Relevance to Theme: This session is youth-led from a dynamic diverse sharing our experiences, initiatives, recommendations, and advisory insights post-IGF 2018, Access and inclusion is a topic of interest especially starting with the fact connecting the next billion will include most people who are working to rise up the economic ladder and the youth constitute almost 60% of the world population. This means the next innovators, utilizers, and leaders of the internet are young people since we also constitute the majority of people online today.
Being responsible for this it is vital that we young people today foster a simultaneous intergenerational relationship that can help us understand the roles we take as internet leaders and activists, as relevant examples first we need to create an infrastructure and ecosystem that each young person can at least access basic internet connection and use it for prosperity, this has to be brought hand in hand with an effective digital literacy program localized and open to aid young people to understand and become netizens that can effectively participate online and use the resources to drive innovation through the internet invariants.
Interaction has shifted dynamically so is the economy of the world that technocracies are emerging fast and they are the future of our economies and work, without being adapted to this wagon polarity will increase and eventually a large gap in the digital division, young people today we are more tolerant and have the aptitudes of interacting and innovating in the digital sphere an area that we contribute to its sustainability, yet without having access to the available network that we can afford and understand, difficulties arise in utilizing these technologies. The potent matter is to collective use young minds in sharing our ideas, experiences as internet users and come up with proposals in connecting the next billion and how youth inclusion and participation is a key to realizing this
Relevance to Internet Governance: Collective participation to a multistakeholder approach with authentic youth experiences and proposals, characteristically the internet invariants and attributes of openness, decentralization, and end to end delivery have made it a haven for young people to have a safe place of innovation and expression that has seen the growth of companies like Facebook, Uber, Google all led with a young culture, the problem arises is when we have to deal with the generation gap due to lack of an intergenerational relationship among different sections of the multistakeholder approach. This leads to things like government censorship and internet shutdowns that lead to massive drawbacks economically and in terms of development especially for most young people dependant on the internet for life to be sustained this already creates the tension of coexistence of the multistakeholder approach coming together inclusively to build the internet, relevant case study is what's happening in Sudan, OTT tax in Uganda, the growing trend of internet being seen as the enemy, and growing the digital divide . This is because the relevant narratives of digital inclusion among all people have not seen a consolidates platform that's why expression, media pluralism and democracy is threatened. Seats at the table are being removed and chances not given due to a mindset problem in some areas especially Government collaboration with other sectors of civil society when it comes to developing the internet, hence a massive infringement of digital rights, access to the internet, development of affordable resource and widespread internet infrastructure stagnates because the relevancy narrative of digital inclusion has not been given a platform to be listened to and its benefits realized.
Digital inclusion cannot be sustained without digital literacy for all people, access to the internet and its consolidating as a healthy trusted asset network of collaboration and interoperability and this is brought when internet governance creates values to follow and blueprints to attain this cooperation. Youth are the ones exposed to a more open procedure and aptitude of experimental based decision making that can help boost more equitable decision making once we are given the table to share and implement our thoughts and philosophies as leaders pushing for an open, safe internet for all. Shaped by the build of internet governance
