LocationsHow three young women across Asia and the Pacific are rewiring technology and human development
When civic solution-seekers meet tech
February 11, 2026
Across many parts of the world, and much so in Asia and the Pacific, a new kind of technologist is emerging: one driven less by algorithms and engineering, and more by civic duty, community needs, and a desire to solve everyday problems. These young women didn’t begin in the tech world, and many never imagined they would end up there. Yet today, they are reshaping how governments listen, how cities function, and how communities make themselves heard.
To understand these new pathways into civic technology, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Kanni Wignaraja, sat down with three young leaders: Lei Motilla of the Philippines, Momina Sahar of Pakistan, and Mai Nguyen of Viet Nam. Their conversation reveals a powerful shift already underway, one where civic purpose leads, and technology simply follows.
Different beginnings, same destination
None of the three women began with a technical background.
In the Philippines, Lei Motilla started in community development and humanitarian work, spending weekends in youth organizing and leadership. Technology arrived later. First, as a tool for empowerment, and eventually as part of becoming a more effective civic leader. “If empowerment is the goal, then entrepreneurship is the next upskilling,” she explained, reflecting on the journey that led her toward social entrepreneurship and, later, AI development. “Technology became a way to scale impact and to create products and services that government and civic spaces need.”
Pakistan’s Momina Sahar followed an equally nonlinear path. She began by volunteering during COVID19, producing newsletters to combat misinformation. Her work brought her into close contact with communities who were afraid to report issues or unsure how government processes functioned. At the same time, she found civil servants surprisingly open to community-driven solutions, a realization that opened the door to civic technology. “Our initiatives are more civic than tech,” she said. “Tech turned out to be the easiest part; aligning people and building trust was much harder.”
For Viet Nam’s Mai Nguyen, the spark came during a late-night road trip, circling for nearly an hour just to find parking. It wasn’t the inconvenience that stayed with her, but how this added to what she saw after returning home. Children are struggling to cross chaotic streets. Sidewalks blocked by motorbikes. Public spaces built for cars, not people. With a decade of urbanplanning experience behind her, she began asking: How can technology help cities use space more intelligently? She didn’t come from a deep-tech background, so she partnered with mapping and data specialists while bringing an urban perspective.
Despite their different starting points, each woman arrived at civic tech the same way: by trying to fix something that wasn’t working, and discovering technology as the most scalable tool available.
Young, driven… and facing an uphill climb
Building civic technology solutions rarely follows a predictable path. In fact, unpredictability seems to be part of the job description.
For Lei, the toughest moment came during the COVID19 crisis, when her startup (now called Citizense) was still untested and facing regulatory scrutiny. Her team found themselves “crying while completing compliance documents,” a moment that forced them to grow up quickly as innovators and as responsible partners to the government.
Momina spoke openly about the emotional and operational challenges of working in Pakistan’s civic space, from navigating mistrust among officials to securing safe channels for community reporting. For her, challenges emerged “almost every week.” Yet she also noted how persistence eventually led to the right partnerships and how anonymizing community concerns allowed people to participate safely.
All three leaders highlighted a rarely discussed dynamic: the unpredictability of working with young people. Team members shift priorities, graduate, seek stable careers, or move abroad. This fluidity can affect momentum but also infuses projects with continuous renewal.
Kanni captured this well: “If you expect stability, you’ll be disappointed; but if you build for movement, the work becomes more resilient.”
A flywheel that starts slowly and then spins fast
Despite the struggles, all three women describe a tipping point: the moment when their solutions began to generate their own momentum.
For Lei, the breakthrough happened after her team’s performance during the COVID19 crisis. Government agencies began referring them from one department to another, creating what she describes as a “flywheel - a snowball effect” that accelerated their work across governance, budgeting, agrarian reform, agriculture, and education.
This echoes what UNDP sees across the region: Once civic tech delivers something useful, institutions come knocking.
Technology that solves problems and not just point fingers
A shared principle anchors each woman’s work: technology should bring people together, not divide them.
Momina put it most clearly. Her team shifted from framing community issues as complaints, which triggered defensiveness, to framing them as concerns, which encouraged collective ownership and cocreation. “Pointing fingers has rarely helped a situation,” she explained. This shift changed how government officials responded and opened space for communities to help shape solutions.
Mai emphasized that technology alone never solves urban problems but when paired with strong planning, it can transform how cities function. Technology becomes a tool, not the outcome.
And Lei’s experience in government systems showed that civic technology only works when it is grounded in values: transparency, collaboration, and public need.
Across all three stories, one message keeps resurfacing, shares Kanni, “technology should not find winners and losers; it should find solutions.”
A glimpse into the future of tech and development
Their stories reflect a broader shift in development thinking and frontier; one where frontier solutions emerge not from Silicon Valley-style disruption, but from young people improving the everyday realities around them.
- A more agile way for governments in the Philippines to deliver services.
- A safer way for citizens to report issues in Pakistan.
- A smarter way to reclaim sidewalks and manage mobility in Viet Nam.
These are not high-tech fantasies; they are practical responses to real needs. Their success depends not on coding expertise alone but on a deep understanding of how people live, move, and experience public systems.
As Kanni noted, these young innovators remind us that “when technology meets people where they are, responds to their needs, and those longer-term solutions are suddenly in one’s hands.”
Civic Tech’s new generation
What these three leaders have in common is not their technological skills, but their sense of civic duty.
They show that careers in technology don’t need to start in engineering classrooms. They can begin in community centers, on crowded sidewalks, in youth organizations, or behind a laptop during a pandemic or in the midst of a crisis. For many young women, the hardest part isn’t the coding. It’s building trust, navigating systems, and continuing to climb the mountain even when the path is unclear.
But they’re doing it and lighting the way for others.
Their message, Kanni concluded, is very powerful: “You don’t need to be a technology expert to start shaping the future with technology. You just need a problem worth solving and the courage to begin.” This is what Lei, Momina, Mai, and many other young innovators bring to UNDP’s Civic Tech Innovation Challenge. “They help drive our regional Youth Moonshot with the ambition to build fairer, smarter societies wherever everyone has a chance to thrive”.
