Catalyzing Youth-Led Digital Public Infrastructure: A Philanthropic Roadmap for Human-Centric AI and Global Equity

Global Youth Philanthropy, Peaceland Foundation

Session 254

Monday, 6 July 2026 ∼ 14:00–14:45 (UTC+02:00) Physical (on-site) and Virtual (remote) participation Room L1, ITU Montbrillant Building Interactive Session 1 Document

Background
As the global community navigates the "WSIS+20" era, the acceleration of the United Nations Global Digital Compact (GDC) demands a radical reimagining of how we build and govern technology. Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and human-centric AI have emerged as the foundational pillars required to anchor global sustainable development and bridge the persistent digital divide. Globally, youth possess immense digital agency and are uniquely positioned to co-create open-source public goods. However, young innovators routinely face systemic bottlenecks, including fragmented seed funding, a lack of institutional trust, and navigated complexities within multi-lateral compliance pathways. Global Youth Philanthropy (GYP) and the Peaceland Foundation advocate for a "Catalytic Philanthropy" framework to dismantle these structural barriers, mobilizing institutional capital and senior mentorship to scale youth-driven digital assets.

Successful Projects in Focus
This session grounds its strategic roadmap in field-proven, youth-led AI innovations that demonstrate the tangible human dimension of frontier technology. Among the featured initiatives is the "Shanghai Fuxing Island: Global Maker Island" project, a flagship model demonstrating how youth utilize AI-powered tools to revitalize local communities, map cultural heritage sites via affordable digital twins, and foster local circular economies. Additionally, the session highlights grassroots youth interventions in climate adaptation and zero-waste municipal management, where young researchers deploy machine learning algorithms for real-time disaster mitigation and localized pollution tracking. By presenting these successful applications, the session underscores that youth are no longer merely passive consumers of digital tech, but rather capable architects of scalable, secure, and inclusive digital public goods.

Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015, Towards 2025 and 2026
Looking ahead, the evolution of the WSIS process must shift from digital accessibility to proactive digital empowerment. In the decade following the WSIS Beyond 2015 framework, the focus has pivoted toward ensuring that frontier technologies actively foster global equity and leave no one behind. Our vision for the WSIS ecosystem centers on the institutionalization of transnational funding and mentoring matrices. By connecting multi-lateral dignitaries (from the ITU, UNDP, and UNESCO) with philanthropic foundations and elite young AI researchers, we aim to establish a permanent global youth tech-mentorship network. This session concludes with a Joint Declaration, serving as a unified call-to-action to embed youth leadership directly into the global AI governance architecture, ensuring an equitable, inclusive, and human-centric digital future for all.

Mr. Xingyu Wang Founder Beyond the City, China

Wang Xingyu has spent the better part of a decade making a case most of his peers overlooked — that the future of China is being written in its villages — and then proving it, one community at a time.
A graduate of Fudan University and New York University, he returned home the moment he collected his NYU master's in 2017 and walked away from the conventional post-grad path to throw himself into the front lines of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Nine years on, he has become one of the most recognizable young voices in that work.
His flagship initiative, Beyond the City, has brought tens of thousands of urban young people into the Chinese countryside for fieldwork and volunteer travel — and carried more than a thousand rural youth in the opposite direction, into the cities on sponsored "Dream Journeys" that opened up possibilities most of them had never been told to imagine. Along the way, Wang built career-planning and life-skills courses that now reach tens of thousands of rural students, and more recently launched the Youth Rural Plan and the China Rural Artisan Rejuvenation Plan, putting the internet and AI to work in the service of rural education and craft revival.
The work has drawn both national and international recognition. Wang is a member of the All-China Youth Federation, a National Pioneer of Youth in Rural Revitalization, and a Shoucheng Zhang Scholar at Alpine Academy. In 2024, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League selected him as China's youth representative to the United Nations ECOSOC Youth Forum. He is also a former champion of Jiangsu TV's One Stop to the End.
Off the village paths, Wang is a prolific communicator — more than two million young followers across his social platforms and twenty-plus appearances on programs about ideas, knowledge, and rural China. The throughline of his message is the same one he lives: that ordinary people, acting small and acting often, are the ones who actually move a country forward.

Ms. Yuanyan Xie Founder Global Youth Philanthropy, the United States

Ms. Yuanyan Xie is an educational innovation expert combining a profound international perspective with deep professional expertise. She holds both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the School of International Studies at Peking University. Following a distinguished executive career at a Fortune Global 500 financial and insurance enterprise, she successfully transitioned her focus toward nurturing youth global competence and social innovation education.

As the Founder and Chairperson of Global Youth Philanthropy (GYP), Ms. Xie is dedicated to constructing an innovative youth philanthropy network that bridges China and the world. Under her strategic leadership, GYP has emerged as an active platform for youth engagement within the United Nations system. Multiple youth-led social innovation initiatives under her mentorship have been officially incorporated into the UN Voluntary Commitments Database. Furthermore, GYP has been invited to deliver keynote presentations and curate exhibitions at core multilateral stages, including the ECOSOC Youth Forum, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29), the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), and the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW). These initiatives span critical global agendas such as climate action, digital inclusion, gender equality, and innovative global governance, showcasing the exceptional capacity of global youth to deeply engage with world issues.

As the editor-in-chief of the book Igniting the Inner Drive of Children, she pioneered the "Energy-Driven Cultivation Approach," advocating for the reshaping of educational pathways through intrinsic motivation and global citizenship. Through her cross-sector leadership and contributions to philanthropic innovation, Ms. Xie continually drives a paradigm shift among the next generation of educators—moving from a conventional "exam-oriented" focus toward "future empowerment"—to cultivate future global leaders equipped with empathy, leadership, and actionable agency.

Mr. Eugenio Salas Iturriaga Founder Alexandr.ia, Mexico

Eugenio Salas Iturriaga
AI for Good Young AI Leader l Mexico City Hub

Ms. Fadwa AlBawardi Founder FSAB, Saudi Arabia

Ms. Fadwa Saad AlBawardi, is a Saudi Arabian Entrepreneur who have established her own Consultancy office (FSAB) to provide consulting services in Digital Transformation, Performance Management, Strategic Planning, Data and AI strategies.

Ms. AlBawardi is a Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional, as well as an IT/Performance Management Senior Consultant, with more than 22+ years of working experience.

Moreover, she is a certified trainer as well as an Elsevier reviewer for international AI & technical research papers and articles. Ms. AlBawardi is also a public speaker and a workshop presenter in several national and international conferences including: United Nations ITU IGF2023 in Kyoto Japan, as well as UN ITU AI for Good Summits 2024, 2025 and 2026 in Geneva Switzerland, and Digital Global Forum 2025, Russia. In addition, she is a trainer with United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and a certified trainer in KSA. She also conducts several training and consultancy sessions with the African Tech community. She also participates in the UN Digital Compact online meetings, as a stakeholder, providing insights and consultation reports on AI Governance. In addition, Ms. AlBawardi is a member of ICC-SA.

Ms. AlBawardi is also an Author who have participated in writing several technical international publications, as well, including HiMSS Book of the Year (editions 2007, 2013 and 2018) in USA. She is also a USA Today Bestselling Author, as well as a weekly Columnist, with 200+ articles, in KSA digital journals, mainly about AI and Digital Economy themes.

Ms. AlBawardi has earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Boston University, USA, in 2003, as well as 2 certifications in Strategic Planning. Her Computer Science Bachelor Degree was from the American University in Cairo, in 1994, and she has also attended a Strategic Management course in Harvard University, USA, in 2019.

Mr. Vijay Karia CEO OptiCloud, the United States

CEO OptiCloud, AI For Good, Athlete, Planet Guardian, AI For Climate Action UN Award Winner COP29

Ms. Elena Sinel CEO Teens in AI, the United Kingdom

Founder & CEO, Teens in AI I Keynote Speaker I Responsible AI I Computer Weekly top 50 Most Influential People in UK Tech I GLOMO Awards Winner 2020 (Diversity in Tech & Women4Technology)

Topics

5G Technology Artificial Intelligence Big Data Capacity Building Digital Economy Digital Inclusion Digital Skills Digital Transformation Education Emerging Technologies Environment Ethics Health Human Rights Media WSIS+20 Review

WSIS Action Lines

C2. Information and communication infrastructure
C3. Access to information and knowledge
C4. Capacity building
C6. Enabling environment
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-business
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-learning
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-health
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-environment
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-science
C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
C9. Media
C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
C11. International and regional cooperation

This session directly advances the WSIS+20 agenda and the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC) by aligning with the following key Action Lines:

C1. Role of Stakeholders: It champions a "Catalytic Philanthropy" framework, uniting multi-lateral dignitaries (ITU, UNDP, UNESCO), impact investors, and civil society to build transnational funding and mentorship ecosystems.
C4. Capacity Building: It bridges systemic bottlenecks for youth (lack of funding and institutional trust) by establishing a tech-mentorship network, transforming youth from passive tech consumers into active Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) architects.
C7. ICT Applications (E-applications): The session showcases field-proven, youth-led AI innovations addressing critical global challenges, specifically mapping onto E-environment (climate adaptation, disaster mitigation, zero-waste management) and E-learning (smart education).
C10. Ethical Dimensions: Centered on "Human-Centric AI and Global Equity," the high-level panel addresses the ethical deployment of frontier technologies to combat digital divides and ensure that AI development "leaves no one behind."
C11. International Cooperation: Concluding with a Joint Declaration, the session fosters cross-border technology transfer and global operational synergies to scale youth-led open-source public goods.

Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

This session is deeply anchored in the United Nations 2030 Agenda. By deploying a "Catalytic Philanthropy" framework to fund youth-led Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and human-centric AI, this initiative transforms youth from passive tech consumers into active architects of global equity.

In direct alignment with the 2026 HLPF review of the interconnected nature of the SDGs, the session maps onto the following goals:

SDGs 6 & 7 (Clean Water, Sanitation & Clean Energy): The session showcases youth-led AI models in climate adaptation and resource management. By deploying open-source machine learning, young innovators build predictive tools for local disaster mitigation, water security, and smart-grid optimization.
SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure): DPI is the backbone of modern development. This session provides elite young AI researchers with the seed capital, cloud resources, and policy alignment needed to co-create secure, open-source Digital Public Goods (DPGs).
SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities): Featured projects, such as the "Shanghai Fuxing Island: Global Maker Island" initiative, demonstrate how youth leverage AI-powered digital twins and creative narratives to preserve cultural heritage and implement zero-waste municipal management.
SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals): Serving as a catalyst for multi-stakeholder mobilization, this session bridges Multi-lateral Dignitaries (ITU, UNDP, UNESCO), Impact Investors, and Civil Society. The concluding Joint Declaration establishes a unified call-to-action for cross-border technology transfer and global youth tech-mentorship.

GDC Objectives

Objective 2: Expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all
Objective 3: Foster an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights
Objective 4: Advance responsible, equitable and interoperable data governance approaches

Documents

Concept Note_GYP Side Event at WSIS

Links

https://www.gypleader.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-youth-philanthropy-gyp