IGF 2018 WS #243
Decoding Internet Governance and MS Model with Games

Issue(s)

Organizer 1: Yannis Li, DotAsia Organisation
Organizer 2: Sherry Shek, NetMission.Asia

Speaker 1: Yannis Li, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: PABLO HINOJOSA, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Sherry Shek, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Lena Nitsche, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Moderator

Yannis Li, DotAsia Organisation

Online Moderator

Sam Kong, NetMission.Asia

Rapporteur

Sherry Shek, NetMission.Asia

Format

Birds of a Feather - 60 Min

Interventions

All the organizers and discussants involved have experiences with engaging youth through their developed games. Each of them will be given 2-3 minutes to briefly introduce their work to give some ideas to the participants on what is available right now and what could be improved. As it is a BoF session, all participants will have equal opportunity to participate in the dialogue to create a collaborative work.

Diversity

The session included discussants from technical community, civil society, and youth organization from Asia-Pacific and WEOG Regional Groups as a starting point. While the session is open for all interested stakeholders, invitations will be extended to all national, and regional initiatives, and youth groups across region to participate in the dialogue. We will also try to identify relevant gaming experts to provide input on the subject.

The primary goal of this BoF session is to gather interested individuals to brainstorm collectively on interactive and game-based learning approaches to deconstruct and explain various Internet governance issues so as to build community capacity, especially enabling youth.

Multiple pieces of research have found that game-based learning heightens the motivation and engagement level of participants with more effective content delivery. In addition, raising policy issues through a fun session allows for an easier introduction and therefore more active discussions on more sensitive and controversial subject matters such as censorship, Internet shutdowns, surveillance, etc. in a more relaxed atmosphere. To this end, tailor-made Internet governance games could serve as a primer to spark youth interest, provoke new ideas and encourage sustainable participation.

1. Existing Games Showcase: 15 mins
- IPGO: A card game developed by APNIC explaining how the Internet addresses are allocated and the concepts of network management, routing, peering, IPv6, etc.
- DNS Game: A simulation game developed by DotAsia explaining how the domain name system works, its security implications i.e. DNSSEC, and the latest policy and technological developments, e.g. KSK rollover, Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
- Digital Participation Monopoly: A board game developed by DW Akademie based on their #speakup barometer which identified 5 clusters with over 100 parameters to define digital participation.
- Multi-Stakeholder Role-Play: Pioneered by the NetMission.Asia in 2010 for the first Asia Pacific youth IGF, the model of multi-stakeholder role-play discussions has then been deployed in various events. Toolkits with specific focus on ICANN-related policy topics were also introduced in 2016.

2. Ideas Brainstorming: 35 mins
While the examples above cover some Internet Governance sub-themes, they are intended only as a primer. Ultimately the session hopes to seed interest in bringing games and Internet Governance together, and inspire further ideas. The topic is a relatively unexplored field with infinite innovative possibilities; such as expanding the variety of topics, game formats, visual design or even enhancing their method of delivery with technology. Depending on audience number, participants could even split into small groups based on thematic interests to brainstorm and hatch out creative suggestions and actionable plans.

3. Wrap-Up & Way Forward: 10 mins
The final part of the session will review the ideas formulated and nominate possible new initiatives along with a call for volunteers to form intersessional working groups to continue the dialogue and take the ideas forward.

XX. Additional Reference Document Link (included here as there are no free form text for section XX)
NetMission Role-Play Toolkits: http://www.netmission.asia/training-materials/
APNIC Card Game Video: https://www.facebook.com/NetMission.asia/videos/1369682186401627/
DW Akademie #speakup barometer: http://www.dw.com/en/dw-akademie/speakup-barometer/s-4256

Since it’s a BoF session, we intend to allow organic ideas-generation in a loosely-structured agenda. To facilitate discussion among participants, the session will begin with a quick showcase of some existing community examples of games that have been tested and received good feedback. After quick introductions, all participants are encouraged to chime in and contribute their ideas (for detailed breakdown of the session, see VIII. Content of the Session). Online collaborative tools will be used to document the ideas generated. Quick online poll would be created to gauge the interests on the proposed ideas. A small room with several small round-tables are preferred to reduce the distance among participants for a better group discussions environment.

Recognising the need to strengthen community understanding on IGF and broadening participation from the CSTD recommendations, constant community effort has been put on capacity building and youth engagement with the evidence of growing number of national, regional, local, youth initiatives, Schools of Internet Governance (SIG), and Internet Governance Academies (IGA).

To ensure its effectiveness and relevance to current discussions, it is essential that innovative capacity building materials are constantly produced, updated and refined. Games as a educational tool can help deconstruct complex subject matters such as Internet governance and the multi-stakeholder model. The sharing of best practices and collaboration between stakeholders are key to include diversity, with multi-stakeholder and cross-regional perspectives integrated for local adaptation.

Online Participation

The online participants will form their own group during the ideas brainstorming session and the ideas generated will be put forward by the online moderator as a contribution to the wrap-up portion of the session. There will be a full review of all input together. Online collaborative tools will also be shared with the online participants.