UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

09/17/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/17/2025 13:22

AI and Youth: Insights from the first UNESCO Campus of the year

To start the 2025-2026 school year, UNESCO organized a Campus focused on a highly relevant subject: Artificial Intelligence. At a time when AI become becomes an increasingly powerful force shaping our daily lives, students from the Wesley High School Otukpo (Nigeria), the Oporto International School (Portugal), Swiss International School (Qatar), International University Demonstration School (Ivory Coast) explored together how AI affects our choices, rights and future. This session helped students understand what their meaning of developing AI in a fair and sensible way is.


First speaker of the session, Elena Sinel, founder and CEO of Teens in AI, shared her perspective on how AI shapes young people's lives. She explained that AI is everywhere in our digital habits, such as TikTok, YouTube, Netflix or Spotify recommendations. But behind those systems are humans and often biases. She stressed the need for transparency: understanding what AI does with our data, its purpose, and why we should not accept cookies without checking. She affirmed the need for something that states what the system does, what it does to our data, what purpose does it serves.

Students discussed how recent trends affect them, including the massive use of personal data to train models. Every uploaded photo may end up training an algorithm, transforming jobs in film, media, or administration. Simple administrative jobs are being lost to AI. Even in deprived areas, Elena encourages young people to stay involved so they can remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. As she summed it up: it is important to just stay in tune with the politics of the times and see how technology is shaping.

She also highlighted AI's positive impact in medicine, such as predicting diseases, while warning about its use in warfare and surveillance raising profound ethical questions. Regarding climate change, AI may support action but also worsens the ecological footprint through water-intensive data centers. Students need to see different points of view before forming their opinion.

AI is not a technology, it's a system, a politic, a sociology and so much more.
Elena Sinel
Founder and CEO of Teens in AI
AI in education was the second central topic of the discussion. While AI can support children's learning globally, it also risks undermining critical thinking and autonomy. Elena warned about data safety, mental health, and potential addiction. She recommended introducing AI tools from age 13, stressing that companies design them for profit and to maximize attention, similar to the addictive effects of alcohol or cigarettes. She concluded with a reminder to be careful about safety and data; what happens to it, if there could be any malevolent use of our data. The Teens in AI CEO stressed the students to always bear in mind that AI is not a human, it is a system built for a specific purpose.

Students also raised concerns about AI tracking. Elena distinguished legitimate tracking (like criminal pursuits) from generalized surveillance, which she deemed harmful. According to her, this system is only going to be smarter. Citizens must decide whether they accept such monitoring.

Concerning school policies, Elena considered it quite normal to limit mobile or technology in, as there is a lot of research into why it could endanger your learning. Education needs to be reinvented. We must use it wisely and not rely on AI tools wholly.


The second expert, UNESCO's Lihui Xu, specialist in the Ethics of AI Unit, gave another perspective. He described how AI in social media or advertising predicts choices, reinforcing the need to diversify platforms. He reminded students of four human rights:

He emphasizes our (1) right to oversight. AI is framing your applications when applying to university, you do not want that, you want a human reading your files, you have a right to ask for human oversight.

(2) The right to transparency, we should know when AI is being used. When it is involved. You can always ask why.

Also have the (3) right to privacy, personal data, photos, messages. He invites students to ask for their personal data set behind the scenes to companies to realize its effects.

Lastly (4) right to fairness, AI must not discriminate. For instance, because AI are trained with male applications, it will favorize man candidate on jobs. He recalls another sensitive issue, surveillance of certain skin colors like mentioned before.



UNESCO expert highlighted a healthy digital routine. People tend to like emotionally shocking info, but they should check if they find any other sources before reacting to it. Then, he advised setting limits. Lastly, he concluded by encouraging young people to keep real connections since AI chatbot/companion cannot replace friends in the real world.

AI influences your choices, but you are also training AI. You can control what you would like to see.
Lihui Xu
Programme Specialist, Bioethics and Ethics of Science and Technology Section, Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO
On responsibility, Lihui noted that parents must guide young people, and everyone should aim for a responsible use of AI. Finally, the session turned to AI and creativity: while AI can generate hundreds of ideas, it can only draw from existing databases. He gave an example of a bakery that wants to sell. Other bakers will give advice based on their experiences. But an AI would give answers based on everything they know and find hundreds of creative ideas and sometime not rooted in the real-world scenarios.

So, for a student to properly use AI features, Lihui recommends knowing where to check the sources. The discussion concluded by saying that students need to ask specific questions about AI to properly work. By being conscious, curious, and responsible, young people can keep control over its impact.


On a lighter note, the UNESCO Campus concluded with a creative quiz that invited students to imagine their own "dream AI." Their ideas reflected both humor and ingenuity, ranging from an AI giving football tips, to one that takes care of laundry, or even a system designed to help curate rare illnesses. This playful exercise was a way to end the discussion on a positive note, reminding everyone that beyond the challenges, Artificial Intelligence also sparks imagination and new possibilities for the future.

This enriching session was made possible thanks to the support of TECH4ALL and the collaboration of 6C Conseil.
UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization published this content on September 17, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on September 17, 2025 at 19:22 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]