Young Digital Leaders

We believe young people can learn to be upstanders, not bystanders, and help create safe, positive and vibrant communities online.

Young Digital Leaders is an educational programme that empowers young people across Europe aged 12-16 to apply digital citizenship, critical thinking and media literacy skills online. Based around a core curriculum that addresses cross-cutting harms such as disinformation and targeted abuse, the programme supports young people to recognise the positive contributions they can make to their digital communities.

In addition to the curriculum, ISD have developed a guide for parents and a Digital Citizenship Education Programming Toolkit for NGOs, enabling them to develop and expand digital resilience beyond the classroom.

To date, ISD has partnered with civil society organisations in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Sweden to engage a spectrum of students, teachers and parents. These include Kommon Ground (Sweden); Associazione Artistica Culturale (A Rocca) (Italy); Action Synergy (Greece); Rose Valley (Bulgaria); and the Group of European Youth for Change (GEYC) (Romania).

In just two years, the programme has reached over 10,000 students, 550 teachers and 230 parents across the region. Furthermore, our 2019 evaluation indicated that:

97% of parents and carers felt better able to help their children deal with online safety challenges having attended a YDL session;
98% of teachers who attended a training thought the YDL programme is helpful to teach digital citizenship;
94% of students felt the workshop taught new knowledge and skills.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme’s French curriculum was adapted to provide educators with additional guidance and activities that enable them to discuss online disinformation, stereotyping, and hatred via a public health lens.

All the Young Digital Leaders resources are available to download below in English, Bulgarian, French, Greek and Romanian.

Latest Education publications

Click here for more relevant publications

ISD’s Education team

Jennie King

Director of Climate Research and Policy

Follow @jkingy

Jennie King is the Director of Climate Research and Policy, leading efforts to translate ISD's digital research into frontline programming and response. Through ISD, she helped found Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), a coalition of over 50 organisations working to identify, analyse and counter climate disinformation worldwide. She has spearheaded investigations on climate denialism and ‘discourses of delay’ in the contexts of Australia, Canada, Central Europe, Germany, South Africa, the US and UK, as well as co-authored a number of ISD’s flagship reports on this issue. Jennie also helped design, and currently manages, the COP Intelligence Units on behalf of CAAD, leading over 15 partners to produce real-time monitoring of mis- and disinformation around climate summits.

Nathalie Rücker

Senior Manager, Capacity Building & Civic Action, ISD Germany

Nathalie Rücker is Senior Manager, Capacity Building and Civic Action for ISD Germany. She manages the Business Council for Democracy (BC4D) project and also co-leads the project "Pan European Coalition against Online Antisemitism" (CCOA). Previously, Nathalie worked at the intersection of peacebuilding research, conflict prevention and human rights education, in Germany and abroad, focusing on global citizenship education and the capacity building of civil society actors. She holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in Public International Law and International Relations and is a trained conflict mediator.

Hanna Börgmann

Educator at the Business Council for Democracy, ISD Germany

Hanna Börgmann is leading the research project "Countering Radicalization in Right-Wing Extremist Online Subcultures” at ISD Germany. She also works as an Educator for the Business Council for Democracy (BC4D), where she empowers employees to deal with hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy ideology online. Prior to joining ISD Germany, Hanna worked as a public sector consultant on digital transformation projects for PwC Germany and as a project coordinator for German-Israeli exchange in the field of innovation, including artificial intelligence, at ELNET Germany. Previously, Hanna earned her Master's degree in International Affairs at the Hertie School in Berlin, where she conducted research on antisemitic radicalization and mobilization in the image board subcultures of the so-called Chans, using the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Halle, Germany, as a case study.

Iris Boyer

Senior Advisor, ISD France

Follow @IrisBoyer88

Iris Boyer is a Senior Advisor at ISD and spearheads ISD’s development in France. She also works as a Senior Policy Consultant for Reset and is an honorary member of different expert groups on information manipulations and online threats set up by the French regulatory body. She has recently set up the first coalition of academics observing cyberthreats to electoral integrity in France. Previously she spent five years overseeing ISD’s flagship communications, education and technology programming, as well as mobilising and training international networks of civil society organizations against online hate and radicalisation, and designing digital citizenship modules against disinformation. Iris has also worked as a Senior Policy Manager for the Web Foundation where she led the global roll out strategy of the Contract for the Web, focusing on Platforms and Government accountability. Before that, Iris spent time working at Facebook and Google on European and Global programming supporting the mobilisation of civil society against online harms. She started her career working for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held several positions covering Russian speaking countries. Her background is in political science and public policy.