2024 Award Recipient
ZachGottlieb
Project Talk With Zach
Project Talk With Zach
Zach was raised by a single mother who is a professional therapist and author. He was always encouraged to talk about his feelings, but as a teenager, sharing with friends often felt uncomfortable. The curated world of social media, where people feel pressure to “post their best life,” caused increasing dissonance between Zach’s real and online worlds.
Yearning for a space where teens could let their guards down and get real, Zach started an Instagram account called @talkwithzach. He invited teens to join a community that would be open and unfiltered.
The concept caught on: people began sending Zach direct messages with their stories about academic pressure, relationships, friend and family struggles, and feelings of loneliness.
Today, Talk With Zach is a global Gen Z wellness platform that engages more than 650,000 teens worldwide, with a growing roster of free, in-person, entirely teen-run workshops and events reaching 47 states and 31 countries.
Talk With Zach is a Gen Z movement and community that aims to combat a growing mental health crisis by providing an accessible space for teens to connect authentically and have honest, open conversations about the issues that impact us all. By using social media, online and in-person events, national media, and relevant partnerships to reach teens everywhere, Talk With Zach aims to help Gen Z become emotionally skilled young adults who thrive both personally and professionally in the years ahead. The platform has been featured on CNN, The Today Show, Vanity Fair, and more.
