João Pedro Martins@joaopdmartins

João Pedro Martins is a 21-year-old Computer Engineering student at Coimbra’s University, and a Youth Ambassador for about seven years.

Born in Portugal, he was one of the first members from outside Lisbon to join the youth panel of his national Safer Internet Centre (SIC). After attending a Safer Internet Forum (SIF) in Luxembourg in 2011 representing his country, he was invited to be a Youth Ambassador. Since then he has attended some seminars – including one in Paris at Vivendi headquarters, and another one in Cachan; he has also been at the European Parliament at the launch of the WebWeWant handbook, and participated in more two SIFs, one of them also in Brussels. Throughout the years, he has had the opportunity both to share and learn about online safety issues, as well as to get to know a lot of interesting people from all around the world.

Young people’s opinions are very important to him and he believes they should be taken into account by politicians and companies. That is why he is involved in several projects, most of them connected to youth participation in debates and decisions. More recently, he has worked alongside his national SIC organising lectures in local schools and regional events, and has been involved in matters of Internet Governance, both at national (Incode2030 and Portuguese IGF – 2016/17) and international (Global IGF -Mexico 2016 - and EuroDIG 2018) levels.