Insights from the NATO Youth Summit in Stockholm

As an IYTT Youth Fellow I was able to participate as a speaker at the NATO Youth Summit in Stockholm. Having joined the NATO alliance as a new member on March 7th this year, Sweden has been quick to host the summit for young people interested in international security issues.

The summit convened over 200 youth in person and many more online with a linked summit held simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic in Miami, and a live interview of NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg from the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

I was very excited to contribute to one of the several interactive panel discussions on the topic named “An Alliance Ready for Tomorrow’s Challenges: Innovation, AI, Technology and Security – A forward-looking session”, discussing the pervasiveness of new technologies in our lives and what challenges and opportunities they pose in the humanitarian and security sphere.

In my contributions I pointed at opportunities of AI tools to support humanitarian and security organizations to increasingly move from reactive to proactive work by using AI algorithms to analyze combined demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental datasets to foresee the likelihood and risk of future conflicts, crises, or forced displacements in certain regions.

Similarly to my contributions as an IYTT Youth Fellow at Canada’s largest conference on AI I was keen to strike a balance between outlining the vast opportunities and added benefits of AI tools as a cost effective and efficient tool to overcome current gaps regarding humanitarian funding and resources while stressing the need to develop and apply AI systems in an inclusive and ethical manner grounded in humanitarian principles and human rights. Only if we develop AI in an inclusive way we will see positive outcomes that equally benefit society.

Linked to the IYTT’s citizen-centric approach and way of thinking I used the closing statement to emphasize the importance of layered resilience, meaning that in times of hybrid and digital warfare it is not enough to invest in military technology but to build societal resilience. Empowering and educating citizens on digital hygiene and literacy is key to build resilient and safe environments in a digital world. Through its innovative, youth-led, and citizen-centric methods the IYTT is nothing short of being an important actor in education and empowering citizens and thus in building resilient societies.

Author: Mathes Rausch