Proposer's Name: Ms. Bruna Santos
Proposer's Organization: Youth Observatory
Co-Proposer's Name: Ms. Sze Ming Tan
Co-Proposer's Organization: Sinar Project
Co-Organizers:
Miss Sze Ming Tan, Civil Society, SINAR PROJECT/ Youth for Rights (Y4R).
Miss Sarah Linke, Civil Society, Youth Observatory.
Mr. Carlos Guerrero, Civil Society, HiperDerecho and Youth Observatory.
Session Format: Birds of a Feather - 90 Min
Proposer:
Country: Brazil
Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
Co-Proposer:
Country: Malaysia
Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
Speaker: Jianne Soriano
Speaker: David Morar
Speaker: Bruna Santos
Speaker: Elisabeth Schauermann
Content of the Session:
Taking into consideration the Sustainable development goals and the importance of the youth for the Internet of the Future, the main idea of the present proposal is to hold a workshop with the IGF community in order to discuss the actual problems and barriers encountered by youth online and by the community when dealing with us.
By acknowledging our newcomer status on the IG related discussions, we want to learn and, therefore, get involved in the policy discussion and to have our voices heard. But first, we believe it is of great importance to debate on the barriers, such as the need to strengthen the network to planning and building strategies of youth movements representation and also the importance of programmes that are not only directed towards capacity building initiatives but also on the engagement of youth on policy development processes.
When addressing these questions, the discussion should focus whether or not the Youth should build an agenda for its engagement on the IG ecosystem, and if yes, which topics should be present on that. Having said that and given the initial framework, the session aims to discuss the following questions with the audience:
- What are the barriers encountered by youngsters when entering the Internet Governance Ecosystem? How can we prospect the youth to engage with IG?
- Is there any ideal model of Youth engagement program? What do you think are the key elements to any of them ?
- Considering the amount of Youth movements around the globe, how can we represent the diversity of realities and youths in order to legitimately represent their claims? How do you think those initiatives could work together in order to exchange experiences, best practices and regional backgrounds?
- Talking about the need of a forum or a line of action that would conjoint the ideas and practices of these newly engaged individuals, do you think that there should be a Youth Agenda for Internet Governance? Or a Best Practice youth Forum within the IGF ?
Relevance of the Session:
The internet in the youth’s life is not a new technology, is something that make part about what we are, we develop our personality with internet: how we communicate with each other, how we learn, how we share our experiences. We are not only consuming and creating content, but we are also engaging in the evolution and use of the internet. We are creating new models of online businesses, developing internet protocols, defending human rights on the internet and participating in the development of community networks, among other things. Although the number of youth involved and the high impact of their activities, we are still underrepresented at internet governance forums.
Among/In spite of the existing obstacles, several youth movements have emerged, underlining the need for the inclusion of young people on the internet governance ecosystem and creating capacity building opportunities to access such ecosystem with solid tools and a more resourceful participation. They are generating new lines of discussion. It is thus important to generate synergies among the different movements, learn from the exchange of experiences and discuss how to better approach the involvement of youth in the internet policy development processes, be it at the national, regional or global level.
Addressing the nature and possibilities of youth involvement and inclusion is not only important to strengthen the voices of the youngsters already interested in and active on the internet governance ecosystem, but also to pave the way for newcomers and future generations.
Moreover, as we are engaged in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, we should bare in mind that 70% of the under 25-year-olds, i.e., 1.9 billion people, are not yet online (fuente: World Bank). That is to say, when we develop programmes and policies for the next billion to connect, we should not leave out the youth approach.
Tag 1: Youth Engagement
Tag 2: Internet & ICTs for the Sustainable Development Goals
Tag 3: Multistakeholder Cooperation
Interventions:
As a discussion facilitation dynamics, we would provide each speaker a question, leaving us with the following division:
Bruna Santos, Youth Observatory - Is there any ideal model of Youth engagement program? What do you think are the key elements to any of them ?
David Morar, Schar School Of Policy and Government - Talking about the need of a forum or a line of action that would conjoint the ideas and practices of these newly engaged individuals, do you think that there should be a Youth Agenda for Internet Governance? Or a Best Practice youth Forum within the IGF ?
Elisabeth Schauermann, Internet Society IGF Ambassador - What are the barriers encountered by youngsters when entering the Internet Governance Ecosystem? How can we prospect the youth to engage with IG?
Jianne Soriano, Net Mission Ambassador - Considering the amount of Youth movements around the globe, how can we represent the diversity of realities and youths in order to legitimately represent their claims? How do you think those initiatives could work together in order to exchange experiences, best practices and regional backgrounds?
Diversity:
1. All of the involved in the organization of this Session — Speakers, Rapporteur, Moderators — are either Young professionals or engaged in Youth movements.
2. Of our 4 Speakers, three are female. Our Rapporteur is also female.
3. Our Speakers are from Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia. We have privileged Youth Speakers from developing nations such as Brazil and Malaysia.
4. Our speakers represents both the Academia, Civil Society and Business stakeholders.
Onsite Moderator: Paula Côrte Real
Online Moderator: Elisson Diones
Rapporteur: Veronica Arroyo
Online Participation:
A remote moderator will enlist questions and comments from the online audience during the workshop. Prior to the workshop, the idea is to gather content posted with the hashtags #YouthAgenda #YouthBarriers, further on this content will be used to bring in comments and questions from prospective attendees which may enrich the debate.
A collaborative document will gather these records of comments and questions prior to, during, and after the workshop, and will be integrated into the report. A variety of media can also serve as background material for this debate, based on previous workshops.
Remote participation tools will ensure an inclusive, accessible, and global audience.
Discussion facilitation:
The proposed session is the birds of a feather format, in order to promote an informal discussion on the proposed topics between onsite and online audience and to allow interventions freely within the open mic. We believe the Birds of a Feather session format will provide a non-commercial, dynamic environment for attendees to openly discuss current topics of focused mutual interest within the youth movements with a strong emphasis on audience-driven discussion, professional networking and grassroots participation.
Therefore the proposed dynamics is the following:
1. Opening - (10 min)
Onsite moderator opens the session and introduces the speakers:
Bruna Santos, Youth Observatory
David Morar, Schar School Of Policy and Government
Elisabeth Schauermann, Internet Society IGF Ambassador
Jianne Soriano, Net Mission Ambassador
2. Onsite moderator will address each speaker the following question (30 min, 7 min each):
What are the barriers encountered by youngsters when entering the Internet Governance Ecosystem? How can we prospect the youth to engage with IG? (Elisabeth Schauermann)
Is there any ideal model of Youth engagement program? What do you think are the key elements to any of them ? (Bruna Santos)
Considering the amount of Youth movements around the globe, how can we represent the diversity of realities and youths in order to legitimately represent their claims? How do you think those initiatives could work together in order to exchange experiences, best practices and regional backgrounds? (Jianne Soriano)
Talking about the need of a forum or a line of action that would conjoint the ideas and practices of these newly engaged individuals, do you think that there should be a Youth Agenda for Internet Governance? Or a Best Practice youth Forum within the IGF ? (David Morar)
3. Group discussion on the assigned questions (20 min)
Two groups: Group a will address questions 1 and 2 (Elisabeth and Bruna) and group b will address questions 3 and 4 (Jianne and David). One panel
