5/23/22, 3:03 AM Telenor Myanmar To ensure better connectivity and improve quality of services, Telenor Myanmar Customer Service team is reaching out to the customers by using the outb  MyAccount / Sign in မြန်မာ Search Telenor > About us > Media > All Media > Connected, competent and critical: Youth in the digital age Article Connected, competent and critical: Youth in the digital age 12 Aug,2020 - Yangon | 4 mins read An exclusive International Youth Day 2020 Op-Ed written by Hans Martin Høegh Henrichsen Today’s youth have more opportunities than any generation before but are also facing some of humankind’s biggest challenges. It is in all of our interest that they succeed. On International Youth Day 12 August, we celebrate young people, youthled organizations and all those who work to empower and uplift young people everywhere. The theme of International Youth Day 2020 is “Youth Engagement for Global Action”. It is our youth who are inheriting massive challenges like climate change, increasing polarization and widening inequality. Their active engagement is crucial to help address all of them. More than at any point in history, youth need to be connected, competent and retain a healthy sense of critical thinking. Telenor Youth Forum delegates from Telenor’s eight markets in Scandinavia and Asia including Myanmar attending Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo, Norway. The rise of the digital natives Understanding young people’s relationship to technology can seem overwhelming. It may look like youths’ lives revolve around their phones – living through the lens of social media, using apps for everything and anything, and hardly interacting with anyone IRL (“in real life”). Most young people today are digital natives who have known no other reality than [1] constant connectivity. More similar than different According to Statista, more than 4.5 billion people worldwide were active internet users as of April 2020. In Myanmar, there were 22 million internet users in January 2020. That means 41% of the population in Myanmar are online. Young people adapt early and jump on international trends faster than ever – just observe how new ‘born global’ mobile apps are taken up almost simultaneously whether you’re in Boston, Bangkok or Bago. The youth segment transcends borders and care about global issues, and that is why someone like Greta Thunberg can become a world celebrity with her ‘school strike for climate’. The democratization of enterpreneurship Youth are essential to tackle global, social challenges like the UN Sustainable Development Goals. That’s also why Telenor for several years ran a global platform called Telenor Youth Forum with young leaders from all its markets in the Nordics and Asia. The program, run in collaboration with the Nobel Peace Center, saw massive interest and engagement from https://www.telenor.com.mm/en/article/connected-competent-and-critical-youth-digital-age 1/4