Phoebe Britten - Founder & CEO (MICDA)

Phoebe is an internationally-recognised public policy advisor, Board Director and youth advocate passionate about educational equity, gender equality, civic engagement and meaningful youth representation in spaces of power. As a young woman from regional Australia and among the first in her family to attend University, Phoebe started Inspire Tomorrow Education at 19 to help underrepresented students across Australia access the same transformative opportunities she had.

In 2023, she was the youngest member of the Youthwise International Public Policy Advisory board at the OECD, representing the voices of 4.7 million young Australians in global decision-making. She is a Board Director at Voices of Influence Australia and 1 of 17 young feminist leaders on the Global Youth Committee at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL) started by The Hon. Julia Gillard. She is also an Asia-Pacific Regional Member of the Humanitarian Affairs Working Group at the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth. In addition to studying a BA/LLB at the University of Sydney with an interest in international human rights law, she’s been invited to represent Australia in high-level organisations - including TheirWorld, The Harvard Project on Asian & International Relations, the Australia-China Youth Association, the Commonwealth Youth Gender Equality Network and the World Bank Group. She’s the Executive Producer & Host of the political podcast ‘The Modern Democracy’, aiming to improve civic engagement for young voters from regional & rural Australia. She has also been a published academic contributor in the European Policy Commons, OECD Forum Network, and the Sydney Undergraduate Journal of Political Science. In 2024, she was recognised as a Top 20 Young Women to Watch In International Affairs and the youngest Top 100 Future Leader by the Australian Financial Review.