The First Woman UNSG

Young UN Futures Stories is an evolving foresight storytelling experiment launched on the 75th Anniversary of the UN’s formation and looking at how we reimagine and shape our UN institutions over the next 25 years as we approach 100! Read more about Young UN Futures Stories project here.

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The First Woman UNSG

This story was brought to life by Young UN with mentoring from SOIF.
It has been co-written by Pepa Majkic and Rodrigo Mota.
Design by Gabriela Heermans, Pepa Majkic with support from YUN Branding Team.
Website support from People Activation and Break Creative Partners.

September, 2022. “BREAKING NEWS: Amaal Nazari is the first woman to be appointed as the Secretary-General of the United Nations!”.  

Irina will never forget this headline. Although it seemed evident for such a long time to have a woman in the driving seat of the United Nations (UN) one day, it was still a momentous event when it happened 23 years ago. 

When Irina saw the hashtag #UNSGisawoman instantly trending on social media, she got goosebumps down her arms. It literally felt like running a 100-year marathon and finally crossing the finish line. After that, her decision to join the UN became obvious. She wanted to be part of this. She wanted to be part of that present, that future she used to look forward to. 

(…)

It’s September 2045 and Irina works as a Gender Officer for the World Food Programme (WFP). She still uses Nazari’s election to explain that having a woman being elected to the UN’s top job marked a turning point for women and girls around the world.  

She is one of the coordinators for this year’s Global Gender Report. This live-feed data report tracks all the changes towards gender equality within the UN. 

In fact, Irina is feeling proud of how the Report is turning out in the end when she swivels her head towards the door opening. Mala comes in: “Ok, I’m ready, if you are.” Irina shuts the report and says: “When it comes to food, I’m born ready!”. “LOL, how could I forget about that?”, Mala replies and both laugh. “By the way, did you see this?”, Irina holds up the Gender Report 2045 and smiles. “I did! And I’m so, so proud of you! I can’t believe this is actually finished!”, Mala answers. “Same! Like – when did all this happen?”.

Mala smiles and puts an arm around Irina as they start walking out the door. “Well, it happened when this organisation started embracing real change and all of you great people came together and worked on achieving it. And this was more than just hard work!” Irina sighs: “Oh boy, you’re so right.” She cuddles up to Mala’s shoulder while they wait for the elevator.

Mala is one of Irina’s closest friends at work. They have known each other since she joined the World Food Programme in Rome, almost 15 years ago. Back then, Mala had just come from a mission in Somalia where she felt it was very unsafe to work as a Logistics Officer, being a transgender woman herself. She was actually one of the first colleagues who came to see Irina when she took on the role of Gender Officer. 

Part of Irina’s activities was to keep track of colleagues’ sentiments through regular pulse checks that were being recorded in the organisation workplace culture platform, and to decide on what kind of assistance they needed. At some point, she felt that it was time to invite Mala to Rome. 

When they both met in Rome that day, they walked through a long corridor that led to the main entrance of the headquarters. At the end of it, Irina pointed to a picture hanging on a big wall. “You see there? That’s Nazari. The first woman to be appointed as Secretary-General. Amazing, no? But guess what? It was never easy for her too”.

Back in 2022, continuing a trend inaugurated during the previous elections, the process to choose the next Secretary-General (SG) went through a fairer transparent process, and forum and debates were open to civil society and webcasted. This amassed strong support and scrutiny both from society as well as from government, especially when Nazari officially presented her candidacy and made her pitch to the public.

Amaal Nazari’s election was definitely seen as a big shake-up, an important step in correcting a gender bias of many decades. 

“This is what everyone thought!”, said Irina. Being elected to the international body’s top job was never enough. Women and girls all over the world were still lagging behind in virtually every Sustainable Development Goal and target. Despite some progress on women’s economic empowerment, for example, less than half all the countries afforded women the same rights to land ownership or gave them equal access to financial services. 

On top of this, Nazari felt that one of her biggest fights had to do with some “unseen barriers” and a subtle gender bias that persisted in the organisation, even at top level. Convinced that structural changes had to start from the top, Nazari had played a crucial role in accelerating gender parity in every agency in the UN system. “Her cabinet was the first one to have a non-binary person serving as member of the UN senior management group – and this decision caused a stir!”, Irina exclaimed. 

“Wow, that sounds like a real change!”, Mala replied.

“It was indeed! Building on progress made by previous administrations, it was actually under her term that a Global Act for equal rights and fair treatment was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly. Previous resolutions on this matter paved the way for the fight against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity”, Irina continued. “The positive vote responded to a global joint campaign, which included civil society groups, businesses and governments calling on the UN to adopt this revolutionary action plan.”

Listening to this, Mala was overwhelmed by a mixture of happiness and relief. She felt a lump in her throat. “Can you give me a hug, please?”, she then asked Irina. “Although I have experienced myself all kinds of discrimination, it feels reassuring to know that there are ‘game-changers’ out there fighting for a better world”. 

Mala realises how much has been achieved since Nazari’s election. A sense of pride and self-confidence overcomes her. The UN is a workplace that is leading by example when it comes to gender equality. Within the missions and country offices, a broad range of programmes and initiatives have been launched to make the environment secure for every person – no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

***

 

 

This story is part of the Young UN Futures Stories collection. They should not be utilized in real-world analytic products as they are merely fictional pieces. The views, assumptions and opinions expressed in this story are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an official policy or position of the Young UN, the United Nations, and neither of any of its institutions.

 

The Future UN Employee


Young UN Futures Stories is an evolving foresight storytelling experiment launched on the 75th Anniversary of the UN’s formation and looking at how we reimagine and shape our UN institutions over the next 25 years as we approach 100! Read more about Young UN Futures Stories project here.

 JOIN YUN Futures Stories JOURNEY


The Future UN Employee

This story was brought to life by Young UN with mentoring from SOIF.
It has been co-written by
Luisa Karst, Michaela Markova, Martin Ostermeier, Emily Roberts, Johanna Jochim, Ruth Blackshaw.
Design by Gabriela Heermans, Pepa Majkic with support from YUN Branding Team.
Website support from People Activation and Break Creative Partners.

This story describes the interaction between a prospective employee of the UN Agency on Misinformation and their future team during the application process.

Incoming hologram message to the UN Agency on Misinformation, 24 October 2045

Hello, my name is Zelina Jalal, and I am interested in the position of ideation coordinator with the UN Agency on Misinformation at the UN headquarters in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The participation of the UN Secretary-General, Ms Mandania, in virtual marches against male discrimination motivated me to take part in an international VR career event, having the chance to visit some of the major international organisations. I was truly inspired by the young international civil servant who addressed me (in his early 30s!), a team head for the Department of Ethics of AI. He spoke warmly about the UN as one of the leading organisations driving innovation globally through its effective multilateral cooperation among all stakeholders, and how the organisation is promoting self-managing teams, mobility and flexible working arrangements. I learnt that the UN supports its employees in their career paths and is a place where  employees can try out new ideas, having both the freedom to fail and the accountability to deliver. This is what brought me to apply for this position.

I am from Fiji and I have a master’s degree in creative optimisation and systems thinking at the online University of Tallinn. Given the university’s student-centric approach, where AI teachers created a personalised learning journey for each student, I was able to graduate top of my class with an honours in strategic foresight. My education allowed me to develop innovation and co-creation skills; through virtual labs I studied real-world problems and learned about foresighting methods to create probable futures. In my Master’s thesis, I studied the challenges of unequal access to new technologies within countries, in which I co-created an innovative solution to develop affordable study bots for and together with indigenous students in Brazil.

Alongside my studies, I volunteered online for a grassroots organisation in France fighting the spread of misinformation. With a strong public stand of the UN against such behaviour, I used social media to engage with a range of stakeholders to develop innovative solutions to counter the misinformation campaign. In doing so, I deepened my skills in virtual citizens engagement and activism, which I believe will be an asset to the UN. My volunteer experience and innovative use of social media activism has given me a social engagement score of 9.5, far exceeding the 7.2 average of most young professionals my age. 

Lastly, while most young professionals are fluent in AI programming, I wish to highlight my minor in quantum computing. It has strengthened my advanced diplomacy skills in human robot-negotiations, which can be an asset for the upcoming Information for Good Summit which your team is organising early next year. 

Given that society is plagued by constant misinformation and facts have lost their value, I am committed to countering this trend through innovative tools and mechanisms to fact-check information in real-time. I believe that my innovation and co-creation skills along with my advanced diplomacy and stakeholder engagement expertise can be an asset to the UN Agency on Misinformation and I would love to be part of your team. 

Looking forward to your holo-reply! Bye.

 

Outgoing hologram message from the Chief of Innovation, UN Agency on Misinformation, 25 October 2045:

Hi Zelina, 

Carolina Lopez here, Chief of Innovation in the current job rotation interval. 

Thank you for your application for the ideation coordinator position which we received yesterday. I truly appreciated your interactive hologram, it reminds me of the early days when I was co-creating the “Verified Project” which started in 2020 to combat misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, we were still struggling with hierarchies and bureaucracy, and working in self-managing teams was considered a wild dream for most UN employees. 

The UN has come a long way since, yet we need people with your futures literacy and innovation skills – a systems-thinker that can tactfully engage with a range of stakeholders, ready to find solutions to new problems that the UN is facing, including how to make use of misinformation to avoid nuclear escalation. My AI assistant has run through your online profile and verified your credentials stored in the UN blockchain. Based on our merit assessment, I would be delighted to offer you the position in my team. 

Our HR onboarding bot has been activated for you and is available to give you a virtual tour through the building, channel your documents through our blockchain validation system and recommend training courses which are tailored to your needs in order to ensure you a smooth start at our agency. 

Of course you can also contact me for any questions and I am looking forward to personally introducing you to the team. Despite all technology, here at the UN we continue valuing the human-centred approach. 

Let’s talk further next week Tuesday 10.30am. Ciao.

***

 

This story is part of the Young UN Futures Stories collection. They should not be utilized in real-world analytic products as they are merely fictional pieces. The views, assumptions and opinions expressed in this story are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an official policy or position of the Young UN, the United Nations, and neither of any of its institutions.

Of Moths and Planes

Young UN Futures Stories is an evolving foresight storytelling experiment launched on the 75th Anniversary of the UN’s formation and looking at how we reimagine and shape our UN institutions over the next 25 years as we approach 100! Read more about Young UN Futures Stories project here.

 JOIN YUN Futures Stories JOURNEY


Of Moths and Planes

This story was brought to life by Young UN with mentoring from SOIF.
It has been co-written by Martina Müller and Minang Acharya. 
Design by Gabriela Heermans, Pepa Majkic with support from YUN Branding Team.
Website support from People Activation and Break Creative Partners.

Guatemala, 2045. It’s three in the afternoon and the late-summer Caribbean heat beats down on my skin. Waiting on the scorching tarmac to board a small UN aircraft, I feel the 3D specimen scanner’s weight in my briefcase. The plane is late. Glancing at my watch, I wonder if I’ll make it to Bangkok in time for the UN centenary celebration tomorrow morning.

Feeling a pearl of sweat forming on my forehead, I am reminded of a very similar moment that took place twenty years ago. I was waiting at a small airport just like this one, ready to board an old-fashioned jet fuel airplane to take me to Nairobi. But rather than taking part in a celebration like the one planned for tomorrow, I was on my way to participate in a last attempt to salvage the Earth’s biodiversity. I had been invited to present my research findings on the issue of tropical ecosystem collapse and invasive species to Member States at the UN Ecosystem Rescue Summit. 

That day en route to Nairobi, my then six-year-old daughter Ashia was in my thoughts. I had just talked to her on the phone. Shortly before hanging up, she asked me in her sweet voice if I could save the moths. What six-year-old worries about moths? But Ashia had learned about them in school. “Momma, without the moths, there are fewer crops. And we need crops to eat. I like eating yucca.” It’s amazing how kids have an innate capacity to focus on what’s important.

Ashia was right, of course. It had started long ago, with the first reports of the nocturnal moths’ demise due to pesticides and urban lights. Year after year, the yucca crops they pollinated had been getting worse yields. But it wasn’t only yucca – the drastic decline of insects ruined so many other harvests as well. The Amazon forest had been reduced to a small patch, changing rain cycles all over the world. Food prices had soared, and famine was widespread. Corals had nearly all died off, making the fishing industry collapse. Civil wars had broken out worldwide, and the International Organisation for Migration was reporting the highest numbers of displaced people in history.

I worried. To use a common analogy, biodiversity can be viewed like an airplane: each extinction removes a screw from the plane. Initially, there are a lot of screws, and the losses don’t make much of a difference. But if enough are removed or a few are taken away at crucial spots, the plane will crash.

We scientists had been ringing the bell for years and years, but government representatives just wouldn’t listen. All our research and findings had largely been diplomatically dismissed. Not to mention the pressure of certain business sectors, which had pushed to delay crucial policy decisions to ensure the safety of our natural habitat. Just like its forebears, the Aichi targets, the post-2020 Kunming biodiversity framework was only showing timid results, and the 2050 Vision set out in it seemed like an impossible journey to a distant galaxy. And even though the state of the planet was deteriorating at unimaginable and uncertain speed, diplomats and heads of state had difficulties agreeing on any real action. Why would it be different this time? I almost felt like not attending the conference at all.

But I had to try, for Ashia. If things continued like business as usual, I feared there soon wouldn’t be much of a living planet left for her to enjoy. That was my sentiment and my determination as I boarded the plane to Nairobi twenty years ago.

The Summit ended up being a game-changer. I’m sure it wasn’t only my presentation that made Member States take action (although I like to think that it contributed). I believe the meeting finally confronted this new generation of delegates with reality: we would crash our biodiversity plane into the ground in a matter of years if radical measures weren’t taken immediately, probably exterminating humanity with it.

Afterwards, people would say the 2025 Emergency Summit had been surrounded in a similar aura as the San Francisco Conference many decades before. Delegates determined to work together and reach an agreement. At the San Francisco UN Conference on International Organization, to create an organisation that would save humanity from the scourges of war; in Nairobi, to implement unprecedented policies which would save the planet from the Sixth Mass Extinction. During eight weeks of intense negotiation countries agreed on new bold measures. 

And lo and behold, over the next twenty years, things changed at a pace never seen before. The first thing I noticed were the new procedures at airports. Extremely thorough checks were now carried out at every port of entry to reduce the introduction of foreign species. This included screening passengers and their luggage biologically to identify any “hitchhiking” specimen.

In a matter of years, the number of international conservation areas grew exponentially. Large areas of land were placed under protection on every continent. Studies show that the Amazon, Congo and Sumatra rainforests, previously on the brink of desertification, are slowly recovering – although it might still take thousands of years for them to regain their full ecological functions.

Many pesticides that were leading to massive die-offs saw their use discontinued throughout the globe. A similar fate befell single-use plastics that had led to the presence of microplastics even in Antarctic fish. Corals were re-planted in every ocean on a massive scale. 

Technology was also increasingly put to use to save biodiversity. My own work was a good example. Through a public-private partnership with tech companies, my team had quickly developed a portable 3D specimen scanner. I now periodically take it into the jungle (for example here, in the Caribbean cloud forest) to read a species’ DNA and determine how healthy it is.

It is still crazy to realize just how much we have evolved in two decades. And as the UN turns 100, there is something extraordinary to celebrate: our biodiversity flight path is finally starting to be stable again. Of course, there is still a long way ahead of us, but at least now there is an upward trajectory.

The noise of the approaching plane pulls my thoughts back to the tarmac and the Caribbean heat. The solar-powered jet touches the ground – it looks like I’ll make it to the UN centenary celebration on time after all. As I board the aircraft, carefully storing my 3D specimen scanner in the overhead bin, I hear an incoming call flashing on my retina. An excited female voice greets me – Ashia is already 26 years old. “Mom, I just read on the news that the 2045 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is out: moths are making a comeback!” I can hear the excitement in her voice, and a mix of relief and happiness overcomes me. She will have a future after all.

***

 

This story is part of the Young UN Futures Stories collection. They should not be utilized in real-world analytic products as they are merely fictional pieces. The views, assumptions and opinions expressed in this story are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an official policy or position of the Young UN, the United Nations, and neither of any of its institutions.

 

Museum Of Poverty

 

Young UN Futures Stories is an evolving foresight storytelling experiment launched on the 75th Anniversary of the UN’s formation and looking at how we reimagine and shape our UN institutions over the next 25 years as we approach 100! Read more about Young UN Futures Stories project here.

 JOIN YUN Futures Stories JOURNEY


Museum of Poverty

This story was brought to life by Young UN with mentoring from SOIF.
It has been co-written by
Eleonora Gatti, Carla McKirdy, Helena Carvalho Schmidt.
Design by Gabriela Heermans, Pepa Majkic with support from YUN Branding Team.
Website support from People Activation and Break Creative Partners.

This is the story of the unveiling of the world’s first Museum of Poverty, at the 100th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Museum of Poverty is a ground-breaking holoplex building. Thanks to its empathy-enhancing technology, visitors’ brains can experience —in real time— the inhumanity of the many forms of historic poverty that have been eradicated by 2045 and the lurking dangers of new emerging forms of poverty. The aim of such an unparalleled emotional exposure is to nurture a completely transformative level of empathy, one that would play a crucial role in designing solutions to prevent all forms of future poverty.

It was a balmy summer day as Thein Aye paused to take a seat on her favourite bench under a tree in Unity Park. With a quick stroke of her index finger, she closed down her holographic call screen after speaking with the press, and pensively sunk into the backrest of the bench. Thein Aye breathed out, letting the tension of the call dissipate. The scent of jasmine carried by the gentle afternoon breeze, she crossed her legs and carefully observed her surroundings; the grass —a bright, emerald green reminiscent of her homeland— was dotted with wildflowers caressed by the busiest of bees. Now was the time Thein Aye would typically put her meditation headband on. But today she was far too excited for her regular dose of slowing down her heart beat and listening to her breathing. 

Ahead of today’s event, the press wanted to know exactly what a holoplex was. Thein Aye had explained that a holoplex  was an everywhere building that could be experienced in three ways: as a mind-capturing journey using a Virtual Reality headset; as a hologram which could be projected into any large space; or as a real physical building which could be 3D printed and erected anywhere in the world. “A holoplex building is designed to be a living entity being enriched daily with the contributions of its visitors,” she had confidently informed the last reporter, having practiced her media script so many times. 

A young architect from Myanmar Shan State, Thein Aye was a first-generation college graduate and a source of pride for her family of humble beginnings. Since obtaining her double degree in architecture and neuroscience, Thein Aye had been working with holoplex futures, an idealist international collective of architects with a mission to design buildings that rocked the world’s empathy — holoplexes.

In 2040, Thein Aye’s architect collective had received a fiercely exciting commission from the United Nations: a holoplex building envisioned to honour human empathy  — the Museum of Poverty.

Creating multifunctional digital spaces which were capable of addressing the aspirations of the most diverse and mobile generation in history, and also maintain some degree of familiarity and feeling of home, was nothing short of a challenge — one which Thein Aye had been more than ready to welcome when she joined her international collective.

The UN’s brief to holoplex futures had cited a very clear inspiration for this world monument, which had helped Thein Aye and her team prepare ground-breaking designs: a lecture by the 2006 Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus. Dr Yunus, a former economics lecturer and founder of Grameen Bank, had tirelessly worked to create a  ‘’poverty-free world where the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums2

The Museum of Poverty was to be unveiled at the 100th anniversary of the United Nations in 2045 to celebrate the landmark achievement of all nations working together to finally attain zero economic poverty

14:55 ET | 17 September, 2045 

Years of effort and hard work would culminate today, as Thein Aye and her colleagues from holoplex futures were only minutes shy from the official unveiling of the Museum of Poverty. 

Thein Aye let the pictures of the last five years flow through her mind: the initial excitement in the holoplex futures  office, the brainstorming of how to begin, how to honour the pain of hundreds of millions who had lived in such harsh circumstances, the countless crowdsourcing of ideas for how the holoplex should look, the many iterations of virtual and holographic reality experiences, the hundreds of collaborations to bring the best creative minds and technological resources together with the latest of enhanced-reality sciences. 

The holoplex Museum of Poverty, designed to house the history of poverty and deprivation.

The technical challenges at times had been overwhelming. Biologically, how could empathy be instantly induced in the mind and body of a museum visitor? Thein Aye had been tasked to equip the museum with the latest ground-breaking neural-cognitive augmented empathic technology, enabling visitors’ brains not just to simulate, but to replicate in real time the grinding reality of what poverty had been  down through the ages of history.

Poverty in this museum was not just something to understand, poverty was something that visitors would experience full on. Their minds and bodies would be transported into aching hunger, grief for family members lost,  powerful longings for justice and sympathy and even despair at  the sheer indifference from the world; new neural pathways formed. The aim of such unparalleled emotional exposure was to nurture a completely transformative level of empathy, one that would play a crucial role in designing solutions to prevent all forms of future poverty.

At its core, the Museum of Poverty was to be a place of learning and co-creation, tackling all emerging forms of poverty by inviting its audience to have their say. From addressing poverty of in-work personal fulfilment to digital poverty3; from securing reliable access to high speed web connections for all to granting access to digital freedom so all individuals can be protected from intrusive spyware; or even  advocating for machine-learning justice so as to eradicate bias built up through legacy algorithms; everyone who crossed the Museum’s doors was invited to contribute their ideas and experiences, effectively becoming a part of the solution.

The Museum of Poverty had built into its constitution a rich network of ethical fore-thinkers in the form of institutions and civil society organisations, from all corners of the world. These were its guardians, tasked with the lifelong mission of updating the museum on any newly detected forms of poverty to guide states’ policymaking and global multilateralist approaches towards poverty eradication. The Poverty Museum Board of Directors would be made up of two categories of beings: humans, hand-picked for their contribution to world progress who could serve for up to nine years in the form of three consecutive terms. The second type of beings who would sit as permanent board members, who were tasked never to die and whose terms were set to infinite, would be a body of machine learning robots charged to forever be the vanguard of poverty eradication ethics. A complex series of algorithms were written so that none of the seven machine learning robots could ever slip into unintentional bias. Each AI board member was forever tasked with keeping the others ethically and morally on track.

14:58 ET | 17 September, 2045 

Zrzrzssz. Thein Aye’s call screen projected itself before her eyes snapping her back into the moment. It was time to concentrate, she had work to do. Smiling to herself as she verified the caller, she accepted the call link.

“Are you reds? How’re you feeling?”, Tamara, her closest friend and colleague at holoplex futures, asked — even though given the years of friendship she knew the answer very well.

“Hey! Yeah, you know, I’m just a tad nervous about presenting half a decade’s worth of work!’, Thein joked. “But super ready and more than excited!”, she added.  

“Yes, same here, I’ve got goosebumps but I’m reds to smash it!” Tamara replied in her smooth Kenyan drawl. 

The friends giggled in giddy excitement but not a second later, Thein Aye’s habitual composure was quickly regained.

 “OK, let’s go ahead and connect into the meeting, better to be a bit early to set things up in the VR presentation space.” 

All final broadcast checks were completed within minutes. The holoplex futures team finally gave the go-ahead for the global launch event to start. 

Millions of participants flooded in connecting to the VR space, Thein Aye’s team ignited with excitement. Each minute that passed, more and more avatars streamed into the virtual meeting room. 

Her nervous excitement magnified as the announcer introduced “Madam Secretary-General of the United Nations”. 

15:00 ET | 17 September, 2045 

Thein Aye observed that the proprietary United Nations Secretary-General’s avatar was absolutely run-of-the-mill: a humanoid with UN-blue skin, the white UN logo placed on its chest and no other discerning features. It had been adopted by the current Secretary-General and criticised by many as “too generic”. 

But she reflected that it was expensive to invest in avatar looks, and seeing how the new Secretary-General pledged to make optimal use of current technologies, prioritising both action and results, Thein Aye suddenly found value in its simple aesthetic. In her view, an avatar that allowed audiences to properly focus on the words and commitments uttered by the person behind the VR helmet was far more important than a flamboyant avatar display. 

Today we are here together, tuning in from all corners of the globe to officially open the world’s first Museum of Poverty,” the Madam Secretary- General’s blue humanoid avatar announced.

“The Museum of Poverty will enshrine poverty as an outdated, fascinating oddity of antiquity. It explains poverty not only as having no means to earn the money to live, but as an ultimately unjust subjection to the human condition. Thanks to decades of hard work rooted in multilateralism, I am proud to say that we have never been this close to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” 

“Yet, today’s inauguration of the Museum of Poverty is the result of your hard work: five years of international crowd-ideation and collaboration,” the Madam Secretary emphasised as she pointed toward Thein Aye’s and her colleagues’ avatars, seated on the front row of this VR assembly. 

“We are also extremely grateful for all of your contributions — the millions of you, who have contributed ideas, sketches, audio messages and your unique visions, contributing towards the creation of the Museum of Poverty. We are particularly thankful to the holoplex futures  architect collective who have played a key part in bringing to life this project — a building like no other! That’s right — like no other! The Museum of Poverty is, after all, alive: it is a unique and ever-changing holoplex building that continuously grows and transforms itself with the contributions of all its visitors

In particular, it is a pleasure to congratulate Thein Aye, the Museum of Poverty’s lead architect, who is present with us today.  Please give her and her outstanding holoplex colleagues a round of applause.” 

The roaring sound of a standing ovation reverberated through Thin Aye’s headset. Clapping avatars and augmented reality emojis suddenly populated every single attendee’s field of vision, rhythmically dancing above and round other avatars, projected across the entire room. 

The end of the applause marked Thein Aye’s turn to walk up to the virtual podium bearing the emblematic UN seal and deliver the presentation she had been preparing for weeks; which included the very first virtual tour of the museum.

“I hope you are all as excited as I am to embark on this inaugural visit of our —all of ours— Museum of Poverty,” Thein Aye  said, all  hint of her previous jitters being overshadowed by the glowing pride she felt for her team’s achievement. “If you follow me, I’ll be leading all of you, present in this meeting today, on the inaugural tour of the Museum of Poverty!”

“To the right of your holo-VR-graphic headset you will find the zero poverty nations room, where you may listen to accounts from policy makers and members of citizens’ assemblies on how zero economic poverty was achieved and maintained in their nations. All our content is available in 322 languages and more should be available soon.”

“Now, in this next room,” she paused, tears coming to her eyes with the memories from the first time she tested the room in question. “This room… is among the most difficult ones to experience. Holoplex buildings use the most advanced form of neural-cognitive technology to stimulate the neural development of empathy,” Thein Aye said, pointing towards a brain-shaped avatar in the middle of the room. 

“Try for yourself and touch the avatar — but first, let me warn you that  it will feel unpleasant or uncomfortable! An overwhelming feeling of hunger will suddenly hit you,” she paused as audible gasps erupted through the virtual space. 

“A crushing feeling of desperation from having lost a loved one to inadequate living conditions should grab a hold of you. It is the most painful sense of loss, is it not? Keep in mind that these feelings you are experiencing now in today’s times are all human rights violations. These levels of despair are feelings that would frequently assault people all over the world in the past, in many millions of cases, for the existence of a person’s entire life. Let’s not forget that this past is still a very real, very recent part of our history.” 

“Uncomfortable as it is,” Thein Aye continued, “to feel the pain and hunger of those who came before us, it is our duty to always be reminded of what others have had to endure, so as to never repeat our past mistakes.”  

“Every one of you — every one of us — has a duty to remain vigilant to all forms of poverty, past and new.” 

“That is why we have established, as part of the Museum of Poverty, the digital poverty room. There we tackle today’s forms of poverty; where those exposed to digital exploitation, digital manipulation or deprivation can share their stories. Our call to action is to share equal digital access, uphold and improve digital security systems for all, and to put into law agreed levels of digital education for all citizens globally. In this very room you can make your commitment to this future — sign up to be a friend of the museum! Join the fight to eradicate future poverty!”

Thunderous applause rang out. Thein Aye’s avatar returned to her place in the front row.

The room was once more filled with thunderous applause, as the Madam Secretary-General laid out the museum’s charter and listed the engagement opportunities for citizens. Thein Aye knew people were inspired by the Secretary-General’s words — she was too. But more than that, Thein Aye felt that these generations were inspired by dedicated spaces for action, by plans, by actionable commitments. The museum had been made to be such a source of inspiration; one that today she was very proud of. 

Holoplex buildings can be easily accessed by putting on a VR headset anywhere in the world,” the Secretary-General proclaimed. “Holoplex buildings can be digitally projected into any town and any megacity in the world. Holoplex buildings can even be 3D printed and erected in any country across the globe. The UN wants you to make this yours — to see Museums of Poverty in every nation across the globe, celebrating the global triumph of ending economic suffering and sourcing solutions from every single visitor to prevent future forms of poverty.” 

“Join us today and make a decision of your own: what will you do to ensure we end all forms of poverty everywhere for good?”

This time, Thein Aye made sure her avatar stood up for the ovation, in its frenzy of 3D gifs and emojis being projected all over the room.  

***
1. The generic term of “economic poverty” refers to all forms of poverty caused by economic determinants.
3. United Nations Secretary General Roadmap for Digital Cooperation https://www.un.org/en/content/digital-cooperation-roadmap/

This story is part of the Young UN Futures Stories collection. They should not be utilized in real-world analytic products as they are merely fictional pieces. The views, assumptions and opinions expressed in this story are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an official policy or position of the Young UN, the United Nations, and neither of any of its institutions.