IGF 2022 Day 1 Networking Session #42 Youth Initiatives: the School of International Information Security experience – RAW

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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>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Hello, participants of the IGF 2022 networking session Youth Initiatives. My name is Pavel, and I am a specialist for external communications of the Coordination Center for Russian top‑level domains at IGF. Also, I will be the online moderator of this session today.

First, let me explain what our session is to do. The session will be focused on the discussion of the youth initiatives. To be more precise, the session is going to be focused on the initiatives in the Russian Federation, the International Information Security School and the Coordination Center Youth Council experience. The school and the Youth Council are working on the issue of how all the stakeholders, including the young generation, can work together to assure unstoppable exchange of views and ideas on the issue concerning ICT and IG. 

And to get started, I would like to ask the participants to follow the QR code and enter a PIN code. We will play a Kahoot game on youth initiatives. You can see the questions on the screen, so answer them within the allocated time limit.  Do you see the pincode and do you see the QR code? 

>> Yes, yes, yes.

>> Yes. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Yeah, thank you.  So, the winner will be presented with the opportunity to represent the young generation with the opening speech at our next UN, which will be held December 8‑11 in Armenia on the topic of Internet Governance. Well, let's start the game! 

>> Just a second. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: You will have about two minutes. 

(Off microphone).

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: So, can we play? 

(Off microphone).

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you.

>> Excuse me, what is the pincode? What is the ‑‑

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Are you ‑‑

>> We are trying to get the pincode, and now we are waiting for Kahoot loading, okay? Wait, please. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Oh, sorry for the technical issue, yeah.  So, we have a technical issue. I'm so much sorry. We cannot afford to play the Kahoot game. Sorry. Yeah. 

So, the next stage of our session is the presentation of the school and also of the Youth Council. So, our first speaker is Arevik Martirosyan, recent associate of the Russian diplomatic academy, founder of the School of International Information Security School, encouraged by the UN open‑ended working group. Arevik, you are welcome, please. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, good afternoon. We have some musical ‑‑

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: You're okay. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So we will try to speak loud. Thank you for giving me the floor. We conducted more in the younger generation of Russia. It was found that the respondents faced common problems. And you can see them on the slides. The lack of information on the IG topics and on the opportunities in this area. The second one is there is no accessible multidisciplinary communication platform. And the third one is the lack of digital literacy. 

So, taking account these points, several youth structures were created to address these problems. And the example of such initiatives ‑‑ International Information Security School, and the Youth Council ‑‑ we are still working on solving these problems by involving both (?) and practitioners and we are creating a platform for exchange of experience and opinions. 

So, speaking about International Information Security School, it is youth educational, scientific, and analytical platform created on the basis of the Institute of Contemporary International Studies of Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and it's created for an inclusive discussion and exchange of views; development of strategies for comprehensive solution to the problems of cybersecurity; and the formation of the Track II Youth Diplomacy on cybersecurity. And the last one is to create a dialogue between Russian and foreign young scientists, international experts and practitioners. So, Russian and international academic and research institutes.

So, International Information Security School implements like these various formats for a broad discussion on solving current problems in the field of international security and Internet Governance. So, you can see the examples of all the activities on the slide. They are organized. Can you help us to see the slide, please? Okay. Thank you. So, these are examples of our activity. 

And you can see in October, we attended the working groups, a scientific project to involve the generation in the examination of the Internet Governance issues. Then it was the webinar on the problems of international information security in the United Nations.  And in November, lectures and open discussion with the Foreign Ministry of Russian Federation.

So, on the other slide, you can see our plans. So, after, if you're there, we will fly to Armenia and we will organize Conference of young scientists on information security. And in December, we will participate at United Nations open‑ended working group, a session. So, it's briefly a description of our activity. Thank you.

And now I give the floor to our moderator. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Arevik, thank you so much for your presentation. And our next speaker is the head of the Youth Council of the Coordination Center for top‑level domains of Russia. You are welcome with your presentation.  Can you hear us? 

>> Yes. Hello, everyone. I am glad to be with you today. So, the Coordination Center strives to build its policies taking into account the opinion of young generation. For this purpose, a special expert body was created within the center, the youth initiative center. The Youth Council was created to discuss projects and initiatives in the fields of development and popularization of Russian Federation national domains zone; set up and support social and educational projects aimed at improving the digital literacy of the young audience of the Runet; increase the young people's interest in acquiring skills in the use of ICT, in the development and management of the national segment of the Internet; and to represent the interests of the younger generation of Internet users.

The main activities of the Youth Council are: Popularization of Internet Governance among young people; participation in events preparation ‑‑ lectures, summer schools, discussion club, et cetera ‑‑ and participation in the materials preparation for informational resources.

I also want to tell a little about our projects. So, here they are. Telegram channel "Internet Governance," and a group in VK with news from the IG sphere, educational posts, posts informing about ongoing events related to IG and participation in Russian and global events on the topic of IG.  We are going to make an educational and entertainment podcast on Internet Governance. And together, with the International Information Security School, we are organizing a working group for scientific work on the topic of the impact of destructive content on children and educational webinars about the domain name registration and Internet law. 

We also strive to development federation so young people can present their point of view on Internet Governance. And our goal is organization and participation in events in the international level. We exist to ensure that the institutions involved in IG processes, in one way or another, are taking into account the views of the younger generation. We believe that synergy of views and opinions of young people with more experienced colleagues is stimulating development of the Internet in a positive direction. Thank you. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you so much, Andrey. And as far as I know, the Youth Council has additional information on our projects. Arevik, can you hear us? 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: Yes, can you hear me? So, as mentioned, we can see that in all countries, the problems of youth in the field of Internet Governance are the same. And the task is to expand international context with similar youth structures and international organization includes a scientific and analytical ones. So, we think that many countries also have a problem involving of young people. Let's hold it together, and we are ready to share our positive experience and learn from the successful experience of other projects.

And for addressing these problems, they are proposing to create a global youth EG learning network center for youth cyber diplomacy under the auspices of United Nations. The headquarters in every continent of the Russian Diplomatic Academy, and the last is to hold annual international youth scientific conference on the problems of ensuring the security of and in the use of information and communication technologies.

So, in conclusion, as a representative of the scientific community, I'm convinced that such initiatives involving representatives of the young generation can become important mechanism for funding new ways of trust and building capacity in all areas of issuing cybersecurity and Internet Governance issues. We are ready to share our work experience and as well as declare our readiness to cooperate. And for this, we will share our contacts after our session. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you so much. Thank you to our speakers for informative and comprehensive presentations. 

Well, let's move to the final part. Now you can see two QR codes. Please follow them.  So, now I would like to ask you to enter the pincode that we have also in codes. Arevik? 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: We just need to follow the QR codes. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Okay, thank you. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: Then answer the questions, yes. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Follow them, please, and help us conduct our survey. You will see two questions. First one: What problems for young people exist in your country? What have you faced? And the second one: How do you see solutions to these problems? Please write down your answers.  It will help us to conduct our survey. 

Well, maybe someone has questions? If so, you can write down to our Zoom chat, and we will ask our experts here.  Please.  Maybe we have some questions on the floor? Do we see any raised hands? 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: Dear participants? Okay. No questions. 

>> AUDIENCE: Maybe you can tell us about your youth experience and what problems do you face and what solutions do you see, how we can educate the youth more into Internet Governance theme? Maybe you have your experience? Yeah, sure. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: Wait for some minutes to give participants the possibility to write answers, and then we will go to discussions. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Maybe we also can start the discussion, Arevik. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, dear participants, maybe someone of you would like to share experience of your country on youth initiatives, on the topic of Internet Governance? 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Maybe someone has his own opinion, what he or they can bring to the youth Internet Governance issue. Maybe someone has ideas, right? 

>> AUDIENCE: Can I say? Okay. This is Ashraf from Bangladesh Youth IGF and currently Secretary‑General of Bangladesh Internet Governance. So, basically, I'm a human social professional also. For the second time, we conducted the Youth IGF in Bangladesh, and parallelly, we conducted the Youth IGF also. But what we faced in maximum cases, as we, all of you know, the youth have more opportunities to contribute in the IG process, but they are not aware. So, what are the plan or the initiative for the next ‑‑ for the capacity‑building? That's my question to all of you. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Dear experts? 

>> Sorry, yes, please. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, we are trying now to create some initiatives and educational programs with foreign participation to create these capacity‑buildings. And for example, on the March of the next year, we will conduct International Conference, and we will invite all experts from around the world. And by this step, it is not only scientifical step, yes, it is also the opportunity to create platform for communication for all young experts in Internet Governance issue. So, it's just one example of our project.

We have different projects. And also, there are some initiatives in the Youth Council. For example, its summer school on the Internet Governance. Also there is a huge participation of young generation, and they have the possibility to hear from experts from different countries on different actual topics of Internet Governance, beginning from what is the Internet and end with the issue of fragmentation and international cooperation. So, in general, we try to involve all young generation and to create this communication platform, through which we see the possibility to create capacity‑building measures. 

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you for your update. As I say, you have the Global Youth IGL and the global cyber diplomacy, and you mentioned another project you will conduct in March. So, we are waiting to join, if you invite us from the Bangladeshi Youth Community. Thank you for the update. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you so much. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, speaking about the Youth Service Diplomacy Center, this was also set up during the United Nations open working group session, and now we are trying to get more support for it. So, we are open for cooperation and we'll be really glad to see you all also in this project. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Any questions? 

>> AUDIENCE: Hi. Good morning, everyone. It's me, UmarHahn from Pakistan, cyber consultant in Pakistan, working to promote digital rights within the Pakistan, considering the charge of human rights for the Internet within the Pakistan position in universities on the cyber law, our national law.

My question is that, unfortunately, we don't have national IGF Pakistan and the Youth IGF Pakistan. Currently, which is almost in the top list, top ten list of the world with regards to the population, but still, it is very unfortunate that we don't have an initial IGF and we don't have a Youth IGF in Pakistan. So, if you could help us in regarding setting or establishing Youth IGF, and you can guide us that how can we start and how much it will be important for the youth and for the whole country that we have such platforms which can bring such project promoting digital rights, promoting the Internet to everyone and access to the Internet.

And with this, I would like to share that now access to Internet is the fundamental right of every Pakistani declared by the High Court Islamabad. So, this is a very good opportunity that we have access to Internet as a basic right, but we don't have such things like Youth IGF and International IGF. How can you help and how can we get together for Pakistan? Thank you. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, thank you very much for your question and comments.  So, first, there is a Russian Head of IGF Youth track, and we can exchange our contacts after this session and we will be glad to share our experience, how we do it in Russia. And also, we can share the experience of educational and scientific project on Internet Governance. So, thank you very much. Are there some questions in the audience? Okay.  Maybe in Zoom? 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: No. We have no questions in Zoom. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, okay. The floor is yours, Pavel, please. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you so much. Maybe we have no questions right now. We are coming to the end of the session. Thank you. Thanks to everyone. Thank you for having the time to participate in our session. And bye! 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, in conclusion, we would like to ask you to participate in our social survey. So, we would like to, right after the IGF scientific article about the youth problems in this area, so you can follow the QR code and answer the questions, and thank you in advance for your answers. 

>> AREVIK MARTIROSYAN: So, in general, it is the end of our session because of timeline, and we can now turn to our unofficial discussion of the session. Thank you very much for your participation. 

>> PAVEL POZDNYAKOV: Thank you, colleagues. Thank you.