LuÃsa Franco Machado is a digital rights activist and a published data justice researcher from Brazil. Leveraging social media to mainstream their research findings for youth, they have gathered an online community of more than 60,000 young people worldwide. LuÃsa has facilitated discussions on tech policy, queer rights, and feminism, and their multilingual content has been viewed more than 10 million times.
Breaking historical barriers, at age 16 LuÃsa was the first openly queer person to be elected as the President of the Brazilian Youth Parliament. At the 75th UN General Assembly they publicly advocated for youth participation in tech policy decisions. LuÃsa has also co-led key youth negotiations on data ethics at the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, and advanced AI and international development policy research at OECD and UN DESA.
In collaboration with the French government and Sciences Po Paris Policy Lab, LuÃsa co-founded , a digital government movement fostering youth engagement in public decision-making. In 2022 they were selected to represent the world’s youth at the ITU Generation Connect Youth Summit in Rwanda.
