The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual 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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>> We all live in digital worlds. We all need it to be open and safe. We all want to trust.
>> And to be trusted.
>> We all despise control.
>> And desire freedom.
>> We are all united.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Welcome, everybody, to the session called the digital cooperation process, analysis from youth lenses. My name is Juan Pajaro Velasquez. I am going to be today your onsite Moderator in this panel.
We are going to have today four speakers. The first of them is Ethan Mudavanhu. Ethan is (?) marketing intelligence consultant as a partnership of global policy. Regulatory issues surrounding the infrastructure satellite communications that the policies and (?).
Second will be Meri Baghdasaryan. Meri Baghdasaryan is a human rights lawyer from Armenia focusing on digital rights issues at the intersection of technology. She (?) receive LN degree from the University of Pennsylvania law school with (?) in intellectual property and technology law. Currently she is a legal fellow (?)
Eileen Cejas. Eileen Cejas is a criminal lawyer from the University of Buenos Aries in Argentina. Currently she is the regular engagement Latin America and the Caribbean from the (?) and the steering committee member from the coalition on internet governance. Her professional background comprised criminal law and the interest including feminist (?) to law, since law is still feeling the (?). She has been involved in different activities on internet governance youth for assistant ability program working group in internet social cohesion organizing the mentorship phase of the ambassadorship. And also for the second year and she is the coordinator of the internet governance ecosystem (?) in the (?)
Finally, (?) who is a professional who has seven years in the field of service security, and he is the -- and he is the service security advisor to APN of the government in Islamabad. He's also one of the founders of the Asian Pacific school on Internet Governance school on Internet Governance and internet governance for Pakistan. He has been managing Secretariat of Asian Pacific, special interest group, Pakistan special interest group.
And also work as a coordinator of IDS Pakistan. He currently volunteer and member steering committee for Pakistan (?), a member of Asian Pacific (?)
And also presenting a Moderator and I who will be assuming today is Fred Kwadwo Aazore. He is experience over developer with a particular interest in (?) AWS, even in seashore (?). He has a background in computer science or a bachelor degree from University of science technology in Ghana. He's currently one of the ambassadors 2021.
Now let's join to the first subject of this conversation where we will be discussing the four different digital corporations -- the cooperation model in order to where we heading. Firstly we are going to hear Eileen Cejas. She will be talking to us about the IGF loss model. The floor is yours.
>> EILEEN CEJAS: Hello, everyone. I'm Eileen Cejas from Argentina. And I will bring you to reflections we have been governing from the IGF plus model so we can discuss later on (?). The IGF plus model as you know will have four parts mainly. The (?) cooperation accelerator, the policy curator, the observatory and help desk.
This graphic that it's on the slide. Hope you can help me with that, is missing the leadership panel because as you know, this is something very recent. So, about that, I can share some reflections that appear on the deep law website. And I will also add some of my own.
So, regarding this leadership panel that we heard about it a couple of weeks, so some advantages that we can find is that it could increase the relevance of the IGF, because as you know historically they have very good cooperation on news and everything, but as the years have been passing by, maybe the media is not reflecting as much as it would need about the discussion happening in this forum. So, in that way, these leadership panel, as it (?) to the core values of the UN, it could definitely be as salesperson, as it's (?) website for the idea. So more people can join and be part of this forum.
Other aspect that would be positive is that it could amplify the idea of messages and the expertise. As you know, at each IGF there is a certain amount of messages not only from the main sessions, but only from high level, parliamentarian track so in that way it also could bring these messages to a wider community.
Also other advantage that we can find from this leadership panel is that it could help to connect this party to the UN system and other communities that are doing several important things at the UN, for example, (?). So, in that way we can connect both worlds, if we can as a unit way.
Also, the other advantage would be to increase the level of inclusion within the leadership panel. Because it would comprise several stakeholders from all the sectors. In that way it could bring this amazing actors into the IG advocacy step.
At the beginning we had -- sorry. WSIS. And then the IGF appears, but the thing is that then we saw this increasing, very alarming level of a lot of events and forums. So it's very difficult to concentrate the policy making in one place. So, this leadership panel, what can we do is to map about all the governance processes and bring these transparency into the field.
However, we also see some disadvantages. For example, it is that the leadership panel will be only one aspect of the IGF Plus. As I was saying there are other panthers of the IGF Plus model that we are expecting for updates. For example, the policy incubator that maybe this leadership panel could work on creating some policies, not only gathering these recommendations. So, that's one of the disadvantages.
The other part is that it's not clear yet how these -- the leadership panel will contribute to the process towards the development of the digital compact that is expected to be adopted in 2023. Well, as you might know, the IGF and the digital compact are mentioned on the common agenda so this is something that we are also expecting to see how the situation will develop.
There is also other disadvantage in a way that we need more clarity on this drafting of policies, as how it is a structure right now and the terms of reference of the IGF leadership panel and also so that we can ensure those outcomes from this group will be inclusive. As I was saying, but it could be an advantage if it's used on a good way. But otherwise, it would be not so inclusive.
So, I hope I am done with my time. So really something that I want to share with you, that, for example, both the high-level body that we discussed several months ago, and both the leadership panels there isn't a mention on the role of youth. That's something that we expected to see as youth. I want to share with you, it was part of the points of action that we elaborated on the working group on inclusive internet governance and ecosystem about our concern that there wasn't any mention of youth. Not even the UN Youth Envoy, which would have been very relevant because as you know on the description of this leadership panel, it mentioned about having the UN Tech Envoy. That would be to make equal this level.
Also, on the selection criteria, it's not including a quota of youth representatives and that's something that we expressed our concern because it is also related to the UN common agenda point number 7 on removing barriers to youth participation.
We also said that our working group that is relevant -- it will be relevant, actually, to have youth recognize as stakeholder, which will allow us to have a better recognition at the IGF ecosystem and not the using mechanism that we are used to see on these forums.
I will comment very briefly on two more disadvantages that we are seeing that, for example, on the composition we already mentioned about the criteria, but also that it expresses that, for example, the composition within youth representatives we see equivalent representation. So in that way it would affect representation of small businesses. This would be a key point to address.
And finally, that's -- well, it's mentioned at the website that the leadership panel should become more (?) on their work, communication and focus. And also that the outcomes will be shared to the community. Not you see maybe the system of chapman house rules which for us is concerning. Because we want to know from which stakeholder is coming. I don't know. Certain policy or comment. And I think I am okay with my time. You can tell me when I need to pass the floor to someone else. Thank you.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you, Eileen. Thank you for those commenting about the ideas. Now we move into the following topic the (?) model presented by Mubashir Sargana.
>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Hello. Can you hear me?
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Yes, we can hear you.
>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Thank you. Thank you. (?). I will start with brief about comments that we (?). Digit comments are actually a form of comments involving distribution and ownership of information resources and technology as well, resources can be --
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: And those are the creators of the
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Examples software and licenses particularly for the (?).
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: And people building and their intervention to build in the interaction processes and -- because are available and people can (?) there are some governing rules as well in terms of as I said, there are some public licenses under (?). Various types of forms of licensing like GN public license or (?)
Come to the point that we are going to (?) I think about models, possible models that can be used for digit commerce. And if we get (?) architecture to develop (?) solutions, they can be based on (?) regarding the internet and the formal interest of -- interest to multistructural that we used in our -- that we used in our internal (?) paradigm. So the basic idea behind the geo common model is to ensure the integrity of internet and the ability of technical infrastructure, but also extended and protocols for essential -- essential and the most important sustainable digitalization. And moreover, can be for purpose like to safeguard the internet in terms of maybe due to some of negative consequences that we can come across while internet connections to the internet. Because the people who are connected with them and the access (?) resources.
Moreover, it's also based on the idea of, like, offering thinking about our discussion about the fact -- about constellations of stable stakeholders to encourage our dialogue about current (?) issues related to the resources of the (?) online maybe under some license or just to be available.
There are some meetings also planned and done annually or maybe whenever it's needed, discuss all these things like how to obligated these issues and challenges that we can talk about and how the development.
What can be --
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Models that we can use in the (?).
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: That connects internet governance issues with sustainable utilization (?) obvious that importance for both technology and also governance.
When combining multi-stakeholder rights ensure that both (?) that internet in the comments of international laws and internet (?). These both aspects are at the same page. And if we just sum up all these things like all these approaches that we have been talking about, there are laws and there are some policies that need to be developed as we talk about only (?) software (?). Then we should come up with common laws and policies that can be used to talk about --
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>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: All the stakeholders that are involved and their respective responsibilities, how they are going to play the role and contribute in this (?). Thank you so much, that's all from my side.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Next is Meri Baghdasaryan. She is going to present the co-governance model. Meri, the floor is yours.
>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN: Thank you, Juan. Thank you, everyone. I will briefly recap the main features of the proposed distributed co-governance architecture.
So, co-governance relies on the horizontal model for digital cooperation which is mostly used by such policy making bodies as IEEE, IF, ICANN and others and one of the main features of this architecture is it separates the formation of norms from their implementation and their enforcement. But at the same time co-governance networks do not work as -- do not operate as governing authority and they don't have any enforcement powers but they will simply follow process that will provide the governing agencies with blueprint or framework with designing their policies, regulations or laws later. Co-governance consists of three functional elements.
The first one is the digital cooperation networks, which would be the issue specific horizontal collaboration platform consisting of groups that will involve stakeholders from all interest groups. And participation in these networks should be open to all stakeholder groups, as I mentioned, and special efforts should be made to include and support representation from the developing countries and traditionally marginalized groups.
And the function of these groups would be -- would entail developing shared understandings, goals for specific issue, strengthening cooperation, designing, updating political norms, designing road maps and developing capacity to adopt policies and norms later.
The second function element is named network support platforms. So as the name suggests, these platforms are only about supporting the processes by the digital cooperation networks. These do not have any agency to interfere into the work product or composition of the self-governed and stakeholder initiated digital cooperation processes. They simply support the process to identify any emerging issues, secure commitment of relevant stakeholders provide necessary resources and promote the outcomes.
And the last one is network of networks. And as the name suggests, it is the one that not have any top-down form of administration. It is simply there to loosely coordinate the activities of other decentralized co-government networks and the positions are not binding. The network of networks consists of a support function, which is supposed to organize an annual forum, research cooperative and norm exchange and a volunteer peer network which would bring issues to the attention of the annual forum and collaborate recommendations by promoting actions from specific stakeholder groups to form digital cooperation networks.
And going back to my point that I made in the beginning, only when norms are available, the governmental authorities may choose to establish enforcement and limitation mechanisms. And in the context of co-governance when we talk about norm design, we mean identifying digital governance issues, forming cooperation networks and supporting networks to digital cooperation platforms.
Then after the norms are already available implementation and this entails developing norm design and adopting, providing a norm exchange to connect communities and offering incentives.
And finally norm enforcement is about developing the norms into laws and regulations and adjusting any conflict there, as well as establishing clear ground for digital technologies. So in other words, co-governance is a more horizontal architecture for governance and it's one -- one of its main goals is to provide more equal footing for the stakeholder groups that were not traditionally very engaged in the IGF structures, and it is about creating a process for formulating digital norms and providing framework for further implementation and enforcement.
I think I will stop here to allow more time for our discussion. And I look forward to it. Over to you, Juan.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you very much, Meri.
Now we going to Ethan Mudavanhu. He will give us some insights about the cooperation between different regional particularly regarding digital cooperation.
>> ETHAN MUDAVANHU: Thank you so much for allowing me this time. If you could help me with the slides. Thank you. So, actually, I would like to, on the previous note, I would like to start maybe by asking us all a question. And we can keep it as we (?) for the time being. But the question is, should the power to shape the internet be in the hands of everyone? And I would like to reflect on June 2020, the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, he talked on effective digit cooperation and in the paper that was eventually reported as the road map to additional cooperation, he said that what is instrumental in achieving the future we want and the ambitious goals of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Is not something that any country or any company or any institution can achieve alone.
So I think therein lies the answer that we see. It's a cooperation, a collaborative effort that we should all be joining in. And I would like to share a few more on -- in terms of how the youth can be more engaged at a regional level into these kind of conversations.
But the first thing, I guess, to put out there is something that we already know. The ITU recently released its facts and figures for 2021 and it was shocking to see that the youth, that is from ages 15 to 24, in 2020 used 71% of the internet, right? So, if we are the biggest stakeholder, why is it that we aren't as involved, as engaged when it comes to those issues around internet and the governance of it. So, that digit cooperation aspect of it, we should be as visible as we are as users.
And you then find three things that I believe should be included in the conversation of considerations around developing the regional initiatives around digital cooperation, and I find inspiration from the recently released, I think it's two days old, by youth and policymakers paper on digital inclusion and they highlighted access to opportunities. So, this is the creation of sustainable structures for remote participation, capacity building, training, fellowships, and mentorship opportunities for the youth so that you can allow them to engage with the issues at hand. And it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop at education. It also includes defining policies that lay out how to ensure young people can actually attending the various forum and various meetings for them to be engaged and for them to be a part of these kind of discussions. So, that goes to a more practical element. How can we actually get them to these platforms.
And the second one was around expansion or at least sustainable expansion of internet infrastructure and that's simply saying the internet infrastructure needs to be expanded and emphasis should be put on community networks to facilitate the inclusion. And the last one was around diversity. You know, we are a diverse group as the youth between ages, between race, between gender, cultures. There are so many things that differentiate us. And these should be incorporated with regards to how best we can make sure there's more involvement at the regional level around these issues.
So, those are things to consider. And what I will leave you with above and beyond that is, actually, if you are a youth right now, if you fall under the categories of a youth or if you think you do, if you are a young at heart what, can you do right now? Where can you go? Which initiatives are out there for you? And we have broken them down from -- as advertised, to regional initiatives. And some are IGF, some are outside IGF. But the point is really to get as -- go and get us doing something.
And I will start by the Africa section. And we have your youth IGF of African, which is an open platform for youth facilitated by the African IGF and you find youth from many Africa countries that are participating in chats, South Africa, Zimbabwe where I'm from and also the African school of IG, which is about a five-day week -- a five-day course. If I can put it that way. But it's an annual meeting, essentially, that is more of a partnership between the AU, that is the African Union Commission and the Association for Progressive Communications. And really what they do is they facilitate leadership building processes and capacity building opportunities for us to be able to be engaging in issues around the digital platforms and the digital youths, the economy that we find ourselves in.
In the Americas, the Caribbean, we have the youth 6 or the youth observatory, again, a youth led organization there, which is doing incredible work and has created -- was created as a result of Latin American, the youth engagement and it's organized by ISOC, which I am coming to you as an ambassador of and Brazilian Internet Steering Committee. So a bunch of things that they are doing, they are including editing and launching books written by young authors around said issues and promoting digital education and the likes. There's also the youth Latin American and Caribbean IGF which you can be involved with and it has been going on since 2016, I believe. And this initiative is independently organized. So it's organized by committee composed of members that fit the definition of youth by the IGF and includes other stakeholders as well. But it gives that regional balance, it gives that regional perspectives to what is going on and what are the issues that we are supposed to be tackling. And it also gives that regional perspective also, which is important when tackling these issues and getting youth engaged.
And we have the Asia Pacific in Asian Pacific, we have the Asian Pacific regional IGF and that provides a unique discussion platform for youth from different backgrounds as you would imagine. And it provides professional interests and organizers set up this three to four-day camp whereby more on youth engagement, more on education, additional education, rather, and the skill sets that you need to be able to participate fully, meaningfully in this movement can be found there.
And in Europe we have the European dialogue on internet governance or EuroDIG, and they have the YouthDIG events, which foster networking around the youths that reside in Europe and discuss and exchange views with experienced policy practitioners so there already is that multi-stakeholder aspect to things and different groups speaking to different groups, although from a youth perspective and also gaining experience from those that are experts or in the fields that exist already.
Within that the sub regional, depending where you are, there's the Senior European dialogue on internet governance and essentially it's, basically, making it more accessible to a particular sub region. But it's doing the same thing around as EuroDIG.
Those are a few of the initiatives that are out there. And I do encourage us all to get engaged. The internet is ours. We are the biggest stakeholders. So, I expect all of us to be more encouraged and to actually take this on.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you very much, Ethan. Now we have this space to question for any speakers, and so who would like to take the floor, can do it.
>> AUDIENCE: Initiative you have underway but it seems to me that there is something much -- sorry. My name is Janice Richardson from Insight and from the Dynamic Coalition for Internet Standard, Safety and Security.
I have been researching over the past six months with industry to really understand what they need when young people come to work there. So, it seems to me that you are missing a very important link. Is the education that you're reaching to get, is the education that you want really the education that industry needs to continue to make the internet secure and safe?
My research so far shows me that there is a huge gap. And I think that this is an area where young people should be working together to detect those gaps and to push education, really to give them the skills or to help them develop the skills that are so necessary if they are really going to have a loud voice in shaping internet.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you very much for your comment.
If anyone want to follow, please can do, any one of the speakers.
>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Hello, Mubashir Sargana. Can you hear me clearly?
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: We can hear you clear. Not so much clear as, but better than before.
>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: I will speak a bit louder. I hope -- okay. No. That's fine.
Okay. I totally agree with that comment about the capacity building because most important for the youth if we are -- for them to come forward or to lead activities that some of them -- that we are discussing right now.
National and regional like one for schools of internet governance. We are addressing this challenge to a great extent. But the international forum like IGF itself is a great platform for this purpose. If we focus more on the capacity building of youth through some programs that we can offer through IGF, that will help this thing larger in terms of capacity building. Thank you.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you. If anyone else want to make a question here on the line, it's more than welcome. Fred, we have question on the line?
>> FRED KWADWO AAZORE: Not yet. We don't have anyone who are offering their hand so far.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Eileen, did you want to make some comment? I saw that you appear on the screen.
>> EILEEN CEJAS: Yes, thank you very much, Juan. I want to thank for your comment on the dynamic coalitions. And I also agree with you that is very important to bring these capacity building to youth to participate, because when we are saying to participate, it's a necessary step to get there first to bring the tools to young people. So, for us, while many of us have been, for example, involved in internet society, youth (?) program. For us, it has been our first step into the ecosystem. And it's also -- well, it's also other way to engage, but to me, truly engage in the ecosystem, it's essential to have the support from all the other stakeholders.
And if you have some raised hands.
>> FRED KWADWO AAZORE: Nick cuss can take the floor.
>> NICOLAS FIUMARELLI: Thank you. Nick Fiumarelli for the recording. Well, from all the perspective of the models, I am very happy to see that, well, this idea of going from the local perspectives or national perspectives to the regional and then from the regional to the global, I found some parts of each one of the models that has this idea behind. And my question or my suggestion could be that that need to be like the (?) think at least the youth initiatives, usually once this poses to be very hard because we have not seen this in the past, for example, in the regional IGFs, sometimes it doesn't have an account like, for example, what the outcomes was -- were from the national IGFs and then the same happening in the global IGF, so we have some governance ideas of the regions or what are the interests of future of the regions or comments or opinions or statements from different stakeholders.
But at the end maybe sometimes there is no, like, a (?) process to shine all these comments or statements for stakeholder to have a sense of what are the necessities or the problems or challenges of future of regions and then go into the global.
I think we need to find maybe a mixture of these models to trying to reach that idea, to maintain these bottom-up process as most as possible. Thank you.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: You can go ahead. Then we pass to other speakers.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I come from Berlin. When we are talking about IGF and youth and we are talking about the stakeholder, youth are not possible to be from government, from Civil Society and Technical Community in the same time. Every time youth are coming from something like end users, Civil Society we can say.
When we have them around the table to discuss on where priority, is it to learn how is internet, how they can use internet for themselves or just know the process, because we have three stakeholder in the table, this do that, another one do that, the third one do that. Is it only information we need or we supposed to ask for information we can use for themself? What is the challenges, actually.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Okay. If any other speaker want to take the word here. We have another question here on the floor. Or comment.
>> AUDIENCE: You can go ahead and get responses and then I will just wait with my question for another moment. Or --
>> ETHAN MUDAVANHU: I guess that leaves me to it. I would like to just firstly answer, just at least my opinion from the previous question. And I believe youth have much more to offer than just an end user experience. I think we are at the forefront of the internet, which means its impact and its reach are things that we are so close to and come naturally to us. If you're talking about the shutdowns and the effect of shutdowns on new businesses that we are Zooming up out of the internet age, it's mostly the youth that would be affected by those things. If you're talking about the different wants as to the internet, you know, it's, again, youth who are at the base of the impact of it.
So I believe there's much more that we can offer, just besides how better we want it used but, actually, how better it can be developed. So, there's those elements.
But also wanted to touch on quickly the idea around education and further from it is that there's still 2.9 billion people who are off-line. 96% of those are in developing countries. And the reason why I feel so strongly to speak on regional initiatives is even the conversations are different. So, if we are speaking about education and 90% -- 96% of a particular group say maybe in Africa are still struggling to even have broadband internet that allows them to come to forums like these, or at least that gives them that awareness and level of education to be able to use particular aspects of the internet. Then there are different conversations happening across the globe. And, again, my emphasis is that's where regional initiatives should come through and come strongly, because the conversations are different. How to educate the youth in South America is different from how to educate youth even in North America. At least what their needs are.
So, I really think that there needs to be a focus on the conversation, the initiatives and the priorities that regions are facing and how they can be tackled. So, that's my contribution.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Demitra Leig, and I work at the German Informatics Society that put on the Youth Policymakers Program that was mentioned earlier. And our, sort of, international group of about 45 participants published policy papers, again, mentioned in this session at YIGF.D at the beginning of this week, and I guess my question is primarily directed to you, Ethan.
You know, we work with such an international group of young people and I'm curious to know how we could have maybe done a better job of making these regional differences a little bit clearer, even within this very global group of young people.
>> ETHAN MUDAVANHU: Yeah, thank you for that. So, I think there are two things for me. I really do believe in silos or, rather, in the parallel workings of initiatives, right? So if you're talking about regional initiatives and the likes, them working as individual regions and coming up with solutions, coming up with the questions that they are facing and the solutions, right? And then bringing those to a global conversation, I think brings a much clearer perspective and a much clearer idea of how we can actually move forward.
Because what we then find is conversations shifting or an urge to just get to a global picture whereby we can point to X, Y and Z and say, okay, this is our global harmonized even in terms, you know, approach to a particular issue. Whereas I'm saying I think we just need to -- we need a little more focus on the grassroots level. If we can spend a little more time on really just my neighbor and my neighbor's neighbor and making sure that we completely understand their situations, their concerns and then bring that up. I feel like the bottom-up process is moving too quickly, if I can put it that way. So more emphasis I think needs to be on the ground root level issues and how we can tackle them before we even get to a global idea or a global platform or global papers.
So, that's what I would say. But I think beyond that, there's a saying that I used to love, which says, it's better to build boys than to repairmen. And it really is the idea of how do we make sure, if we are thinking about, like I said, I enjoyed your paper. If I am thinking about what are the issues and what are the potential solutions, I think at the back of my mind should always be the idea of how do I make sure that the 5-year-old in (?) somewhere or in Kenya somewhere, whatever the issue may be, can be equipped to use the internet meaningfully. And as long as at the back end of that, is that 5-year-old boy not necessarily me, maybe you and I, I think we can get to the onset quicker and more effectively.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Thank you, Ethan. If we have more questions, please do it now, because we are getting close to the hour. I see that two people have raised their hand on the chat. So if you want to speak.
>> FRED KWADWO AAZORE: Eileen can go first.
>> EILEEN CEJAS: Thanks, everyone. I will comment very quickly, because I know we are short of time. So, for example, well, it was mentioned the question about the education part. There's something that we always discuss at the youth governance that I am part of, is that generally it was, like, one -- I think the very first topic that emerged and was part of the conversation, but we also want to emphasize that under the youth representation and the youth people, how to say it, we are very interested in all sort of topics, not only about youth participation or education. So, that's something that we should keep in consideration. That's why it's also important that today, for example, we are discussing about issues of cooperation and discussing about service executer. So, that's also a way to see that we are not only focusing on one aspect of internet or just one stakeholder.
Going back to the comment on having youth as a stakeholder, we thought that having this new actor in sort of way, it will also give us a better recommendation, that's why I was saying better recognition also at true voice to speak up. Because otherwise we usually fall on the discussion that we are end users or part of the (?) community and even, for example, within the (?) community they have different discussions so that's something that we should keep into consideration that it's open the discussion within each stakeholder.
I want to thank (?) for mentioning about the policy papers. I think this is something very useful for us also to bring our messages there. Yeah, I will stop speaking now and give the floor to Meri.
>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN: Thanks, Eileen. I mainly agree with most of the comments made by my colleagues already. But just my 2 cents before we conclude. So I remember when I joined this community like five, six years ago, we were having the same discussion, issue the separate stakeholder or is it a part of other stakeholder groups so there is no need to have a specific youth stakeholder group. So my recollection for the last five, six years is that there is a need to have a straight stakeholder group because this is not about, you know -- it's about having a seat at the table, as Eileen mentioned. Otherwise, my reflection is that the youth just gets swallowed by other stakeholder groups. And we are everywhere. That is true. We are part of all stakeholder groups but we present a specific perspective. And that needs a separate seat at the table.
Going back to the question on education, yes, I would say there are gaps. Nothing is perfect in this world, including education. But, again, this is about having a seat at a table. So, having a specific perspective from youth regardless of how prepared they are is important in itself.
And finally, on regional versus global tensions, I would say that, you know, everything on global level needs to make sense on the local level, which the most important and also more challenging thing that we deal with on daily basis on all -- or across different issues. So definitely agree with Ethan that it is end also with Nicholas that we need to invest in more grass root initiatives. But also think how this all will make sense on the global level.
Because if we, you know, go on a very global abstract level and this doesn't make sense on the local level, I don't think we are moving forward with anything. So, important to balance what we are doing on all levels and cooperation and (?) is what we should strive for. Thank you. Over to you, Juan.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Okay, thank you very much for this insightful conversation about cooperation and how youth should be involved in the distinct cooperation in Internet Governance especially as stakeholder.
So, as we don't have in so much time, if anyone want to give a small conclusion about it, can do it now. If it doesn't, well, we are finished. Okay. I see Eileen want to make a last statement.
>> EILEEN CEJAS: Well, I just comment very quickly because I don't want to miss the opportunity that, for example, myself and other colleagues like Nick Fiumarelli with you on site, we organized last year, for example, the (?) internets in cooperation with Missions Publiques. Sorry. This global dialogues with citizens, in part of that dialogues we included citizens into the discussion of digital cooperation and many other topics. I think it is important to remark that this topic shouldn't be only closed to just circle of people. It is important that everyone is equally participating and have their voices heard.
So, yes, I will stop my intervention here and thank you very much, Juan, and everyone.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Okay. With this comment, we finish this panel and thank you very much to everyone here on site, everyone online.
(Applause)
>> FRED KWADWO AAZORE: Great. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us. A great time.
>> MUBASHIR SARGANA: Thank you, everyone.
>> We all live in digital world. We all need it to be open and safe. We all want to trust.
>> And to be trusted.
>> We all despise control.
>> And desire freedom.
>> We are all united.
(Session was concluded at 15:45 UTC)