Day 25: Tech, Art, and Innovation for Liberation.

Youth today are not just marching in the streets – they’re coding in basements, painting on alley walls, and remixing truth on TikTok. In their hands, technology and art become tools of resistance, healing, and liberation.

Tech as Resistance

Coder and activist Sneha Revanur, founder of Encode Justice at age 15, leads a youth-powered movement advocating for ethical use of AI.
Trans Lifeline, Access Now, and other tech-based collectives are built and maintained by young queer and BIPOC coders to serve vulnerable communities.

Digital Storytelling & TikTok Activism

During the height of the Black Lives Matter uprisings in 2020, young activists used TikTok and Instagram to document protests, educate followers on abolition, and debunk misinformation.

Creators like @xlionessx and @benjy_lookbook use viral videos to challenge racism, homophobia, and ableism – while building cross-cultural solidarity in seconds.

Street Art & Community Murals

Youth collectives worldwide are reclaiming public space through murals that speak truth to power:

In Palestine, youth-led projects like Shoruq use hip hop and graffiti to document struggle and hope.
In Los Angeles, Studio 526 empowers unhoused youth to paint murals that humanize poverty and resist gentrification.
In Brazil, youth from favelas are painting the walls of their communities with Afro-Brazilian history and messages of pride and resistance.
As digital natives, Gen Z knows how to bend the internet toward justice. Their hashtags become movements. Their memes carry truth. Their art builds bridges – and sometimes burns down broken systems.

Liberation doesn’t always wear a uniform – it might wear headphones and carry a sketchbook.

Learn More & Take Action

Encode Justice – Youth-led AI and ethics org
Amplifier Art – Campaigns using art for social change
Design Justice Network – Centering marginalized voices in design

Watch

We Are the Radical Monarchs (youth activism in action)

Read

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

A Blessing for the Innovators of Liberation

May your codes unlock justice
faster than systems can cage it.
May your murals outlast the walls
that seek to silence your stories.
May your art, your music, your memes
carry truth farther than lies can travel.
You are the architects of new worlds
building with paint, pixels, and possibility.
Thank you.