IGF 2022 WS #341 Global youth engagement in IG: successes and opportunities

Time
Wednesday, 30th November, 2022 (12:05 UTC) - Wednesday, 30th November, 2022 (13:35 UTC)
Room
CR5

Organizer 1: Emilia Zalewska, Project Youth Summit, Youth IGF Poland, Legal Tech Polska
Organizer 2: Jenna Man Hau Fung, DotAsia/ NetMission.Asia
Organizer 3: Daphne Stevens, Youth Coalition on Internet Governance
Organizer 4: Mauricia Cindy Abdol Tshilunda, ISOC IGF Youth Ambassador
Organizer 5: João Moreno Falcão, Intelliway Tecnologia
Organizer 6: Nicolas Fiumarelli, Youth IGF Uruguay

Speaker 1: Nicolas Fiumarelli, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Veronica Piccolo, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Emilia Zalewska, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Speaker 4: Hailu Melaku, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 5: Yoichi Iida, Government, Eastern European Group
Speaker 6: Franka Viktoria Weckner, Civil Society, African Group

Additional Speakers

Piotr Słowiński, NASK

Athena Vassilopoulus, ITU Generation Connect Europe

 

Moderator

Mauricia Cindy Abdol Tshilunda, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization

Online Moderator

Jenna Man Hau Fung, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Rapporteur

João Moreno Falcão, Private Sector, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

Format

Birds of a Feather - Auditorium - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

What opportunities for involvement already exist for young people in the Internet Governance community? How have youth-oriented programmes evolved over time and what changes should be made to them in the near future? How to build a platform for dialogue and exchange of experiences and outcomes between participants and organisers of various projects, programmes and training in Internet Governance?

Connection with previous Messages: Message: Inclusive Internet Ecosystems and Digital Cooperation "There is a need to think about the sustainability of the Internet governance ecosystem, including the empowerment of youth - the next generation of experts and leaders. Given the rapid pace of technologies, there is a need to build the capacity of the generations to come One of the concrete ways this could be done relates to creating educational curriculums based on competencies and skills in the local languages of targeted groups. Similarly, the ‘’train the trainer’’ concept could be a quick, feasible and effective way to ensure educational professionals, such as teachers, are equipped with knowledge and skills to pass on to massive numbers of multiple generations." During the session, there will be a continuation of the debate on how to develop programmes and capacity-building training for young people in order to effectively equip them with the skills required to become “the next generation of leaders and experts” in Internet Governance. Due to an overview of already existing initiatives and future undertakings, it will be possible to discuss during the session how the next youth-oriented programmes should be designed.

SDGs

17. Partnerships for the Goals

Targets: SDG 5: The spectrum of the session allows for a clear indication of how many women and girls are involved in youth-related activities and this can be made a requirement in discussion points. The session speakers are from all regions and can therefore in discussion share specific results on progress made concerning the inclusion of female youth voices in Internet Governance within their Regions. Some of the speakers have also a background in gender equality advocacy. SDG 10: Reduce inequalities within and among countries. This session proposal specifically addresses the following point under SDG-10,10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status. The workshop relates to this objective by focusing on empowering young people as important and active members of the IG community. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals This proposal specifically addresses SDG-17 as it pertains to Technology and Capacity Building. The session speakers are cross-regional and would speak on youth initiatives in Internet Governance which one of the main tasks is equipping young people with digital and advocacy skills.

Description:

In recent years, youth initiatives have become an integral part of the IGF community. They actively create programmes and opportunities for young people to get involved. Through their work, the new generation is gaining valuable skills and experience that help them better navigate the Internet Governance space. The aim of this workshop is to introduce participants to the selected youth initiatives and give them a chance to learn about their activities and how they can join them or contribute to their work. The representatives from Host Countries of last year's, this year's and next year's Global Youth Summit at the IGF are also invited to speak at the session, so it will be possible to discuss how the organisation of this central event for youth engagement at the IGF is evolving and what direction it should follow. As the result, organisers hope to engage participants and speakers in the open dialogue on the future of youth activism and youth-oriented programs in the field of Internet Governance. The workshop might be especially useful for newcomers who would like to learn about the possibilities of engagement after the IGF event. The initiatives presented are:

  • Youth Coalition on Internet Governance - Nicolas Fiumarelli
  • Youth Standing Group by Internet Society - Veronica Piccolo
  • Generation Connect by International Telecommunication Union - Athena Vassilopoulos
  • The IGF 2021 in Poland, NASK - Piotr Słowiński
  • Youth Advocate Agenda 2063 and SDGs Model African Union-Ethiopia - Melaku Hailu
  • IGF 2023 in Japan Host Country Representative - Yoichi Ilda
Expected Outcomes

The expected outcome of the workshop is a set of written points with recommendations on how youth programmes and projects should be developed, especially on what kinds of capacity-building training they should include and how their outcomes could be shared between different initiatives and organisations. The workshop also aims to contribute to the process of building a platform for dialogue about the Global Youth Summit at the IGF as a recurring event. An additional, but also very important goal of the session is to encourage attendees to get involved in different youth initiatives that are active in the Internet Governance community.

Hybrid Format: All online and onsite participants will be an important part of the audience. Therefore, online and onsite moderators will cooperate to ensure that both online and onsite participants will have an equal opportunity to join the discussion with speakers and to ask them questions. Moderators will especially ensure that there is a common queue of questions for online and onsite participants so that each group has the same priority to ask questions to the speakers, whether they are online or onsite. The session will include interactive elements for both online and onsite participants. They will be encouraged to put their comments, ideas and links to resources as notes on the online board on the platform Miro. This solution will facilitate the smooth exchange of comments between both types of participants.

Online Participation

 

Usage of IGF Official Tool.

 

Key Takeaways (* deadline 2 hours after session)

There are existing youth initiatives that put a lot of effort in bringing Internet governance closer to fellow young people. Newcomers to the IGF community could learn and benefit from joining them.

In the recent years, the youth-led and youth-oriented capacity-building progammes has been strongly developed and growth in power.

Call to Action (* deadline 2 hours after session)

There is a need to build platforms of cooperation between different youth initiatives in order to achieve common goals more efficientely.

There are still some gaps in the inclusiveness of the IGF (for ex. the languege barriers) that young leader should be aware of.

Session Report (* deadline 26 October) - click on the ? symbol for instructions

Firstly, Emilia Zalewska did the opening and presented the objective of the session which was to present youth initiatives and opportunities existing in the IGF community.

Then, the first speaker, Nicolas Fummareli from Youth Coalition on Internet Governance (YCIG) talked about the activities of his organisation, for ex. forming 5 Working Groups of young people from all over the world that prepared 13 session proposals for the IGF (11 was selected), conducting a series of preparatory webinars before the IGF and inolvement in regional NRI’s initiatives

He also encouraged the participants to take part in upcoming elections to the next YCIG’s Steering Committee.

The second speaker, Veronica Piccollo from Youth Standing Group explained the origins of her initiative that could be found in Brazil. The objective was to foster the participation of young people from Latin America in Internet Governance. Now the initiative has been recognised by the Internet Society as a standing group. It collaborates strongly with the  YCIG. One of the current activities of Youth SG is creating a new edition of the Youth Atlas that will map involvement of young people in IG.

The third speaker was Athéna Vassilopoulus representing the Generation Connect Europe (GC), ITU. She told that her group aims to engage young people in the activities of the ITU. In the first year, the GC created a youth declaration. The next year it has worked on preparation of the event Digital Youth Jam. It has also participated in the youth summit in Kigali, Rwanda. GC is currently restructuring the group and will create a call for new participants in January.

The fourth speaker, Piotr Słowiński from NASK National Research Institute described its role  in promoting youth in IG and cybersecurity. It started in 2020 and the process is ongoing. The participation in the Global Youth Summit in Katowice, prepared by Youth IGF Poland in cooperation with NASK was massive and allowed to connect youth and experts.

The fifth and last speaker, Melaku Hailu from Model Africa Union said that their initiative is the second model that created the Woman, Gender and Youth Directory. They do simulation of the Peace and Security Council of African Union. Their model addressed the SDGs with three pillars. social, economic, and environmental approach.

The speakers’ inputs were followed by the discussion with participants of the session. They expressed the need to push youth engagement forward and to find more people motivated to engage. It was highlighted that more advocacy work should be paid. There was also a comment that the IGF is in English which is a barrier for it to be inclusive.