Othman Almoamar is this year’s chair of the Youth 20 (Y20) engagement group, the official youth platform and advocacy channel to the G20. He is also a research lead at the Misk Foundation where he works on projects aimed at understanding the challenges faced by young people and how youth can take the initiative in solving them.

Almoamar is a member of the Young Arab Leaders organization and heads the development of the Global Youth Index that tracks youth development in 25 countries and manages the content creation of various white papers on topics relevant to young people.

The Y20 Summit kicked off on Thursday with speakers highlighting the increasingly prominent role youth can play, particularly in a world reeling from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The first day of the conference delivered key messages on the political and social inclusion of marginalized youth, who account for more than half of the world’s population.

Ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the three-day Y20 meeting will focus on the topics of youth empowerment, future fit, and global citizenship.

With just 10 years to go until the Sustainable Development Goals’ 2030 deadline, it seeks to find fresh impetus and ideas through the world’s youth.

Almoamar pointed out the challenges that the COVID-19 health crisis had presented to the organization of the summit, transforming it from a live event to a virtual one.

He said: “What a year. 2020 has shifted everything and for us at Y20 that has been the case. We started our plans in 2019 and we did not expect that we would do all this virtually. We had a plan to have everyone here, but COVID-19 meant we couldn’t do that.”