Motivational speaker Spencer West called today’s youth “a generation at a crossroads” during a 2011 We Day event in Canada. We Day, an event hosted in various locations around the world, presents a lineup of speakers and performers geared to empower and inspire high schoolers to enact positive social change on local and global scales.

“So often are we told by the world that we can’t make a difference, that making a difference is impossible,” he said.

West, who lost both of his legs due to a genetic disease, has shared how he overcame the challenges in his life in the hope that his story will encourage people to defy the odds.

West was one of the speakers at the most recent We Day event in Seattle, where three Skyline High School seniors spent the day in KeyArena surrounded by 15,000 other students from around the state.

Microsoft recognized Skyline students Justin Zhong, Parker Ciambrone and Arjun Narayan for their work in developing the recently launched nonprofit website, Fundify.

Microsoft, through its YouthSpark initiative, sponsors We Day and encourages local teens to make a commitment to helping others. The technology company, headquartered in Redmond, helped bring the event to the United States when it became a We Day sponsor in 2013.

Microsoft staff took note of the Skyline student’s customizable search engine, www.searchfundify.org, which donates money from ad revenues to nonprofit organizations users individually select to support. The business, still in its initial stages, allows people to donate to nonprofits at no cost by browsing the Internet — they just have to go through the Fundify website.

“We were so impressed by these young innovators that we asked them to join us on April 23 at We Day Seattle,” said Lori Forte Harnick, Microsoft general manager for citizenship and public affairs.

The event, catered to students 12 years and older, is free. To attend, students must apply and commit to take action on local and global causes.

The stadium-sized event brings world-renowned speakers together to educate students on local and global issues.

The inspirational event kicks off the year-long We Act program, the service projects students committed to in the application process.

We Act and other programs aim to shift the focus from the individual and instead empower teens to make a difference through community involvement.

“At Microsoft, I’ve seen first-hand the power technology has to empower and inspire others,” Harnick said. “Fundify is a perfect example of this type of work.”