IGF 2017 - Day 2 - Room XXIII - OF78 EU Delegation to the IGF & Youth IGF Movement

 

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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>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  Good morning.  It's a great pleasure for me.  I would like just to present myself, Mariya Gabriel.  I have the pleasure here to be together with the delegation of the European parliament.

>> MICHAL BONI:  Okay.  Thank you, very much.  I will present our delegation members of the parliament.  My name is Michal Boni.

>> PARTICIPANT:  I'm a member of the European parliament for the green party of Germany.

>> PARTICIPANT:  Hi, I'm from Germany.  And it's my first time at IGF so really looking forward to this discussion.

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  Thank you, very much.  First, I would like to thank you to be here for us.  It's an important message to see how the force of young leaders (Background noise) I firmly believe in the role of young people, I'm young, too.  So for us here there is a very clear objective, thank you, very much, for this opportunity to share with you what is your vision, how we can make Internet better, what are your main concerns for us for the European Commission as I already said. 

It's really important to increase the role of young people and to see how they can really lead this movement.  We firmly believe on multistakeholder approach and in the European Commission we try to promote very concrete projects for young people.  I would like to share with you some of them. 

The last one it's our project digital opportunity scheme.  I saw there's a lot of people from Europe here but maybe together with you we can think about extension of this project.  We launched this project 7th of December and we will like to have the possibility to make cross‑border trainingship for 4 or 5 months and bring to us students who are not IT specialists.  We would like to show them how important this technology blockchain web design and in that way give them value for the curriculum vitae. 

I think that today we have a lot of alarming numbers and figures.  Just an example, 80 million Europeans has never used Internet.  And only 37% of our labor force has a basic digital competency.  We all know after 2020, 90% of the jobs will require these basic skills that's why it's important for me to focus some of our efforts on young people to promote vocational skills, too.  It's a huge success. 

At the same time we have some other concrete initiatives, for example Code Week in October.  It's important to show how coding is something accessible.  And thanks to young people because they showed me how important this is.  If you have basic skills on that it's not a difficult task.  So for us there is very strong message.  You are important.  We would like to see your role increased.  But we are here to listen to you.  What are your main concerns?  What is your vision?  And how we can join more our efforts to achieve what we share as values and as vision.  I already said it.  Open, free, secure, transparent, resilient Internet.  Inclusive Internet. 

And when I talk about inclusiveness it's important as a message for the continents who are outside of Europe or Africa, we have a very concrete project, digital development.  Western Balkans are important for us.  I know only by working together we can achieve results.  That's my main message.  And in this process you are really important.  So I would like to stop here to listen to you.  Maybe Michal has words. 

>> MICHAL BONI:  Thank you.  I share with you the opinion that youth IGF and youth is very important for the future not only because young people are the users of the Internet and native of this area, but they are our young citizens.  And I think we need to combine this practical commercial understanding called the Internet with completely new significance related to democracy, related to governance issues. 

So I think it's very, very important.  And on the other hand I think it's very important to discuss about the future, not only future of the Internet but future of the economy, societal issues.  Because in the perspective, everything will be changed.  We will start the work with robots cooperating with robots, with artificial intelligence and we need to remember ethical issues. 

We will start to use 5G infrastructure in the perspective 10 or 15 years and we will have completely new possibilities, with new model of health care area and much more focused on patients and prevention.  And we will start with Internet of Things and those digital things will be everywhere.  But on the other hand we need to remember that this is technology, but the technology is for people.

And I think that for young generation it's very important to understand that technology issues are for making society better and making life better so this is the message and we need to cooperate with those perspectives and dreams about the future of our lives.  So this is my short message to you but as commissioner said I'm open and I want to discuss, and I want to listen to you.  Your expectations, your needs, and your view on some issues.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Maybe I can just jump in and help the presentation.  My name is Yuliya Morenets.  Thank you.  I want to bring the world on the youth IGF movement which was born in 2011 in Strasbourg, France.  The message of the young in 2011 was we need to organize the same gathering in other aspects.  We had these meetings organized by the young people for the young people.  We had five countries in Europe, five in African region, three in Asia, and two in Latin America.  And 15 requests this year.  So we had 30 of them.  So we are very positively surprised.  A number of them are present in the room. 

There are three objectives.  To rate the interest and the awareness on IT issues and Internet‑related aspects among the young.  Also to transfer the knowledge and have a training platform on issues for example like safe Internet and how to use the Internet safely and have a great lady present from youth IGF, Portugal, who developed a 3‑D game online safety by herself and this is amazing.  She will present it.  I wanted to present a number of them and they will maybe come to the discussion.  So we have youth in IGF Portugal.  We have a gentleman, Mohamed.  I'm switching into languages.  We have fellas from Greece.  (No English interpretation). 

We have our colleagues who helped to coordinate this meeting from Asian youth IGF.  So you can bring other new aspects as well.  I just wanted to say during this meeting in 30 countries they identified four questions and they actual ‑‑ topics they would like today to discuss.  It was fake news.  This was one of the aspects they brought to the table.  They identified blockchain and the need for new skills to them and how the entrepreneurship, young entrepreneurship will have a place and a space in this new blockchain technologies. 

It was also the awareness raising concept and responsible Internet so what can they do to promote this better.  I think these are the topics.  Maybe if you have questions to ask, ask.  First present yourself, introduce yourself and a little bit about your background.

>> PARTICIPANT:  I'm from Portugal, I mastered in design and development of video games.  I recently had a prototype for a game to present awareness in teenagers.  I would ask if you think it's a good solution to do that to educate the young in cybersecurity issues? 

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  It's not good, it's excellent.  So definitely we need that because actually we know that we need to increase the cyber literacy, not only among young people but these kinds of projects are really concrete and helpful.  Definitely we need to do more and that's why these kinds of initiatives are really helping us to promote and see young people who are aware of what has happened when they are online. 

For me that's a very concrete step and that's the only way that we can advance together.  Great continuing like that and I would like just to see how these kinds of initiatives are in other continents and for us it would be a pleasure to support them.  Thank you, very much.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  I forget to also mention ‑‑ (overlapping voices).

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  Because the president of the European Commission has given the responsibility to initiate for the first time an analysis of this phenomena.  It's really important for young people because we all know that more than 75% of young people are reading news and platforms and social media.  At the same time more than 70% of them said very honestly they can't say what is false and what is true.  That's why definitely we need to do something together.  That's my first point.  I think there's no silver bullet. 

There's no miracle solution on that because this phenomenon it's not a new phenomenon but what is new that's the speed and the dimensions and the very negative impact that fake news can have on our society, democracy and values.  It's not only problem, it's political and societal.  That's why I think that only by working together all stakeholders, researchers, journalists, it's really important to work more on media literacy.  For me it's a key element for young people because there's a strong international dimension to this phenomenon of no borders and cyberattacks. 

I initiated public consultation.  Please feel free to participate.  I launched the creation of high level expert group and in one month we received 349 candidacies.  Now our very difficult task is to choose the best ones.  But my ambition is to have the first working meeting of this group in January.  And they will have only three months to give me a report with a very concrete proposal.  What is about the scope, we don't have a common definition, what is fake news, what are the best practices, how we can identify them and try to bring together all our good practices.  And third dimension what we can do together. 

There's a field for common approach, common actions, common measures.  I would like to be clear our proposal, for me there's a red lines and red lines are freedom of expression and rights for access to information.  That's why it's so delicate.  Definitely if you have ideas, if you want to participate more actively, it will be a pleasure for me to organize something additional with you.  As said we count on you as citizens.  Citizens who can make an informed choice. 

And fake news sometimes it's disinformed choice.  That's why for us it's important to make to put an accent on four elements.  The transparency.  We need to know more about the money, about all those mechanisms.  The diversity of information, the credibility of information and inclusiveness. 

For me, these four elements are key.  If you want at least to try to propose to the challenge.  No legislation, no miracle solution, but we need to try to do something because consequences now a democracy and principals and values can be really devastating. 

>> NADIA:  Thank you, Commissioner Gabriel, for your introduction.  I'm very pleased that you mentioned the high-level stakeholder meeting that you would be holding.  My name is Nadia, and I'm a recent graduate from the College of Europe.  I'm on the incoming steering committee of youth coalition on Internet governance.  We were interested to join this stakeholder group.  However, we found that the criteria were very difficult as young people there's no separate entry as a young person to enter so we had to try and find ways through Civil Society or online platforms to engage with this. 

So if there is any possibility in the future or extension just to raise to your attention we are keen here at the Internet Governance Forum to engage on this issue and really work but for us it's very difficult to access this area.  Thank you. 

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  Thank you, very much, Nadia, for raising this issue and definitely we need to do something more.  That's why I already suggested to organize some parallel meetings just to listen and hear more strong voice.  That will be the case after January.

>> HAMED:  I'm Hammed.  I'm working with Youth IGF Movement.  The country I come from using Internet about 2.6% only.  But through this 2.60% most of them are young people and they do not know how to use it.  They use it only through the social media and they do not know how to protect their self about cybercrime and those things.  We organize our self in order to get them together for showing them how to use these tools in the good way. 

Now, the way that we are using Internet in our country is not high.  We are in low.  What we can do in order to aware ‑‑ to make aware these young people who do not know how to protect their self against cybercrime and how to use this tool in order to make business, to have the opportunity of the Internet.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  I'm sorry, I just have to maybe intervene.  I know the Commissioner Gabriel has an appointment right now.  I'm sorry ‑‑ (overlapping voices)

>> PARTICIPANT:  Thank you.  First, thank you for organizing this and for being here.  You're not only committed in words but in action doing it.  My remarks are two-fold from personal observations. 

So first of all these issues, technological issues, are developing so fast that we actually see even in young people, Internet and computers are lacking knowledge of blockchain technologies so maybe my first remark is we should have more training to spread information about these technologies and vocational trainings. 

My second and more important remark, even young people that have knowledge and skills for Internet are not able to participate in public life because there's no platform for them to do so.  I commend Estonia and other countries to have much in this regard.  Countries like in the Western Balkans it's almost impossible to do anything online.  So my proposal here would be to initiate some kind of public policy and forums whereas to allow young people to be more actively engaged in public life and policy which is what the commission is doing but I think we need more wide level action in this regard because youth get more engaged when they do that online rather than in real life.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Can we take one more?

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  I would like to say I fully agree with you.  We know how important it is not only to have access to information but to participate and that's why I think that new technologies are an opportunity for that.  There are new ways so let's do it, let's have more concrete ideas on that.  At the same time, I would like to say just how important it is for us this information contains. 

And on our side as a European Commission as I already mentioned, please verify a little bit more what is our digital for development policy.  And in this policy we have resources to help you to organize this because now you know what is the needs and you can share your experience, your ideas.  That's the way.  In our society I would like to promote that. 

I think as a European delegation we believe that training is key if you want really to have active citizens who are aware completely what are the threats and consequences.  You can fully count on our support.  I'm so sorry, because it's so good to be here.

>> PARTICIPANT:  In your presence I would like to add something.  Thank you, very much, commissioner, for this understanding of the fake news phenomena.  And this view of this phenomena.  It's better to cooperate, it's better to work together than to start with legislation and as in some country there's expectation with some kind of censorship or something like that.  We need to have Internet open, free and accessible for everybody. 

On the other hand, it's very important to understand this is some kind of ecosystem of fake news because we have some phenomena related to fake science.  I think critical thinking is very important for all of us and we need to work together on those issues and I think in the parliament is also this kind of view not to start with legislation but to understand problems and to create a good background for cooperation of all stakeholders.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  I would like to thank Commissioner Gabriel for having accepted to be here, to take questions and for the support actually that you... 

>> MARIYA GABRIEL:  Don't hesitate to contact us for new ideas or for some other initiatives.  It will be a pleasure for me and for my team.  Thank you, very much.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you.  And we have to give you our youth IGF movement beautiful designed shirt. 

(Applause)

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  I guess if everybody agrees, we can just take questions and have discussion.  You have a question, as well?  I don't know who was first.  Please come to the table.  Please introduce yourself.

>> PARTICIPANT:  I think the issue of fake news is very important, some global perspective and case of somehow contradiction of different countries in maybe geopolitical perspective.  So that's why it is very important to make universal impact on this issue to prevent fake news from dissolving societies of the world and to prevent using of propaganda for military and other kind of purposes.  That's why it is very importance answer of Civil Society to some geopolitical challenges.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you, Andre, for your statement.  We have a question over there as well before Jean Jacques (phonetic), I'm sorry.  We would like to thank ICANN and to thank our other friends who supported this gathering as well, and ICANN of course.  And Jean Jacques (phonetic), and you have the floor.  Thank you.

>> JEAN JACQUES:  Yes.  I wanted to first come back to the remark of the young person.  By the way, Martin, for the last two years ran a project called European youth IGFs which also sent young people to these forums.  I wanted to come back to that remark.  I disagree.  I don't think we need a lot of youth information platforms.  I think they have a ton of youth formation platforms that are hardly used.  When it comes to a lot of these EU funded information platforms, I have worked as an assessor, I know the kind of applications that go in there, I know how many websites are funded. 

I think right now we are missing a lot of the visibility of the platforms that are out there, and we lack a lot of trust into these platforms.  That's a remark but you have a question to the delegation.  I would like to know what concrete next steps you would undertake in order to enhance youth participation in these forums.  In two years EU likely is going to be a member state and it will be a great opportunity to get more people engaged.  And what steps would you take? 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  If you want to answer the question and then we go if you have time to Jean Jacques.  What do you prefer?

>> UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Off microphone).

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Let's go for the second one.

>> PARTICIPANT:  I wanted to serve you generally and pick up on the point that was raised earlier about participation generally, not just youth participation.  I think it's very interesting.  I was here about 15 years ago for the first time at the world summit or Information Society.  I think this is where we negotiated the cybersecurity part.  I was a government delegate and working with EU presidency and I was sad thinking I should be in the youth IGF myself.  And now it's too late. 

Youth participation in IGF and multistakeholder has been there since the beginning and it's integral.  It's something at ICANN we are open to any stakeholders including certainly young people.  Anyone is involved.  So we have programs to bring in young people.  We have a fellowship program, a Next‑Gen program. 

I think a very important part, it's true for ICANN and IGF.  It's not just about coming to the meeting and learning and watching.  We need you involved.  And that's the beauty of the multistakeholder model if it's done properly, is that you're not just coming in and saying a few words.  You're becoming a delegate, it just happens that your young.  And therefore we benefit from your expertise.  And I think it's crucial, including at the EU level.  Because look at the issues we are dealing with.  Fake news and privacy even.  I hear a lot of people talking about these young issues and saying young people this, young people that, and they are even older than I am. 

So a lot of the laws that we are passing today are going to be affecting people who are young now who are going to be in their 30s and 40s when the laws are still there.  We need that input as early as possible. 

I think in Europe we are doing well little by little in bringing youth to the forum.  With Michal you helped us create the Polish IGF, and there's a very strong youth participation.  In EuroDIG, which is the European IGF, Yuliya, you've helped us with this, we have had youth participation ever since the beginning.  And you mentioned the Western Balkans.  It's been going really fast and it's beautiful.  It's mushroomed into national IGFs.  I am amazed at even Bosnia.  And they're super dynamic. 

You need to take advantage of this forum.  Don't just go there watching and learning but make your mark, make your interventions because you need to bring the reality touch to the discussion.  For the next two or three days get involved here.  Don't just sit in the back and listen.  Take the mic and make your voice heard.  I hope to see you also in meetings like ICANN and maybe even European parliament, as well, a bit more often.  Thank you very much.

>> PANELIST:  Thank you for all those interventions.  We, working in the multistakeholder scheme.  It means we are not working alone, business, academia, Civil Society.  We are working together.  This is one of the key issues for IGF model.  What does it mean?  It means that we can discuss all Internet issues in the model of bottom‑up scheme.  This is very important.  Not up to the people but bottom‑up.  I think it's important. 

And if you are raising the problem that we need to strengthen this solution of the European level, I fully agree.  I share this opinion because I think that in the area of Internet it's better first to listen to the people, and after that to discuss about some solution.  So we need to use IGF model, IGF scheme, bottom‑up debates among all stakeholders.  And I think it's very, very important.  Why it is important?  Because it involves people. 

But on the other hand it's creating the new model of democracy with participation, and this is the answer, this is the response to the fake news era.  This is the response to the populism era.  If you will be together, if you will work together, if you will disseminate the knowledge, if you will have some checking facts possibilities, checking knowledge possibilities, among the society, so I think it will be easier to respond to some fake news, fake science and this vehicle of populism based on stereotypes and emotions and so on.  I think we need to continue our cooperation. 

And this is, if I can say, I'm from Poland so I feel it very, very strongly.  This is from (?) The fate with populism, the fate with authoritarian models that fight with propaganda and so on.  We need to make it together.  And the European parliament we are discussing about fake news and also about platforms.  We want to create the proper tools for responsibilities for some behaviors and we want to promote the common actions because I think it's much more important. 

On the other hand as you know we have worked on GPDR and we will start with GPDR implementation, full implementation at the end of May 2018.  We want to continue our work on privacy issue because we need privacy issue.  We need to discuss about cybersecurity not only as a technical solution.  The cybersecurity also related to the sharing of responsibilities among all participants from individuals to big companies and to the states. 

What does it mean for individuals?  We need to understand how we need to behave.  This is what we are discussing about the curricula at educational systems we are discussing about some kind of the new behavior, knowledge about cybersecurity as some kind of cybersecurity hygiene as washing hands.  So we need to know more about these issues. 

Only with other participation as individuals we can respond to some issues which we can define as a dark side of the Internet.  But on the other hand we need to remember about bright side, so we need to balance and not to destroy and not to kill our dreams related to the Internet but improve and correct some bad things.  So this is a general answer, but I know that we need to go this way. 

And as you know, the European parliament we are at the end of our terms.  We will have one year of work.  And also what is important I want to add one point in April the commission will announce communication on artificial intelligence.  This is also the big issue to discuss artificial intelligence, learning machines and robotization not in the context and light of threats and fears. 

On the other hand, we need to understand all threats and fears but on the other hand we need to find some solutions for making this new world much more ethical and open for cooperation between artificial intelligence and us as humans with the strong position of humans as key players in our human world.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you.  I see we have a couple questions.  We wanted also to bring the discussion the young from Brazil.  And I wanted just to say a world on the following.  You mentioned cybersecurity.  A number of people ask us youth IGF this is a national gathering of the young people and on Internet governance.  What next? 

The concrete result I would say, it's for example it was responsible use of the Internet in a number of countries.  In Liberia, for example, the young people somehow they organize in groups and go to meet other young people in schools and make the trainings on safe and responsible use of the Internet and in a number of countries, so these are the, you know, what is next actually?  Why do we organize meetings at national level? 

I just wanted to bring this and show that we do have results.  We have a couple questions.  I do see Mihail and I wanted to give the floor to Allison.

>> MIHAIL KOMAROV:  Thank you.  My name is Mihail Komarov.  Moscow, Russia.  I would like to thank you for organizing this session actually and connecting youth and representatives of commission parliaments.  The things is, I would like to mention two points actually. 

First of all I would like to say that capacity building programs and idea of youth IGF is really important because actually not all or not many young participants or young citizens do understand their idea of empowerment of the Internet.  As they are thinking about the Internet as about ordinary utility. 

It's good for one point of view because we wanted to have Internet as a utility but from other perspective we like to have Internet from empowerment, from the perspective of the well‑being digital skills and organizing special training sessions and online indication services and so on.

So this is first point.  That's why capacity‑building problems should help with that and also development of the youth IGF movement is also quite important.  Second point I also would like to say we all should think about business participation, business participation in terms of the representation of labor market.  Because actually when we are talking about education development, when we are talking about line services or line education itself we sometimes have lack of connectivity to the local labor markets. 

That's why we have high youth unemployment actually all around the world because of that.  And I think connection of youth and business representatives of local labor markets.  I'm in local labor markets because even though we have translational nature of the Internet we should think about labor market and employment as well.  Of course I would like to support from the youth IGF Russia and several of our meetings that we are for uninterrupted high-quality Internet for free access to the Internet and free access to information.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you, Mihail, for a statement.  I see we have a couple questions.  We will give it to the young.  That's why we are all here.  Please.  Go ahead.  Present yourself, as well.

>> PAULA:  Hello.  My name is Paula.  I'm from Brazil.  And actually it's a comment because I haven't seen a lot of Latin American young people over here.  We have some initiatives and programs in Brazil actually we have about 22 young students here engaged in the IGF

And I would like to ask how can we engage with our young people from around the world because I really think we can have positive outcome if we work together.  It's really good to see a lot of people from the countries here.  And but we really need the strengthening, we really need to get some outputs from other countries to work in our own countries.  I've been working with capacity‑building projects in my city where I live, going to public schools to have some kind of discussion about Internet issues.  So I think we could just talk and enhance our abilities to work within the youth, so I really think we should engage more with Latin America and the global South in general.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you.  We will take one more question from the Asian colleagues as well.

>> PARTICIPANT:  Hello.  I'm a representative of Hong Kong youth IGF and we raise awareness and provide platform for young generation to speak on Internet issues.  We will organize two workshops and how social media can shape things.  The degree of youth participation in Internet issues is relatively low. 

I would like to ask, are there any methods to encourage students in Hong Kong to have a great participation in youth or are there any methods from different continents to motivate them to do more?  And what are the major differences between European Internet cultures and Asian Internet cultures.  Thank you.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you for the question.  We have one question over here, please.

>> PARTICIPANT:  Hi.  I'm from Google Technology Policy.  In response to that about methodology, I think young people are looked to today because we are supposed to be digital natives and understand the digital world that we are all heading towards.  I think it would be helpful methodologically not to think about youth as a single category and start to treat the audience with more nuance.  It's what advertisers are doing. 

If we want to compete with Coca Cola and other groups, I think we have to start mapping the sorts of levels out there and what interests they have in political issues.  I would hazard to guess those in this room share enough in common that from our social media you can pull out certain characteristics.  So for us to start gaining momentum and tripling the size of the room I think we have to start using the same weapons that the established kind of platform companies are using in advertising. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you.

>> PARTICIPANT:  Thank you for the discussion and creating this space and opportunity.  I work for the youth department at the council of Europe.  We just had a seminar on youth participation on Internet governance and have a session tomorrow before lunch. 

There's two points.  One, a lot is focused on capacity building and I think that was clearly mentioned in seminar this is needed, young people need to understand how this work and youth do a lot of great work.  The other element is participation.  Here we are looking at participating in dialogue, but I think we need to move up the ladder of participation.  Europe youth sector has co‑management where decisions are made equally.  And while in that process we as young people need to explore what channels already exist. 

There's the European youth forum for example that's out there and other networks that represent young people and they are by themselves already diverse.  Internet governance still needs to diversify.  Youth are just diverse as every else, of course, and we need to get all these voices on board and there are channels there.  I think young people need to start using existing channels for political participation and at the same time keep other channels open for the dialogue.  I think we need to step up its game. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you for your statement.  We also forget the remote participants.  Maybe we can take one question from remote participants and the closing from the European Union and delegation.  Do we have a question from remote participants?

>> REMOTE MODERATOR:  Yes, but you need to use the headset to listen to it. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Do we have a question from remote participants or not?

>> REMOTE MODERATOR:  Yes, there is a question.  Maybe in a bit. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  If you speak to the mic.

>> REMOTE MODERATOR:  Maybe in a bit.  He's asking it now.  Can we wait two minutes, maybe? 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Well, maybe by waiting because we don't know with lack of the time.

>> REMOTE MODERATOR:  Can you wait two minutes because he's writing.

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  We have an issue there with the remote participants.  I know we had a question here.  We will take this one. 

>> AUDIENCE:  Hi.  I want to ask a question.  I got here a bit late, so I excuse if this has been asked before.  I'm here with an organization of youth about copyright reform.  I heard some of the people here talk about wanting to involve the youth in copyright reform.  It's limited on access to information and censorship possibilities are resulting from these articles in the new copyright reform. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Can you please go to the question? 

>> AUDIENCE:  I wanted to ask what you are doing to actually involve the youth in the copyright reform because currently as the youth see the worries and the lobbying of the big media companies resulted into the current copyright reform and not enough of the worries of the youth in itself.  We want to be able to express our self to create new businesses and talk about the state of society. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  All right.  Thank you for your question.  I think we can go ‑‑ well, we have the privilege to give the questions on the floor to the young, I think.  We go now to the audience. 

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you, very much.  I want to say there are two more members of European parliament.  Please introduce themselves.

>> BARBARA COUPLE:  I'm Barbara Couple (phonetic).  I'm a member of the industry committee as well as of the European parliament.  I'm originally from Vienna and a member of the European parliament elected in Austria.  I worked on quite a number of ‑‑ I think for us it's really necessary to share this world of Internet with you because you are the digital natives as it was said before and I find it extremely helpful especially the youth could participate more in the decision‑making process. 

Because if you see our daily business or political life, I mean we have a lot of information, a lot of information from the big power groups as was mentioned before and I find it really important that you can raise your voice and that we hear what you have to say. 

We to a very high extent try to cooperate with you.  Is it net neutrality that was discussed a few days ago where the U.S. started a different direction.  Europe says no we want net neutrality, everybody should have the same access.  Copyright should be an issue.  There's a lot of topics where your point of view is of stream interest to us and I hope we can institutionalize your participation here.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you, very much.  I'm a member of the European parliament from Romania.  In the past I was involved in some dossier relating to Internet.  I also started medicine in one of my fields of interest activity, E‑health.  Sorry for being a bit late.  It was very difficult to enter in this building for me.  But I'm very glad to be here and very interesting on the issues we are discussing.  Thank you.

>> PANELIST:  Very briefly, if I can answer some questions.  I want to appreciate the presence among us, people from Russia.  Thank you very much from IGF of Russia because it's important for democracy, it's important for democratic understanding of the Internet.  Thank you very much for your initiative in Hong Kong.  You have mentioned some problems with censorship.  I think in IGF we need to mention all dimensions of the problem and problems with democracy. 

Secondly I want to say that we are working on copyright.  I was responsible for article 13 and I think that we have found the compromise and balance solution, but we need to work further and continue our achievements.

And I think what is important is to empower youth not only as users of the Internet but empower youth in all roles on all roles relating to be refugees, relating to be scientists, relating to be citizens and so on and so on.  And this is the message from the IGF also. 

Four key words from our discussion.  Firstly participation which is very important for the Internet and very important for the democracy.  Second, network.  We need to work not only during IGFs we need to create and establish our relations in all the areas because I think this is a possibility and we need to cooperate very strongly.  Thirdly together, as commissioner Mariya Gabriel expressed.  In some areas we can achieve our goals, our objectives only on the condition we are working together.  And the fourth key word from our discussion, bottom‑up.  I think it's important.  It's a message from IGF

Thank you, very much, for your questions.  Thank you, very much, for your involvement.  And I think we need to be in touch more strongly.  I think that European parliament should be involved much more and much stronger.  Thank you. 

>> YULIYA MORENETS:  Thank you so much.  And I think we have to close because people are here for the second session.  You can continue the discussion, but the room is taken.  And we will end.  It's a beautiful summary.  Thank you so much and thank you for being here today this morning.  And thank you to all friends.  Thank you.

(Session concluded at 10:07 CET)