Project Oxygen
Youth advisory board · Rome, June 2026
A week in Rome and the Vatican with 40 teenagers from conflict zones, designing peace-building projects for our own communities.
Industry
What I did
In short
- 40
- teenagers from conflict zones
- ~300
- applied
- 12
- countries
“It was more than my pleasure to launch Project Oxygen. It has become a mission to lift up the voices of teens like you, Volo, and our 39 other delegates. Now it’s your turn to transform a moment in Rome into a worldwide movement for peace.”
“You are a special guy. I know you will build peace & connection throughout your life. Thank you for being an ambassador.”
“Reading your sharp, empathetic synopsis about the benefits of Project Oxygen reaffirms my commitment to it. As I read through your own CV, it’s also clear that you and your O2 peers are already leading the way together now.”
From Pope Leo’s General Audience to a closing ceremony
I represented a youth advisory board: 40 teenagers from conflict zones around the world, brought together to design peace-building projects for our own communities. The week ran from Pope Leo’s General Audience to a closing ceremony in front of Vatican representatives, ambassadors and government leaders.
I helped with the programme itself and was its ambassador. UKnow grew out of that week.
Where my own toolkit came in
I helped two visual artists with the AI side of their craft: Jeremy Cowart, who has photographed everyone from Taylor Swift to U.S. presidents and founded Help-Portrait, and Hunter Buchanan, a cinematographer whose work spans brands like Marshmello and Staples.
Together they ran a portrait session for our group that will be exhibited around the world.
What I’m still thinking about
AI without the hype. Nuno Moritz’s session was sharp and unsentimental about where the technology actually creates leverage. As someone building adaptive learning systems, I appreciated hearing it framed by impact rather than buzzwords.
The economics of peace. Strip productive capacity out of a community and you get a chain that ends in conflict: lost opportunity, anxiety, mistrust, resentment, war. The answer is local, community-based manufacturing, not mega-plants that lift one city and gut another.
I came in as a founder from Ukraine. I left more certain that peace, like a product, is something you build: deliberately, locally, and with people.
Written by me
Team
- Founder, KidsKonnect Ukraine
- Kathleen Hessert
- Notre Dame Global Affairs
- Taylor Thigpen
- Youth advisory board
- Volodymyr Shpodarunok
