IGF 2019 WS #411
Ensuring a collaborative growth of the human online society

Organizer 1: Noha Ashraf Abdel Baky, Digital Grassroots
Organizer 2: Joy Wathagi Ndungu, Digital Grassroots
Organizer 3: Yeseul Kim, ISOC-IGF (Ambassador)

Speaker 1: Yeseul Kim, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: ANAHIBY BECERRIL, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Varsha Sewlal, Civil Society, African Group

Moderator

Noha Ashraf Abdel Baky, Civil Society, Intergovernmental Organization

Online Moderator

Joy Wathagi Ndungu, Civil Society, African Group

Rapporteur

Yeseul Kim, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Format

Round Table - Circle - 60 Min

Policy Question(s)

How to make the Internet Governance ecosystem sustainable ?
How to exchange knowledge and share experience about Internet Governance?
How to engage more youth in dialogues about Internet Governance?
How to make dialogues about Internet Governance applicable in policy-making?
How to create a network of activists in Internet Governance?

SDGs

GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequalities

Description: The session will be about sharing strategies that the speakers have employed to engage themselves and to share what kinds of changes we’ve made over the years through our active engagement in the Internet Governance Ecosystem as we believe that sharing our individual experiences will help us secure diversity and inclusion toward the inclusive digital societies by engaging those unheard.
We will also talk about how making more women and undeserved people involved in all these activities will help ensure diverse and inclusive digitization of the world.

As all of our panelists are females who have been active in the Internet Governance field, we would especially like to share what kinds of hurdles we’ve faced working in the field, but at the same time what kind of benefits and hopes we have found through our engagement in the field over the years. We’ve all made some changes - big or small- through our engagement in Internet Governance throughout the years as lawyers, policymakers, founders and directors of big Internet-related organizations present domestically, regionally and internationally.
And as the age group of our speakers widely vary, we would like to cover different challenges and opportunities that different generations experience so that other marginalized or less-heard groups of people can also be engaged in developing better Internet ecosystem.



Expected Outcomes: Although the session will be mostly about sharing our experiences so far, more importantly, we'd like to hear the voices and opinions from the audience in which part of the world we can create more opportunities to bring changes toward inclusive and diverse Internet ecosystem.
All the speakers have different specialties inside the Internet ecosystem but agree that we need to share our skills and learned lessons, draft best practices to strategies with key stakeholders on step forward.
We would like to create more opportunities to be embedded in the systems so that more organizations can hear more from those unheard. As most of the session panelists are in their grad,post-grad positions, they will also try to engage the younger generations through Youth IGFs or IGA (Internet Governance Academy) in their regions by sharing their experiences, and will also try to get involved in the legislative activities as many of them are also deeply involved in legislative activities (2 lawyers each from Latin America and Africa), and working with national institutions working for legislative activities related to the Internet. In addition to this, we would like to share our opinions in other regional platforms such as SEEDIG, EuroDIG or EuroSSIG, APrIGF, APNIC, AFRINIC, IGF as we've been all active in all these arenas for more than 5 years now. Best practices relating to inclusion and enabling sustainable development will translate into programs the state can drive to encourage inclusion as well
The outcome of the session will be shared in a blog on Digital Grassroots website (https://www.digitalgrassroots.org)

Best practices relating to i and enabling sustainable development will translate into programs the state can drive to encourage inclusion. And as all of the speakers for our session have been active in the Internet Governance field for several years now, we have experiences to share with the rest of the audience and other participants by sharing our experiences, and by expanding our networks in the IGF. Some of the participants have already made feasible changes in the Internet governance field thanks to their active participation as session organizers, panelists and conference speakers in the Internet governance field over the past years.

Relevance to Theme: The issue of sustainable development remains a fundamental right particularly in the digital age. ICTs have the ability to both promote development and render those on the fray of society marginalized. The state has a responsibility to drive digital literacy programs and local content to encourage participation in the global economy.

The Sustainable Development Goals, and ensuring diversity and inclusion in developing the ICTs are critical for uplifting humankind. ICTs have made the world a smaller more accessible place. It must also teach us to expand our consciousness sufficiently to care about other nations. The protection of basic human rights is central to development. The right to development is in itself a human right as billions of people have a right to advance and improve their quality of life. ICTs can serve as a conduit to political, social, economic and cultural progress.

Developing countries obtain access through mobile and wireless infrastructure
Access to ICTs have become as essential as other utility services, as well as ensuring cyber security and engaging more participants, and not to mention orchestrating proper policies and laws which ultimately regulate the development of these technologies.


Relevance to Internet Governance: The panelists have different backgrounds but they are all active in their regional IGF communities and came together after meeting at the Global IGF to share their journeys to the youth and anyone interested to join the IGF community.
Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences as well

Online Participation

The online moderator will be responsible of organizing the online interaction and notify the onsite moderator about the online interventions

Proposed Additional Tools: Will use a dedicated hashtag on Social Media Platforms (Facebook & Twitter) and encourage both online and onsite participants to use it to share their reflections