Project C's Timeline
Project C began as a simple conversation between friends who believed that language learning could be so much more than textbooks and tests. What started as an idea exchanged over coffee grew into a concrete plan, and in 2020, Project C officially came to life with its first small group of students and a whole lot of determination.
In the years since, the program has expanded from a single chapter into a growing network that has now touched the lives of over 1,000 students across Taiwan. Each chapter brought new challenges and new lessons, but the original mission never changed: give young people the tools to communicate, lead, and dream bigger.
As for the founders, Ian Chiang is now at NYU Stern chasing his dreams of becoming an Investment Banker, while Lyon Chiang continues to study in high school, pursuing his educational prowess. Though their journeys have taken different shapes, the organization they built together keeps moving forward, carried by every student, mentor, and sponsor who believes in what Project C stands for.
2021/10/01
Project C was born from a legacy of resilience. Audi Chiang, father of founders Ian and Lyon, built his life from the ground up, growing up in poverty, walking to school in 35 degrees heat without always knowing the way home. Through sheer grit and determination, he made something of himself, and with success came a principle he instilled in his two sons from an early age: 要回饋社會, you must give back to the community.
That belief quietly took root. One day, as Ian was preparing to enter high school and Lyon was stepping into middle school, Ian turned to his father with an idea: what if they ran a basketball and English camp over the summer? It seemed simple at the time, just a thought between a father and his sons. But Ian and Lyon spent countless nights turning that thought into something real, shaping the vision, talking through every detail, and refusing to let it stay just an idea.
Audi, drawing on his own roots, reached out to the rural elementary school in the south of Taiwan where he himself had once studied. The school said yes. A date was set. And that summer, Ian and Lyon brought together a crew of international school students, kids who had grown up worlds away from poverty, and took them somewhere that would change how they saw the world. Project C had begun.
2022/5/13
Before Project C ever held its first camp, Ian and Lyon were already proving themselves on the court. That May, both brothers took home MVP honors on their respective basketball teams, Ian leading the way on the Varsity team and Lyon claiming the title on the JV team. It was no accident. The Chiang brothers had spent years honing their craft, pushing each other, and refining their game until their skills were as sharp as they could make them. Basketball was never just a hobby for them, it was a discipline. And now, with the idea of Project C taking shape, they finally had something bigger to play for. That same dedication to mastery would become the heartbeat of everything Project C was built on.
2022/7/26
Project C's first ever camp was nothing close to glamorous. With only 10 students showing up, a cracked and weathered outdoor court, and temperatures pushing 40 degrees in the unforgiving Taiwan summer heat, the conditions were bare minimum in every sense of the word. There were no frills, no facilities, and no guarantees. But not a single person complained. Everyone showed up, gave everything they had, and left having felt something they could not quite put into words. Looking back, that might be exactly why Project C made it as far as it did. Because after that first camp, something ignited inside Ian, Lyon, and everyone who was there. It was not satisfaction, it was hunger. The kind that does not go away. That fire became the foundation that every chapter, every camp, and every student since has been built upon.
2022/9/3
Beyond the court and the classroom, Project C has always believed that transformation does not stop with the students. That belief gave rise to the Project C sharing session, a space where parents, teachers, and community members were invited to sit down together and have an honest conversation about how we approach life. It was not a lecture, it was a dialogue. Educators shared their perspectives on how young people learn best, and parents opened up about the challenges and hopes they carry for their children.
At the heart of the session was Audi Chiang himself, who stood before the room not as an organizer or a title, but as a father. He shared the parenting philosophy that had shaped Ian and Lyon, speaking candidly about what it meant to raise children with humility, purpose, and a responsibility to give back. For many parents in the room, his words landed differently because they came from someone who had truly lived them. Audi did not speak from theory, he spoke from a life built from nothing, and that made all the difference.
The sharing session became one of the most quietly powerful parts of everything Project C does, a reminder that when you invest in young people, you are really investing in the families and communities that surround them.
2022/12/19
Project C's first major collaboration marked a turning point for what the program could become. Partnering with the Red Cross Association, the team made their way to Fazhi Elementary School, a rural school nestled in the mountains of Taichung, to spend time with aboriginal students whose world looked very different from the city kids who had come to meet them.
It was more than a camp. It was an exchange. Project C brought their energy, their curriculum, and their belief that every child deserves access to the kind of learning that builds real confidence. And the students at Fazhi gave something back that no curriculum could ever teach, a perspective rooted in community, simplicity, and joy that reminded everyone on the Project C team of exactly why this work matters.
The partnership with the Red Cross Association gave Project C a platform and a credibility that opened new doors, and Fazhi Elementary became a place the team would carry in their hearts long after they came back down from the mountains. This collaboration showed the world, and the team themselves, that Project C was no longer just a summer camp between two brothers and ten kids on a broken court. It was growing into something much larger than anyone had originally dared to imagine.
2023/3/1
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At Taichung American School, the very high school where Project C first took shape, founder Ian Chiang stood in front of a group of elementary school students to deliver something more personal than a lesson. It was a confession and a challenge all at once. Ian spoke openly about discipline, not as someone who had always had it, but as someone who had struggled to find it. He shared his own journey of recognizing that a lack of discipline was holding him back, and how he made the decision to confront that honestly and build himself into someone he could be proud of.
For young students sitting in that room, hearing those words from someone who had just led a growing movement across Taiwan carried real weight. Ian was not a distant success story. He was someone close to their age who had faced real doubts, made the choice to push through them, and come out the other side with something to show for it.
The information session was a natural extension of everything Project C stands for. Discipline, Ian told them, is not something you are born with. It is something you choose, every single day, even when it is hard, even when no one is watching. That message, delivered simply and honestly in the halls of the school where the dream of Project C first began, was one of the most powerful moments the organization had produced yet.
2023/4/2
By the end of the first year, the evidence was undeniable. Kids had come off that cracked outdoor court with bloody knees and scraped palms, playing through the heat without a single word of complaint, but Ian, Lyon, and Audi had seen enough. These students deserved better, and if Project C was serious about what it stood for, it was time to act like it.
So in 2023, they did. The founders and Audi made the decision to stop working around the conditions and start changing them. What followed was the construction of a brand new indoor court built right at the elementary school, giving the students a home court they could be proud of regardless of the season, the weather, or the temperature outside. No more 40 degree afternoons on broken concrete. No more scraped hands and burnt shoulders just to get a game in.
And they did not stop there. Project C branded the backboard itself, marking the court with the identity of the organization and the community it was built for. Every time a student looked up to take a shot, they would see proof that someone believed in them enough to build this place and put their name on it.
It was a statement as much as it was a structure. Project C was not just visiting these communities and leaving. They were investing in them, building something permanent that would outlast any single camp or event. The indoor court became a symbol of the organization's commitment, proof that when Ian and Lyon said they wanted to give back, they meant it in the most concrete way possible.
2023/5/19
May of 2023 made it impossible to deny that Project C was building something truly special, and the basketball courts of Taiwan delivered the proof. On one end of the island in Taipei, the Varsity team led by Ian Chiang fought their way through the TISSA tournament, the biggest and most competitive stage that international schools in Taiwan compete on, and claimed second place while punching their ticket into the playoffs. It was a run that turned heads and put the program on the map.
But the real history was being made on the other end of the island. Down in the southernmost part of Taiwan, Lyon Chiang was leading his JV squad on a different kind of run entirely. When the final buzzer sounded, Lyon's team had done something no team in the school's history had ever done before. They were TISSA champions.
What made both achievements hit even harder was who was on those rosters. Nearly half of the players across both teams were active coaches in Project C, young people who had taken everything the program stood for, the discipline, the commitment, the belief that you can always build toward something greater, and carried it onto the biggest stage in Taiwanese international school basketball. It was the moment that showed the world that Project C was not just changing lives on a court in rural Taiwan. It was shaping the kind of people who go out and make history.
2023/5/23
As if the championships themselves were not enough, May of 2023 delivered one final punctuation mark on what had been an extraordinary month. Ian and Lyon Chiang both took home MVP honors from American School In Taichung, a feat that went beyond personal achievement. It marked the first ever two-peat for both brothers, each claiming the award for the second consecutive year, and the first time in the school's history that two brothers had swept both MVP titles not once but twice. On opposite ends of Taiwan, in the same month, the Chiang brothers had led their teams to historic finishes and stood individually as the best players on the floor. For Project C, it was more than a milestone. It was a reflection of the culture the organization had been quietly building all along, one where discipline, leadership, and the will to give everything you have are not just words on a mission statement but habits lived out every single day.
2023/8/1
The second Project C event told a story that no marketing could have written better. Held in Chiayi, the numbers said everything. From the humble beginnings of just 10 students sweating it out on a broken outdoor court, the addition of the brand new indoor facility had changed the conversation entirely. Word had spread, confidence had grown, and families who might have hesitated before now had every reason to sign their children up. The result was a turnout of over 90 students, a number that stopped everyone in the room and reminded the founders just how much a single act of investment can ripple outward.
The growth was not just in the headcount. The energy of the second event carried the weight of everything that had been built to get there, the late nights planning, the first camp in the heat, the bloody knees, the shared sessions with parents, and the court that now stood as a permanent piece of the community. Every one of those 90 students walking through the door was a reflection of what happens when you refuse to settle for less than what people deserve. Project C had gone from a whisper of an idea to a room full of kids ready to learn, and it was only just getting started.
2023/12/25
Project C returned to Fazhi Elementary, but this time the visit felt different in the best possible way. The campus had been updated and transformed since their first encounter, a visible sign of the growth and investment flowing into the community. The surroundings had changed, and so had Project C. Two organizations, both further along than when they first met, coming back together with more to share and more to celebrate.
This time around, it was Fazhi's turn to lead. Baseball is the heartbeat of that community, the sport these kids grow up breathing, and they were not shy about showing it. Project C stepped off the basketball court and onto the diamond, letting the students of Fazhi take center stage and teach for once. What unfolded was one of the most joyful and grounding moments in Project C's story, city kids and mountain kids, different worlds and different strengths, laughing and competing side by side under the open sky.
It was a reminder of one of Project C's most important beliefs. Giving back does not always mean showing up with all the answers. Sometimes it means showing up with humility, being willing to learn from the very communities you set out to serve, and finding out that they have just as much to offer you as you have to offer them.
2024/5/4
On May 4th, 2024, Lyon Chiang took the lessons Project C had taught him about impact and applied them to a brand new vision. Recognizing that English education deserved its own dedicated space to grow, Lyon launched The Bridge, a program built entirely around the mission of teaching English in a meaningful and accessible way. Where Project C brought sport and language together on the court, The Bridge went deeper into the classroom, holding online sessions with students and giving them the focused English instruction that so many of them were hungry for.
The two programs quickly found a natural rhythm working alongside each other. The Bridge became the academic backbone that strengthened everything Project C was already doing on the ground. When students arrived at a Project C event, they were no longer starting from zero. The Bridge had already been there in the weeks leading up, running the pre-boarding online English classes, preparing materials, and making sure every student walked in feeling capable and ready to engage. What Lyon built on May 4th was not just a companion program. It was the missing piece that made the entire Project C experience more complete, more intentional, and more powerful than it had ever been before.
2024/5/15
May of 2024 wrote a chapter that will likely never be repeated. Ian and Lyon Chiang each claimed their third consecutive MVP award, making them the first pair of brothers in the school's history to three-peat the honor simultaneously. Back to back to back. Three years in a row, both of them, on opposite ends of the island, on different teams, in different tournaments. The kind of record that does not just stand, it looms. Players and coaches who witnessed all three years will tell you it was not luck and it was not coincidence. It was the product of years of early mornings, late nights, and an unrelenting standard that the Chiang brothers held themselves to long before anyone was paying attention. In a school where the trophy case keeps growing, this one belongs in a category of its own. It has not been broken since, and those who were there suspect it never will be.
2024/5/24
Ian's graduation was a milestone that carried the full weight of everything Project C had become. The boy who had once stood in a rural schoolyard with ten kids, a broken court, and nothing but belief had grown into a young man ready to take on the world. And the world was ready for him. Ian Chiang headed off to New York University, eventually earning his place at the Stern School of Business, one of the most selective business programs in the country with an acceptance rate of under three percent. It was the kind of achievement that does not happen by accident. It happens when someone spends years building discipline, leading others, and refusing to settle, which is exactly what Ian had been doing since the day he first sketched out the idea for Project C.
But leaving did not mean letting go. It meant trusting the foundation that had been laid. The torch passed to Lyon Chiang and Brent Hung, two leaders who had been inside Project C long enough to know exactly what it stood for. Brent, one year behind Ian and a co-founder of the organization in every sense of the word, had poured just as much of himself into building what Project C had become. Together, Lyon and Brent stepped into their roles not as replacements but as the natural next chapter of the story, two people who had earned the right to carry this forward by showing up, putting in the work, and proving themselves long before the moment arrived. The mission stayed the same. The standard stayed the same. Project C simply kept moving forward, the way it always had, one student, one camp, one community at a time.
2024/6/17
On June 17th, Project C gathered for something that no planning session or milestone meeting could have prepared them for emotionally. It was a send-off party for the graduating class of Dingliu Elementary School in Chiayi, and for everyone on the Project C team, it was a moment that made the entire journey feel worth it all over again.
Because these were not new faces. These were the kids. The ones who had shown up three years ago when Project C was still finding its footing, who had dribbled on courts and stumbled through English phrases and sat through goal-setting sessions without fully knowing yet what any of it would mean for them. And here they were, older, taller, graduating, and carrying everything they had learned into the next chapter of their lives.
Watching them cross that stage was the kind of sight that does not need a speech or a highlight reel to explain itself. It speaks on its own. Three years is a long time in the life of a child, and Project C had been there for a meaningful piece of it. That is not something you measure in headcounts or sponsorships or MVP trophies. That is something you feel standing in a room full of graduating kids who looked at you and remembered. For Lyon, Brent, and everyone who has ever given their time to this organization, June 17th was a quiet but profound reminder of exactly what Project C was built to do.
2024/12/31
On December 31st, while the rest of the world was counting down to midnight and raising glasses to the new year, Project C had somewhere more important to be. Ian, Lyon, Brent, and the team made the drive down to Chiayi to visit Shangxing Elementary School, a new school and a new community to pour into. There were no fireworks or celebrations waiting for them, just a gym, a group of eager students, and the same mission that had been driving Project C since the very beginning.
They spent the day teaching basketball and English, bringing the same energy and intention to Shangxing that had defined every camp and every visit before it. For the students at Shangxing, it was an unforgettable way to close out the year. For Project C, it was a statement about who they are. While the world paused to celebrate, they chose to show up and give back, because for this team, that has always been the real celebration.