Voices of the Digital Future: Youth High‑Level Dialogue

Melissa frames the whole session around the idea that young people should not just benefit from digital transformation but should be central to shaping and implementing it. She presents youth as partners in delivering the WSIS vision, not merely as an audience or target group.

She explicitly says the discussion is about placing young people at the centre of the digital transformation agenda and as partners in implementation of the wider WSIS vision . She also explains that the panel will explore how young people are already contributing to digital innovation and what is still needed so they can truly benefit from and lead in the digital era .

Melissa concludes that youth are already acting as innovators and problem-solvers, so the challenge now lies with institutions. Her point is that institutions need to match young people’s pace and ambition by creating meaningful ways to respond and engage.

In her closing remarks, she says that young people are already doing innovations and proposing new ways of thinking, and that the real question is how institutions can respond with the same level of ambition . She adds that one example is the ITU creating spaces where youth participation is meaningful .

Prateek argues that true inclusion would mean youth no longer need a specially designated space to be heard. Instead, young people should be routinely included in all decision-making spaces as a normal part of governance and institutional life.

In his opening warm-up, he says that by the next WSIS review in 10 years, he hopes young people will not need a special youth track because they will already be at every table by default .

Prateek’s summary is that access to technology alone does not produce changemakers. He stresses that supportive ecosystems, mentorship, and trust are the conditions that enable young people to turn tools into meaningful innovation and leadership.

At the close of the session, he reflects that there are more tools than ever before, but tools alone do not create changemakers . He then identifies ecosystems, mentorship, and trust as the real foundations and urges the audience to work on creating those conditions .

Murchana argues that youth inclusion must move beyond symbolic visibility and become institutional power-sharing. She says meaningful participation requires concrete authority, including budgets, voting rights, and systems that measure whether youth engagement leads to real change.

She says the era of performative and tokenistic engagement is over and that young people do not want to be included just for optics on public-facing panels . She adds that they want decision-making power, actual say, and the ability to see their innovations deployed in society . She specifically calls for giving young people voting powers in boardrooms, real budgets rather than just youth offices, and accountability systems that track indicators of progress and innovation .

Murchana argues that institutions should engage youth not only because of demographics, but because trust and legitimacy depend on it. She links trust to proximity and dialogue, warning that institutions that fail to engage young people early may lose legitimacy with future generations.

She points out that half of the world’s population is under 30, underscoring the collective power and disruptive potential of young people . She cites the Youth Pulse report, based on surveys of thousands of young people, which found that 60% trust community leaders more than government or business leaders . She interprets this as evidence that proximity and accessibility create trust, and says this trust later contributes to legitimacy, meaning institutions face a long-term risk if they do not engage youth early .

Murchana proposes structured spaces for intergenerational collaboration as a practical solution to the trust and governance gap. She argues that change only becomes structural when experienced leaders actively support and institutionalise dialogue with younger generations.

Responding to a question from the floor, she recommends creating labs for intergenerational partnership and says it is not only about young people stepping up but also about experienced leaders becoming champions of the agenda . She adds that institutions see structural reform when leadership takes these steps and encourages decision-makers in the room to create spaces for cross-generational dialogue because trust is linked to proximity .

Murchana advises new organisations to build youth engagement into their structure from the outset rather than adding it later. Her view is that dedicated resources and intergenerational spaces can help challenge path dependency and open room for new ideas.

When asked by a startup founder what to do to build youth engagement, she recommends first creating a lab where experienced stakeholders engage directly with young people . She also says the practical next step is to allocate resources for such a lab and notes that new institutions have the advantage of being able to avoid old patterns and experiment more boldly .

Murchana argues that young people should lead some AI work because they often have the most immediate and relevant experience, not because institutions want to appear inclusive. She presents youth leadership in AI as merit-based and grounded in lived familiarity with digital systems.

She says today’s young people are digital natives who grew up with the internet and are now growing up with AI systems, which gives them frontline expertise in the current transformation . She adds that in many successful institutions, young people are already leading AI work not because of tokenism but because they have the right expertise and relevance for those portfolios .

Halima argues that youth leadership in digital transformation comes from agency, not rhetoric. In her view, young people are inspired when they are believed in, empowered, and invited to tackle real challenges with practical consequences.

She says that through her career and work with the ITU Youth Advisory Board, she has learned that youth become digital changemakers when they are trusted, empowered, and given opportunities to solve real problems . She adds that inspiration does not come from technology itself but from knowing that their ideas can make a tangible difference .

Halima identifies meaningful connectivity and youth participation as the key aspirations for the next 10 years. Her point is that access must be paired with real opportunities for young people to take part in digital policy and innovation spaces.

In the opening round, she says she would call for meaningful connectivity and for youth participation in events such as this one over the next decade .

Halima argues that governments need to act urgently on the mismatch between future labour market needs and current levels of digital literacy. She says this requires comprehensive strategies that combine skills development with connectivity, tools, mentorship, and innovation support.

She cites International Labour Organization data stating that 90% of jobs in 2030 will require digital skills, while nearly two-thirds of young people globally currently lack digital skills . She then says governments should respond with youth-focused strategies backed by investment in affordable internet, modern learning tools, mentorship, and innovation ecosystems .

Halima argues that governments should connect youth learning to real societal challenges. She believes practical formats such as hackathons and challenge-based work can help young people build skills while contributing solutions to national problems.

She says the first action is to give young people real problems, not fake projects, and that governments should bridge the gap between classroom theory and national challenges . As an example, she suggests youth hackathons focused on issues such as climate tracking .

Halima argues that fear of failure is one of the biggest barriers to youth innovation. She says institutions need to normalise experimentation by creating environments where mistakes and failed prototypes are understood as part of the learning process.

She states that the biggest barrier to innovation is often the fear of failure and calls for normalising failure as loudly as success . She gives examples of the kinds of safe spaces needed, including digital hubs, community coding clubs, and digital sandboxes where broken code or failed prototypes are treated as a first draft rather than an end point .

Dr. Tijani argues that institutions frequently make decisions about young people without giving them a real role in shaping those decisions. He says leaders must stop designing futures on behalf of youth and instead co-create policy and institutional conditions with them.

He says that too often digital policies are designed for young people and they are invited into the conversation only after most of the important decisions have already been made . He then insists that leaders must not design a future on behalf of young people, but must co-create the conditions for them to build alongside those with experience .

Dr. Tijani argues that the strength of youth lies in their ability to imagine futures unconstrained by inherited limitations, while older leaders contribute practical experience. He presents intergenerational collaboration as necessary because neither imagination nor experience alone is sufficient for an inclusive digital future.

He reflects on two decades of working with young people and says they do not see the world through the limits of the past but through the possibilities of the future . He adds that emerging technologies reward courage and imagination, while experience still matters because it teaches what has worked, and concludes that the most inclusive digital future will be built when experience and youthful imagination come together .

Dr. Tijani argues that new technologies change the criteria for leadership and success. In fields such as AI and quantum computing, he says progress depends not only on established experience but also on the courage to imagine what does not yet exist.

He says that in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology, success will not simply reward those with the most experience . Instead, he argues these technologies reward courage to imagine what does not exist today, while still acknowledging that experience retains value .

Tomas argues that youth-specific tracks are useful only if they serve as pathways into mainstream decision-making. He stresses that the goal is for young people to move quickly into regular governance spaces where they participate because of their expertise and contribution, not merely because of their age.

He says he sees youth tracks as a way for people to begin engaging early and as an inflow mechanism into broader processes rather than a separate track . He adds that young people should soon no longer need the youth label and should have a seat at the table because of their expertise and abilities to contribute, not because of age .

Tomas argues that although youth are generally more digitally connected than older generations, access remains highly unequal across regions. He emphasises that these disparities affect opportunities during critical stages of education and entry into the labour market, making digital inclusion a continuing priority.

He notes that around 98% of young people in Europe use the internet, compared with around 50% in Africa and less than 40% in low-income countries . He says this means not everyone has the same opportunities, especially during formative years of study, education, and transition into the job market .

Audience Member 1 shifts the discussion from asking how youth can gain power to how they can make it easier for current decision-makers to act. The argument is that youth should help design frameworks that reduce political fear and backlash and that multi-stakeholder approaches may help move implementation forward.

The speaker asks how the youth generation can build a framework where decision-makers do not feel afraid of taking decisions because of backlash . The speaker also asks about building a multi-stakeholder framework to advance outcomes, showing an interest in shared implementation structures .

Jennifer argues that current youth discussions exclude children who will soon inherit and shape the digital future. She particularly emphasises African children, arguing that demographic trends make their absence from these conversations especially problematic.

She says she would have wanted to see a 12- or 13-year-old in the room because when people speak about youth, children are often left out of the conversation . She adds that this matters especially for African children because by 2050 one in four people will be an African child, and if they are missing these discussions they cannot shape or understand what is happening .

This audience speaker argues that youth engagement should not be discussed only in terms of seats, power, and decision-making authority. It should also be understood through the longer-term lens of what current systems and technologies will leave behind for future generations, including the social consequences of AI-driven economic models.

The speaker says the narrative should expand beyond power, decision-making, and a seat at the table to include inheritance and legacy . The speaker uses AI companies and future-of-work narratives as examples, questioning what these systems are really preparing young people for and warning that if human data are sold to frontier AI model companies that later fail, entire present and future labour forces could be harmed . The speaker concludes that youth should be positioned in terms of what society will leave for them and how to protect both current and future generations, including children not yet in the conversation .

This audience intervention asks what a founder should do at organisational level to engage youth meaningfully in a media startup. The framing implies that youth engagement should be built into how organisations create and make decisions, rather than treated as an external add-on.

The speaker introduces himself as an industry leader in media who is also building a new organisation, and asks what one thing he should do at that level to build youth engagement in his media startup . The question is explicitly about organisational design for engagement, which leads into the discussion on dialogue structures and direct involvement in creation processes .

Astrid identifies trust as a central but unresolved issue in the discussion. She asks how institutions can make trust more accessible in practice and how organisations such as the ITU can better support communities that need technology and skills, especially in the Global South.

She says she is interested in how trust can be built and made more available, explicitly referring back to Murchana’s point about trust and Halima’s point about digital skills . She then asks how people are supposed to help communities achieve more technology and how the ITU can better support those communities, particularly in the Global South .

Pranjali argues that digital transformation cannot succeed through access alone. She says AI literacy and inclusive digital skills must grow alongside technology adoption, with special attention to women, diversity, and disparities between the Global North and Global South.

She says expanding connectivity is only the first step and that young people must be empowered as partners in shaping digital transformation . She adds that as AI becomes embedded in society, AI literacy must grow alongside adoption so young people can become informed creators and decision-makers . She also highlights accessibility gaps between the Global North and Global South and calls for inclusive digital skills, including empowering women and building a diverse digital ecosystem .

Pranjali argues that institutions such as the ITU and UN Geneva have a concrete role in supporting youth through skills-building and mentorship. She calls for clearer pathways that help women and young girls move into digital innovation programmes.

She says the ITU and UN Geneva could make progress by expanding digital skills and mentorship programmes and by creating pathways for more women and young girls in digital innovation programmes .

Kei argues that AI is making it easier to create products and content, but that this does not necessarily make success easier for founders. He says the key advantage is shifting from specialised technical depth towards the ability to integrate and coordinate multiple domains.

He says there is no doubt that AI has democratised creation across products, design, writing, and filmmaking . However, he argues that as technical barriers to entry fall, the bar for individual founder success may actually rise, because future founders will need to act as integrators rather than narrow specialists .

Kei argues that AI is reshaping startup organisation itself by reducing reliance on highly segmented specialist roles. In response, founders will need broad, orchestration-style skills that allow them to combine technical, creative, and business functions across a team.

He describes how the past century produced a growing division of labour in startups, with narrow specialist roles such as coders focused on specific frameworks . He then says that over the next 10 years AI will favour founders who can act like orchestra leaders, coordinating different skills at a high level and understanding technical, marketing, and other dimensions together .