Event Recap

Building a Responsible Digital Future for Youth

From Protection to Meaningful Participation and Agency

Who Gets to Shape the Rules of Growing Up Online?

On 25 September 2026, the Global ESG Leadership Organization (ESGIN) convened Building a Responsible Digital Future for Youth, bringing together legal and governance professionals, educators, youth advocates, entrepreneurs, parents and children for a discussion spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Held during United Nations General Assembly week, the online session continued the organisation’s dialogue on responsible digital development under the theme Youth Digital Well-being, Safety and Agency.

The questions were immediate. Schools are deciding how students should use AI. Families are negotiating the boundaries of online life. Platforms are shaping what children see, how they interact and where their attention goes. Young people are already making consequential choices within these systems, often with limited influence over how those systems are designed.

What would change if their experience carried real weight in the decisions being made about them?

The discussion approached that question through law, corporate responsibility, education and lived experience. Its proposals ranged from local youth AI councils and platform audits to shared school computers, female technology mentors and safeguards against abusive comments. Across these different settings, the challenge was to build an environment in which young people could remain safe while developing the judgement, confidence and authority to act for themselves.

1. Governance and Rights: Giving Young People a Role in the Rules

Olivier Lazar: Responsible technology begins with accountable human decisions

Olivier Lazar, Global Chief of FIH, RDY and EEA, opened the discussion with a contradiction familiar to many educators: schools are trying to prevent some uses of AI while simultaneously seeking ways to integrate it into learning. The difficulty extends beyond classroom policy. Institutions must decide how to accommodate a technology whose applications are changing faster than many of their established practices. Throughout the session, Lazar pressed speakers to identify whose needs were being overlooked, how governments, companies, schools and communities should share responsibility, and what could realistically be advanced within six to twelve months. He also recognised the time required for concerns to reach international forums and for international deliberations to influence local practice, giving particular importance to action within schools and communities.

His broader concern was the human purpose of this transition. Entrepreneurship education, he observed, should develop initiative and the ability to improve existing organisations as well as prepare students to establish businesses. The same expectation applies to AI: its use should strengthen people’s ability to understand situations, contribute ideas and take responsibility. Returning to ESG in his closing remarks, he connected responsible resource use with the treatment of people and the governance arrangements that shape decisions. Education and engagement, in this account, help create a reinforcing relationship between health, capability, productive participation and well-being. The responsibility for technological outcomes remains with the people and institutions making choices about their development and use.

Core argument: Digital progress should strengthen human capability and well-being, supported by clear responsibilities and meaningful participation.

Long Nguyen: AI education should lead to influence over local decisions

For Long Nguyen, Founder and Executive Director of TruthInTech, the case for youth participation begins with the fact that young people are already experiencing AI’s consequences. They should not have to wait until adulthood or employment to understand how those systems work. Through workshops, hackathons and an AI ethics curriculum under development, his youth-led nonprofit helps students examine automated decisions, recognise bias and consider the effects on their communities. Nguyen reported that TruthInTech had grown to more than twenty chapters and participated in United Nations-related exchanges. Those experiences reinforced his concern that AI governance remains too concentrated among governments and companies, even as limited transparency makes it difficult for students—and sometimes lawmakers—to understand what is being governed.

Nguyen’s proposed response connects education with civic participation. Students who can identify a problem should have a route to discuss it with teachers, companies and policymakers, and contribute to rules that address it. He cited youth AI activities in Boston, including work on a proposal described as the “Students First Act,” before calling for local youth AI advisory councils linked to municipal governments and school boards. Rotating membership across age groups would bring different experiences into discussion and help decision-makers understand how policies affect students. These councils would also allow communities to address their own priorities. An exchange with participants in a Jamaican AI programme, where applications included agriculture and education, had shown him how much innovation and practical knowledge can be missed when international debate draws from a narrow range of places. Ethical judgement and civic skills, he argued, should develop early enough for young people to contribute while the rules are still taking shape.

Core argument: AI literacy becomes consequential when young people can use it to identify problems and help shape the decisions affecting their communities.

Robert D.F. Thomas: Youth protection belongs inside corporate governance

Robert D.F. Thomas, a former Head of Legal and Compliance at Apple and an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University, approached youth safety as an organisational responsibility. His emphasis on co-regulation brought together two requirements: young people need skills and the capacity to regulate their own behaviour, while institutions must provide safeguards that make responsible use possible. That requires structures, policies and procedures within organisations, alongside safety by design, including age-appropriate defaults and attention to algorithmic design. Families and communities also need protection tools that are practical enough to use. A framework that cannot be implemented in everyday settings offers little help to the people expected to rely on it.

Thomas placed these measures within a wider understanding of well-being, encompassing digital literacy and young people’s ability to develop a positive sense of identity in digital spaces. His proposed youth digital governance action framework would bring safety, privacy, data responsibility, responsible AI and digital education into a coordinated approach, with participation and accountability running through its implementation. When the discussion turned to equitable access, he used the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive as a reference for how governments can establish requirements and hold organisations accountable for delivery. The point was institutional: companies need responsibilities that can be translated into decisions, procedures and product features, while public authorities need mechanisms that make implementation more than voluntary aspiration.

Core argument: Youth protection must become an operational obligation, built into products, organisational procedures and mechanisms for accountability.

Monica Sanders: Participation requires a place in drafting, implementation and audit

Monica Sanders, Founder of The Undivide Project and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, began with the community affected by a decision. Young people should be involved in the bodies designing their future, help inform the rules being drafted and participate in implementing the frameworks that concern them. She questioned the familiar practice of inviting youth to speak while excluding them from the stages at which decisions are actually made. Her argument also reached into the economics of digital participation: young people’s data and contributions help generate value, yet their interests are often poorly represented within stakeholder structures. Where are young people in the value chain of an economy they help sustain?

Sanders linked that question to inequalities between countries and regions. Reflecting on an exchange that included a representative from the Bahamas, she asked how often Caribbean Community youth were represented and whether discussions adequately reflected the diversity of Asian countries. Age intersects with geography and the wider distribution of influence. Her proposals therefore addressed both power and access: incorporate youth protection into audit baselines for algorithms and platforms, develop company practices covering data use, algorithmic exposure, safety incidents and access, and ensure young people are involved beyond consultation. Alongside this, national and regional funding should expand digital infrastructure, drawing where appropriate on arrangements connected with wider climate-related investment. Participation cannot be meaningful if communities lack the physical means to connect, and connectivity alone does not guarantee a role in governance.

Core argument: Young people need both the infrastructure to participate and a substantive role in designing, implementing and evaluating digital systems.

2. Education and Opportunity: Developing the Capacity to Act

Emmalyn Green: Learning should build the confidence and relationships needed for action

Emmalyn Green, Director of Learning Design at JA Worldwide, described an educational approach organised around learning about AI and learning with AI. Students need foundational knowledge, responsible-use principles and an understanding of digital safety, together with opportunities to apply that learning to real tasks. JA has invested in staff and educator training and involved young people in decisions about how AI enters learning experiences. In entrepreneurship education, that means examining where the technology can contribute meaningfully to the process and enhance human capabilities. Green connected this practical work to confidence: students develop a stronger sense of what they can do when they have opportunities to try, improve and see the results. Mentors and alumni make the next step more imaginable, particularly when those role models have attended the same schools and come from the same communities.

She carried this logic into World Youth for Action, an initiative she described as scheduled for November that year. Bringing young leaders and policymakers together around community needs, it combines practical experience with advocacy skills and an understanding of how government, schools and other institutions interact. The ambition is for participants to continue the work after an event: maintaining conversations with decision-makers, finding partners and helping other young people participate. Green called for organisations to sustain those connections through activities across the year. A young person may have an important experience to share, but translating it into change also requires knowing how institutions work and where support can be found.

Core argument: Effective AI education connects knowledge and practical confidence with the relationships and advocacy skills that sustain participation.

Viktor Tsvetanov: Participation should be judged by the decisions it changes

Viktor Tsvetanov, Bulgarian Youth Delegate to the United Nations and Development Impact Associate at JA Alumni Europe, welcomed the growth in opportunities for youth to join institutional discussions, while questioning what follows from their presence. The harder task, he argued, is making those seats meaningful. His own work offered examples of technology supporting participation: JA Alumni Europe has used AI to summarise meetings, clarify commitments and consolidate contributions to its strategy towards 2030. Programmes such as EU Code Week and Girls GO STEM also create opportunities to develop skills and present ideas. He described a participant who developed a drone system and went on to engage internationally. Yet these examples raised a further question: how do similar opportunities reach communities that remain underserved?

Tsvetanov applied that scrutiny to consultation itself. When youth representatives gather views through online surveys, those without internet access may be absent from the evidence on which representation is based. He proposed a structured process extending over several months, in preparation for the second global dialogue on AI governance that he referred to for 2027. Young people from different regions would identify priorities, develop recommendations and follow those recommendations through the subsequent discussions. Partnerships between organisations and institutions, consistent with SDG 17, would support continuity. The relevant measure would be whether participants could point to an idea, recommendation or decision that changed because they contributed. Counting attendance captures the scale of a consultation; tracing its consequences reveals whether it carried influence.

Core argument: Meaningful youth participation requires an inclusive, sustained process whose influence on decisions can be demonstrated.

Ines Gafsi: Girls need the resources and responsibility to become technology creators

Ines Gafsi, Chair and CEO of Inspiring Girls Hong Kong, described a barrier that access to devices alone cannot resolve. Gender stereotypes can shape girls’ expectations before they have had the chance to discover their abilities, narrowing the careers and roles they consider possible. Her organisation connects girls aged fourteen to sixteen from less privileged backgrounds with female role models as part of a wider international movement. Those relationships are tied to practical creation: corporate partners provide programme funding, microgrants and professional expertise, and work with girls on challenges grounded in problems they observe in everyday life. The girls develop AI-related solutions while retaining responsibility for important decisions. Through that experience, technology becomes something they can shape.

The model also brings industry knowledge into schools, where teachers are working to keep pace with AI’s development. Female professionals can offer practical perspectives on governance, ethics and workplace realities, helping students understand the responsibilities that accompany technical work. Gafsi’s priorities were to secure more corporate participation and funding for underserved communities, and expand the network of women willing to serve as role models. She acknowledged that recruitment involves more than finding expertise. Some women nominated by their employers still question whether they are qualified to guide girls, revealing a confidence barrier on both sides of the relationship. Supporting those mentors is therefore part of building a stronger pathway for the next generation.

Core argument: Girls develop technological agency when role models, funding and practical projects give them genuine opportunities to create and decide.

3. Youth Leadership: Turning Digital Participation into Real-World Influence

Cameron Ng: Credibility grows through consistent action and shared purpose

For Cameron Ng, Founder of Shell to Sea and a youth marine environmental advocate, the challenge is getting an idea from public attention to practical cooperation. His organisation works on the responsible processing and reuse of shells discarded by restaurants and supermarkets, connecting waste reduction with marine ecosystems and acidification-related concerns. Young advocates, he observed, often struggle to be taken seriously before they have had time to establish a record. His response is to begin building relationships: share work with parents and teachers, attend events, meet people with related interests and identify where an initiative’s mission overlaps with another organisation’s objectives. Consistency gives those relationships a basis for trust.

Ng described how a visit to OceanX led to contact with WWF representatives and then to collaborations exploring shell-based structures for coral nurseries and the use of shell material to reduce acidity in some Hong Kong marsh areas. Through WWF, he also connected with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University to explore further marine sustainability work. These experiences showed how digital visibility and personal relationships can reinforce one another. Platforms can help an idea receive consideration on its merits, while professional connections provide expertise and opportunities to test it. He encouraged continued cooperation between young people and adults so that promising proposals have a route into implementation.

Core argument: Youth advocacy gains lasting influence when consistent effort and shared objectives turn visibility into practical partnerships.

Valerie Chiu (Wing Yee): A strong youth community enables its members to lead

Valerie Chiu, Founder and President of Teen Animals da Scientists (TADS), has been building a youth community around science, dialogue and the Sustainable Development Goals since she was twelve. She described an Eco-Cultural Exchange Program involving teenagers from twelve countries, where small-group discussions, images and cultural exchange helped participants understand one another’s lives and environmental concerns. Belonging mattered because it made young people more willing to step beyond familiar settings and connect with others. TADS has extended that approach through workshops, webinars, podcasts and publications, while increasingly encouraging members to initiate work of their own. In Pets and Paws, participants use AI and other digital tools to produce animal-welfare stories and infographics; another member-led initiative explores gaming and mental health.

Chiu illustrated what can happen when guidance is followed by responsibility. A girl from India who had initially been reserved developed a project involving traditional paintings to support orphans in Indonesia and raise environmental awareness. A member in Ghana worked with friends on STEM workshops that, Chiu said, reached more than a thousand African children. Members learn how to organise and advocate by undertaking projects that reflect their interests, supported by peers with more experience. She wanted more opportunities for cross-border encounters, recalling a meeting with a core member during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. She also urged young people to preserve imagination and creativity as AI assumes more routine work. The community’s strength lies in making each participant more capable of contributing something of their own.

Core argument: Belonging becomes a source of collective influence when young people receive the support and freedom to lead their own initiatives.

Tallie Lin: Healthy boundaries must account for how young people actually use platforms

Tallie Lin, Founder of St Martin’s Apparel and a youth social entrepreneur, described the appeal of social media with unusual candour. At twelve, the fact that everyone seemed to have Instagram was a compelling reason to want an account. Months later, she found herself scrolling from the evening into the early morning. Deleting one platform moved the habit elsewhere, and easily dismissed reminders did little to interrupt it. A sixty-second delay before opening an application eventually helped create space to reconsider the impulse. Yet the same platforms had supported work she valued: promoting a youth-led ocean–climate webinar series, developing her social enterprise and finding funding opportunities. She said a global pitch competition had doubled the resources available to St Martin’s Apparel, which teaches technology, design thinking and entrepreneurial skills to students in the Philippines.

That experience informed a response extending beyond individual willpower. Lin proposed school-wide or nationwide measures that could reduce the fear of missing out when young people establish boundaries. Platforms should address the addictive qualities of their algorithms and provide limits that work in practice, supported by long-term research into adolescent use. Asked what could be achieved within six to twelve months, she insisted that programmes also needed to endure beyond that period. She identified a practical starting point within her own work: help students in the Philippines understand the benefits and risks of digital participation while creating more opportunities for face-to-face connection and recreation. Sustainable boundaries become easier to maintain when young people have other ways to belong.

Core argument: Digital well-being requires effective platform design, collective support and worthwhile alternatives that help young people regain control of their attention.

Aaryaveer Kochhar: Children need to exercise judgement before asking AI to assess it

Aaryaveer Kochhar, a children’s rights advocate, TEDx youth speaker on AI and chess player, approached AI through the distinction between studying a position and making a move under pressure. Reading, coaching and practical play help a learner develop judgement; AI can then examine the thinking behind a decision. If a system routinely chooses the next move, children may lose confidence in their own ability to decide. Kochhar proposed school projects completed during class time, with teachers guiding students to use AI for explanation or inspiration. In chess, parents and coaches could help children analyse moves they had already made. These approaches require adult time and attention, alongside trust that children can learn through mistakes.

He also questioned how much competitive opportunity depends on access to resources. Referring to the experience of Ugandan chess player Phiona Mutesi, he pointed to the difference an after-school opportunity can make. His priority was opening school computers and devices to underserved children after hours, allowing them to research, learn and pursue their interests. Developers could widen access further through tools requiring limited or no internet connectivity. Drawing on the principles of information, non-discrimination and being heard associated with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, he argued that opportunities to learn and express an opinion should extend across economic circumstances. Access and independent judgement need to develop together: children require the means to use technology and the confidence to determine when and how it serves them.

Core argument: Children need equitable access to AI and guided opportunities to make their own decisions, so that assistance strengthens rather than erodes their judgement.

Noelle Lui: Young people should shape both their own stories and the policies affecting them

Noelle Lui, author of Mysterious Sham Wan and a youth participant in the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, described how digital tools had opened opportunities to research, publish and reach people beyond her immediate surroundings. Those opportunities are vulnerable to misinformation, restrictive algorithmic experiences and online hostility that can make young people reluctant to speak. Adult intervention can create another constraint when children’s ideas are reshaped to fit expectations. Lui called for parents and educators to guide young people through the online environment while preserving their perspectives, and for organisers and platforms to provide safe, moderated spaces where they can participate without fear of harassment.

Her proposals connected expression with institutional influence. Youth-focused literacy programmes would strengthen source evaluation and critical thinking; youth-led spaces would allow those skills to be exercised; and advisory councils with real decision-making authority would bring experience into policy. For the following year, she proposed a youth digital storytellers initiative paired with genuine youth advisory councils. Young people would create content describing their encounters with the digital world and participate in designing the rules that respond to those experiences. This arrangement would allow them to define the problems in their own terms and remain involved as institutions decide what to do about them. Protection, in her account, should preserve the conditions in which a child’s voice can develop.

Core argument: Young people need safe opportunities to describe their own experience and real authority to help shape the policies that govern it.

4. Families, Classrooms and Young Creators: Where Policy Meets Daily Life

Nandini Kochhar: Trust is essential to keeping children safe

Nandini Kochhar, a parent representative and parenting practitioner, described two very different responsibilities in raising a four-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. Restrictions that are relatively straightforward with a younger child do not provide a complete approach to adolescence. With an older child, she places greater emphasis on understanding how technology is being used and maintaining an ongoing conversation. Children need someone they can approach with a difficult experience without expecting harsh punishment. When that relationship is absent, the adults best placed to help may never learn what has happened. Parents themselves also need support: many are unfamiliar with the technologies their children use and need guidance on mental health, privacy and age-appropriate independence.

Kochhar distributed responsibility across the institutions surrounding a child. Parents should build trust and provide guidance; schools should teach digital judgement, privacy and safety; platforms and developers should supply built-in safeguards, privacy protections and arrangements to alert parents to serious safety concerns. The distinction matters because continuous supervision of every digital interaction is impossible. Families need systems that provide protection while children are out of direct view, as well as relationships that make it safe to ask for help. Parent education and responsible product design consequently belong within the same approach to child safety.

Core argument: Children are better protected when trusted relationships are backed by informed parenting, school-based learning and safeguards built into platforms.

Soufiane Boulehya: Critical thinking can begin with the lesson already being taught

Soufiane Boulehya, a high school mathematics teacher working within Morocco’s Ministry of Education system, has seen students use AI for tasks extending well beyond calculation, including complex problems and organised mathematical reasoning. That change requires teachers to reconsider what learning should demonstrate. He offered an example from an ordinary mathematics lesson: an employer describes pay using the average salary, but a student who understands the distribution knows to ask for the median. A small number of high salaries may substantially influence the average. Knowing how to calculate a figure becomes more useful when a learner can also question what the figure reveals and what it leaves out.

For Boulehya, this is a practical way to develop judgement within existing subjects. Students can use knowledge to examine claims and recognise misleading presentations while learning alongside AI. The challenge is the speed of institutional response. Curriculum revision can take years, while the tools are already in students’ hands. Education systems need to help teachers adapt now; the exchange identified teacher training as an immediate starting pointwhile broader reforms proceed. His example made the task concrete: schools can begin by connecting familiar content to situations in which students have to interpret information, ask a further question and explain their reasoning.

Core argument: Education must respond quickly to AI by equipping teachers to make interpretation, questioning and judgement part of everyday learning.

Jasmine Lam: Youth innovation needs a route from self-directed learning to responsible application

Jasmine Lam, a University of Toronto student and Founder of MindBridge Youth Venture, described a project exploring how AI could support work related to psychological diagnosis. Online resources, including YouTube, have made it easier for young people to begin developing technical skills, she argued. The scale of starting a technology venture can feel intimidating, but taking the first step creates opportunities to learn progressively. Her encouragement was accompanied by an acknowledgement of development risks, particularly data leakage and inaccurate outputs. She proposed more extensive training with large datasets before launch as a way to try to reduce errors, presenting it as a development approach rather than an established guarantee of performance.

Lam also called on professionals to engage more seriously with ideas emerging from younger generations. Young people encounter needs through their own experiences, but turning those observations into useful applications requires interaction with the people who understand the field. She wanted society and professional communities to help bring youth-led ideas into real working contexts, where they can be developed and improved. Her contribution placed confidence and responsibility within the same process: a young founder needs the courage to begin, an understanding that a working prototype does not resolve every risk, and access to expertise that can help the work mature.

Core argument: Young innovators need encouragement to begin and professional engagement to help their ideas develop into responsible applications.

Tien hsi Chang (Leah): Safety measures should address harm where children encounter it

Tien hsi Chang, known as Leah, a Youth Digital Safety STI Forum contributor and TEDx speaker, brought the discussion to a photograph posted by a friend on Instagram. Strangers responded with abusive comments about the friend’s appearance. For Leah, twelve, the episode raised a direct question about why such harm was allowed to reach a child. She also understood the cost of being outside these platforms: without an account herself, she sometimes felt excluded when friends discussed online content. This combination of vulnerability and social pressure led her to question whether stopping children from using social media could adequately address their needs.

She proposed intervention before harmful comments are published, including blocking abusive messages at the point of posting. Schools should also help students understand how their words affect others and discuss what to do when they witness cyberbullying. These measures would address the platform’s role, the behaviour of the person posting and the choices available to those watching. Leah’s final request was that young people participate in making the rules. Their experience can reveal where protection is failing and help institutions identify responses that make sense in children’s daily lives.

Core argument: Effective online protection combines early platform intervention, education about harmful conduct and children’s participation in setting the rules.

Lee Ho Tim Kyle: Collaboration should leave young people in charge of their thinking

Lee Ho Tim Kyle, a youth AI innovation practitioner, recalled a project in which his team relied too heavily on the technology already developed by a partner start-up. Following an established solution consumed time and narrowed the possibilities the team considered. Progress came when they ventured beyond it and developed ideas of their own. The experience exposed a risk within even well-intentioned support: access to expertise can become dependence if young people are left with too little room to question the starting point or choose another direction.

Kyle assigned a responsibility to each participant in the learning process. Young innovators should retain independent thinking and present ambitious ideas despite the possibility of criticism or failure. Start-ups and mentors should guide practical work in ways that develop critical thinking, leaving space for students to solve problems. Schools should provide current knowledge and resources and support thoughtful AI adoption. His priority was active thinking and co-creation: a process in which technology helps young people explore their ideas while responsibility for the reasoning remains with them. Learning to use an existing solution is valuable; developing the confidence to improve on it is part of becoming an innovator.

Core argument: AI-supported innovation should preserve young people’s intellectual ownership, with mentors and schools creating the conditions for independent thinking.

Lee Ho Sum Mia: Safe exploration gives children room to become responsible users

Lee Ho Sum Mia, a twelve-year-old primary school technology creator, described learning through programming and robotics as a process of testing, observing and improving. The opportunity to try different code and work out what succeeds allows her to build understanding for herself. In the wider digital environment, the feedback is less straightforward. AI produces answers quickly, but children may struggle to determine whether those answers are true or fair. Deepfakes compound the problem by making fabricated content appear convincing.

Mia asked mentors and digital tool providers to create safe spaces for exploration and provide guidance on careful, responsible AI use. Both conditions matter: children need freedom to experiment and support in understanding what a tool can get wrong. Her account connects safety with the development of competence. A child who can test an idea, recognise uncertainty and improve a decision is learning how to take responsibility. The environment around that child should make the process possible without exposing them to risks they are not yet equipped to manage.

Core argument: Children develop responsible digital habits through safe opportunities to experiment, supported by guidance that helps them recognise uncertainty and risk.

TAI Ka Ho (Ian Tai): Participation must remain accountable to lived experience

TAI Ka Ho, also known as Ian Tai, an Organising Partner of the Youth Publications and Socioeconomic Forum, drew on efforts to connect young people with politics through YPSF, partners and the Permanent Mission of Senegal. He called for multilateral dialogue that includes governments, Indigenous communities, civil society and youth, and questioned participation that merely fulfils a procedural requirement. Recalling remarks associated with the Second World Summit for Social Development in Qatar, he argued that policymaking must reflect lived realities. Institutions need to be accountable for whether the people they invite can actually inform the discussion.

He also asked young people to recognise their limitations without allowing those limitations to become a reason for inaction. They may not be in a position to negotiate a peace agreement, but they can influence relationships, communities and grassroots initiatives. Sustained spaces for questioning, debate and dialogue, together with diplomatic and communication skills, help develop that capacity. His argument joined institutional reform with civic practice: opportunities to participate should be substantive, and young people should have room to learn how to use them. Influence can begin at a modest scale and grow through continued engagement.

Core argument: Meaningful participation requires institutions to respond to lived experience and young people to build influence through sustained dialogue and grassroots action.

5. From AI Literacy to AI Agency

Jack Huang: Young people must be able to question the systems affecting them

Jack Huang, UN Senior Consultant and Co-founder of the Singapore-based Global SDG Alliance, closed with a distinction that connected the session’s many proposals: the move from AI literacy to AI agency. Knowing how to operate ChatGPT or Gemini is an initial capability. Young people also need to ask where data come from, who designed a model, who benefits from a system and who might be excluded. They should be able to question decisions about their personal information and identify the people responsible for those decisions. These questions extend education into the relationships of power and accountability surrounding technology.

Huang argued that fairness and inclusion must accompany safety, particularly when opportunities to understand and influence AI are unevenly distributed. He described part of his work as connecting international and United Nations-related resources with youth communities, sustaining collaboration so that wider discussions can support local participation. His closing remarks gave practical meaning to agency: a young person should be able to understand enough to ask a consequential question, find a route through which that question can be raised, and expect it to receive a response.

Core argument: AI agency means having the understanding, confidence and opportunity to question digital systems and influence how they affect one’s life.

The proposals across the session addressed different parts of the same institutional challenge. Advisory councils create an entry point, but participation also needs access to drafting and follow-up. Digital education builds understanding, but students require opportunities to practise judgement. Platforms provide connection, but the design of that connection affects safety, attention and well-being. Families offer guidance, but they cannot carry responsibilities that belong to companies and public institutions.

Several steps could begin within the period the moderator put to speakers: establishing a local youth AI council, opening school equipment after hours, recruiting female technology mentors, starting teacher training, incorporating youth considerations into an audit, or creating a process to track what happens to young people’s recommendations. Other work—including research on adolescent platform use and sustained community support—requires a longer commitment.

The speakers did not offer a single blueprint. They identified places where responsibility could become more concrete and where young people could exercise greater influence. The next measure of progress is whether those opportunities take form.

A school should be able to explain how students helped shape its AI rules. A company should be able to show how youth protection affected its design. An institution inviting young people into a consultation should be able to trace what happened to their advice.

The credibility of a responsible digital future will depend on whether young people can see their contribution in the decisions that follow.