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Monday, August 18, 2025

Empowering youth through AI, digital tools

A holistic approach to climate and health

by

36 days ago
20250713

In com­mem­o­rat­ing World Youth Skills Day on Ju­ly 15th, un­der the theme “Youth em­pow­er­ment through AI (ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence) and dig­i­tal skills,” we re­mem­ber that our plan­et’s fu­ture and its peo­ples’ well-be­ing de­pend heav­i­ly on how well we teach young peo­ple to­day. In a world threat­ened by ac­cel­er­at­ing hu­man-caused cli­mate change and glob­al health crises, an ur­gent ques­tion emerges: Are we giv­ing youth the right dig­i­tal and AI-dri­ven skills to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to these com­plex, in­ter­con­nect­ed chal­lenges?

Young peo­ple are en­ter­ing work­places trans­formed by AI, au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal dis­rup­tion (changes to an in­dus­try due to new tech­nol­o­gy), all pow­er­ful tools, but on­ly if our youth are pre­pared to har­ness them. We must reimag­ine ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, mak­ing AI and dig­i­tal skills part of stu­dents’ foun­da­tions. This isn’t on­ly for ca­reer suc­cess; these tech­nolo­gies are im­por­tant in­stru­ments for pos­i­tive cli­mate ac­tion and pub­lic health in­no­va­tion. More than job-ready grad­u­ates, the fu­ture de­mands con­scious, eth­i­cal lead­ers who can use tech­nol­o­gy to pro­tect the plan­et and pro­mote well-be­ing for all.

AI is no longer sci­ence fic­tion. It is here and grow­ing fast. Tools like Chat­G­PT, DALLE and Gem­i­ni are be­ing used by over 70 per cent of teenagers glob­al­ly. In class­rooms, these tools can per­son­alise learn­ing, al­low re­mote ac­cess glob­al­ly and cre­ate path­ways to emerg­ing ca­reers. How­ev­er, AI us­age re­quires thought­ful rules and reg­u­la­tions. Dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and AI ethics are be­ing in­te­grat­ed cur­ric­u­la-wide to help stu­dents use these tools re­spon­si­bly.

Just as AI is trans­form­ing ed­u­ca­tion, it is al­so rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing ap­proach­es to cli­mate change and pub­lic health. AI mod­els can pre­dict ex­treme weath­er, op­ti­mise en­er­gy use, and dri­ve sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture in­no­va­tion, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pow­er­ing dis­ease sur­veil­lance, ear­ly-de­tec­tion sys­tems, and dig­i­tal pub­lic health cam­paigns. Though these us­es may seem very dif­fer­ent, they aren’t; in fact, they all help to fight cli­mate change, in­creas­ing­ly recog­nised as the 21st cen­tu­ry’s great­est health threat, and sup­port pub­lic health ef­forts.

Cli­mate change’s trig­gers and caus­es, in­clud­ing ris­ing tem­per­a­tures, pol­lut­ed air, un­safe wa­ter, and shift­ing dis­ease pat­terns, al­so dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect young peo­ple.

There­fore, prepar­ing youth with dig­i­tal skills is cru­cial to sur­vival and lead­er­ship. Youth should be equipped to cre­ate smart ear­ly-warn­ing sys­tems, de­sign health apps tai­lored to cli­mate-sen­si­tive dis­eases, and raise pub­lic aware­ness us­ing dig­i­tal sto­ry­telling. Con­sid­er a young soft­ware de­vel­op­er de­sign­ing an AI-based chat­bot to an­swer ques­tions about heat­stroke pre­ven­tion dur­ing heat­waves, or a team of stu­dent en­tre­pre­neurs cre­at­ing a mo­bile app to map air qual­i­ty in ur­ban cen­tres. These are re­al tools to help peo­ple ad­dress cli­mate and health is­sues, and they be­gin with ac­cess to train­ing, tools, and trust.

Achiev­ing these aims re­quires so­ci­etal col­lab­o­ra­tion. Gov­ern­ments must in­vest in poli­cies and in­fra­struc­ture sup­port­ing AI and dig­i­tal train­ing for all, par­tic­u­lar­ly for un­der-re­sourced com­mu­ni­ties. In­sti­tu­tions like the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T& (COSTAATT) al­ready play a key role, work­ing with part­ners like Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse, to raise aware­ness for en­vi­ron­men­tal and health is­sues. To­geth­er, we can cre­ate so­lu­tions to pro­vide youth with the ed­u­ca­tion nec­es­sary to de­vel­op tech-based so­lu­tions for these is­sues. Part­ner­ships like these must be nur­tured and ex­pand­ed.

The Caribbean re­gion must al­so re­frame how we view youth. They aren’t just learn­ers and con­sumers. They are cre­ators, in­no­va­tors, and change­mak­ers. Glob­al­ly, young peo­ple are found­ing cli­mate-tech start-ups, build­ing AI-pow­ered health tools, and de­vel­op­ing ‘cit­i­zen sci­ence’ dig­i­tal plat­forms. One ex­am­ple is BlueSky An­a­lyt­ics, found­ed by sib­lings Kshi­tij and Ab­hi­lasha Pur­war in In­dia. Us­ing satel­lite da­ta and AI-pow­ered an­a­lyt­ics, the com­pa­ny mon­i­tors air qual­i­ty, green­house gas emis­sions, and cli­mate risks. Their flag­ship app, Bree­Zo, maps re­al-time air pol­lu­tion lev­els for 200+ lo­ca­tions, pro­vid­ing smart­watch users with ad­vice when air pol­lu­tion reach­es dan­ger­ous lev­els.

Even the Unit­ed Na­tions agrees that in­clu­sive AI is cru­cial for achiev­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Youth must be cen­tral to this agen­da, not on the mar­gins. COSTAATT recog­nis­es that work­ing to­wards sus­tain­abil­i­ty re­quires more than cur­ricu­lum changes: in­clu­sive dig­i­tal en­tre­pre­neur­ship must be cul­ti­vat­ed. Gov­ern­ments and de­vel­op­ment agen­cies must fund youth ini­tia­tives that de­sign tech­nol­o­gy at all ed­u­ca­tion lev­els.

With­in these spaces, young peo­ple use trans­fer­able, pro­gres­sive skills to work on re­al-world prob­lems like food in­se­cu­ri­ty, de­for­esta­tion, ma­ter­nal health and wa­ter qual­i­ty. These spaces should al­so ex­tend spe­cial out­reach to mar­gin­alised groups, in­clud­ing young women, mi­grants, and rur­al youth, who too of­ten face bar­ri­ers to tech­nol­o­gy train­ing and par­tic­i­pa­tion.

As ed­u­ca­tors, our role in this trans­for­ma­tion is piv­otal. Through on­go­ing pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, peer ex­change, and ac­cess to cut­ting-edge tools, we cre­ate spaces for stu­dents to co-de­sign cur­ric­u­la, lead peer train­ing, and launch com­mu­ni­ty-based dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives. Youth should ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in shap­ing their learn­ing jour­ney.

World Youth Skills Day isn’t just a cel­e­bra­tion; it’s a call to ac­tion and com­mit­ment, to reimag­in­ing ed­u­ca­tion as a dri­ver for cli­mate re­silience, ro­bust pub­lic health, and so­cial trans­for­ma­tion. Led by youth us­ing AI and dig­i­tal tools, and by in­cor­po­rat­ing cli­mate and health con­cerns in­to our skills agen­da, we can shape a more tech­no­log­i­cal­ly ad­vanced, health­i­er and more sus­tain­able world.

In 2025, let’s move from po­ten­tial to progress, with young peo­ple lead­ing the charge.

Co-Au­thors from the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT):

Lali­ta Ram­lal-Chirkoot is the Dean of the School of Work­force

lrchirkoot@costaatt.edu.tt

Kevin Ram­soob­hag is the vice pres­i­dent of the Di­vi­sion of In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion

kram­soob­hag@costaatt.edu.tt

De­la­mae Wil­son is the Dean of the School of En­vi­ron­ment, Cir­cu­lar Econ­o­my and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty

dwil­son@costaatt.edu.tt

The fore­go­ing was a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help read­ers un­der­stand and ad­dress the cli­mate and health cri­sis.


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