The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: With your permission, we'll start. More will join us, we'll go the flow.
I'm Shreedeep Rayamajhi. I'm the organizer. I'm from Nepal. You know, I represent a new collaborative community project called Learn Internet Governs, basically targeting youth.
I would firstly like other people to introduce themselves as well.
>> MWENDWA KIVUVA: I'm from Sri Lanka, secretary to the Internet Safety Project and coordinator for IGF Sri Lanka. I'm working in the private sector as a managing director. I'll share my opinions, my views, my experiences with you regarding how we're going to collaborate with youth and why we need youth to be collaborated in this arena.
Thanks.
>> ARIS IGNACIO: Good morning. I'm Aris Ignacio. I'm from the Philippines and currently I'm Dean of College of information Technology. I'm also part of the Internet Society Philippine chapter as the Vice President for Development and part of APRIGF. I will be sharing with you some of the things that we have done, especially bringing the youth to the table, we're in discussions of the IGF.
Thank you.
>> DAVID: I'm from eHelp Association based in Hong Kong, and we're talking about the safety of Internet for children and the next generation. I have engaged the Asian region on the promotion of the youth engagement in the Internet Governance. Although I'm really not working in that area because of my current position, I would like to share my previous experience on the difficulties and also the challenges of how we can put youth to the table, engaging in the Internet Governance economy and also the ecosystem. There's some challenges. I think it is interesting to put everyone on the table and different stakeholder perspective to share and also trying to tackle those issues, to engage the whole communities in this kind of discussion.
Thank you.
>> BURNA SANTOS: I'm Burna Santos from Brazil. I'm a member of the Youth Observatory which is a special interest group of Internet Society.
The idea today for maybe for us to talk about how we have with been working in the Latin American region in order to empower youth to discuss Internet Governance properly with capacity building measures and also actions in Latin America.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: For this session, we did a certain survey around the world and we have the results.
Can I have the presentation?
We'll share the results and probably come out with the report soon. These are some of the results.
Can you make it big?
During the survey, what we could see or what we could figure out is, you know, a lot of respondents communicated with us, and there was this difference in between the youth of developed nations and the youth of developing nations. There was a huge difference. You could see the difference in the results.
I think we can make it big, full screen. Great.
The next slide.
So our survey was the 33 person, 50 and above persons, they were 4.3% and 18 to ‑‑ you know, we had a maximum of people who attended the survey, and it was 57.4 person.
Next slide.
The 2.1%, female was 36.2% and male, it was 61.7%. We wanted to bring in more women respondents as well, but this is what we could get.
As for region, we had Asia‑Pacific, we had the most respondents; America, we had around 7, 8; from Africa, we had more than 10; from Europe, we had around 2, 3. The survey was done in a month. The responses were less, but we managed to secure around 50 people.
The first question that was there, where do youth stand as a stakeholder in IG process? You could clearly see the data, you know, that there is a confusion whether youth should be a stakeholder. The choices were people thought 40% very important, extremely important, it was 45.5% and they should be involved was 14.5%. This kind of like shows the confusion, you know, in people of taking youth as a stakeholder. It is still there, but it is not clear.
Counts of how do you think youth should be involved in IG process? The indicators were policy and research, awareness, communication, networking and next generation of all ages. With these indicators, everybody was so sure and a majority of the people voted for all, the 60%. Next generation leaders was voted 29. The numbers are also there. It got around 14 votes. Communication and networks was 25% of the people who voted for it. Awareness, 13. Policy and research, it was 14.5 and 7%.
The next question was, why should youth be involved in IG process? The indicate considers were they face the issues and problems, they're the next generation leaders and they are the most vulnerable group. They face their issues and problems scored 64.5%, that was 31 people rated it. They are the next generation leaders, 81.2% of people. So we got around 39 votes for this. The most vulnerable group, 21 people voted for it. More or less you could see the dynamics about youth being vulnerable is recognized. At the same time, you know, people do have the intentions of the next generation leaders and how important it is to bring in the youth. We can clearly see the clash, you know, this first one, where we talk about stakeholder, and then there is a certain difference.
The next question was, what are the challenges for youth leadership in Internet Governance? The indicators were lack of basic knowledge of Internet core values, complicated Internet policies, nepotism and favoritism, limited mentality, communication and network, Internet Governance itself, Internet policy and infrastructure, diversity, too technical. The indicator, lack of basic knowledge of Internet or core value, 72.91%; complicated Internet politics, 62.5%, that was 30 votes; nepotism and favoritism, it was 0.2%; limited mentality, it was 14.5%; communication and networks was 37%. Internet governance itself, as it is complicated, it was 18.75%. Internet policy infrastructure was 34; diversity, 14.5%; too technical, 16.6%; most of Internet is 16.66%. So you may be quite confused in the idea of how much do these have such a percentage. What we had done, we had allowed multiple actions. People were choosing multiple options.
Next slide.
The next question is why do you think that there is a limitation for youth involvement in IG process? The indicators were lack of awareness, limited opportunity, nepotism and favoritism again, lack of promotion of fellowship, limited mentality, lack of communication and collaboration and lack of interest and lack of multistakeholder concept. Lack of awareness was 68, limited opportunity, it scored 56.2%, nepotism and favoritism, 25%, lack of promotion of fellowship, 47.9%, limited mentality, 12.5%, lack of communication and collaboration, 47%, lack of interest, 2.0%, lack of multistakeholder concept was 68%.
The next question, with a should be done to promote youth engagement and involvement. The indicators were more fellowship. So that was 35.4% secure. Better ‑‑ next slide. Yeah.
So better awareness campaign, scored 66.66%.
Collaborative approach from all sides, 62.5%.
Easy funding methods, 54.16.
Better communication and networks, 64.58.
Diversity, 27.08.
More online interactions, 4.83.
Simplification of IG process, 39.58.
So this question certainly highlights, you know, some engagement rules and why there is a challenge in terms of youth. Currently we're working on the report. If you would like to receive the report, please there's a paper, please give us your email address and we'll probably send it to you? The IGF is over and the findings of the survey was there was a youth gap, engagement, fellowship, coaching and mentoring program, next generation policy in Internet organization, more it collaboration from all sides diversity.
While doing the survey, while rating the indicators, I strongly believe the reality of the youth gap, because a youth of a developed nation, a youth of developing nation, it has different indicators, different knowledge and different mindset. That needs to be targeted. That needs to be integrated in the coaching and mentoring programs as well, especially for fellows that come out here to all these Internet events and when they go back, most of the times the engagement seems very nil.
I think coaching and mentoring needs further enhancement in the promoting in how they should use the resources. Learn IG itself is a program we organized, the Fellows, you know, we started to reach out. We have 0 funding, the only thing we have is energy. We started reaching out to different countries in Asia and now we stand somewhere and we have a lot of documents ‑‑ you know, you could build something out of that.
More or less, diversity itself, because the gap needs to come down. People need to interact. That's somewhere lacking.
I probably end my presentation. If you have any questions, we'll probably take the questions, and during the timeframe, when we are discussing, if you have a question, please do raise your hand. We'll address the questions because we want to make it a more formal pattern, we need other youth and need to collaborate in so many ways. We're certainly wanting to work with you, motivate you, inspire you and collaborate with you.
Now we start the discussion session. Now I would like to ask the panelists regarding the youth challenges and problems or if they have anything in regards to the presentation I have made, if you have certain questions or want to say something, please do say.
I would ask Aris first.
>> ARIS IGNACIO: Thank you. With regards to the presentation that you have, I think it is quite enlightening that there are some instances and some of these problems that haven't ‑‑ that you have presented that the youth needs to know and with regards to all of those things, that needs to be taken care of, for them to be able to be more involved. It is a very good presentation. Hopefully we can get the report sometime soon.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: The efforts you have been doing from your college, bringing a lot of people from your college to the APrIGF. Can you share more, tell us what's going on, of how you're taking the step? There is no funding, right? You're doing it on your own?
>> ARIS IGNACIO: First of all, there is really no funding. We are just coordinating, particularly with David for the start of it.
What we do, actually the way we do it, it is really ‑‑ at first, they're really not into the IG thing. IG discussion in the Philippines, it is really in its infancy. A lot of the students only are concerned with things such as our Internet is so slow, I'm having problems connecting, so on, so forth. It is really more of a really enlightening of them of how they would be able to be on the table ‑‑ actually it is really a funny thing to encourage ‑‑ I started in our university to encourage them to be able to go there on their own. Actually I told them that it is merely first to listen. It is my selling point actually. It is my selling point. out of that one, I inserted a lot of things going forwards before they go home ‑‑ before they go to the event itself. It is like I train them with what IG is.
Actually one of the platforms that we utilize is the Learn IG platform, the one that Shreedeep Rayamajhi has been promoting, and they have learned a lot from that. At least they have an idea before they went there. With the cooperation of others, they're immersed with some of the realities with regard to the IG discussions. They're able to emerge themselves and have a taste of it. That's why the following year they have this urge already to come, even though some of them are a repeater of coming, going there, and still they have to spend on their own. It is very, very enlightening and I'm very happy that they have the chance, even though they're spending it on their own because, that rare chance, to discuss the issues that they really want to tell the public.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you.
Now I would like to ask Burna Santos on the topic, to share her experience about the Latin and even with the NCUC, what you have been doing and promoting a lot of youth.
>> BURNA SANTOS: I forgot to mention, NCC.
NCC, it is the non‑commercial users’ constituency inside of ICANN. It is a place for the Civil Society to engage with ICANN, if you will, and working on the DS, domain system, and critical resources.
On the NCC side, given that it is like a Civil Society place, we have been trying to outreach to new voices so especially the Latin community the idea has been, like, to show what the DS is about and have people willing to volunteer and work with it so far.
On the more broad IG point of view, being a member of the Youth Observatory has been one of the things that have uplifted sort of my trajectory in IG. I have been working for the Brazilian government for the past year, but I was always doing some sort of a backstage job. I didn't get to attend the forums. Having this great network of fellow Latins who were working at the same subject, it is amazing.
We just completed our two‑year Anniversary. We have launched this book, it is about analysis of connected youth. We also have the same problems, lack of funding lack of awareness. We have tried to reach out to possible funder, people willing to collaborate with us. For this book we counted on Internet Society and Safer Net, a Brazilian NGO, and this is pretty much what we have been doing, working on capacity building, talking to people, showing what we're about and this is what we have been working on so far.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you for sharing the experience.
Now I would request the young, passionate Jianne Soriano. She has done a lot of credible work in pushing the IG towards the young people. She's an icon. I would like to ask her, you know, what the experiences are, what is the real challenges are, when dealing with young people. You know, if you look at the table right now, there are a lot of ‑‑ we are ‑‑ we consider ourselves youth, but not the age! You know, we have to accept that and move forward.
Please.
>> JIANNE SORIANO: Just echoing what Aris and Burna said, also the problem is also having young people who are actually interested in Internet Governance issues.
In Hong Kong, not a lot of young people are also interested in Internet Governance, and usually they focus on things that are closer to them, social media, something. One of the problems is actually encouraging people who are not ‑‑ young people that are not from technical backgrounds to join the initiative. Personally, I'm not from a technical background as well. That's one of the challenges.
Of course, there's also funding problems, that we have to look for fundings ourselves. Sometimes for young people, it is difficult because we don't have a lot of experience, so‑called experience behind us. We have to show that we can do this. What we can do, what we can give back to the people who support us. Yeah.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: That gives us the light to understand young people more. We do feel it inside, you know, the needs, and the reality is we have to accept, as dynamic as the Internet is, the youth, they're born with mobile phones so we have to understand and take that step.
Now I would like to request David to talk about his initiatives and what he's doing and what challenges he feels.
Please, if you have any question, please say your name and raise your hand. Please feel free to ask us questions or if there is anything that's happening in your country, we would love to hear it, we would love to collaborate.
Please, David.
>> DAVID: I'm doing some promotion on safer Internet for the next generation in Hong Kong by bringing a network. On this sense, I would like to highlight an important point, it is as we have all mentioned about lack of interest of students and students nowadays on the Internet Governance issue. I do think it is very important to raise awareness on the digital citizenship of the next generation nowadays and actually it is how they can behave online. This area, I do think Internet Governance engagement is one of the means to make our next generation participate in the process and building a sense of belonging on how they can bring emphasis to the situation on this sense.
Regarding some challenges in the sense is ‑‑ I think all the panel said, agreed that they do not know about Internet Governance, there is a platform for them to engage in the policy discussion, no matter how on the area, they just focus on social media, playing computer games, that's the reality. On the other hand it is possible to integrate those ideas and they can engage in the process in a curriculum in the schools, for schools to promote it from a very young age, the concept of they can really participate in the process. I think education is one of the method and also putting that into the curriculum of every country's ‑‑ it is a way to detect problems.
On the other hand, I do think there are important models to adopt. Right now I do see from the Youth Observatory, also some others, partners from the youth groups that engage in the Internet Governance discussion, the leaders of the Internet Governance discussion nowadays. What they can do next is bring this back to our community, be the leaders and trainers to our peers. I do think although there is a lot of challenges to bringing the community to the group or the discussion, how about on the other hand we can go back to our community and go to the local level to do the work, this is a way ‑‑ some probabilities are in these kinds of areas.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you, David.
The reality is, you know, there are a lot of open Forums and, you know, discussion groups where youth, where it is like open. The thing is, youth are lacking. You know, basically when we talk about funding or opportunity, it is there. It is there. It is not coming out. What do you feel is the problem? As we listed down, there were some issues, you know. It is technical, yes. We do consider this technical. What should be done to make it more focused in terms of how we can generate awareness and how we can reach grass root level.
You know, if any of you could feel free to talk about this issue.
>> BURNA SANTOS: I was thinking about what David was saying and thinking about the ICANN community especially.
The ICANN community, it is one of the communities in which volunteering is very necessary. People are starting ‑‑ not starting ‑‑ again people are facing some problems of volunteering burnout. You have the more established community members who are no longer willing or are tired of working with this special subject. We have this gap in which you have the fellowship program, you have the more established community members, and there is nothing in between because they don't quite want to engage with the youth, because they also see us as ‑‑ as it is we didn't know the subject well, as if we were some professional travelers.
I really have ‑‑ I have a huge problem with this prejudice that we often encounter as young people joining Committees. I don't like being seen as a professional traveler or someone who is not willing to work.
This would be the first problem I would like to highlight.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: I wanted to ask you, Burna, ICANN, it is more wiki focused, because of the issues, people are not that friendly.
>> BURNA SANTOS: Well, I don't know really. It is ‑‑ Internet Governance for itself is a hard subject. Us Brazilians, we're so proud of multistakeholderism but it is hard to engage Brazilian youth on the subject. It is not that the community is hard. It is more of a problem of the subject itself.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: I think we have a question.
>> AUDIENCE: Two or three points. When looking at Internet Governance, it is a vast issue. ICANN's mandates are quite limited to just names and numbers, so there are only certain things which ICANN can look at. Yes, there needs to be more young voices and more inclusive and there are discussions going on in terms of increasing the ICANN's diversity in the accountability tracks. There is much that's been done, but there is more to be done, that's one point.
Second, when talking about youth not being interested in the subject, we need to understand that if you go and tell them, okay, let's talk about Internet Governance, it is not going to matter to anyone, you have to say how it impacts them. When they're using their mobiles, surfing Internet, what they do, what they're not doing, how it is being captured, whether it is an advantage for them, disadvantage, what are the issues which can come from cyberbullying or anything is something which ‑‑ you know, the impact of that, if it is explained well, would actually help.
Thirdly, there are very few role models to explain it to the youth. Obviously, it there are not many adults who can explain it to them. For example, a father would not be able to explain to its child how to use the mobile, they don't even know how to actually restrict ‑‑ not restrict, but to build up a behavior. Those are things that the generations ahead needs to learn. It is a learning process for everyone. I think I agree that people that do have some amount of information, they need to go back to the communities and communicate and get issues and perhaps a Forum which you are kind of looking at would definitely help in exchanging information, thoughts and come up with certain Best Practices which can help.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you.
I think we have an online question.
>> AUDIENCE: This is from Brazil.
Why youth on the table, wouldn't that reproduce all models of non‑interactive panels, how about youth as speakers?
>> PANELIST: Not trying to answer that question.
Of course, we should all try to engage in an open conversation. Picking on what was just mentioned, it is very interesting, my 5‑year‑old daughter just a few weeks ago just asked me a very big question, what is the Internet? I was, like, totally tongue‑tied. I was like, okay, how do I answer that?
Back on the subject, there are I think three areas. We have been involved in youth engagement and development for 10 years now. We did a bit of a review this year, and there are three areas that are very important, a couple have been mentioned. One, the knowledge, we have to equip people with knowledge to engage. The other, having a platform, having a platform to actually speak out. Both, we kind of have now. One of the things that we're missing, and it is a resounding note from young people, young people seeing what they participated and seeing the results from it. That's very hard.
20 years ago actually when I was still a young person, a youth starting to participate in Internet Governance, that was 1999. I was much more able to see what I participated and seen the results of it much sooner. Within three months I would see something happen, within 6 months you would see something happen. Nowadays because of the growth, it is much more difficult, but without seeing the results, without seeing the impact that young people can put on certain issues, it is hard to get them to come back.
That's something that we're trying to figure out. I think others, please help us too. How do we get young people to participate, and then see some of that have impact in policies, in things that no matter whether it is ICANN or other Forums to see that impact? That's what's going to get people to keep coming back I think.
>> ARIS IGNACIO: It is like we ‑‑ I'm lucky to be in a position where I have with the curriculum in our institution. It is like we integrated some of the IG concepts already going towards each and every subject and enlightening some of the students of what IG is.
Besides that, we ‑‑ I also try to bring them to some of the policy sessions and even some forum, conferences. You know, that can stimulate their interests, and not only that, I also tell them to volunteer. Volunteer not only to speak, but to do some of the groundwork where they would be part of the organizing Committee. So on, so forth. They would see and they would be able to speak to people who are involved in IG. More often than not, it is because of that, it sparked their interest. With that interest, hopefully in the future they'll be able to participate more.
>> Taking from the experience of the last year and also with other discussions in the past, we do think that there is some road models or Best Practice for the youth engagement program, not only on IG but in general that's quite famous, for example, the successful model that comes with branding, also in the marketing, all students who know about model U.N., they're actively engaged, there are even some chapters in local areas doing their own work and sending people to U.N. to have a taste of how the discussion is. I think it is quite an interesting model to take reference on.
Right now I saw in the past few years we organized a youth IGF programs and I saw there is some potential to take reference to bring some models to bring some integration.
In terms of branding, we can cooperate with some schools in the local areas and we're doing local engagement processes youth can participate in the program. There are some advantages of youth, Internet Governance Forum initiative in the coming future on this kind of area in terms of branding, new participation, participating in the process.
Yeah. That's my 2‑cents.
Thank you.
>> JIANNE SORIANO: I want to offer a youth opinion on the point that you said.
I personally started when I was in secondary school and now I'm graduating from my undergrad. It is, like, you have been doing this, going to conferences, sharing experiences for four years and you start ‑‑ you feel ‑‑ you start to ask where will you see ‑‑ how will you see your work ‑‑ how will you see your work have an impact like what Edmond said. We want to see what we do as creating an impact to the community. Of course, going to conferences starts conversations, people get to hear our opinions, but how do you take it further? It is not just ‑‑ we don't want to just keep talking and talking and there's no action later on. I think that's also something that young people and different groups need to think about and collaborate on.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you, Jianne.
We have a few questions.
>> AUDIANCE: Thank you so much. I'm from ISOC Youth at IGF. Thank you for your amazing stories and the work you're doing.
I want to give two contributions: First of all, I want to say that in this room the youth engaging are those that are mostly connected and those that already have some information. Those who are disconnected or having problems in the countries with low Internet penetration we have to also bring to the table. What we're doing with the youth of IGF, we created a project, Digital Grassroots, this is where we work with young people 29 years and below to reach local communities where they have Internet problems. How we do this, is by engaging people in communities that have difficult access by having one focal contact, if one person has knowledge and knows how to use the Internet and engage with it to create better policies they can then educate others in the community that don't have that knowledge. That way, even though the communities are not connected, the one person can educate them so that once the infrastructure starts to come they'll be up to speed with it and, of course, we're open to engaging with other youth projects and we can meet afterwards.
My other contribution was also Burna made mention of funding. There is a lack of trust for young people, like we see in a multistakeholder meeting. When a young person speaks, they take us like, yeah, like professional travelers, we don't know what we're talking about. Young people should be taken more seriously because we do know why we're here. This also translates to the funding process, they expect the young person to have years of experience, but if someone has a good project there has to be a level of trust to the young person.
Thank you so much.
>> ROHAN: Thank you for the comment on how getting a result from your actual what you put in, something that's important. I think that's not only something that's good for youth, but also for adults, of course.
Something that I wanted to add is that youth empowerment is something that's very important. As when a youth comes to events like these, they may seem overwhelmed by the atmosphere or, like, by the knowledge of other people. Just yesterday I was sitting with the President of Switzerland, stuff like that. The problem is that youth may feel like their contributions may not be as worth it as the contributions of others as they may not have the knowledge, et cetera. I feel it is important to make youth know that they're the users of ‑‑ they're one of the main users of the Internet and giving them an idea that they actually matter and the contributions matter is something that's very important. Otherwise, they may come to these events, but the voices will not be heard. So giving them something to speak up about, it is very important to me. I want to hear your thoughts on how we can do it.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: I would love to share my experience: In 2013, it was my first IGF, I started involving in the field from 2007 and it was the first IGF that I attended. When I stood up, shared my story, you know, people said I was wrong. People said I was wrong. You are not. These things doesn't happen in our part of the country, or in our region. I stood up there. I said my story. I was attacked for reporting online as a citizen journalism and there were people, you know, they said as if the issue was not there. Right. I spoke. You know, the energy, the goodness that I felt, you know, because I stood for change.
Literally, when I came out of the room I felt I shouldn't have been there. I felt that. It was a huge embarrassment. Somebody from a representative organization said that. I didn't ‑‑ you know, I didn't shut her down. I just went forward. Today I'm here, I'm here with Learn IG. Salute your efforts, people are there, people will support you, it is not just one discussion.
I will tell you with Learn IG, we have tried to approach all of the Internet organization, none of them said no, no funding, no nothing. I said we will do it. We will do this. We will start. It took two, three years. We have documents, lists of documents, we're working on Child Online Protection, working on other issues. It is not just being vulnerable or being ‑‑ feeling low. It is about seeing the people, matching the interest, networking. These events, they're for you, the youth.
I understand there are lapses that ‑‑ within the training programs, we need to improve and understand you. That's where the problem is. The leadership is coming, they're realizing certain changes are not possible. Things are changing. When things change, you will be there, we'll be there, you know, to secure our rights.
I was excited.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm an Amazon Fellow. I have a suggestion and a question.
In terms of youth engagement program that we have across different countries and we all discussed that, what are the challenges, what are the approaches, what are the different solutions that worked out in your countries and that didn't work out in your countries, and same, perhaps, in my own country. I would suggest that there should be some sort of a database with the support of a major organization, because we have tried doing that on our own, but it kind of doesn't get that support from the individual communities. A support from the major organization, in that region, for an online database, where some of the leaders could come and discuss some issues and challenges and the approaches to that. Things that worked out in my country perhaps may not work out in your country, but it will give you an understanding of how to change the approach and how to fix them.
Also in terms of influencing youth and other general public for issues of Internet Governance, that's a major challenge. When doing an Internet Governance school a lot of people thought actually we'll talk about eGovernance or eGovernment or ‑‑ it didn't take a long time. It took them like 5, 10 minutes to realize that this is Internet Governance directly related to their daily life and things like that. They were a lot more interested in eGovernance.
Associating the current political issues, the digital issues, like policies that the government bring forth, the public services that affects every individual's life, associating those issues with the Internet Governance or with the seminars or whatever that we're doing in each country, those help us a lot in terms of getting the attraction from either the youth or general public, or let's say children or women, the two minority groups that are highly influenced.
Aside from that, a couple of questions that I have, either one or two questions, it is what platform it is or venues did you use in order to ‑‑ the school you had, the webinars, seminars, whatever workshops, sessions that you did in your individual countries as in the beginning, by platforms and venues, did you go out to schools, universities, private businesses, other Civil Society organizations, and which were more appropriate and who were more eager to listen and to want you to come back.
Also, what formats did you use. Did you use webinar, remote sessions with other organizations or did you call a speaker from other ‑‑ from the other organization like ICANN or others or did you have your own experts available in the local country and use them.
Thank you.
>> BURNA SANTOS: I called to answer first.
So far, the Youth Observatory, we have been trying ‑‑ we have different fronts, the types of things we're doing.
In Brazil, we have some members who have ‑‑ the Bar Association of Brazil, in order tore help them to go to schools, law schools as well and to teach some stuff and how to protect ourselves online and another interesting topic. Not only going to schools, I'm here to talk about Internet Governance, some of us are trying to focus on a subject in order to get ‑‑ to catch the attention and get more people involved.
Besides that, we also have been ‑‑ we have been ‑‑ we just organized a second edition of the youth IGF at the youth Forum, one day earlier this year, this year it was done in Panama. We had reached out to venue, we're a group of young people, we don't have money, could you please give us the venue for free or at least for a lower price. This is pretty much what we have been doing. We have been portraying how much of a starter we are and how much help we need in order to reach out to people. We don't restrain from reaching to the private sector. For the youth IGF we have spoken to ‑‑ I think it was Google and Facebook in order to look for funding. We got some. A good thing would be not to restrain yourself to funding possibilities. If you don't like the private sector, it shouldn't be a problem, you should be able to reach pretty much anybody because this is a multistakeholder arena and you should not restrain from talking to people.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you.
We have a question from the floor. Please make it short. We have limited time. We have a presentation here too.
>> HELENA: I'm an ISOC Youth Fellow.
It is an important discussion, but what I notice amongst my peers is a lot of us are not interested in learning about Internet Governance and cybersecurity. And I'm aware that the Internet of Things is happening and information is solved, but we're choosing to overlook the breaches of privacy for the sake of continuing to use the devices and platforms we want. I notice they should be more personalized and humanized approach initiatives so the question to the panel is what inspired you to become involved in Internet Governance and why.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: I will answer this. I feel close to the topic.
When we started Learn IG, it works in three ways, the social media, the Forum, we have a Google Forum, and we have the content. With the content, you know, all of the courses, with all of the history of Internet, somehow, you know, when I started Internet Governance I did the Diplo course and I was kind of, you know, I thought it would not be that interesting for the youth. What we did, we developed this content which are very specific. For people interested in core values, we have a base for that, people who are interested in the current information or the cyber‑itis, anything, it we have specific contents. We have short listed the Internet Governance terminology that will help you to more adapt.
You know, it can be a variation of how you can work it your way according to your country.
Is there any comment regarding that?
>> ARIS IGNACIO: To answer your question, I went to IG by accident. Actually, it is really accident. You know, I was enlighted with the fact that youth can really create something. You can create an impact later on which would really impact the future and more often than not the youth w we concentrated towards the youth because we know that this youth would be the future leaders of our generation, of the coming generation. So as more often than not as an inspiration, youth became an inspiration of mine because of the academia. As much as possible, I need ‑‑ we need to build up the youth in preparation for what's coming.
>> DAVID: I would like to respond to the comments about youth perspective.
I was engaged not in the Internet Governance in a very young age, but back around the age of 14 I was Ambassador to the U.N. Convention on rights of the child, the child right stuff. I was doing some trainings and also participated in the discussion and I was a major ‑‑ I was studying in sociology and it seems it is really unrelated to IG and in the past few years I was working with Asia and supporting that mission to doing the youth engagement work, I engaged in the discussion. In a sense I would like to say ‑‑ sorry, now I'm working on a new initiative on the child protection and those security issues to doing some promotion which links back to my previous interest on the student right issue. Internet is about how the students can engage and participate in the process.
I would say from my experience, it is don't underestimate the emphasis of youth. You can still make changes. You have some people in the past few years, in this kind of conference, you can seek for a larger network and in a sense you can ask how to move on things and really engage and really enjoy. For my it interest on student rights, it seems not just linked to the Internet but there is in other ways some linkage. I would say in the way that it is a super awesome experience and opportunity to meet with other people from other worlds and also in a high position, you can ask for their opinions and even ask for their help. Some days things will become better somehow. Yeah.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you, David.
>> JIANNE SORIANO: I was a youth at IGF Fellow last year. I started my IGF journey in secondary school. I didn't know anything about Internet Governance, but two teammates were studying ICT and I was studying literature and we had to do a research report. What we did, we combined our interests and because of that, we were able to go to the IGF in Bali at that time and that got me involved in Internet Governance, and later on I also organized the YIGF. I think going to these kinds of conferences helps you to meet people who are interested to help you, to give you ‑‑ to provide you a platform that you can use later on in the future and like what David said, maybe start your own initiative later on.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you, Jianne.
We have a small presentation.
>> MAHEESHWARA KIRINDIGODA: This is a question that's been raised online by Brazil. This is our Sri Lanka perspective, and we have the IGF secretariat and those that organized it for Sri Lanka and also Learn IG.
First of all, the United Nations, they defined youth as the best understood from childhood, adulthood, independence. In the Sri Lanka government definition, Sri Lanka defines youth as between 15 and 29‑year‑old people. Is it true for all countries? Is it all true? No. It is fluid.
The definition is great because it depends on the culture and the social backgrounds of the society. Those communities, not even in the countries even, so who are youth? We have millennials, Generation Y, we have over 5 billion people considered as youth. It is nice to read this, why there is a global uprising led by youth. This is an answer of why we need youth on the table, in policy positions. Youth are priceless.
The reason global youth are priceless, we can see that youth, it is the movers, mainly within occupying Wallstreet, others, and not only this, but Sri Lanka has made some of the discussions that we have now. But, before that, we have to hear something good and something sweet. Focal point on youth, there is a United Nations program on youth, it is under the Economic and Social Affairs which is UNDESA, the same department of IGF falls under. So it is better that we know that there's a combination in between the departments where we can reach the departments very easily as IGF. These are the typical characteristics of a youth. You may know because you almost here, you are the youth, part of the youth like us. They have a lot to test. They have some limits. They have attitude. They think they know all. They like to face challenges. They're vulnerable, emotionally insecure, fear of rejection. They lack full liability. Think, identify and often ‑‑ these are some characteristics, not all, but we have to identify these characteristics of youth by physical, social, emotional, mental characteristics before we're going on.
In 1971 and 1988 we had two looks at youth. Although this has been identified at political places, this was done by youth. Unfortunate thing, we lost more than 2,000, but there are a lot more youth that died. We don't want to talk into these numbers. This is a ‑‑ it was ‑‑ it was what we all know we need, is harmony in society. We need to live in harmony. We had a situation of a three‑decade war in our country. My whole youth was under that period. It is hard. We don't need that situation back again. We need to look at the reasons and why the youth is coming on.
First, it is youth unemployment which causes depression, frustration, loss of hope among youth. Post‑independence, distribution of resources related to the country, I believe it is not normal ‑‑ it is similar to most of the colonial countries. Education, class disparity due to the political, national policies. Issues on languages ‑‑ because our country has two major languages, so there is an issue on languages ‑‑ limited or unlimited, zero inclusiveness in youth in the political developments.
In 1976 while creating the Constitution, there was a panel, and youth were included, but their inputs were not taken into the making of the policy of the association.
Why we are categorizing these reasons under knowledge, education, economy, social needs, we have these issues. We're in an era of information. You recall it is a digital era. We have an Internet Governance Forum. It creates a platform to people to come here, to come to share their opinions, share identity and analyze an action on the issues they identify.
In the information era, most values is information or knowledge. People should have opportunity to learn, to get educated, so the future, it is well ‑‑ the most vulnerable community, it is youth. Again, the research was done within the developed country, 24% of teens are online almost constantly, they have the smartphones in hand. They are almost always connected. The Learn IG research and the other research, it shows the trend what the youth are going on. This should come into the IG arena. They should not ‑‑ it is not knowledgeable on the Internet Governance, otherwise there is a big problem because up rises can arise.
So two things: We're in a session of the Internet Governance Forum. The topic is share the digital future. I would just like to define, this is not for the old people. We have to shape this Internet for the future generations. Can we do it without youth? The answer is no. What we have to do, we have to educate, support them, bring them to this table. Especially the people behind the initiative, it is learn from their heart, learn by their experiences, and they know what they felt in the future ‑‑ in the past. They're making the future and they invite you to go into the Learn IG platform.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Thank you for that presentation.
Now I would like to highlight the issues that a few of us have raised in terms of, you know, how we should get the new age people talking about IG process. You know, how are we going to do that? That's a major case. Grass root initiatives are all about people like you need fellows, you know, we came to all of these events, we go back, we do nothing. That is something where the problem is. If we could coordinate, you know, just a way, it is possible, we need to be ‑‑ you know, we need to talk around these topics and as they said, you know, volunteering, it is an option, you start by volunteering, the work that you do, it is very passionate, you know. It is something like you're bringing change. You are standing for something that's right.
I would like to further talk about, you know, for starting new initiatives, what other challenges or are there any stories that you have when you started, those are the things that motivate you. You know, I would love to hear something from David or Aris on this. Is there any story or challenge or experience that specifically targets the grass root level initiatives and how you'll reach out to the youth? A lot of people have said, you know, there's a problem for youth to understand the whole thing. Why is there a problem?
>> DAVID: With regard to our case, after APrIGF, after YIGF, the students, they were very adamant in organizing an event and we have done it for two years in a row now where they were bringing in people, more particularly University students to know more about IG, it is a simple thing, it is a simple fora we're in. We invited speakers with different backgrounds with regards to some of the IG topics that are out there. For example, security, digital literacy, so on, so forth.
So we're doing it two years in a row now. We're going on the third year. The students who attended the event are the ones organizing it and they're the ones who facilitate everything from getting funding from the private sector and help coming from the government and some other non‑profit organizations. Another thing is that currently they are now starting to create a digital literacy project. It is more on in a training, training the ones who are in the rural areas and they started it with one of the schools which are quite near to us and they do lack the equipment and some facilities that needed to be implemented in order for them to be able to have that training. They provided a search, they asked for help for some private people and private institutions to lend them a hand as a start. Because we lack funding, we don't have anything actually. With that, they were able to facilitate training. More often than not it is based on Open Source. We cannot really afford such proprietary software. Open source, they installed it amongst themselves and created all of the materials and conducted the training amongst themselves.
>> DAVID: Regarding my experience, I would share an experience from the area.
For the initiative I'm working on right now, it is about Child Online Safety Internet based in Hong Kong to look at the abusive content, child pornography, inappropriate content. An issue, it is lack of funding. In this sense, the group is trying to look at the traditional NGO, the INGO, like the safety of children to get support on the funding initiative to run the whole initiative. It is not just limited to the industry of Internet that you can just go back to the traditional INGOs to get support. That's one sense.
For the other hand, because for the online issues, not just the one party, but trying to engage different stakeholders to tackle the problems online on child porn issues, we have support from DOTAsia and others to join hands and tackle the problems. There is some good things to bring the different stakeholders to the table to solve the problems in terms of financial and technical support and knowledge sharing and networking in the sense of trainings on how we can view the situation. That's a way based on my experience.
I would say on the other experience, we would like to share, it is the initiative, a mission on the Youth IGF organized along with others as core part of program, engaging the whole program because Youth IGF and in the Asia‑Pacific region, this is a three‑day camp for capacity building, but not just for capacity building like doing role play, but also the APrIGF sessions, in this sense, it is real participation and learning some on how the IG is. I would say it is a start. It is not just ending there.
In this few years we're engaging more and encouraging more youth of the region to doing their own local YIGF. For example, in Hong Kong, that mission based in Hong Kong, they're trying to do a Hong Kong IGF in a sense to engage the community, how to do so, getting the funding, also a strong issue on this sense, seeing some support from the big companies like Microsoft to support the first year of that program. I would say it is more important to find resources and to find partnerships in the sense that you make things go forward.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Do you have any ideas, anything you want to share?
>> We have had many projects regarding youth, especially last year we have conducted the first youth event, it was not really a discussion forum but a session for youth to discuss matters in an open area, they discussed IG matters because we want to make them share their stories. This is the first time we had taken for the youth as the Youth IGF in Sri Lanka. Before that, we had many programs, including the camps, this is more interactive sessions where you see online if you check the Facebook, type in Safer Internet Camp Sri Lanka. These camps, we discussed IG issues rather than just talking about safer problems that we're discussing at much higher level. The people that shared their thoughts, they're very different than we thought.
In the youth idea, a Fellow just came in, he asked us, why are you here? We don't have Internet even. He's from actually not the province, but he's from an area with no Internet. So that was a proper question to be asked in to the IGF, those people that worked as observers, they should answer the questions. They may not know that there is a problem in that area.
Internet addiction, it is a problem in Sri Lanka at the moment. Many youth are not aware they're addicted to Internet. At the moment we're having big camps, medical camps and training workshops on that issue. It is better that we have to be collaborating and we can create the content for these things even. We have learned that you can help us in these things.
Thank you.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: Now I have a question for you all. There are so many Fellowships that are going on, you know, there are people from Africa, people from Asia, Europe, why is it that the Fellowships are not coming up ‑‑ let me be specific, in Asia, all the times, the Fellowships, they're not circularred. It remains within a certain group of people, they don't share it, and it is very limited within the reach. Yeah.
>> Hello. Good morning, everyone.
Internet Society Youth IGF Fellow. Regarding what you just said, mostly in Developing Countries, we find out that there is little or no Internet as there are so many issues related to Internet Governance in Developing Countries and most of this, we find the solutions to the problems, there is little or no awareness to Internet Governance in Developing Countries.
I'm from Nigeria. I'm sad to say that Internet Governance in Nigeria is very, very low. Most youth my age do not know what Internet Governance is at all and it is a shame. Most people just get their phone, okay, I can browse, they have no idea of the bureaucracy involved in Internet Governance and that's really, really sad. I feel these Fellowships, they are getting their youth to be more involved in the processes. At the same time, this region, the Developing Countries, they need these Fellowships to form and in an effort to boost inclusion globally.
Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Egypt. I'm a youth at the IGF Fellow as well. I didn't know anything about IG or IGF before applying to the fellowship although I'm working in the IT field. . I considered this as a huge opportunity for me. We were ‑‑ we have had two selection processes, the one application and then we joined an online course to get introduced to what is IG and what's the multistakeholder approach. We were engaged in conversations, debates, and I really appreciate joining this experience.
I really need the recommendations, encouraging all stakeholders to nominate youth, governments should nominate its youth to join the IGF private sector as well and also how to encourage more IG schools, local or regional IG schools and to be more frequent, not only once a year. I need the recommendations of how to maximize our benefits from our first IGF.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: You could really use the capacity resource that you have. You can write a blog, start a Forum, talk about the issues, get it started. Don't stop. Yes. Don't stop, whatever you can do. Just engage in proper communication.
>> BURNA SANTOS: I have a point here, it is not that all of the Fellowships is not known to us, even in Global South, we do get information if it is the ISOC, ICANN, NexGen, these are not the only ones, there could be more for the youth. The amount of scope or ‑‑ you know, if you're looking at the region, the allocations, they may not be very just looking at the kind of people you have, APEC may have more people than Europe, it may not be so much distributed. However, it is incorrect to say we do not get information, we do get information, if there could be more fellowships and opportunities, it would be better.
>> DAVID: Continuing on the same topic, I think there are certain situations where the representatives of these countries, they ‑‑ the information about the fellowship that comes on to them, it stays with them. So that's one thing that we can address and who is the best institution to address that, probably the fellowship provider. I would certainly push on them to make sure that there is a level of transparency in regard to the fellowship announcement that goes on to them, to make sure that it goes further into the community. Also, things mentioned about the local efforts, we need to make sure that the representatives are doing some kind of activities at local level, otherwise if we're defining other matrixes for the performance evaluation, Tweets, pictures that comes on to Facebook, social media, those are not really good ways of evaluating individuals and performance in the country.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: I think someone was there? Yeah?
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Bangladesh. IGF Academy Fellow.
There was one concern I have noticed, that a lot of us are saying that it is very difficult to draw the attention of youths to IG how I feel actually, rather we need to draw their attention to IG, instead we need to understand their interest of area. Then we need to bridge them, those interests to IG ‑‑ let's say I work with citizen journalism in my country and I work on the save the river campaign as well, so we involve a lot of youths in our campaign, in citizen journalism and save the river campaign.
Those are the interest areas of youth in our country, and once we understand their interest and body language and their mindset, then it will be easier for us to relate them with IG and the technological discussion or the facilities and maybe fellowship and funding as well. This can be one approach from us towards the youth. This is one thing.
Second thing, I may like to take some advice and comments from the Forum, if I want to form Youth IGF in my country, what would be the process and other things I need to go through if I am interested in that.
Thank you very much.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: David, just make it short. We're out of time.
>> DAVID: There is some training material online. It is mainly on how you can organize the Youth IGF. I can share that with you later on that area. Also talk to Ania, the IGF secretary, she is on the subject of Youth IGF and there is a session tomorrow morning at 8:30. Join and look at that.
>> SHREEDEEP RAYAMAJHI: There is a toolkit. There is a toolkit on Youth IGF. You can search it on the web and find it and everything, the process is written, the people were involved, experts were involved, and there is a toolkit. That's for facilitation. She's the contact person.
Thank you all for being here.
You know, I think we have reached our time. It was really interesting talking to you all, hearing your voices, stories, you know. We can collaborate the IGF Forum itself, it is for us, for the developing nation and the developed nation, we have to collaborate because Internet itself is very dynamic and we need to bridge the gaps and we need to move forward for development and growth.
Thank you for being here. If you want to receive the report of the survey, please do give me your email paper we're circulating around. You should have it.
Thank you. Thank you all.