Youth Community

Countries have long looked to outer space to demonstrate their technological and industrial competitiveness, but the arrival of new actors is making its future increasingly complex and uncertain. It is our generation’s responsibility to help define the principles that will maintain a peaceful, secure, and sustainable outer space.

As students in our twenties working in the nuclear non-proliferation field, we’re well aware that only a handful of our peers in “Generation Z” have a solid understanding of the issues that we’re addressing. While great resources on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are available to those who seek them out, our field could be doing more to inspire young people to pursue these vital causes to secure a peaceful future.

December 2018. I am planning my summer vacation like any other year. I turn on the television, and I see the headline: "Hantavirus outbreak in Southern Argentina". Hantavirus is a zoonotic disease transmitted from rodents to humans. The difference with this strain is that it is transmitted from person to person, facilitating the spread of the virus. Over the course of several days, people of all ages begin to die. As fear grips the inhabitants of the southern cities, misinformation starts to spread through the media. December 2019. It seems that the month of December is destined not to be quiet. The name “Coronavirus” begins to resonate. At the beginning, all the samples from the country were processed at the Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires, the National Reference Laboratory. Wouldn't it be easier if other laboratories over the country processed the samples as well? The answer is yes, of course. However, the necessary biosafety and biosecurity conditions to manipulate the samples and carry out the diagnoses were only found in the Malbran Institute. As the number of cases increased, reaching all Provinces, it became necessary to decentralize the diagnoses in order to have a faster response to the pandemic. There my work began.

My big turning point came in July 2015, when I saw a YouTube video about victims of antipersonnel landmines in Afghanistan. Disturbed by what I learned, I began to develop a drone I hoped could one day save lives by detonating landmines remotely. That landmine-destroying drone, an idea that started in my imagination, is now a real product with multiple patents. When I began working on it, I was 12 years old. I was just 10, though, when I built my first invention: a remote control I used to operate appliances around my home in Ahmedabad, India. My parents, recognizing my keen interest in electronics and technology, encouraged me to take my passion further.

I took a deep breath and began reading my speech, starting from its first sentence: “Today, I am standing here as a youth who is anxious about our future. The unceasing spread of the COVID-19, the increasing poverty, climate change, the ongoing human rights abuses around the world… In the time of the deepening uncertainty, we are now also facing the rapid development of the lethal autonomous weapons system, the so-called ‘killer robot.’” It was 12 December 2020, and I was at the office of Human Rights Watch in Tokyo, attending the online Global Youth Conference on Fully Autonomous Weapons. Just like 19 other youth speakers who joined from around the world, I was speaking out, in front of my laptop, to raise the torch of hope for a better future.

This year has shifted many of our lives into virtual reality. Handshakes have been replaced with emails, friendly catch-ups with cyber get-togethers, and traditional in-person exchanges with a procession of online activities. This new virtual world can feel overwhelmingly isolating at times, but another side of it emerged when the #Youth4Disarmament initiative recently celebrated the winners of its #75Words4Disarmament Youth Challenge. On 26 October, young people from around the world came together to share their thoughts and feelings about a common goal—disarmament.

If you’re young like me and eager to help save our planet, starting out can feel a little daunting. That is why I would like to explain how I found a job working each day for a safer and more secure world. A lot of young people want to contribute towards peace, and that passion leads us all in different directions. In my case, it led to earning a master’s degree in Strategic Studies and Energy Security—a path of study where I could explore nuclear issues, the peaceful benefits of atomic energy, and the risks of related technology being misused.