The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Hi, everyone, it's 9:45. I'm thinking we will get started in a minute or two. So please hold.
>> IJUN KIM: All right. Let's get started. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us on the last day of the IGF. My name is Ijun Kim and I will be providing a general introduction of the program we hope to share with you, and of course, later moderating the discussion we are about to have.
Before starting off, I would just like to give my colleagues an opportunity to introduce themselves and greet you personally. Go ahead.
>> JERRY KIT HOI LI: Hi, everyone. My name is Jerry, I'm from Hong Kong champion, and I'm one the youth peacebuilders in UNDPPA as part of this project.
>> MANJIANG HE: Hello, my name is Manjiang from China. I'm a member of the youth peacebuilder group of the Asia Pacific UNDPPA. I want to thank IGF Kyoto 2023 for giving us this opportunity to speak here, and also want to thank all of you either sitting here in the room or watching online for joining with us in this session.
>> Hello. Thank you for providing the great opportunity, and my name is Oyundailai. Yuck good morning, I'm Yukako, from Japan. I'm one the youth peacebuilders. I'm grateful to be here.
>> IJUN KIM: And we also have Linda on Zoom. Linda do you want to come in real quick.
>> LINDA HJELLE: Hi, everyone, my name is Linda Hjelle, I'm associate political affairs officer at the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and I'm the program manager for this fantastic project that we have been having for now three years. And I think Ijun will tell you more about the project itself, but I'm happy to be here and I'm the online moderator if there are any questions online.
>> IJUN KIM: Speaking of the fantastic project that Linda mentioned. This project is called "Futuring Peace In Northeast Asia." Just looking at the title, you notice that there are several components to it. Number one, the future. We leverage the concept of the future to host discussion spaces. Number two, we host discussion faces about peace, and peace, where, in this context, northeast Asia.
Futuring peace in northeast Asia is organized and led by the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and it is designed in line with the youth peace and security agenda. The WPS agenda recognizes the valuable contributions of young people to establishing and sustaining peace, and hopes to empower them and engage them more meaningfully in relevant discussion spaces.
Through this program, young people from China, Japan, Mongolia and the Republic of Korea were able to convene and discuss collectively how we envision the future of northeast Asia. And the central methodology that throughout the program that was ‑‑ that led the overall process is called foresight. I think some of you may be familiar with the concept, but long story short in a nutshell, it's a structured and systemic way of using ideas about the future to anticipate and better prepare for change.
So Foresight is all about leverage this concept or this idea of the future so that individuals, organisations or societies as a whole can become more anticipatory and more resilient to change.
The program, the first phase of the program was launched in 2021 in partnership with UNESCO and UNESCO brought in a futures literacy lab and we had the opportunity to really understand what Foresight is, what it means for us and how we can leverage it in these context.
Then phase two began in 2022, in partnership with a Swiss policy think tank 4alls and they supported us in translating Foresight activities into tangible policy recommendations that we can share. I want to speak a little bit more about phase two, because that's what this is all about today.
Phase two was focused on using participatory Foresight tools. Participatory Fore sight tools are to engage a diverse group of people in these discussions, making it interactive, hopefully sun so we can surface trends or signals that are sometimes not as visible.
This was done, for example, through a workshop that we hosted and facilitated using the futures triangle. The futures triangle is a tool where we, for example, single concept, such as regional collaboration. For that single concept, we explore the weight of the past, what is holding us back from achieving that, push of the present, what is happening right now that is driving us to change, change the way we think, change the way we do things.
And then the pull of the future. What do we want in the future what kind of vision do we have for the future that is also adding to the desire to change?
Then we had a really interesting intergenerational dialogue and it was my first time engaging such a wide range of audiences. We leveraged an online tool. It was slightly more interactive than a simple survey. It encouraged participants who are taking part in it to imagine themselves stepping into a time machine, going forward a couple of decades, and then once they look out the window of the time machine, the question ‑‑ the first question was: What do you see? Through that process, we encouraged people to dream quite ‑‑ quite vividly about how they see the future.
And through that intergenerational dialogue, we were able to interact with almost 150 participants, and a very wide range of backgrounds, expertise and, of course, age groups. And a found it very valuable because while this is based on the youth, peace and security agenda, we also recognized the need to ‑‑ especially when building a collective vision of the future, it's very important to engage as wide a range of audience as possible.
And then our youth peacebuilders, we moved on to the desk research phase. Based on the insights we gathered through the workshop, and then the online dialogue within the intergenerational audience, we delved a little bit deeper to understand the current land scape, what is going on in northeast Asia, what some are opportunities that we could have that could launch us closer to the future we want to see, but also what are some challenges that we foresee and how to address them.
That desk research culminated in a publication called "Future of Regional Narrative Building In Northeast Asia,." So we called it a policy recipe, buzz we wanted to make it slightly fun. It's quite easy to read. The reader usability essentially is similar to a cook recipe book, and we tried to integrate the concept of using different recipes to essentially create delicious cuisine.
And in this case the cuisine was the metaphor for a peaceful northeast Asia.
In the publication if you want to Google it or find it online, you will find four policy avenues that the youth peacebuilders came up to recommend how the region, whether through national policies or regional cooperative policies can move us towards the vision that we ‑‑ that we hope to see.
The first is calling for regional cooperation for education. Specifically focused on cultural exchange to build a more cohesive regional identity, and enable collaboration.
The second encourages the establishment of a northeast Asian youth parliament for climate change. We recognize that climate change is very relevant to the younger generation and, of course, future generations and we feel that the urgency to do something about that and one way to do address it and meaningfully engage young people is by establishing such a body.
The third is calling for partnerships, especially cross‑sectoral partnerships to support digital literacy programs and the last but certainly not least is calling for a more consensus‑based regulation and support of the Metaverse landscape. The last two recommendations are particularly relevant to the Internet Governance Forum and now I will pass it on to Manjiang to continue the policy recommendation presentation. Thank you.
>> MANJIANG HE: Cool. Thank you, ijun. Jerry and authored this and I will briefly talk about the background and why we focused on digital literacy and Jerry will elaborate more on the details of the policy recommendation.
So in the era of Internet and information technology, our society is more than ever interconnected and the digitally integrated. So we recognize the influence of digitalization in our daily life, work, and study and acknowledge the positive impacts of digital platforms, promoting communication and cultural exchange.
However, it is crucial to address the aspects, so the social platforms which serve as the breeding grounds for hate speech, prejudice, discrimination, and violence. So our findings from the opening dialogue conducted in 2021 reviewed that the connective emotion frequently step from his tores, nationalism, fake news, misinformation and disinformation.
Moreover, the development of AI‑generated content exemplified that activity and has the potential to propagate misinformation, manipulate public opinion and reinforcebias. Though some effort has been done to tackle the escalating issues of hate speech and online violence. Current measures implemented by social media platforms like TikTok that relies on a combination of AI, user reporting and content moderators to regulate online speech, however, this measures remain insufficient as they often adopted a reactive rather than proactive approach.
So often you see the changes to the social media platforms in technological capacity and for all of these, often are too rapid for proactive policy changes. In northeast Asia, the region where I belong, and also the peacebuilder belong, also there are digital literacy programs in place, but they are often limited to separate efforts, initiated by the government, NGOs or private tech companies.
For example, from the other conversation I had over the few days, at IGF, I got to know in China, there is Internet summit for children and youth held by the youth IGF China that aims to build capacity for children and youth in digital space at Internet Governance, but that is quite ‑‑ the efforts are quite limited, led by the government and also the NGO, not necessarily include the private sector.
So that's ‑‑ that's where our policy recommendation came in. We believe that the creation of high‑quality digital literacy programs in collaboration with the public/private partnership with the regional focus on education is integral to realizing the strong vision of ‑‑ of regional culture and peaceful future in northeast Asia.
So this programs encompasses more than simply developing the skills to navigate, evaluate, create and communicate digital content of various platforms. It also entails fostering respect for differences, cultural diversity and promoting open and inclusive mindset.
For the people in this region and it's stealing confidence in our own understanding and sharing our own culture, in northeast Asia.
So it aims to cultivate flexible conception of regional culture, fostering receptivity and now I will pass the floor to Jerry.
>> JERRY KIT HOI LI: Thank you, Manjiang. Soil go into the three specific components of this recommendation and before I do so, I wanted to highlight a few key points. So our digital literacy program is based not only on the fundamental building blocks of improving access to technologies, but also modern usage.
So what are the modern technologies? What are the ongoing conversations about these technologies? And how can we efficiently and effectively utilize technology in these ways?
And so the program focuses on education, learning about technological developments and modern conversation in order to bridge engagement knowledge that already exists on broadcast media and written media.
So public and partnerships offer a way to utilize private expertise and developments into a public‑guided system so that developments are organic and from the ground up, and can also consider regional and cultural differences.
We noted many existing digital literacy programs throughout the many stages of this project and we noted that while many are offered by private companies, there is a gap of knowledge that exists between these programs and those offered in schools.
And so the components of our recommendations are firstly to have in‑school literacy programs, digital literacy programs and have different stages of these programs for different grades, covering basics of access, to what are ‑‑ what are technologies, to effective engagement online to education on important concepts such as what is the metaverse, what is disinformation and what is misinformation? Bridging versions of these conversations we are having here at the IGF, to the classroom enables more voices to eventually be heard and further discussions in online spaces and new technologies. And this is an inclusive approach we really believe in.
Our second component or recommendation is out‑of‑school digital literacy programs for the public, in libraries and public spaces and it includes more demographics to digital education conversations and so that we can further adjust material for certain regions and generations as well.
Private stakeholders should be providing updates and information on to new technologies and the third component of our recommendation is to include more voices on policies pertaining to safe digital spaces online.
So as Manjiang adeptly discussed, there's a lot of online problems that we're facing, particularly with disinformation. And these discussions need voices from those precluded, due to lack of access, language, or even knowledge or care. And we believe that this is not one of those issues where demographics have to seek out the tools in order to engage, and that we would be preemptive in getting people access and tools so they can have a voice in this space.
Governance in this space necessities a grounds approach that it's just not reactionary. We are glad to share part of the project here today. And now Yukako will present the second recommendation. Yuck thank you so top. So we will focus on the Met averse landscape. So when we consider our future, technological development is a topic we cannot ignore. So I will introduce a background and policy gaps in this part of the recommendation and Ouyundalai will explain the recommendation. So metaverse is described as a future of network, and blending the digital and the physical realms. When it's still in its infancy lacks creative definition, many providers are developing technologies as we could see in this forum.
When we imagine the future peace of this region, the potential benefit and risks are enormous. So by 2026, a significant portion of the population will be engaged in the metaverse. Necessitying better management to prevent issues like hate speech, misinformation and anonymity. And the uses for such massive use of technology is a debate, but it's mainly replacing physical troubles. At this time, the metaverse holds a potential for hosting intercultural dialogue, however the educational activity remains in insufficient explored and there is a lack of notable lack of educational content.
Key challenges include regulation, privacy, and accessibility. One of the main policy gaps for Metaverse, Metaverse future is regulation which is about how to navigate this transcentral and technologically evolving space. Questions of state power, privacy, and data protection very regionally and culturally. Universal digital access by 2020 ‑‑ or 2030 is our goal, based on the UN common agenda and government and international organisations are working to improve Internet accessibility in the digital space as a public arena.
In this context, accessibility and affordability are also concerns. Metaverse is being shaped by western tech giants but the forensics expand the world. The Metaverse could be to ownership and operation issues. So in northeast Asia, the unregulated Metaverse could accelerate political tensions and conflict given the region's geopolitical importance and existing anonymities between nations.
As Metaverse evolves, addressing these challenges is crucial for its responsibility. The responsibility and sustainable development.
So here I over to Oyundailai.
>> OYUNDALAI ODKHUU: I would like to highlight some components of our policy recommendations regarding the Metza verse. First component of our recommendation is devolve northeast Asia Metaverse platforms. Many northeast Asia has world‑class technological capacity and yet they have been heavily influenced by western cultures, but also it's so appreciated that some northeast Asia countries have developed their own Metaverse platform. And each country in northeast Asia should take the initiative to foster increased interaction between relevant industries, research institutions, academia and governments in order to devolve platform originating from northeast Asia and prevent monopolies and oligarchies from the west.
And first of the component of our recommendation is promoting the development of inclusive algorithms. Of course, in Metaverse, it's very hot topic and technologically‑focused world. So openness and inclusive algorithms is so important in the Metaverse space.
In the Meta verse, the physical distance doesn't matter anymore, and while traditional cooperation among countries in the northeast Asia region can be tricky due to historical differences, territorial disputes and increased tensions leading to hate speech and crimes and regional collaboration remains vital. And so nestic discussions with northeast Asia countries have typically held in their native languages and creating limited exposure to other nations. To foster peaceful nations, it should have a cross‑language information sharing and measures to counter excessive ‑‑ and this legislation in each country and regional agreements foster the creation of shared narratives that support fees in region and also even the world.
And third component is foster regional collaboration and multistakeholder dialogue between private sector and public sector and even governments and Los Angeles intergenerational. It's so important.
In Metaverse where the physical and virtual world, through the internet and new technologies should be engaged and to be heard and consulted including the marginalized communities, youth, people of different social classes, and gender and sexuality and people with disabilities.
And last, of our recommendation is regulation. There's no single players in the regulation of the Metaverse, and we need to more discuss about the regulation and code of conduct, and kind of this Internet Governance should serve as a regional initiative in northeast Asia and which could lead to inter and intra relationships. There's interest between powerful corporations and citizens. And yet those are four issues that we focused in our policy recommendations and ‑‑ okay. Thank you.
>> IJUN KIM: Thank you for presenting our recommendations. I find these opportunities because we had the chance to share with the audience. It brings back recommendations. And we reflect on what we went through to come with these recommendations.
We have some topics through an open discussion. Elements of the program that we haven't quite been able to touch upon through the presentation.
Before I launch into that, I wonder if there are any questions, immediate questions from the audience, interactivity and engaging a wide range of stakeholders is a key value and you are welcome to address any questions you have.
While being trained on future literacy I have been taught not to be afraid of silence. Like I mentioned, there are some elements that we want to really share with you of the program. So shall we start the panel discussion?
Ready?
So let's see, we are at the IGF, and specifically, I want to hear your thoughts on why Internet Governance should engage young people in building consensus, possibly regulations, and moving forward so that digital spaces can become safer and more inclusive.
Any takers?
>> JERRY KIT HOI LI: Thank you. I think that's a really, really important question that substitute face in these big systemic and pending issues. Particularly with Internet Governance and technological development and the whole gamut of challenges that brings, I think youth involvement and youth perspective is so important to ensure that those spaces are inclusive, because the Internet should not just inherit the existing problems of the physical and outside world. I think the younger generation can bring so much perspective to these changes. The youth is inherits of problems and guinea pigs for decisions made on our behalf or for us.
Definitely when we look at the Metaverse and pending policy, youth perspective and youth engagement is key.
>> MANJIANG HE: Thank you, Jerry. Maybe I want to give some comments on this.
I think young people as Jerry mentioned, usually they are seen as a problem. They are too naive, but I do want to mention because we are young, that is where we have ‑‑ we are open minded. We are open to different kind of solutions and approaches, and also we are innovative. We are able and dare to take innovative approaches in this context for Internet Governance and also the issue relevant to conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
And also, young people, they are the future leaders. So they should have ‑‑ they should have their choices heard and ensure their perspectives are taken into account during the ‑‑ the decision‑making process. And also I want to touch upon in Northeast Asia region, I think usually there are limits efforts to bring and engage young people in a decision making process.
While over this discussion with other participants, over the past few days at IGF, I got to know that there are quite a lot of efforts have been done ‑‑ has been made in other parts the world. For example, in Africa, there's a very active youth engagement initiative.
For example, the youth ‑‑ the youth IGF in Africa, in African Union, in different countries in Africa. Also there's Bangladesh youth‑led initiative that also aims to address the digital literacy on digital platforms. So I do see this' a lot of things happening in other parts of the world. But I ‑‑ I don't see it at least in this region, in northeast Asia. Youth engagement are not enough. So we need to take in the initiative and to take actions, to bring young people into the fore, into the decision making process, into the implementation ‑‑ the implementation process.
>> YUKAKO BAN: Thank you very much. I agree with what Jerry said and Manjiang said. I have two points. So first one is just as you said, the younger generation, the destination ‑‑ including this generation, I assume are called digital natives. So how we engage with the digital technology and how we contact reality is different from other generations.
So our past should be considered to policy making possible. And the second is the perspective of age diversity, generational diversity, I think it's lax. It's not limited to Internet Governance but especially in our region, because of the demographic change and most of the country, maybe Mongolia is the exception, but most of the country is leaning towards, like, aging society. So it's easy, like, youth voice tend to be undermined because of its structure. But especially for this, like ‑‑ the policy related to technology are different perspective should be considered.
Of course, in time of digital literacy and technology, we shouldn't have a digital ‑‑ we shouldn't exclude older generation because they are also kind of vulnerable, like, in terms of digital technology but age diversity in general, like, youth voice is equally important to older generation.
>> OYUNDALAI ODKHUU: I also completely agree with what you said. Youth engagement is super, super crucial in the Internet governance. 71% of world's youth age 15 to 24 years we're using the Internet currently. It's a big number compared with 57% of ‑‑ of the other age groups, and so as we know the Internet is a global network and that transients, borders, connect businesses and governments worldwide, and the decisions related to the Internet Governance have far reaching effects on various aspects of our lives, including communications and cameras and sharing information, and security.
And so in order to create opportunity for young people, we need to share some kind of opportunities and some kind of information and create some capacity building and share and also some informations about the Internet Governance and have to ensure our privacy in the Internet space. This is more crucial, yeah currently. Yeah.
>> IJUN KIM: Thank you. At this point, let's see, I know we're slowly running out of time but since we kept talking about why we need to engage young people ‑‑ and this question stands from my personal interest and area of work, I want to, is what does good or meaningful youth engagement look like. I want to get your thoughts and no pressure for everyone to answer. What some are core elements that are necessary to ensure a program or an initiative is truly meaningful in terms of youth engagement? Maybe some keywords, a sentence or two?
Please.
>> MANJIANG HE: Maybe I will start. I think the current situation in the region, in Northeast Asia is young people, they are often excluded in the decision‑making process. In the policy making process, I think the meaningful engagement with young people should be in the very beginning, from the top down ‑‑ from the top down approach while making policy and making decision, they should be consulted.
Their opinions and perspectives should be included into why we make the policies, what kind of Internet, what kind of future that young people, they ‑‑ they want? I mean, this is the future of young people, the next generation.
I think the meaningful engagement should in the very beginning at a very early stage, their voices should be heard. While ‑‑ to realize that, I think there should be a mechanism there because you can ‑‑ you can ‑‑ you cannot do things without any frameworks or organisation to support that, right?
So there should be a framework where the young people voice and perspectives can be channeled into the government or private ‑‑ private sector, technology companies, decision‑making process.
But I see for now, there's ‑‑ the efforts are quite limited. I think that's the direction that we should aim for.
>> IJUN KIM: Including young people from the early stages, I think truly demonstrates the willingness and the readiness of whoever the host is to truly listen to the input of young people, an initiative, a policy, but to shape it in the way that is relevant for young people.
I very much agree with you.
Is there any immediate reactions to? If not, that's okay, we can move on. Yukako.
>> YUKAKO BAN: Thank you very much. This is a very good question. I was thinking, what is that? So I grow up in Japan, but now I live in Africa. South Africa. So, like, as Manjiang mentioned, there's a lot of youth leaders. So I was wondering, what is the difference between us?
But in general, not only youth engagement, youth participation, but the ‑‑ I just ‑‑ I want to ask youth from other country, but at least in Japan, the interest to the politics itself is quite low among younger generations.
Yeah so we don't need to, like, immediately engage to decision‑making but just like, we need to be exposed to the opportunity to be heard and also about the policy making, because I think most of young generation just feels very far from where they are. And experiences are, like, bare. I think it's culturally in our society. But like just ‑‑ like, Manjiang mentioned, it should be more framework and opportunity than we have more access to the table, to the things to be discussed, not necessarily only youth talking about it, but we can just talk about, like intergenerational dialogue.
Because it's also like segregated based on age. In most of the conference rooms and the meeting rooms. Yes, this was ‑‑ this opinion is not very, like, organized, but that's what I'm thinking. Thank you so much.
>> IJUN KIM: Thank you.
There were recommendations from Manjiang and Yukako to how more meaningfully engage young people. So essentially these are recommendations for organizers, other stakeholders from older generations, but I think it's also important to remind young people that while governance, the concept may seem very far fetched from the daily lives of young people, especially because it seems to be the province of governments and state representatives; however, I do think it's necessary for young people to understand how those decisions can affect their daily lives and with that awareness, to continuously push and advocate for more meaningful youth engagement. And I think once there's the back and forth between these two groups that, is truly the way to create this intergenerational cooperation and an environment that enables that. So that there is response from both sides.
Shall we move on to the next question.
Before I do, I wonder if there's any questions from the audience.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, I'm Diji from Japan. I'm working on Internet service providers. So I'm just a middle‑aged so 40 years old. And then ‑‑ but my company 20 years ago, my CEO operate 20 years and then my CEO is 46 years old. You know so he is established in the younger age. And continued 20 years. Now he's been the leader in our industry, but 20 years, maybe nobody ‑‑ nobody hear about his opinion. Yeah. This is a challenge.
But most important thing is we continue. Don't give up. And, collaborate and then conversely, have a conversation with each other. Yes, this is very important.
And I recognize that. So when I was 40 years, everyone is ready to hear our opinion. So please try and challenge. Yeah. This is my opinion.
>> IJUN KIM: Thank you. That's super, super encouraging and I very much agree with you. You will notice that currently youth engagement or youth inclusion is a very big trend. So I think it's really important for us to not only recognize the importance of youth engagement but really utilize and leverage this momentum and ensure we can keep the momentum going through different programs, different speaking engagement opportunities like this, and also internal and also external dialogue. So thank you.
Well, one ‑‑ I think maybe we might have time for one or possibly two questions.
This is a question that hangs over us all. Cross‑border cooperation, particularly in the context of Northeast Asia, currently where fragmentation globally and regionally is very much happening. Such cooperation has proven to be quite challenging. So I want to get your thoughts, youth peacebuilders on how our policies aim to address an essentially overcome the realistic challenges of the world.
>> JERRY KIT HOI LI: Thank you for that question. That's a major question that we always get asked when presenting policy recommendations of this nature. And for me, I think that looking back to the beginning stages of the Internet itself is a great guide. And that there was a lot of consensus on global governance regarding certain parts of the structure of the Internet, but then content, for instance, was left to nations and national policy so that they could be sensitive to cultural differences and religious differences and considerations.
I think despite the fragmented nature of the Northeast Asia region on some aspects that could just ‑‑ that could also be possible and left to national policies for certain cultural considerations. But with that said, a lot of our policies, particularly on digital literacy, education and regional community building across borders, those are initiatives that have existed in our respective companies but our policy improves on these existing efforts.
For instance, in Hong Kong, Meta in 2021 has a digital literacy program and it was applied and there were workshops held. The woman's foundation in Hong Kong encouraged women in Hong Kong to be part of STEM. The Hong Kong Bureau also has their own digital literacy program. So our policy recommendation on digital literacy, the beginning down fashions there are and we hope there could be more public and private collaboration so more voices can be included.
I guess my quick answer is I don't see that as a major problem.
>> IJUN KIM: A quick food for thought. I wonder if we can take a positive spin on "fragmentation" and consider it disversification. Diversification that respects and carves out spaces for diversity, but without the challenges of fragmentation, which hinders communication and cooperation. So just food for thought.
>> MANJIANG HE: Make I want to add one more thing. We see the cross‑border cooperation, given that the country ‑‑ the countries in the region are in very different ‑‑ they are at very different stages of development, economically, socially and also culturally.
So to keep that in mind is hmm ‑‑ while we wanted to have a kind of regional initiative, intergovernmental or international cooperation, but I think the thing important also is to look ‑‑ to respect the locals context, the differences that all the society have their own uniqueness.
We want to have a kind of regional initiative and cooperation, but back to the digital literacy program, we can kind of integrate the local context in the ‑‑ the literacy programs or Metaverse, into the ‑‑ into the mechanism, while also we keep that in mind, the ‑‑ the overarching goal is to create a more inclusive and also open online digital space or platform.
>> OYUNDALAI ODKHUU: I would like to add some comments that cross‑border is happening in Mongolia, and cultural variance and also some kind of mechanisms and so that, it's so valuable that in a ways ‑‑ in capacity building promoting that enhanced skills, and knowledge of individuals and users.
And organisations used in the Metaverse. This can promote effective cross‑border cooperation. And secondly, I would like to put some points out. Promote cultural diversity, and Metaverse and it's more helpful that understanding the cultural nuances in Northeast Asian countries ‑‑ countries can facilitate smoother, more smoother cooperation and collaboration, digital literacy and Metaverse context and even more sectors.
And lastly, the point is going to establish some kind of mechanisms and to ‑‑ for solving conflicts and disputes that may rise during cross‑border Metaverse activities and so arbitration and meditation processes can be valuable in these courses. And also, there is some kind of funding for education sector is more valuable because Metaverse is newly born and new sector that we are facing today. And so we need to encourage and gain more knowledge in terms of the Meta verse context. Yeah. That is what I'm thinking.
>> YUKAKO BAN: Thank you very much. I had longer time to think about my answer. But this is very challenging question, but cross‑border cooperation is challenging but particularly in political layer, but economic layer, we already have a lot of cooperation within the region, like of course, just manufacturing like the SmartPhone and those things, like nothing will come cheap, can manufacture a single product. And China, and Korea and Japan, we have a lot of cooperation and also Mongolia, you talked about the capacity building and those things. There is cooperation in some ways but because we are peacebuilders and we are talking about peace, we can't avoid, you know, like political issues.
So like, just to start the conversation from politics makes the conversation more difficult. But the Internet and something related to education and capacity building can be, like, how to say, like milder topic to start. That's why I personally like this topic, like, technology and skill development and also like we already have a kind of inter unit, like the universities. So starting the conversation from nonpolitical layer, it is definitely connected to the broader, like, concept of peace, and build awareness. This kind of initiative, you get to know each other and I also really like your, like ‑‑ like, your food of thought, like diversification.
Like having different unique culture is ‑‑ I think it's very ‑‑ like, it's nothing bad about it. And localization, we have different value and culture and it's natural. There is diversity. But the issue is if it's like closed off and fragmented and divided, that just in the system, in the Internet Governance, if it's interoperated and also there are language barrier, but the technology can breakthrough those differences. So thinking about the cooperation from different angle, not only politics then, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Thank you.
>> IJUN KIM: Thank you, all, and Yukako, I like your point or being more creative in how we start conversations and proposing innovative ways on how we can maneuver around political barriers or other challenges that we foresee for regional cooperation.
Thank you.
We have just over five minutes left.
Any questions from the audience?
Not to worry, because I have another question to pose to our panelists, just to be mindful of time, let's keep our responses short so we can clear the room right on time. And last but not least, if the audience is very much interested in this program, I'm sure this question will be fascinating, but I want to hear from you guys, what are our next steps for these policy recommendations?
>> JERRY KIT HOI LI: Thank you. As Yukako, there's existing cross‑border regional collaboration groups already and a lot of them do pertain to the education space. So research consortiums and research groups, university efforts, so we hope to collaborate more with existing groups to develop and be more informed about what is possible and what needs to also be further discussed.
And source more voices and experts in the field to make our policy proposals more informed.
>> OYUNDALAI ODKHUU: Yes, I have two points about the next steps of the Metaverse and first of all, it's we need to invest some kind of funding to educational sector. It's still a new sector, and so implement programmes to improve the digital literacy and responsibility, use of the Meta verse.
And this initiative should target both young ‑‑ young people and adults and also intergenerational people, it should target that. And help to raise awareness of the potential risks and benefits, of course.
And secondly, contributing the developing code of conduct or regulating framework is more crucial and industry standards that address privacy and data security and content moderation and digital property rights and with the Mesaverse is crucial and so next step is to contribute some kind of code of conduct and Metaverse and education programs.
I think it's more crucial for the next steps.
>> IJUN KIM: A quick note. Let's try to keep our responses to a minute. I know it's hard, but ‑‑
(Laughter)
>> YUKAKO BAN: Okay. Yes, because we are running out of time. Out of the next step, our recommendation is not for the recommendation. We shouldn't stop there. So to be ‑‑ it should be implemented. We need cooperation and collaboration with other organisation and potentially as a youth organisation, maybe like youth IGF, also other ‑‑ of course, like different ‑‑ also, like, not only having dialogue, but having more flexible conversation with different organisations but that's why we are here. So that's ‑‑ that is going to be a next step. And I'm also open to talk each of you, like, attending this session.
>> MANJIANG HE: I maybe want to add the last point that for next step and a future plans, we do see the realistic limitations.
For example, the funding investment and how to keep this program sustainable, but I just want to echo what Jerry mentioned is we can start with integrate our recommendation into the existing initiative ‑‑ regional initiative already that make it easier and also we are already have the stakeholders around and then we reach out to them and just add the element of digital literacy and as a Metaverse into it. I think it make it easier to implement and push it further.
>> IJUN KIM: I think we are right on time. I want to reiterate thank you to the Internet governance forum for us to share our recommendations and insights and to our audience, if you are interested in continuing to observe and also explore how young people can shape governance, and beyond that peacebuilding especially in Northeast Asia, please keep up with futuring peace in northeast Asia. Thank you.
(Applause)