Scott Merkel

Scott Merkel is a school counselor, systems thinker, and the founder of the Impact League — a youth social entrepreneurship engine designed to help young people turn their ideas into real-world impact.

Based in San Diego, Scott has spent the last 15+ years working in schools across the country, from Washington D.C. to Colorado to California, supporting students not just academically, but emotionally — helping them build resilience, agency, and purpose in a rapidly changing world.

While chairing a high school counseling department in Colorado, Scott launched a peer counseling program that evolved into something bigger: a platform for youth-led action research. Students used their voices to tackle mental health stigma in schools, earning statewide recognition and influencing decision-makers. That experience became the foundation for the Impact League.

Scott is particularly interested in how artificial intelligence is reshaping education, identity, and mental health — and what it means to be human in a world where outsourcing our relationships to machines is no longer science fiction.