Sonam spent first seven years of his childhood with his mother in a remote Ladakhi village, climbing trees, helping her with housework, and learning to read and write Ladakhi. He feels that the opportunity to learn Ladakhi was one of the best things she provided, particularly since the schools he attended later did not teach the language.

In 1988, a year after graduating as an engineer, Sonam, with his brother and five peers, formed the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL).  Until 1990 Sonam coached school students and offered vocational training courses to dropouts. Sonam’s solution lay in localizing the system of elementary education.

In 1991 Sonam started his first intervention in the government school of Saspol with permission from the chief education officer of the region. The success of the model created popular demand for his training, and 33 villages came forward to adopt the model before the newly formed Hill Council adopted it as official policy.

By introducing educational reforms in government-run schools, Sonam Wangchuk encourages communities to reinforce the cultural identity of minority ethnic groups that live along the northern border of India.

With people struggling to meet their basic water requirements in Ladakh, Sonam came up with a localized solution of creating vertical ice stupas to store water for a longer time. After building a successful prototype near his campus, he now plans to create multiple stupas to solve all of Ladakh’s water troubles.

Sonam lives on the Phey campus of SECMOL that uses sustainable energy principles and is completely off the power-grid.

It is believed that the character of Rancho from the popular movie 3 idiots was inspired by the Sonam Wangchuk and the movie even shows the SECMOL campus at the finale.