Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story, author Rajesh Mirchandani reports on four requests young leaders had at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos.

• According to the World Economic Forum, "65 percent of children entering primary school today will end up in jobs that don't exist yet." How can today's leaders helps students and institutions prepare for and adapt to this changing labor market?

• To learn about how leaders can inspire girls and women to reach their full potential, click here.

#1: Don't 'empower' us

“One of the biggest challenges is this idea that young women or young leaders always need to be empowered,” said Dr. Alaa Murabit, a young Canadian-Libyan doctor, as well as a UN High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth and a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Advocate. “Young people have an incredible amount of agency.”

#2: Do buy from us

[Rapelang Rabana of Rekindle Learning] agreed that empowerment programs are often not enough, especially for young women in the male-dominated tech industry. “It’s one thing to say in a Davos meeting ‘oh we need to reach gender parity,’” she said. “That’s an easy step. It’s also more popular to have employment targets and say we need to make sure we have women in our workforce. But as an entrepreneur, I think the last hurdle is really when companies will procure products and services from women-owned businesses.”

#3: Create learning systems that work

For young education entrepreneur Rapelang Rabana, the uncertainty about jobs of the future means leaders today must change how young people learn, so all young people have foundational skills that can be augmented as things like digital payments become more sophisticated or AI-enabled logistics systems become more prevalent.

#4: Don't exclude us from conversations

[Dr. Alaa Murabit] and her fellow new leaders agreed that much greater and broader representation of youth perspectives is essential in policy discussions. With 1.8 billion young people ready to take on the world, rapid technological innovation transforming how we live and work, and rising threats to global progress, leaders of today ignore leaders of tomorrow at their peril.

Read the full article about young people in today's economy by Rajesh Mirchandani at United Nations Foundation