"I was in a small group with will.i.am, who is a huge data advocate," says Chan. "He was saying that data and privacy are human rights. And that every piece of data is actually a person, and we need to treat data respectfully.

"AI needs to be treated like a baby, because AI copies human behaviour. So if you’re being malicious, AI will adopt that. We need to be benevolent, and treat technology like another human. I’d never thought about it. People like to swear at Siri—that’s bad." In essence, the more malicious you are to artificial intelligence, the more it will in turn adopt your negativity.

Four days meeting and listening to the world's top leaders is a great opportunity, but what it really is, is a responsibility. "There are all these talks, but ultimately what needs to happen is action," says Chan. "Going there is just the beginning, rather than, 'This is where I want to get to and then I’m done.'

"When I was there, I tried to meet with Carrie Lam, but she rejected me. I realised that you can't rely on governments, it has to be a bottom-up approach. What can we do on a local level? The point of revolution is to bring humans together to work together. For me, it’s more like, how can I work faster, and better, and connect with more people who want to help young people recognise what their futures are, and guide them through the messy process of self discovery?

"How do I find more commonalities specific to the future of work? How can I go to companies and tell them that the current future of work and the talent pipeline are broken? How can I work with you to build that talent pipe? For me, it’s more how can I connect faster, bring more companies on board recognising that this is a challenge? How do I go to schools and share the findings from WEF? To talk to parents and students, and tell them, I can’t change what you’re doing in school, but here’s something more outside of school?"

The Global Shapers may have years yet to act upon their learnings, but the time to effect change is now, says Chan, sharing a chilling realisation: "There’s one quote from Professer Klaus Schwab [executive chairman of WEF] on climate change that really stuck with me. We’re the first generation that’s really feeling the impact of the last generation, but we’re also the last generation that can do something about it. And we only have 12 years to flip this over."

For her, this applies equally to her students and life. "How can I engage more young people in the professional world who are influential, and bring them to students so they can see their own agency, and start acting now?"

While world leaders were everywhere in Davos, one of Chan's most moving interactions came from a fellow Global Shaper. "The one person that really shook me to my core was Mohamed from Kakuma camp in Kenya, who was a refugee from Somalia," she says. "He has been in that camp since he was two, and he had never left the camp until he came to Davos. It was his first plane ride, first train, first time seeing snow.

"He’s 28 and I’ve never met a more articulate 28-year-old. He received up to a high-school education, but he self-studies, reads a lot of books, and he was actually one of the co-chairs. This year at Davos we had six young people as co-chairs of the event, and he raised his hand to ask: Right now, we’re all here to talk about the fourth industrial revolution, preparing for that future, but what about the countries where we haven’t even had our first industrial revolution? What about people like me who don’t even have a document that gives me a home? It’s amazing to be here, but in one weeks’ time I will be back in my camp. What do I say to my people? What are these leaders saying to the people left in a camp?"

Inevitably, WEF means to make people question their own paradigms—Chan included. "It made me question, what am I doing with my life? Should I just quit everything that I do and just become a humanitarian and just help people where I can actually see the impact?

"Right now, what I’m doing, it sounds great, but it’s so hard to get it into families, It’s so hard to have them see the value. Because it’s so intangible, the future. What if I just want to do something tangible? But I told my friends, and they said it’s a waste of talent to go to a refugee camp. But it got me thinking. If I want to build the future of schooling, what if I turned every single orphanage into the best private school? And I think that is something that I would want to do as part of a longer-term goal. And I want to help create educational products that you can take into refugee camps."