Global Youth Forum 2027
Photo © Marco Minotti
Global Youth Forum 2027
Sustainable Development at the Frontiers of New Tech
18–29 January 2027
The course is available in English
National of a country included in the DAC list of ODA recipients?
You may be eligible for a partial scholarship.
Apply early and complete your Motivation Interview by 3 November 2026.
Forum Features
Participatory Plenary
Sessions
Engage with a world-class faculty of UN officers, development practitioners, social entrepreneurs and civil society change-makers leveraging emerging technologies to build sustainable development solutions.
INTEGRŌ Leadership and Career Labs
By joining a course part of the INTEGRŌ facility, you'll dive right into honing the most sought-after soft skills for a career in the United Nations and the broader space of multilateralism, grounded in the UN values of inclusion, integrity, humility, and humanity.
Project Design Sessions
What does the work of an international civil servant entail? Experience how crafting a sustainable development project looks like in multicultural, multilingual teams. Design sustainable solutions with emerging technologies at their core.
Introduction to the course
The UN80 Pact for the Future highlights emerging technologies as drivers of innovative governance. The ITCILO provides a safe space for experimentation with innovative capacity development solutions that accelerate social development. With a new edition of the Global Youth Forum, the ITCILO calls for an exploration of the emerging technologies accelerating sustainable development: quantum computing, neurotechnologies, biotechnologies, AI-powered robotics. The Forum provides youth with room to discuss the policy implications of a more granular presence of emerging technologies in all aspects of life, including but not limited to the world of work, and how these technologies could support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Forum is also a space for co-ideation, co-creation, and co-curation of tech-powered sustainable development projects. While working in groups, participants receive guidance on how to craft project proposals in line with UN standards of quality, feasibility, and accessibility. This enables participants to develop a sense of what it means to work as international public officers: across cultures, languages, and professional areas of expertise for positive impact.
Who attends this course?
Since 2019, the ITCILO Global Youth Forum welcomes mission-driven undergraduate, graduate students and young professionals (18-30 years old) with the ambition to become international civil servants working with the United Nations, its specialized agencies, funds, and programmes, and other international organizations. The Forum also welcomes applicants seeking to become well-versed in the art of developing initiatives, activities, or events in support of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We particularly encourage applications from candidates interested in how their specialized knowledge (whether academic or professional) can support sustainable development efforts across sectors, countries, and regions; we're equally interested in receiving applications from candidates mindful of how SDG8 for Economic Growth and Decent Work can be achieved in unison with other 2030 Agenda SDGs.
What the Global Youth Forum Offers
- An official and shareable certification from the training arm of the ILO, one of the oldest specialized agencies of the United Nations
- Exposure to the United Nations system from the heart of Europe
- Hands-on practice on the work of international development practitioners advancing sustainable development efforts
- Support for the definition of your global career goals and pathways to support you in achieving them
- Access to a global network of faculty members and INTEGRŌ alumni working across international organizations, government structures, and civil society for positive impact
Motivation Interviews
Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a Global Youth Forum Motivation Interview between October-December 2026, where they’ll elaborate on the motivations underpinning their willingness to join the 2027 cohort of the Forum.
Invited applicants are encouraged to draw connections between their academic/professional journey and the learning aims of Future Leaders in the World of Work in as much detail as possible.
Nationals of countries included in the DAC list of ODA recipients may be eligible for a partial scholarship. Apply early and complete your Motivation Interview by 3 November 2026.
About INTEGRŌ
INTEGRŌ is the global competency development facility for future leaders in the world of work of the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO).
Highlighting the ILO’s contributions in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, INTEGRŌ motivates future leaders to leverage synergies that connect Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8) to all of the other Goals for the benefit of their communities of reference. INTEGRŌ offers a wide range of global competence training opportunities which, while being stand-alone, work in synergy with one another for the formulation of a dynamic, integrated curriculum.
Photo © Marco Minotti
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