Alumni of the YPL program share insights at the Navigating the Digital Landscape Workshop, in Auckland, New Zealand.
Vice Chair of the Young Pacific Leaders (YPL) Alumni Committee Winona Ngaro-Malifa says she finds it difficult to call herself a “leader” in a Pacific setting.
“That’s because there have been so many great leaders before us,” Winona says.
“At some point, however, we have to pick up from where the leaders before us have left off and continue that legacy, building for the next generations.”
“As a collective people, we’re always thinking about what’s next—who are we preparing for? What are we putting in place for the legacy that comes?”
As a Pacific person aspiring to leadership, it is important for Winona to step into what her parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles prepared for her, she adds.
Of Niuean, Cook Islanders, and American Samoan descent, Winona first became involved in the U.S. State Department’s YPL program in 2023 at a conference in Hawai’i, before earning the vice chair of the Alumni Committee position.
At YPL’s Navigating the Digital Landscape workshop in Auckland, New Zealand, featuring a 30-strong cohort from 20 Pacific countries and territories, the Co-Founder and senior digital product designer and data analyst of Endala was a panellist, and participated in a “speed-dating” networking breakfast event.
The workshop is part of the biennial Broadcaster CEO’s Conference, hosted by Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL), taking place over four days at the New Zealand International Convention Centre.
A self-proclaimed “tech nerd,” she mixes psychology and customer behaviour with design, so she marries the two together to determine how customers navigate through an app.
Winona shared some of her insights in a panel during the workshop, looking how AI impacts smaller nations.
“Really, what it became about is the adoption of AI and how we do that safely, addressing the fear around adopting a tool like that.
“We looked at…how we make it safe for people in our community to start to use those tools as well.”
For the current and future generation of Pacific content creators and storytellers, it is important to understand AI and how it can both help and hinder.
“AI is a tool, and it is about helping them to step away from the fear of using it and help safeguard their roles.
“They take people to places with their stories, and you need to make sure they are safeguarding their people and their data.
“They need to know how to use those tools to better protect the things they are going to be putting out into the world.”
Winona hopes the cohort of YPL in Auckland not only soak up as much information and learning at the workshop, but also create a community that stays connected.
“Stay connected in your chats and on other social media platforms where you can have those discussions and support each other,” she offers as advice to the participants.
“It is cool, the community that you get to have around the world, and there are not many opportunities where you get to do that.
“Besides the network, YPL opens a whole range of doors.
“I was really fortunate to go to Korea and sit amongst the Young Trilateral Leaders, another US State Department initiative.
“That was an experience because it meant that Pacific people were sitting at a table where all of these young leaders were Ivy League, top of their game, and they now had to listen to our opinion on things around security, AI, and ethics.
“Those opportunities wouldn’t have come had it not been for YPL.”
Visit the Young Pacific Leaders website for more information about the US Department of State program.