Young stars dominate the technology headlines. But outside the Internet, research shows, innovators are actually getting older as complexity rises.

The Asia Pacific Youth Network  (APYN) is a network of individual young individuals who first began communicating online through Facebook in June 2008, following a consultation meeting in May 2008 hosted by Amnesty International.

The APYN promotes the idea that individuals working collectively can create change. Its’ model is based on individual participants.

APYN embraces the principles of community organizing, youth participation (including active participation), respecting diversity and engagement through activism.

The harsh reality is that in the tech world, companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers. And engineering is an “up or out” profession: you either move up the ladder or face unemployment. This is not something that tech executives publicly admit, because they fear being sued for age discrimination, but everyone knows that this is the way things are. Why would any company hire a computer programmer with the wrong skills for a salary of $150,000, when it can hire a fresh graduate—with no skills—for around $60,000?