This week, agency4D spent an afternoon behind, and in front of, a very different kind of screen.

Our Managing Director, Lee Ford, was invited to record a filmed conversation for Empowering Young People to Change the World 2026, an online conference series bringing together educators, leaders, researchers and practitioners to explore how young people can be better supported, challenged and empowered in a complex world.

The series, conceived and led by Nicola Wetherall, has grown into a significant programme of conversations around education, agency, belonging, curiosity, creativity, inclusion, leadership and the future of learning. Running online from April to July, the 2026 series brings together sessions on student voice, information literacy, sustainability, wellbeing, SEND, leadership and the role of space in education.

Lee’s recorded session explored some of the assumptions we often make about young people, environments and the role adults play in shaping confidence, aspiration and agency.

For us, that sits very close to the heart of agency4D’s work.

As a brand agency working across communications, spaces and places, we spend a lot of time thinking about how people experience organisations. Not just what a brand says, but what it makes people feel. Not just how a space looks, but what it enables. Not just how messages are designed, but whether they help people feel seen, understood and able to take part.

That becomes especially powerful in education, where identity, confidence and belonging are shaped by hundreds of small signals every day. The language people hear. The environments they move through. The expectations placed around them. The stories they are invited into.

The recording gave us a chance to explore those ideas in a different format, as part of a wider programme built around empowerment, complexity and change. It also gave us an opportunity to reflect on something we believe strongly: young people are shaped by far more than curriculum alone. They are shaped by culture, communication, environment, expectation and experience.

There is also another reason this conversation feels particularly exciting for us.

Alongside the recording, we have also been working with Nicola behind the scenes on a brand project for #EYP2CtW. It is something we have genuinely loved being part of, and something we think will help give the conference a stronger platform as it moves into its next chapter.

We are not giving too much away just yet, but the work has been about capturing the energy, purpose and humanity behind #EYP2CtW, and translating that into a visual identity that feels ready for what comes next.

More on that soon.

A big thank you to Pete Hall Jones for hosting the session and to Chapter 81 for looking after us and creating such a brilliant set.

We’re looking forward to sharing more when Lee’s session airs as part of the conference series. For now, it was great to contribute to something that connects so closely with where agency4D is heading: helping organisations think more clearly about people, place, communication and change.