Organized as part of Global MIL Week, the Youth Hackathon empowers young innovators to tackle global challenges through the lens of media and information literacy. To support them, a two-day online training (19–20 August) equipped participants with tools and resources to design their projects. UNESCO received 1,286 proposals from 138 countries. After three rigorous rounds of evaluation by international experts, four winning teams were selected.

Meet the Winning Teams

Clickbait

Country: Viet Nam

CLICKBAIT is a detective-style board game where players engage with real social media scenarios, debate with peers, and uncover truth using the 3C2B framework (Creator, Content, Context, Bias, Business). Designed as an alternative to traditional lectures, it promotes teamwork, fun, and critical thinking. Supported by VinUniversity’s UNESCO Chair, the game empowers youth to resist hate, detect disinformation, and build digital resilience.

MIL Point

Country: Indonesia 

MIL Point Solutions combats misinformation in Indonesia through mobile box campaigns, viral social media content, and a gamified mobile app. The “MIL Point Tour” offers engaging public games, while the app features prebunk quizzes, Debate Point, trusted news, and leaderboards to keep users active. Combined with workshops and community collaborations, MIL Point creates a dynamic ecosystem that enables Gen Z and Millennials to think critically, fact-check easily, and resist misinformation.

Youth Council

Country: Argentina

A proposed Parliamentary Youth Council on Media and AI to give young people a formal voice in legislative debates on media regulation, AI ethics, and digital rights. Composed of 20–25 representatives with renewable annual mandates, the Council will meet quarterly at Parliament, supported by virtual working groups on issues including misinformation, deepfakes, journalism ethics, and digital inclusion. The initiative bridges policymaking with youth-driven perspectives in AI and MIL.

Mentes Libres-Free Minds

Country: Cameroon

“Mentes Libres” (Spanish) translates to “Free Minds” in English symbolizing independent thought. While many MIL programs target urban youth or university students, orphaned children are often overlooked. Mentes Libres empowers orphaned youth in Cameroon’s conflict affected areas to navigate a world of misinformation with clarity, courage, and confidence. They combined offline training campaigns with digital empowerment to help orphaned youth become informed, confident, and active participants in their communities. They bring simple, free AI-powered verification tools to populations that have been excluded from digital literacy conversation, arming them with the same technologies used to create misinformation to instead dismantle it.