Community Service: An individual who is recognized as an up-and-coming leader within the LGBTQ community or whose contribution to the community in the past year was of particular significance.
AIDAN LIN
Aidan Lin (he/him/his) is a UC San Diego student studying political science. As an Asian American, Latine, and member of the LGBTQIA+ community, he champions diversity, intersectionality, and equity in his work and life. In 2018, while in high school, Aidan co-founded Our Time to Act (OTTA) United, a 501(c)(3) youth empowerment nonprofit organization. Under his leadership as Executive Director, OTTA United has conducted numerous advocacy initiatives in San Diego.
Currently, he is spearheading a youth-led voter registration drive and get-out-the-vote campaign in San Diego City’s youth and API empowerment district (District 6). Aidan served as the Associate Vice President of Local Affairs for the Associated Students of UC San Diego. During the city’s 2020 redistricting process, he led and empowered hundreds of students to give public comments in support of the SD Communities Collaboration Map, working alongside the LGBTQIA+, Asian, Latine, and Black communities in a historically intersectional city-wide coalition.
For all of his work, Aidan has been awarded the “Asian Pacific Islander Bridge Builder of the Year” by the San Diego Business Journal and the Asian Business Association of San Diego. He was invited to serve as a panelist for the #SpeechMatters Conference for the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. He additionally had the honor of speaking at the UC San Diego Changemakers Symposium as a Civic Engagement panelist.
Outside of work, Aidan is a black-belt Wushu martial artist, passionate flautist, avid gamer, and escape room enthusiast. Just as importantly, Aidan loves and is deeply grateful for his community of friends and family in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area, who has helped make him the person he is today.