The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Hello there. My name is Sophie, and I'm one of the organizers for this session of the initiative. I'm checking if the sound is okay for people online, if people in the room can hear us. I'm not sure. Oh, yeah. Thank you.
>> Yes, Rozo. Yes. So great.
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Great. So, we can see Mariana, who is our moderator. But can also the videos of Celiane and Jenny be activated by the sound technicians? I'm not sure if they can turn on the videos. I can't turn on mine. But perhaps, yeah, we can have online participants' videos activated so the people in the room can see us. That would be great.
Celiane and Jenny, are you able to unmute yourselves? And also I can see we have got participants Gregory and Lawrence as well. It would be great to have your insights for the discussion. So, if you can also mute yourselves. No. They can't mute themselves. So, yeah, if we can -- I see Jenny is now a cohost, so hopefully she will be able to.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: I think we will need Celiane to also be made a cohost, to the organizers, please.
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Thanks. I think maybe we can get Celiane's video working. Yeah. And then -- yeah. And then if the online technical people in the room could also give speaking rights to the other participants that are online, that would be great. We want to make this, yeah, quite interactive and more of a discussion.
And thanks, everyone, who is, yeah, in the room in person. I know it's towards the end of the IGF week. I heard it's been very, very useful and very exciting discussions for everyone who has been there. So, congratulations to the organizers.
Sorry we couldn't be there in person. End of year was a bit difficult for us to make it. But, yeah. Happy to have this conversation virtually, too.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Celiane, I think you should be able to unmute yourself.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: All right. Well, welcome, everyone. I think we can get started now that we have our speakers seen and hopefully heard, too.
So, good morning, afternoon, evening to everybody. Thank you for joining our session, "Harnessing Youth Voices to Transform the Data Economy." My name is Mariana Rozo-Paz. I will be moderating this session. I am the lead of policy and research at the DataSphere Initiative. We are an international nonprofit working at the intersection of data governance with other digital technologies. We are tasked with the mission to responsibly unlock the value of data for all. And we are in the process of equipping different organizations, communities of people, governments, hopefully private sector and other communities with the tools to be able to navigate data governance responsibly.
One of our flagship projects are the sandboxes projects, which are focused on equipping different stakeholders with the tools to be able to set up their sandboxes in a responsible way, to assess the work that they have been doing with sandboxes.
And at the same time, we are very committed to including diverse voices in the conversation around data governance, and that is why we have the youth for our Data Future project. I hope to explain that project a bit more in detail in a bit.
But we are very committed, once again, to involving different communities in this conversation, because in the end, we are able to bring diverse voices into if we are shaping data governance, then we will be able to pretty much have much more responsible data governance frameworks.
So, it's a pleasure to be hosting you all today. As Sophie was mentioning, thank you for joining this session, both online and in person. We know it's coming to the end of the IGF and also the holiday season, so we are very grateful for everybody who has joined us.
So, today, we are here to discuss a critical, yet often overlooked aspect of the digital era, which is how to ensure that young voices are not just heard, but actively influence the policies and innovations that will define their future.
We are seeing lately that we are living in a time where youth and various youth communities are more connected to digital technologies than any generation before them. Yet, they are paradoxically the most disconnected from the decision-making spaces that govern those technologies. They are in a way the early adopters, the innovators and in so many ways the ones that are most deeply impacted by digital transformation. But not having them in the conversation is creating a series of challenges both for them and for other actors and stakeholders. This gap is definitely not sustainable.
And we are also seeing that youth are facing equal vulnerabilities in the digital age, from the risks of social media dependency and online abuse, to also being disenfranchised as data subjects. They are at the forefront of experiencing both the promise and the perils of digital transformation.
So, while this is happening, we are also seeing that policies and technologies that shape their lives are often being designed by those who may not fully understand or prioritize their needs. So, we are seeing different platforms creating services that they are hoping young people to be utilizing as main users but they are not being included as one of the main stakeholders in the conversation.
So, at the DataSphere initiative we believe that to unlock the true value of data and digital technologies for everyone, we must assign much more bolder, inclusive and creative solutions to engage young people in these conversations. And that means building spaces where their insights, their ideas, their concerns can truly shape data policies and technological innovations to make them more equitable and effective and actually make sense for the context of young people.
So, this panel today is an invitation to explore how can we really bridge this gap. And we hope to be discussing issues that matter most to young people today, from the rise of artificial intelligence and generative AI to climate change, mental health, education, and the urgent need to reskill for the future.
We will also examine how we can create pathways to engage youth from every region in the world in this crucial conversations.
And now before I turn it to our amazing speakers today, which I thank again for joining, I just want to share very briefly about our youth for Data Future project at the DataSphere initiative which have been one of our flagship's initiatives over the past two years. To give everybody some context around 2023, the beginning of the year last year, the DataSphere initiative was one of the winners of the future of data challenge, which was a challenge put out by the meteor network. And we were selected to be able to materialize our youth project, which pretty much sought to address this gap that I was mentioning before.
So, we are seeing that youth are absent from these conversations and we wanted to explore ways in which we could really bring them in and get them familiarized with the data governance conversation, with data and digital policies, and create spaces for them to engage safely and to be able to voice their experiences and their concerns about how digital technologies are being both developed and governed.
So, the project has had two phases. The first phase which was a social media campaign, you can actually, I think, look for us both on Instagram and TikTok as the youth for data Project and you will see that we launched a social media campaign that sought to engage young people in this conversation. So, there are different fun videos and funny videos, pretty much talking about various data governance topics and really how our young people are being impacted and could be engaged in this conversation.
And then after that social media campaign, for the past year, we have been engaging youth in the conversation around how would they like new policies to be shaped. So, we have engaged young people through a series of youth labs that we have hosted in different parts of the world and that has also been a very rewarding experience and our workshop today marks pretty much the end of a very exciting year in terms of engagement.
So, let me just some share -- and I hope that people also in the room and everybody can see my screen. So, this is pretty much a summary of what has been going on with the Youth for Our Data Future project. I can share the link to our website in the chat a bit later or maybe Sophie can post that so that you can all access that.
So, over the past two years, we have engaged over 15,000 young people through our social media campaigns, through the workshops that we have been hosting, and the labs that we have been able to organize.
We have hosted over seven youth labs and workshops over the year. And as you can see, we have two pictures here. The first picture is from the (?) data forum a couple weeks ago in Columbia that brought together the global data community. And we were able to engage youth particularly coming from Africa and Latin America in this conversation.
And then the picture from below is from a workshop that we hosted at the COP16, which was focused on biodiversity. It was organized in Columbia this year. And we brought together over 90 young people to think about how data and AI could be better leveraged to address biodiversity challenges.
And what to me is most exciting and valuable about the project has not only been able to talk to youth directly and this first that you have down here on amplifying youth voices to shape the data future was a campaign in which we engaged young people from all of the regions in the world to pretty much share their experiences with data. And what I'm mentioning regarding the most exciting thing is actually being able to translate all of the insights from the project into concrete policy recommendations.
So, we have been able to engage with the G20 in the process that has been led by Brazil this year, and Joao, who was one of our speakers, can speak more about this, but we drafted together a policy brief sharing more about the challenges and the concerns that young people are experiencing in the online era and at the same time the solutions that they are thinking about and the possibilities to really create solutions that make sense for the context of various youth communities.
And we are also very proud to announce that we have joined UNICEF's data governance Fit for Children commitment, which is bringing together various partners working on data governance that responds to the context of children and youth. So, hopefully we will also be able to share more insights on that in the coming months. And if there is anybody interested in joining that commitment, we will be happy to share more details later.
And with that, I will finish my monologue and I would love to give the floor it our amazing speakers. I would love to also give them the chance to introduce themselves and maybe briefly tell us what work are they doing with young people, maybe how they ended up working in this topic, and I know that the majority of our speakers were also pretty young. So that's one of the reasons. But, yeah.
So, for now, I would like to give the floor to Celiane, who is the first person I have next to me. Celiane, thank you, welcome and please introduce yourself.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Thank you so much for your introduction so my name is Celiane Pochon. I am joining you today from Switzerland. I am a senior Policy Advisor at the Swiss federal office of communications in the international relations department. And we mainly work on Internet Governance, AI governance and data governance. So that is why I am here to talk today and I think I am still considered a youth. So, I think I can also give my insight working in this field and I am very happy to be here today. Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Amazing. Thank you for joining us.
And now I see that Jew is also in the room and now we can see his face online so that is great. Joao, over to you.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: My name is Joao. I'm Brazilian and I'm the lead facilitator for the Youth Standing Group from Internet Society. There we work to empower young voices inside of Internet Governance-related events through engaging with them, making them, they create connections inside this ecosystem. And last, their views and share what they want to the Internet of today. And tomorrow.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Amazing. Thank you.
And now over to you, Jenny.
>> JENNY ARANA: Thank you so much, Mariana, and nice to meet you, everybody, nice to see all the speakers and participants today.
So, my name Jenny Arana, I am also joining from Switzerland, by the way, from Geneva. I am from the International Telecommunication Union and working specifically in the area of digital inclusion, I'm a programme manager, and specifically for this I have been working on youth for the past five to seven years as part of the Generation Connect Initiative of ITU, which is an initiative that's been in place since before the year 2020. And aiming to engage global youth and encourage their participation as equal partners alongside the leaders or today's digital change. We work together with young people, empowering young people but, you know, hearing the voices of young people, but empowering with skills and opportunities to advance the vision of young people for a connected future.
So, thank you very much and looking forward to the conversation.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: That's amazing. All right. Well, fantastic. You have heard from our amazing speakers. And now I would like to kick start the conversations maybe venturing into a bit more of the challenges. We have a diverse and exciting pool of speakers.
I would love to ask each of you, what issues related to the data economy and youth are you most concerned about? And this can be from the different emerging technologies that we are seeing to also development challenges that we are experiencing as pretty much humankind so that can be climate change or education.
But I would love to hear about your experiences, and then what issues related to the data economy are you most concerned about. Let's start with that question.
I don't know if anybody would like to jump. Joao, maybe you can. Oh, Jenny, go.
>> JENNY ARANA: Thank you, Mariana, thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. So, from the perspective of the International Telecommunication Union, we recognize several pressing issues really related to data economy and youth, including the rapid development of AI, which raises concerns about ethical use, as we all know, that's a privacy but also potential biases in algorithms that we find that disproportionately impact youth, as many other groups as well that are traditionally disadvantaged, let's just say.
But this is not just based on -- you know, it's based on consultations. Recently we led some consultations with our youth networks, the generation youth connect invoice. Specifically I will talk about one of the groups, the group of the -- the regional group of Africa, you know, shared that I insights and what they consider are the issues that needs urgent action and the challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed. So, they found cybersecurity is a critical issue, the rise in cyberattacks and online threats highlights the need for stronger measures to ensure digital safety and the youth are disproportionately affected by cybercrime, online harmless and privacy violations as well so they see the need for enhanced education to build awareness and skills, particularly, of course, among underserved communities, cybersecurity frameworks have to, they said must align with international standards, but also reflecting local realities and focus on gender diversity and cybersecurity careers is also essential to foster inclusivity.
Artificial intelligence, they saw it represents a double-edged sword. Specifically this group for Africa mentioned that it offers vast opportunities but also -- sorry, vast opportunities such as healthcare, improving healthcare diagnoses or optimizing agriculture, but it also introduces challenges, challenges that include ethical concerns and the risk of bias algorithms. So these consultations highlighted the new for AI systems that are inclusive, ethical and reflective of the unique contexts and values of specific regions and in this case they talked about the Africa continent. And this requires significant investments in local AI research and development to really ensure that African perspectives shape the technology.
And also to fully harness the potential of AI, they saw that there is a need to develop that science capacity across the continent and this involves infrastructure for data collection and management and fostering a cultural of data-driven decision-making.
And you were talking about the example of good practices. And I think that we believe from the ITU, I mentioned the ITU generation connective initiative and we have some practices that we believe have demonstrated how we can meaningfully engage youth participation to really drive impactful change. And some of these examples are youth engagement in policy discussions, for example, through this initiative we really make efforts to integrate youth perspectives in global policy dialogues by giving the young leaders a seat at the table in high-level discussions.
At ITU what we try to do is ensure that their voices contribute directly to shaping policies on the data economy. And, obviously, this for us includes active participation in forums and consultations. I was just mentioning the consultations that were run in the past two months where young people can really provide inputs on their pressing issues and the pressing issues for their communities, for their regions, such as data privacy, equitable access, ethical AI, and, for example, these young leaders have shared their views during the different ITU consultations, conversations and intergenerational dialogues with ITU member states resulting really in youth-led co-created policy creations that really we hope is going to influence global agendas.
So, thank you very much, Mariana.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: I love this answer, Jenny, thank you. Very, very comprehensive.
Now I would like to turn over to Joao, please.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Thank you, Mariana. I would like to bring two issues, actually, to start. The first one is, it's also in our policy paper we wrote to the T20. But they measured that one child from his birth to his 13th birthday will gather 72 million pieces of personal data. So, before you grown, you already have a huge digital footprint, and this is -- we need to bring awareness about this, because they didn't -- they aren't able to agree on it. And the implications of this amount of data will be seen -- will be available for their whole life.
And the other thing that I really wanted to stress on my talk is regarding the -- sorry. I closed the thing.
So, it's regarding the digital literacy. So, when we have young adults and we usually take for granted their capabilities with technology since we already born with like a cell phone laying around, maybe a computer. And the truth is, it's very different to use it as a tool to communicate and to use it in a meaningful way to be part of the digital economy.
So, this really needs to be worked on, especially when we think that more than 50% of the global population is less than 35, 24 years old.
Well, to me, I would like to give these two provocations about the issues that we face.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Fantastic, Joao. I think this is going to be very relevant. And I agree the assumption of digital natives or you being digital natives is one of the big challenges.
Celiane, would you like to share your insights regarding challenges.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Yes, thank you so much, and I think what Joao said, about half of the world being youth is very big number and actually according to research, it's been the largest generation of youth in history and I think it will only keep on growing. And youth is very present everywhere, whether we are scrolling through social media or studying on digital platforms, we generate massive ambiguous of data but there's a big problem and we have little say on how our data is used or who profits from it.
This brings me to the point I want to make and one of the issues I see and we see here in Switzerland is trust. Trust and data governance arrangements and empowering young people and individuals in the digital space is key for the data society we want to have.
Without the control over our data, we lose trust in institutions, in companies, in technologies themselves, which hinders digital inclusion, innovation and all the other topics that Jenny and Joao already mentioned.
So, here in Switzerland we attach great value to inclusive global data governance arrangement and they are based on the notion of digital self-determination of individuals and stakeholders, which means that, citizens, businesses, young people, everyone should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves how their data is being used. And we want to underline the importance of trust and adaptability from all sectors, including public-private partnerships to help address these critical issues.
And maybe an example I can give you is that in Switzerland we have set up a national network on digital self-determination and it consists of public administration, the government me, for example, universities where we find a lot of young people, not surprising reply, but also industry and civil society, and in this network all these people work together to develop shared approaches on how to give maximum control on data to citizens and the individual organizations and we are very happy to share that we have many young people, many young students involved in this network who can give their very own perspective on this. Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: This is very, very valuable. Thank you, Celiane. And in a way, the fact that, yeah, what you were mentioning, trust is kind of like the foundation of the challenges that we are seeing. And it's kind of like something that's not only present when it comes to digital technologies but also in terms of how we are addressing various sustainable development challenges, this is something that we are hearing from climate and nature activists on how they want to trust the people that are making the decisions. But for that to happen, they want to be involved in that conversation. And they want to see how are they really bridging the gaps that they are experiencing in their communities and really addressing the challenges that they are facing or that they see other people are facing.
So, I think that you are highlighting a very, very important point. And I think that given that point, I think we can actually think about potentially the good practices to engage youth effectively, to be really able to advocate for their perspectives on the data economy. I think that the majority of you have already touched on the solutions that in your contexts are being developed to be able to include youth much more effectively.
But coming back to this issue of trust, I think it would be very interesting if you could maybe highlight again or highlight an example of good practices that you are seeing out there in your context or maybe that you are aware of that are really engaging youth so they can effectively advocate for their perspectives on the data economy and that are contributing to fostering trust.
So, yeah, Jenny, why don't we start with you again for this one.
>> JENNY ARANA: Thank you, thank you so much, Mariana. Absolutely and as I was mentioning before, bringing really young people to the table and having those policy discussions is very, very important, and as we mentioned before, we -- you know, we must first of all recognize that young people are not just beneficiaries of policy, but essential contributors and practices that provide a model for other organizations and stakeholders to ensure that young voices shape the future of the data economy are very important.
I like to highlight a programme that we are leading at ITU that's called the Generation Connect Leadership Programme. This is a very exciting programme, I believe, that aims to engage, empower and inspire young digital leaders and ChangeMakers. ChangeMakers and leaders in their own communities.
So, through this programme, we are supporting young visionaries from around the world that have really come up with proposals for creative, far reaching, innovative and visible community-driven projects that are aimed at creating a more inclusive and empower digital future for their people, for their communities. So in partnership with other organizations, such as Huawei, we are providing guidance, training, financial support to 30 young fellows that, you know, per year we help them to practically implement this digital development projects into diverse communities across the world.
And, of course, through the programme, besides, you know, taking their own projects to the next level, we have found an opportunity to bring them, you know, to the core of policy and the general development discussions that happen at ITU year by year. And, you know, the connections that they can make with all sorts of stakeholders that attend our meetings.
So, I think that is very, very, very important as we mentioned and as others have mentioned before, to really, you know, find this intergenerational opportunities for dialogue exchange and for solution, for proposal of solutions to, you know, to digital development issues. So, thank you, Mariana.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: So important. And thank you for highlighting that, Jenny.
Joao, is there anything you would like to point us to?
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Yeah, definitely. I would like to talk about an example of a project that helped to empower the young voices. It's the youth (No English translation), the youth (No English translation) is a project co-organized by the Youth Standing Group. Our last event happened in November. We had three days, 117 people from all over Latin America together in Santiago to discuss and think of the Internet future and how we can fit our imagination, our plans inside of the digital economy.
And it was really enriching. It was the biggest one that we made so far. And we had 15 onsite countries represented there and 43 if we count online, too.
So, this kind of events really can foster further discussion into how we can better participate and also share the perspectives from different regions.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: This is fantastic. Thank you for highlighting that. And as a fellow Latin American, I kind of -- I pretty much appreciate those efforts. So, thank you for pointing that.
And so, Celiane, what about you? Is there anything you would like to share with us?
>> CELIANE POCHON: Yes, I think one very topical example is what we are doing here today, actually, engaging in different foras, for example, here the Internet Governance Forum, at the global level, but also as Joao mentioned at regional and national levels. So, in Switzerland for our last Swiss IGF, which was last summer, we had more young voices around the table and young people are interested and want to be part of the conversation. So, I think opening up the space to them is key, and including them in these multistakeholder forums, technology summits and in all policy-making consultations, we can allow them to not only be consumers of the technologies, but also contributors to them, to have a fair and more equitable data economy and governance landscape in a whole.
So, I think that's a first thing we could do. And Switzerland very much believes in the multistakeholder fashion, so we also want to include all these voices.
And then, again, maybe to link with what Joao said previously on data literacy and digital skills, you know, enhancing programmes in schools and universities, for example, in Switzerland we have two universities, the EPFL in Lausanne and the ETH in Zurich, where there are programmes that focus on building data literacy and critical thinking amongst young people and we want to prepare them or the professors want to prepare them to engage meaningfully in the conversations about the data economy, about AI and digital transformation as a whole.
So, we can see that all these different initiatives that happen at different levels, which is also very important, they combine capacity building, they combine education and they give young people, youth, a platform to participate. And it's about giving young people the tools to participate, but also their voice -- ensure that their voices are included in the policy dialogues and in the decision-making processes. Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Celiane, thank you so much for pointing it out.
And I feel that, and I am going to kind of take the freedom because I'm moderating to also answer my own question. So, I just wanted to highlight something that's actually very, very important or that we are seeing much more often. Because we are seeing big organizations, like the ITU being able to establish these programmes, right? And that is very valuable.
But then we are also seeing there are many different youth, local experiences and projects and initiatives that are pretty much being born all across the world to tackle very specific challenges that youth are facing with technology and one of the challenges we have been identifying at the (?) initiative is the funding gap that exists to really be able to translate all of the small initiatives into bigger impact projects so that people can really have the sustainability to have their projects and to impact the communities that they want to impact or somehow touch upon.
So, I wanted to point out to one funding effort. I just pasted the link on the chat, which is the responsible technology youth power fund, which was put out by the amateur network, but also a coalition of funders that are interested in funding young people to really drive a much more inclusive and equitable -- technology ecosystem. So, it's very interesting, philanthropic initiative that is aiming to support youth on intergenerationally-led organizations that are seeking to shape a much more responsible technology movement and that can be either at the design of technologies, but also at the policy level.
So this is just something I wanted to highlight because in a way I feel like these policy spaces are also key spaces for us to be discussing what else do we need. And in order for all of these good examples that our great speakers have highlighted, how could we really bring in the resources that are needed to make sure that not only the, as Celiane was pointing out, the global or the regional efforts are funded and supported, but also how could we translate all of these multistakeholder collaboration and efforts into funding and support for all of these youth initiatives that are in the end responding to very specific context and bringing value to very specific communities that are in many cases not included in this global governance conversations and are equally important to be able to learn from them and really shape the conversation at the global, regional and national levels.
And so, with that, I would like, actually, to -- and I think as Sophie mentioned at the beginning, we want this to be an interactive conversation, we are a close, small community in this session today. I'm seeing that Frankel is also supporting to a youth corner on the chat. I don't know if maybe Francola could be granted cohost rights so she could maybe speak about this.
And I know we have Gregory in the room who was sharing some insights earlier. I don't know if any of you or anybody else joining us in person or online would like to chip in in terms of any initiatives that you are aware of or challenges that we have definitely not mentioned because I think that we have not been fully exhaustive. Yeah, Francola, I don't know if you can unmute.
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: I have been told by the people who are the technical teams that are in the room at the minute is they can't unmute anyone who wasn't a speaker unfortunately because they have some security challenges throughout the IGF that they need to stick to this policy. So it looks like unfortunately we can't hand the mic to Francola because it would be great to hear you in your sharing of these very --
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Oh, I managed to give her --
>> FRANCOLA JOHN: I can speak now, you are hearing me.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: There you go. Try again, Francola, I think you are on mute again.
>> FRANCOLA JOHN: Can you hear me now?
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Yes.
>> FRANCOLA JOHN: I am Francola John from the Telecommunications Union, and the CTU is a CARICOM organization with 20 member states in the Caribbean. So we do fall under the Latin American and Caribbean bracket but we are focused mainly on the Caribbean and we work very closely with the ITU and CITEL. We had the Secretary General of the ITU in the Caribbean attending our ICT week and I am the focal point for the CTUs for the Network of Women and we just recently established our own Caribbean CTU network of woman and that focus is also -- there's an overlap with the youth. So, we also have a Youth Envoy in the persons of (?) (No English translation).
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Fantastic, Francola. Thank you for sharing that, that's amazing, in a way as a gender activist myself, I am always happy to hear about all of these women's initiatives. Thank you for sharing that the.
I don't know, Gregory, if you want to speak out loud about your comment that you posted in the chat. Because I think that participants in person cannot read that. Maybe you can try to do something similar as we did with Francola, asking you to potentially unmute. If not -- yeah.
>> GREGORY DUKE DEY: Can everyone hear me?
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Yes.
>> GREGORY DUKE DEY: Thank you for the opportunity once again my name is Gregory duke Dey, I'm a member of the Internet Society and I also work with a group called B tech connected. Ideally most of the points that I have put together are in the chat.
But I was looking specifically at policymaking and I gather from a previous session on how quick or how fast these policies go in terms of its approval, looking through it, trying to understand the various parts of this policy and how that works to our effect.
Ideally I believe that as the future or as people with great sensibilities, we have knowledge, we have skills of all of these important technologies, it is important that we are also included in policymaking across various levels. That way we are able to relate with the kind of activities that go on, the kind of challenges that have been shared across many, many times and that we are able to contribute meaningfully to all of these policies, because ideally we would grow to a point where we would also have to share all this knowledge to those who are coming behind us and it would be important for us to understand and start to educate people around all of these policies.
So, once we are giving or within the process that we have been given, chances to contribute meaningfully to these policies, we are also able to carry them into the future, and we are able to give back to those who are coming with us.
And finally, speaking to the inclusion aspect, well some of these are governmental, but for the most part it has to do with rural areas and infrastructure that is bridging the digital divide or the digital gap between those areas. Also the accessibility of these technologies to persons with disabilities, that way we are not leaving them out. We are also including them, because they also have some skills, some knowledge to share on all of these phenomenons that are happening really.
And then finally, around creating something that is relatable to countries. So ideally creating or bringing about certain technologies or elements within those technologies that can help in creating some context specific. So, for example, languages in terms of the technologies that we create, once we are able to try and fashion or create these technologies within certain languages for certain countries, we are able to have unified force, away say, for the future of technology.
Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you, Gregory. That was very valuable. This is really great. And I think that you are raising a very important point regarding also the digital divide and what real digital inclusion means and how, of course, that means something very different in different communities, in different regions, depending on the specific context of the community that we are thinking about.
I will actually share on the chat the link to one block that we drafted lately, based on some of the conversations that we have been having with young people, particularly in Africa and Latin America. And one of the things that they highlight -- I mean, actually two things that they highlight. First is the importance of contextualizing data and how sometimes even if we do have data about young people, we need to make sure that we are really contextualizing and having context specific data solutions that reflect the challenges and needs of the diverse youth communities.
And then the other thing that they have highlighted extensively is how rural communities are facing barriers to digital inclusion and data access and how in the end including rural communities is not only a matter of building the connectivity infrastructure, but also designing tools so that in terms of literacy and education, people have the skills and, as I think Celiane was pointing earlier, even the critical thinking skills and the soft skills so they can navigate technology with much more awareness.
So, I wanted to highlight that and thank you, everyone, for participating in that first section.
So, now I want to dive deeper into the challenges that we are facing in terms of global and international policy to really bring young people together. We are seeing in many cases --
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Sorry. I think Joao is trying to speak.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Sorry, Mariana for cutting you but we have an onsite participant that wants to speak, too.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: This is fantastic. Great.
>> Thank you so much. My name is Mela de Missoni. I work as an additional policy for a think tank called -- for the European Centre for Developing and Policy Management, or EDCPM.
Mine, it's more of observations. Maybe let me start with one question, being, define youth, because I'm coming from a country where people who are in their 70s, they still qualify as youths, and they are living in Europe; normally it's between 8 to 18 years to 35. So, that's the first question I have.
And then when it comes to my observations, we are here at the IGF. I was expecting this room to be full. There is two of us here on site. But if you go outside, there are so many young people who are sitting in the lobby right now. So, I was wondering, like, why is that there are no -- not a lot of young people in the room and why is it more people are participating, young people I see, is that 42, 42 participants online, instead of being here.
So, it's just an observation. I hope you will be able to look into that to see what are the reasons. And just thinking about that, I also thought, perhaps, for future platforms and engagements like this, it helps if your session is to be prioritized. Maybe the first or the second day of IGF. Because the last day, it's very difficult to rope people in. And then having these discussions, I think it also helps if we have more senior policymakers who are also part of the conversation, because they also have that pull to bring people in, into the conversations.
So, I think those were my two interventions. And I also wanted to say that, perhaps, that could be an additional question that can also help you in future engagements to say what is exactly different about the youth, because all the issues that you are raising, they apply to women, they apply to everyone. So, why exactly is it important for us to talk specifically about youth and issues on inclusion and data?
So, I this I being very clear and articulating why it's important for us to focus on youth, it actually helps in pushing the agenda and pushing the, I guess, achieving the objectives that we have to that you intend to achieve.
And then there was a comment, again, that I also agree with, issues on rural communities and engagements. I think just from listening from all the conversations here at IGF, people tend to be very superficial when it comes to marginalized communities. I am originally from a very marginalized community, even up to now, it takes me so long for me to get ahold of my family because they still don't have access to the Internet. And some of the people in my village, they still don't have phones, so they have to use someone else's phone.
So, when we are saying that we need to engage rural communities, what exactly do we mean by that? So at least if we start thinking about what role can secondary schools in these communities play. Because a lot of people in rural areas, they go to school very late. So, you find someone is in their 20s but they are still in high school. And that's youth. And you should be engaging with them, not just engaging with people who are already in college or who are already in universities.
So, I think that there is more that can be unpacked, and trying to pull in the senior policymakers to be in the room and actually demanding that your sessions must be prioritized because if we have it on the last hours of IGF, there will be less interest in people participating in your session. Thank you.
We have another question.
(Off microphone)
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Hello. So do you think we have enough time for another intervention from one of our colleagues here?
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: I think we do. That's all right. Maybe we should address these first three questions and then we can answer the others. Because I see someone online has a comment, too.
So, actually, thank you for that. I absolutely loved your comments.
Regarding youth, kind of, age and range, I agree it's a pretty diverse group and I will hand it over to our speakers so they can also share with us how they see this.
And I think that in a way, every organization or community or forum even is defining youth in a very different way. So, and in a way, I think there are some, like, policy interests behind that, either because you want to expand the pool and be able to include much more people or even if you are thinking about engaging them in the conversation, if you have people under age that involves additional challenges of getting parents' approval. So, I think that it kind of depends, at least in the DataSphere initiative we have been involving youth or considering that youth are those people from around 13 or 15 years old up to 25 or even 29. So, it can be a pretty broad range.
Thank you for the comment regarding the time and day of the event. And Sophie was pointing on the chat, this is a challenge that we have been witnessing that's not only true for the IGF, but actually for many other forums on Internet and data governance for the UN world data forum, actually, our youth workshop was the last session on the last day, last time. And that is a challenge that I think we can all advocate together for, to make sure that we really can have a much more meaningful participation not only of policymakers, but also of the youth so that they are aware of what are the sessions they can also participate in and will actually be hopefully harnessing their voices.
But I want to stop here because I know we have an amazing pool of speakers. So I don't know if anybody has any comment regarding the conversation around digital inclusion or how we are defining youth or rural communities, and also why are youth particularly important, which I feel is kind of the key question that we don't only want to answer today, but the policymakers are trying to answer worldwide in terms of which community to involve in the conversation and why.
So, yeah, this is kind of free. So I don't know if Joao, Celiane or Jenny have any comments in that regard.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Okay. So, I can go. About why we need to include youth specifically, not only, like, specific marginalized communities, is that they have a very -- when we talk about, like, the multistakeholder approach, we are a group with specific characteristics, like how can you define someone that is just started in the Internet Governance space without a proper stakeholder group? Like, will you call them researchers because they were in college? Will you call them private sectors because they just got into a job? So, this really showcases that this group isn't already included in the multistakeholder approach.
And about the aspirations are different, too, because like the things that I suffer are completely different than the issues that a woman suffers because of she is a woman. So, it's good to have like this difference because we cannot put everything in one place and say that we will address it. And, yeah. I believe this is it. Yeah.
>> JENNY ARANA: If I may, can I?
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Yes, of course.
>> JENNY ARANA: Yeah, thank you, Mariana. No, I mean, I think, of course, you know, when looking at every grouping or the work that somebody mentioned, women's empowerment, gender, et cetera, there's intersectionality everywhere and it's important to take that into consideration.
But here, why are youth important? Well, there's a very important reason. There's a demographic power, 1.2 billion people across the world, you know, that's power. That's a lot of people that are a significant demographic group and in some regions, particularly in developing countries, they actually form the grand majority of the population. Young people are so, you know, and in the topic we are discussing today, they are catalysts for innovation, you know, bringing fresh perspectives, creativity, technological fluency and are found to be key drivers of innovation.
But also as we have seen across generations and historically young people have also been at the forefront of social movements and advocating for the rights of everyone, not only their own rights, but the rights of a lot of, you know, older people, women, et cetera, and I think that's a very important, you know, thing to keep in mind when we are discussing these issues.
And, yes, of course, we can always look at intersectionality. I think when I introduced myself, I said that I work on digital inclusion and we actually look at this from the perspective of different target groups. But there are intersectionalities. For example, we worked on the topic of ICT Accessibility but we are not only looking at persons with disabilities, we are looking at all sorts of people, looking at older persons that perhaps can no longer hear well and there are many, many different technologies that can put -- can help them, you know, better integrate and better, you know, take advantage of what's today -- what benefits are of today. For example, let's talk about e-health, let's talk about different areas of life and, you know, education, having access to digital skills, et cetera.
So, I think that, yes, we have to look at intersectionality, but also there has to be space for a specific groups and for us to look at their specific needs. Yes, they will always -- many of the issues in the world are important to be looked at through the perspective of different groups. But why not give each of these groups a specific focus so that we can actually look at the possibilities that we have to tackle them. So, thank you, Mariana.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: I absolutely love your answer, Jenny. I barely have nothing else to add. I love this notion of intersectionality and I feel that's literally it when it comes to thinking about digital inclusion. So, thank you.
Now, I know that we have another question from somebody in person, so maybe we can get that, Joao, and then we can -- the organizers have asked me to tell people online that if anyone wants to talk, you need to put your camera on and write your full name and that's the only way in which they will allow you to speak.
But for now we can have the person in person -- yeah, the participant in person to ask the question. Thank you.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you so much, everyone. My name is Amahmad Kareem. I'm from UNWomen regional office for Asia and the Pacific and I lead the innovation and U.S. portfolio in the office.
Just adding into the conversation of intersectionality and I think it's one of the challenges when we talk about youth, you know, issues, that we talk about youth as a homogenous group and with that intersection between youth and gender, bring in the angle of young women, which is half of the population of youth that is kind of, you know, discredited and kind of seen as part of that bright future of digitalization and youth.
And I think when we look at that prior, young people are the most avid and tech savvy and leading on the innovation. It's also sheds light on the young women are also part of that, which is not true.
I think not a lot of women leading in the digital spheres. They are fighting hard to find a space but the sector is not giving that full space or equal space.
I'm going to mention three, like, you know, either new studies that were saying first one from the World Economic Forum, women are going to be the most affected by job loss due to digital transformation.
The second one is that women are less likely to use AI and emerging technology in the work space because of all of, you know, access, work environment, male dominated sectors and all of those kind of things.
And the third one is that women are also the most affected by the misuse of technology and AI for technology facilitated violence. Just like a glimpse of the reality of what young women are dealing with in this sector.
And I think they are not well represented in the conversation where it really bright and futuristic and shows that technology is working for young people. It's not for everyone. And that intersectional angle that you can go even deeper and you're going to uncover an ugly reality of indigenous. A young with disability, a young woman with disability in a rural area, a young woman with a disability from a minority.
So, it's really hard just to, you know, see a lot of this conversation was in IGF and was in international communities and talking about the potential without having to put that angle into perspective. Look into specific programming, resources, funding, policy changes that is more specific, more gender specific, more targeting young women and I wonder if you have some reflection on what could be done to accelerate that progress.
We missed an opportunity when the Internet came out. We missed an opportunity when social media revolution have came out ask then we left a lot of women behind was a wider gap that is getting it even wider with AI revolution. How can we catch up making sure that women, other genders, other marginalized groups like young women are catching up with that technology and benefiting from that sector, not just as a user, but also shaping the infrastructure of this new revolution. Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Absolutely fantastic question. Thank you so much for that.
I am going to hand it over to Nosipho. I think you can unmute yourself so you can ask your question and we can take (?)
>> NOSIPHO NANDIPHA NTSALUBA: Advocate Sophie (?) in South Africa, running a practice that focuses on the electronic property, cyber law ICT law. It is small-scale (?) in the last (?) law, of course AI is included.
In Afghan a lot of -- in fact I'm a cyber lawyer by education and path of vision.
I also have been part of -- I'm lecturing at (?) in South Africa, and I'm responsible for the same.
But the reason I felt I need to participate here is because I'm part of the South Africa IGF. However, in line with what my colleague was talking about, you might have to look at how we are dealing with IGF in South Africa. We all (?) and youth. What that does, it gives the traction across the whole programme and this makes them to participate right through the programme. So the focus and it's informed by our understanding of the (?) and the role youth place in everything that we do, because the youth are the ones that must be made through social hoe conversion what emerging technologies from Africa must remain for Africans in Africa and that is part of the indoctrination that we need to as part of data sovereignty and as part of AI sovereignty.
Yesterday we were in a session where we are talking about all of the capabilities that are coming from other jurisdictions, being coming to the south. And it is important for the youth to be able to understand what that means in terms of territorial integrity. I happen to be in the military. So for me, material interrogate is crucial.
And as long as our youth are not to what that means, in terms of technologies, in terms of systems in terms of infrastructure because we do youth that have place, youth that have -- understands technology. And (?) you have youth that is having so much creativity. We have youth that is able to generate energy from back of trees as we speak.
But if we don't harness that by making sure that they are in the forefront and they are made to understand that the future is in them, we will miss the game.
But my question then is, how do we ensure that our youth are able to utilize the skill sets that they have, right? To improve the home ground. Because for me, the challenge we have at this point is our youth that acquires the skills and then they go and use it somewhere.
Europe is full of youth from South Africa. How do we enable the youth to be able now two years X global by to ensure they embrace where they come from so we are able to improve even the LLMs that we are talking about because those LLMs must talk to our cultural heritage and the cultural heritage is embedded in those engineers that are currently in Brazil, in Asia, in Europe, in Australia, but they are from South Africa. How do we deal with that? Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you very much for that question.
I want to turn it back to our speakers to see if any of you would like to answer one or the two questions. If you have, like, any insight or anything you would like to share, any thoughts regarding those very thoughtful questions.
>> CELIANE POCHON: I think maybe if I may without answering the question but thanking everyone for these statements, provocative thoughts and at least for me these are things I will take back and try and reflect on and I can't answer them in a thought-out manner right now, but they there are definitely things I will take back with me and think about and try to act on in our everyday work.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you for that.
Jenny or Joao, anything you would like to share?
Sophie, would you like to share that out loud?
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: No. Sure. Thank you for these invites and must be all for what you were saying. I am sharing a study in the chat that came out this week that looked at the types of data that what is the data that's building AI right now. It's things we know but it's nice to have concrete evidence emerging to show this that it's pretty shocking how 90% of the datasets for AI are coming from European and North America and less than 4% coming from Africa right now I think these points for the need of technological approaches and intersectionality, too, how is AI going to fit the needs and resonate with young women in Africa, for example, or as the speaker from UNWomen was saying, to his point, what even about young I disabled women from a rural part of Africa if we can't even get the data that's built into AI right now just reflect the whole world, we are in deep trouble. So, I think this is something to further discuss.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: I agree. And I absolutely love that, Sophie, yes. And in a way, that is the big challenge that we have right now in terms of coming back to Celiane's point at the beginning, how can we build technologies in a way that we are fostering trust, but in order to foster trust, we need to think about all of these intersectionalities, all of these communities and how they relate in the end. And if we have this very big percentage of the population worldwide nowadays being youth, knowing that it is a very diverse pool of people and it is not just young people with the same level of privileges and opportunities and challenges, but that the youth community is actually a very diverse community, not even worldwide, but, like, just even thinking about one country, we cannot even categorize youth as just, like, oh, the I don't know, Swiss youth. But it's actually very different and diverse communities within one country. And this is something for us to keep on thinking about. So, thank you for bringing it up.
I wanted to ask one last question to the speakers before we wrap up. And I think this connects to everything that we have been discussing regarding incentives and the need to actually raise awareness among this adult community and this adult community can be policymakers, governments, private companies, international organizations on the importance of youth voices and to enhance their participation in policies, in the design of data-driven technologies.
So, I'd like to ask our speakers, what incentives are needed to raise awareness among this community about the importance of involving youth, and if you have any examples of efforts that could be implemented by different types of stakeholders to make sure that in the end, we can really build technologies in this base foundation of trust, because I know that this is pretty much one of the challenges that we have been discussing. And how can we really raise awareness and have the right incentives?
So, Joao, why don't we start with you with that question.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: I am sorry. I need to -- I had to help something. I need to -- one second, I think.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: No worries, no worries.
Maybe, Jenny, would you like to take that question first, regarding incentives to the adult community?
>> JENNY ARANA: Yes. Are you hearing May well, Mariana.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Yes.
>> JENNY ARANA: I lost you for a little bit. Thank you so much. All the incentives, right? So, right. So, I think that to really foster meaningful recognition of youth contributions to the data economy, it is truly essential to provide targeted incentives that bridge generational gaps in the understanding and engagement of youth.
First, policymakers, governments and private sector really have to acknowledge the unique expertise and innovative perspectives that youth bring and the unique views and by highlighting the creativity, the insight and the perspectives, stakeholders can really recognize young people as valuable contributors in the digital transformation.
One way is to (?) youth participation, that's a crucial step. If this can be achieved by integrating young voices into governance structures and there are policy working groups, committees and vice reports and, of course, we have to avoid these mechanisms become something where Youth participation and views are tokenized but that, you know -- but that actually become a core part of decision-making processes.
And it's important, I think, when we can think about funding and resources and specifically for youth-led initiatives and to really provide a tangible incentive for the active movement of these youth-led works. And I think we all have shared, you know, from the different organizations that we represent and the different work that we do, these success stories can really serve as a powerful evidence of the positive impact of youth involvement and really highlighting these achievements should inspire confidence among the what we are calling the adult community and encourage broader supports for integrating youth perspectives into the economy.
So various stakeholders can take concrete actions to empower youth and ensure the inclusion of these demographics into -- in shaping the data economy, and from this side, I think of international organizations, we can make efforts to foster, you know, this intergenerational collaboration and equipping young people with the knowledge and the experience that is required, ultimately to influence global digital policies and the conversation on digital development as a whole.
So, thank you so much, Mariana.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: That was great. Thank you so much, Jenny. So, Celiane, I will turn it over to you.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Yes, thank you and I will build this on what Jenny just said because it really inspires me. I think we also need to highlight the intergenerational impact of the digital decisions and provide clear examples how youth participation enhances innovation, enhances equity, enhances confidence, enhances positive outcomes, not to only focus on the challenges and maybe the more negative side, which is also very important, but also to see how we can, you know, highlight innovation and everything I just mentioned, I think this could talk to the adult community and help them decide in what way they want to, you know, shape the policies and different designs for the technologies.
And I think one thing also the youth community we have, which is very important, is that we are aware of topical issues in the world and the problems the world faces.
We have a very raised awareness of social justice, equality, inequality, and we can also help to have this be at the forefront of new policies, to have this aspect be taken into account. And I think we have very important values that young people, we advocate for, and I think we can really put them in the forefront.
And I think just ensuring youth voices are heard and are in the discussions and the development is only ensuring the future generation has access to the knowledge and to the tools to continue innovating, while preserving core values such as human rights.
And I think this approach of including youth now for the future can only lead to a fairer and more innovative and equitable data economy that can benefit everyone now but also in the future. Thank you.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you. Thank you, Celiane. That's very, very valuable.
Joao, over to you.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Thank you. So, yeah, we definitely, I will speak complementing, again, what has already -- the other panelists has already said. But we need to bring awareness about the advantages of having youth on board in the decision-making, in the policymaking about the digital economy, because, yeah, we can bring novelty, we can bring other points of view that are very, very important to develop specific direct policy.
So, in this sense, having more -- a more diverse participation and, well, when we are thinking of developing projects to youth, they are the group that better understands what they are dealing with. So, it's definitely, it's a group that needs to be included in this process.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: You are right. Thank you, Joao.
Well, I want to thank everybody for joining us. Thank you particularly the speakers who have been amazing in sharing their work and insights. Thank you for agreeing to joining us. And thank you, everybody, for participating.
Just to wrap up, I would like to ask one final meaning question to our speakers but it's more of like could you please maybe share with us one final takeaway in maybe 30 seconds, one minute each of a final message or highlight that you would like to share with people. And with that, we can wrap up. I don't know if anybody would like to start, actually.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Maybe I can jump in. I think for me something that was very valuable is we also need to go back to the core questions, why are youth voices important and maybe we are already two steps ahead in tackling these very important questions as well, but maybe for next sessions or something else, start back from the basics to really state why youth voices are important and maybe also, I think, intersectionality has really been brought up a lot in this discussion, also to see how that can be brought into the conversation.
So, I think we are already two steps ahead, so maybe to include more people to have these starting basic questions, but I for sure have gained a lot of insights and this has been a very, very good discussion and I want to thank everybody for that.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you, Celiane. Thanks to you for your wonderful contributions.
Jenny, do you want to go next?
>> JENNY ARANA: Yes. Thank you, Mariana. Yeah, I just think that, you know, the issues we have touched on today, AI, education, you know, skills, et cetera, are just not challenges. They are also opportunities for innovation. And youth not only bring these fresh perspectives that we were talking about, but also a sense of urgency to these issues and the needs that we have right now.
But we also need to ensure that the voices of youth are not only heard, but integrated into governance structures, into policy discussions in the design of data-driven technologies and to raise awareness, again, among this adult community, it is essential to recognize that these values and these perspectives and contributions of youth invest in their initiatives and create platforms where they can lead, it's important to highlight the importance of youth-driven solutions to bridge the gap between policy and implementation. And we must stress the need for multistakeholder collaborations involving governments, private sector, civil society and these youth organizations. We want them at the centre of this discussions.
So, I think this is my takeaway. And I hope that we can continue more of these fruitful discussions in the future. Thank you. And thank you all.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thanks to you, Jenny. This is amazing. Joao, over to you. You have the big responsibility of wrapping it up.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Okay. To me, the main takeaway here is that how we need to broaden our reach. So, we are discussing here about including the young people in the digital economy and how to do this.
And, yeah, I think for our next discussion, our next step is to get the people involved that we are talking about.
So, we have a lot of interesting and very important initiatives here that could also be part of this, like we can include the people that we work together. I believe this.
>> MARIANA ROZO-PAZ: Thank you, Joao. That's very good. Thank you, everyone, again, for joining us. Thank you to the organizers, to the IGF for helping us host this. And, yeah, I think as one of our contributors mentioned today, let's keep pushing to make sure that these sessions are scheduled earlier in the programme and let's also advocate to have, hopefully, much more funding to keep leading these initiatives with very diverse youth communities.
Thank you again so much for joining us. Have a nice rest of your days, both in the IGF or wherever you are in the world. Hoping you a very good rest of the IGF. And happy holidays to everybody who is taking some time off, because I know that it's pretty much Christmas now. So, thank you, everyone.
>> CELIANE POCHON: Thank you so much for the organization and happy holidays to everyone.
>> JENNY ARANA: Bye, everybody. Thank you so much.
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Bye, everyone. Thank you. Bye.
>> JOAO MORENO FALCAO: Thank you. Bye.