering to Food Systems: How the Changemakers Academy Changed Pierce's Direction
Pierce joined the STAND Changemakers Academy at a crossroads, midway through an MSc he wasn't sure was right for him, with a growing conviction that the world's most urgent problems were calling him somewhere new. What happened next surprised even him.
Pierce first came across STAND through posters at DCU, where he was studying electronic engineering at postgraduate level. Already restless and drawn towards food systems after time spent living abroad, he was curious enough to look closer. What he found in the Changemakers Academy felt like the right next step and he took it seriously enough to leave his MSc to join.
"After being offered a spot, I left the MSc. The STAND Changemakers Academy was my first step in my current trajectory."
His first days on the programme weren't without a challenge. As a self-described introvert, Pierce found the early intensity of the programme overwhelming. But something shifted quickly.
"The demographic of participants was something that stood out to me from the start. It was so different from anything I had been part of growing up, in education, or work until then. It highlighted something to me about who the status quo benefits."
That early jolt of perspective became a thread running through Pierce's entire experience. One exercise that stuck with him was an 'Objects from Home' activity in the first weeks: a deceptively simple prompt that revealed just how differently people relate to ideas of belonging, place, and identity.
"Seeing how everyone related to home and their understanding of home was really eye-opening."
Another idea took longer to land, but proved more lasting: the concept of 'Imagining Better' and what the programme called a 'crisis of creativity', the difficulty people have envisioning genuinely different futures rather than variations on what already exists.
"It took a long time for me to understand, but through many exercises, reading and tools it started to click. It's something I'm so aware of now in my work — that we need to first be able to imagine better alternatives to work to build a better future."
That shift in thinking had real-world consequences. When Pierce applied for a scholarship to study an MSc in Sustainable Development, Agri-food and Cooperatives at UCC, a significant pivot from his engineering background, interviewers kept returning to one thing: his time with STAND.
"In my scholarship application, the interviewers asked a lot about the Changemakers Academy and what I learnt from it after highlighting how much it had influenced my way of thinking. I was lucky enough to receive the scholarship funding and I attribute a lot of it to what I learnt from STAND."
The doors kept opening. Pierce was selected as part of the Irish youth delegation to the UN FAO World Food Forum in Rome, where again his Changemakers experience came up in the selection interview and proved its worth on the day itself, when the delegation led a workshop with international participants.
"My past experience with facilitating my own workshop under the Changemakers Academy really helped, not only in my application to join the delegation, but also on the day, to engage the participants."
Back at UCC, Pierce took on the role of Campaigns Officer for the Environmental Society, drawing directly on what he had learned through STAND. But the impact he describes goes deeper than any individual opportunity or role.
"The biggest thing for me is greater self-awareness and conscientiousness. It has changed fundamentally how I approach things every day. I feel more conscious not just of how events and actions affect me, but how my actions are connected to systems which affect others in vastly unequal ways and I consider my role within those systems."
When asked if he'd recommend the Changemakers Academy to others, Pierce didn't hesitate.
"I think the work of STAND is so important: creating opportunities for young people to engage with systems they often are excluded from or don't know how to interact with, to develop skills and connections, and build capacity to take action."
Curious what three months could do for you?
Find out more about the STAND Changemakers Academy and apply today.
