Susana Puerto, Senior Youth Employment Specialist of ILO, addressed in the Young Digital Leaders Campus, “Let’s ensure the digital economy is a space where young people are and feel protected and safe, where their rights are respected and their voices are heard.” (By Wang Junyang/ China Youth Daily)

As the CEO of Leaxon, Mohamed Sayed is in command of a team of ten members spread across three departments: training, technology, and partnership. He manages a virtual workplace system for the team that includes bi-weekly action plan meetings, testing and updates of the organization's technology, customized feedback for the members, and monitoring of all tasks executed in each department. In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, he shared that they are currently researching how to combine psychology, biology, and digital technology to provide learning-disabled youth with the necessary tools and resources to help them better integrate into the education system. 

From the practical experience as the Founder and CEO of Exchange Programmes, Bawar Rasul noticed that reliable consulting companies and organizations are hard to find for students who wish to study abroad. In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, Bawar shared that to solve this problem, his team is now helping the youth discover feasible study programs by developing mobile applications, providing comprehensive consultancy, and establishing partnerships between Iraqi and international universities. 

As the Co-Founder of Sankalp Shiksha, Abhishek Kumar found his mission to bring technology and a brighter future to rural youth. He is devoted to empowering rural youth with digital skills and innovative inspiration through sustainable initiatives and social synergy. For example, Abhishek’s team has increased the infrastructure of educational resources in rural areas such as digital libraries, created online learning platforms, and produced interactive educational contents. 

The digital future requires better use of technology to facilitate learning. With such belief, Catherine Mbae, Partnerships and Research Innovation Coordinator of AFRALTI, has worked actively in providing emerging technological power and support to young Africans. She provides leadership, coordination, and assistance to a continental network comprising ICT and government decision-makers, policy experts, technology vendors, academia, and thought leaders, fostering partnerships to enhance technology access and cybersecurity within Africa. In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, Catherine expressed her hope that young people can be equipped with the appropriate digital literacy and digital mindset. 

As a trainer on SDGs, Sher Shah Bangash and his company Skillistan have successfully delivered 110 workshops on SDGs and digital capacity-building to tens of thousands of youth in the APAC region. In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, Sher shared that his idea is to empower the youth with digital and green skills to become leading SDGs practitioners, thus enhancing the youth’s understanding and practice of the SDGs. For example, Skillistan’s 10-week SDG Impact Leaders Fellowship is training 72 leaders to create SDGs-related knowledge products, as well as integrate digital skills such as LinkedIn, AI literacy, and graphic design to support youth in green jobs and entrepreneurship. 

As the Promotion and Investment Manager of PT. Ugreen Aromatics International, Sofia Keumalasari shared in the Young Digital Leaders Campus that from her practice, digitalization has helped smallholder farmers of patchouli essential oil upscale production, therefore preparing them to overcome the challenges in the current international market. 

Kardy Cui, Founder and CEO of Moonbase Technology, shared his insights on China’s digital market in the Young Digital Leaders Campus. “The publicly raised real estate investment trust (REIT) market was opened in China about three years ago, which has great digital opportunities and possibilities.” He also believes that there are endless opportunities for young people to explore in various sectors and industries. 

To help women balance and succeed in careers and caring for family, MK Bertulfo, digital marketing skills trainer for the ILO Women in STEM project, has established an all-inclusive platform that provides events including digital skills training and job fairs for members. In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, MK shared her experiences in digital marketing and community building. Training programmes in digital technology have effectively reduced the rate of AI fraud in the community and maintained the community’s safety. Besides, by fostering a vibrant online community and providing valuable employment resources, MK has empowered Filipino women with remote work and entrepreneurship opportunities. 

In the Young Digital Leaders Campus, Felix Ling, Founder of Shenzhen Zhiyin Technology introduced his innovative project of using digital technology to help people with hearing loss. “Our sign language recognition technology translates sign language into text, helping the hearing impaired to ‘speak’ words.” Felix hopes that digital innovations will enable people with hearing loss to communicate with each other smoothly. 

For the application of digital technologies in civil engineering and construction scenarios, Youness Ouazri, Founder and CEO of Ecodome, shared his insights and experiences in the Young Digital Leaders Campus. Due to Morocco's climate conditions, the traditional methods of infrastructure construction using concrete, steel, or wood are not applicable. With the introduction of modern technologies such as building information modelling, Youness has combined modern and traditional construction technologies to propose the best possible construction plan aligned with the local natural conditions.