Creating Secure Online Spaces for Global Youth Changemakers

With 1.2 billion youth worldwide, meaningful engagement is crucial for fostering positive social change. Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a widely accepted approach that empowers youth to reach their full potential by building skills, fostering relationships, strengthening environments, and transforming systems. In 2015, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the YouthPower Learning project to expand the evidence base for PYD and build the capacity of youth development practitioners and stakeholders. Building on that success, the USAID-funded YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation (YP2LE) initiative further integrates PYD evidence and best practices into youth programming, ensuring sustainable change. These efforts included the creation of YouthLead.org, a platform designed for young changemakers worldwide.

YouthLead.org: A Digital Hub for Global Changemakers

Launched in 2018 under the USAID-funded YouthPower Learning project and now managed by YP2LE, YouthLead.org is a digital community for young individuals dedicated to making a positive impact through service, activism, advocacy, education, and entrepreneurship. The platform connects people, ideas, and resources to tackle critical issues affecting youth globally. YouthLead.org enables young changemakers to connect with peers, access valuable information, discover resources, and create learning opportunities in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, and French, with Google Translate available on every page.

Discovering Key Touchpoints Through Human-Centered Design

ASSYST began the project with a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach, starting with a discovery sprint to identify the core business and human needs. We worked closely with key stakeholders, employing techniques such as “How Might We” questions to frame challenges and opportunities. Our research included interviews, surveys, and focus groups with youth, mentors, and other stakeholders to gather deep insights. We developed personas representing diverse user groups and mapped out user journeys to understand their interactions, pain points, and needs throughout their engagement with the platform.

Designing for a Global Audience

ASSYST crafted an intuitive front-end interface compatible with both desktop and mobile devices, catering to diverse user categories. Our design process included creating wireframes and prototypes tested with real users to ensure usability and accessibility. We focused on showcasing the value of joining the YouthLead community and encouraging active participation. The platform features rich user interface effects like carousels, tabs, accordions, and lightboxes, using reusable or custom-built patterns across the site.

Architecting for Scalability and Performance with AWS Cloud Services

The platform is designed to handle content from multiple sources and support simultaneous updates. It features a responsive design architecture that enhances efficiency, usability, and accessibility across all standard browsers. The navigation approach ensures users understand their site location and next steps. An interactive dashboard allows administrators to manage content, users, and system settings efficiently. Multiple levels of roles and permissions ensure a robust content creation, review, and publishing process.

The platform employs an Open Source framework and utilizes various AWS Cloud Services, including:

• Amazon EC2 for scalable compute capacity.
• Amazon S3 for secure, scalable storage.
• Amazon RDS for a managed relational database service.
• AWS CloudFront for content delivery.
• AWS Lambda for serverless computing to handle backend processes.
• AWS IAM for secure identity and access management.
• AWS CloudWatch for monitoring and logging.

These services ensure high performance, reliability, and security, supporting the platform's need to scale globally and handle dynamic content and user interactions.

Showcasing Innovations and Encouraging Participation

Young changemakers can learn from other youth projects through advanced search, filter, and refine functions. Every member profile highlights the human behind the username, with social sign-in and a point-based activity system. Badges like Networker, Innovator, and Community inspire members and recognize accomplishments. Notifications keep members updated on content and community activity.

Facilitating Value Communications and Interactions

Group administrators moderate user communication within the platform, with discussion groups categorized as Open or Closed. Both types can host their own events, discussions, and resources. Members can post resources, projects, events, blogs, and participate in forum competitions, and rank resources and expert profiles. The multilingual platform offers global networking opportunities, featuring an interactive map, online status indicators, and instant messaging for real-time communication. Future plans include mentorship programs, allowing members to sign up as mentors and engage with mentees through structured email notifications.

Looking Ahead

With numerous social media platforms and communities available, ASSYST collaborates with the YP2LE team to continuously review community engagement, enhance the user experience, and brainstorm new features. We regularly revisit our user personas and journeys to adapt the platform to evolving needs and expectations.

Impact and Success Stories

Since its launch, YouthLead.org has empowered countless young individuals to drive change in their communities. Success stories and case studies highlight the real-world impact of the platform, showcasing how young changemakers have leveraged YouthLead.org to achieve their goals.

ASSYST Digital Transformation Services

ASSYST Digital Services partners with a wide range of clients, including DoD, Federal, State, and Local Governments, Non-Profit Organizations, and International Agencies. We employ human-centered design (HCD) and agile principles to implement solutions for websites, knowledge management systems, mobile apps, search-based portals, interactive toolkits, open data catalogs, data visualizations, and chatbots.