Throughout the opening remarks made by the president of ECOSOC, Ban Ki-Moon, and the representative of the World Food Programme, a general overview of issues regarding global decision making as they pertain youth were brought forward. While providing some thoughts about how food, poverty, and innovation effects youth, a general idea regarding involving youth in international diplomacy was brought forward. During her remarks, Svitak went into depth about her experiences in organizing youth summits and introduced some achievements by youth that she has seen that have proven the potential leadership and contributions to innovation that could make waves in our world should youth voices be heard. She stated that the Victorian saying that children should be seen and not heard are no longer valid, and youth have proven and will continue to prove that they are just as meaningful to the global conversation. The following speakers began to introduce their work into introducing the necessity of recognizing the achievements of women and youth in science. They felt that the progress made by women and youth is highly under-noticed or portrayed in a way that does not show the potentials. Some innovations that were introduced were: a new bio-foam to be used in anything from furniture to large machines, contributions to breast cancer research, the involvement young women in computer science, etc. Also, to prevent discrimination against women and youth in application processes for jobs that are traditionally biased, speakers provided ideas about blinding the information about gender and age from the employers so as to prevent some of the simplest forms of discrimination against women and youth.

By: John Benducci