Clarissa Ngo

Illuminating Imaginations: A Conversation with the Founder of Imaginate Ink

Imaginate Ink is a private creative mentorship program founded nearly three decades ago by Clarissa Ngo, who has dedicated her life to teaching the art of imagination, eloquence, and giving. After graduating from Harvard, Clarissa developed a unique method to help young people write, speak, and act with purpose and power—so their lives can truly bloom.

In an education system where creativity and communication are rarely taught, Clarissa’s approach stands apart. Her students learn to create imaginative products that raise funds for causes they care about, giving them the skills to solve real-world problems with empathy and ingenuity. Many of her students have gone on to deliver TED Talks, earn Fulbright Scholarships, appear on Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, and build lives and careers rooted in creativity and compassion.

Clarissa believes genius is created, not born. Her philosophy is grounded in small, daily habits of excellence that, over time, shape young people into articulate, imaginative, and compassionate leaders.

From her own childhood spent exploring an abandoned botanical garden in California to founding a program that now empowers students around the world, Clarissa’s journey is as inspiring as the mission of Imaginate Ink itself.

In an interview with MY HERO, Clarissa shares how her path unfolded, what drives her work, and why she believes imagination is one of the greatest forces for change.

Could you tell us a little about your background — where you grew up and what you studied?

I grew up in a quaint little town in California on a hill next door to an abandoned botanical garden. The area’s founder had once traveled the world to bring back seedlings of interesting trees he and his bride found, so this abandoned garden was my playground. My parents were extraordinary, but, like all children, as I grew up, I assumed they were normal. They taught me to go the extra mile, think outside the box, be meticulous, and love learning and giving, all of which I teach my students today. My childhood was full of books, ballet, and Broadway musicals, so I grew up reading, singing, dancing, and doing theater. Most of all, I had a vivid imagination and learned how to create my own worlds. According to the MacArthur Foundation, which runs the MacArthur Genius Prize, creating your own paracosms as a child translates to changing the world as an adult. It is these precepts that I teach my students.

How did your journey to becoming an educator begin?

Growing up, I never thought I would be a teacher. After winning a prize to attend NASA Space Camp in high school, I thought, maybe an astronaut! At Harvard I started off as an Anthropology major with pre-med classes as my dad was a doctor, so I briefly investigated that before switching to my forte, English. I thought as I loved to read, was a good writer, and successfully represented my parents in court when I was a teen, I should look into law. But I interned at a NY law firm one Harvard summer and the lawyers didn’t seem the happiest. So I really wasn’t sure when I graduated what I wanted to be, which is surprisingly normal even for Harvard grads. Post college, I sold advertising for a magazine company, which I think builds your backbone as you learn courage and how to deal with rejection. But when I sold the most ads and the VP asked me how I did it and I told him I made my own marketing materials because the ones the company gave us were too long for potential clients to read, the VP said I had to stick with his materials. Now that I’m older I see why, but back then, I thought it didn’t make sense. I quit my job and decided to try acting as I had grown up not seeing myself represented in the media, and it wasn’t until I lived and worked in Singapore one college summer that I realized how much this had affected me. So I wanted to be the face I never saw growing up so that Asian Americans could be more than the stereotypes that were out there. I made a map of NY, pounded the pavement, and got myself ten agents and started doing student films and auditioning for films such as Memoirs of a Geisha. I also took acting classes of all kinds, which was humbling as nothing I had done before really applied to learning the craft of acting, which is actually the art of being.

How did Imaginate Ink come to be?

Because I needed a flexible job to attend last-minute auditions, I started my tutoring business out of my parents’ attic in 1998. I went to my old fourth grade teacher, who was Japanese American and the first person outside of my parents to make me feel special. She gave me my first student, and it kind of mushroomed from there. When you go the extra mile for people and really care, they notice and start to refer you to all their friends. I worked seven days a week, acting and teaching until I was 29, and after that, I worked seven days a week until late at night, teaching.

What do you offer at Imaginate Ink?

For the past 27 years, after graduating from Harvard, I’ve taught young people the art of imagination, eloquence, and giving. Eight of my students have given TED talks, and they found charities with global impact and multinational businesses that lift up the world by putting people over profit. They win James Beard awards, Fulbrights, and Forbes 30 Under 30, become surgeons, develop VR for Facebook, and design self-driving cars.  They become young people with the heart and tools to help the world.

How many of your students have submitted to the MY HERO Film Festival over the years?

In 2017, 16 of my kids made a film called Mission Kidz4Life that won 3rd place with you. It was about becoming a secret agent of kindness based on the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a shy British stockbroker who organized kindertransport, which saved 669 children from Hitler’s grasp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. British people adopted these kids from seeing their photos in the newspaper so Hitler couldn’t put them in concentration camps.

Then last year, nine of my students won 14 awards from you, so when you asked us to share how, we made you downloadable tips on paper that each student beautifully graphically designed, tips on video, and also, a 30-minute documentary with our tips, which you can see in progress here. Jacob Chan, whom you selected to edit the documentary, has wittily dubbed this, “Woe, tips be upon ye.”

What has been your proudest achievement so far?

I would say growing the ability to illuminate to my students who they could be before they knew it themselves. And teaching them to make things that matter for people who appreciate you, for that is from whence all meaning and joy spring. My dream is to create a TV or internet show so that more people can benefit from my method. I would say the tips we made for you as a gift are part of that.

Clarissa teaching Alex

What issues are most important to you?

The most important thing we can do is inspire those around us to live for something greater than themselves — to act daily with kindness and purpose. I tell my students they don’t need to be “fully in the light” to help others; it’s by helping others that they reach the light.

In terms of the most important political issue, I would say we need to overhaul our antediluvian education system, which hasn’t been refreshed since the Industrial Age. I think giving kids access to a useful, engaging education that teaches them how to make what matters; think creatively, critically, and unconventionally; and grow values that will feed them meaning throughout life would be the universal panacea to all our problems from poverty and prejudice to war and mental health. Happy people don’t start wars.

Do you have a mentor or a personal hero? If so, who are they and why are they your hero?

It is from my parents that I learned my values. My dad used to do school projects with me. He taught me to be meticulous as we would cut the foam core for my Egyptian pyramids and Southern plantation models to the millimeter of exactness. He is a retired radiation oncologist who would invent new things for patients to heal them and then just give away the patents. He taught me to go the extra mile as when we wrapped gifts for teachers at Christmas, he would help me make the boxes that contained the gifts into a wagon with dowel rod wheels that rolled. And he is always curious and learning things from everyone around him. And he grew up poor, so he treats the people who sweep the hospital floors with the same friendliness as he would the most important person in the room. My dad befriends everyone and finds out their stories. 

My mom would cut newspaper clippings she thought would interest me and put them on my desk, and she would also tape record radio shows and edit out the commercials so I could play them in the car. This is why I constantly send my students articles that I think would interest them, so it lights their paths. 

Living with Purpose

Clarissa reflects on what has kept her motivated after all these years:

“The most important thing we can do is to inspire the people beside us to live for a cause beyond themselves — and to show them it’s possible. It’s by helping others that we find the light ourselves.”

Through Imaginate Ink, she continues to do just that — teaching young people not only how to think and create, but how to care. Her story is a reminder that imagination, when guided by compassion, truly has the power to change the world.

To find out more, go to: www.imaginateink.com