Table of Contents
When education systems fail to keep pace with the realities young people face, the cost is more than lost opportunity—it is lost potential. Around the world, millions of young people experience education that is unequal, inaccessible, or disconnected from their lived realities. Yet these same young people are often the first to imagine solutions.
Since 2019, the partnership between Samsung and UNDP has been rooted in a shared belief: that youth education and empowerment, supported by technology for good, are essential to building a more inclusive and sustainable future. Through Generation17, launched in 2020, Samsung and UNDP have supported young leaders from around the world who are tackling some of the most pressing challenges of our time—from education inequality and ocean literacy to climate justice and gender equality.
Today, we spotlight four young leaders from different regions whose work shows what becomes possible when young people are trusted as partners, innovators and educators—and when technology helps their ideas reach scale.
Reimagining education access
At just 16 years old, Zubair Junjunia experienced firsthand how unequal education systems can shape young people’s futures. Sitting an exam taken by hundreds of thousands of students, he realized that outcomes often depended less on ability and more on access—to quality teaching, resources and support. Even neighbouring schools offered vastly different learning environments.
That moment sparked the creation of ZNotes—initially a simple effort to share revision notes, and eventually a global, youth-led learning platform addressing educational inequality.
What makes ZNotes powerful is not only its reach, but its model. Education is built by students, for students. Learning resources are created by top-performing students who have recently taken the exams, they are reviewed collaboratively with peers and educators and made freely available online. Questions are answered within a global peer community, turning learning into a shared experience rather than an isolated one.
Today, ZNotes has reached nearly 7 million learners in 190 countries, with 85 percent of users in emerging economies across Asia and Africa. Technology enabled scale, but youth co-creation made relevance possible. By empowering young people as educators and content creators, education becomes more accessible, more equitable and more grounded in real needs.
Ocean literacy
Education does not stop in classrooms, and for many communities, it must be rooted in local realities to be meaningful.
For José Francisco Ochoa, founder of Academia del Océano in Ecuador, the biggest gap in ocean education is not a lack of concern, but a lack of content that is local, practical and accessible.
In many coastal communities, ocean education exists in fragments—often disconnected from daily life and rarely available in Spanish or through hands-on learning. During a sea turtle release at an education centre in San Jacinto, a child once asked if he could take a turtle home as a pet. That simple question opened a deeper conversation—not just with the child, but with an entire community—about protection, biodiversity and shared responsibility.
At Academia del Océano, young people are not passive learners. They are designers of education itself. In one youth-led initiative, students co-created an infographic campaign addressing pollution they witnessed on their own beaches and proposed a waste-separation pilot for fishing residues. They shaped the messaging, mapped waste hotspots and engaged peers and visitors directly.
The impact was immediate and visible: clearer conversations, stronger community engagement and a pilot model that local partners can replicate. Ocean literacy became tangible and rooted in lived experience, driven by youth leadership, and sustained through co-creation.
Reconnecting youth with nature through immersive learning
In Indonesia, environmental education faces a dual challenge: unequal access and growing disconnection from nature. Brigitta Gunawan, founder of 30×30 Indonesia and Diverseas, has seen how many young people—especially in urban areas—have never experienced the ocean firsthand, despite living in one of the most biodiverse marine regions on the planet.
While coastal communities often have deeper connections to nature, they frequently lack access to quality education and opportunities to translate lived experience into leadership and advocacy. Bridging this gap requires education that is immersive, inclusive, and empowering.
Through immersive training programmes, field experiences, workshops and virtual reality, Brigitta’s work has reached over 15 countries, trained 550 individuals, and engaged more than 17,000 people in ocean-climate advocacy. Youth co-creation is central: young people are trained, mentored, and trusted.
From youth-designed training for young women through the Blue Roots Scholarship, to a conservation-themed children’s musical integrating science, arts and storytelling, education becomes a shared process across generations. When young people co-create, knowledge flows both ways—and solutions last longer.
READ MORE: https://www.undp.org/stories/co-creating-future-education
