IGF 2021 DC-SIG Rising to current challenges facing Schools of IG

Report on DC SIG meeting - IGF 2021                                                         

Session Description can be found at: https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2021-dc-sig-rising-to-curren…

Slides can be found at: https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2021-dc-sig-rising-to-current-challenges-facing-schools-of-ig

The session was held on Thursday, 9th December, 2021 at the Katowice IGF meeting. The meeting was held in a hybrid manner with a dozen or more in room participants and an equal number of remote participants. The contributions between the online and in person participants was well balanced. Gender, stakeholder designation, and geographical distribution also appeared to be well distributed. The meeting was chaired by Avri Doria, coordinator of the Dynamic Coalition.

The first part of the meeting was dedicated to presentations by several existing schools of internet governance including: the North American School, the Virtual School, The African School, Ghana School, the South School, the Argentina School, the Russian School, the Nigerian School, the Asia Pacific School, the India School, the Armenia School, the Pakistan SChool, and the European School.  Each of the schools not only discussed their origins and programs but discussed how they had dealt with putting on a school during a year when concerns about Covid predominated. The group also heard from several schools that are in the process of formation or have just held their first sessions: by the Free Moscow University, an initiative in Chad, which had its first session in 2021, a first year of a Central Africa school in Cameroon, and a school in Somalia. Comments were made during the discussions on the importance of these Schools of Internet Governance in the continuing spread of information on the issues that are gripping the world in terms of internet usage around the world, locally, regionally, and internationally. There was also a recognition of the number of youth leaders in internet governance that emerge from these schools; young leaders who are frequently seen among the active participants of many organizations. The various schools have done a good job of educating those who are interested in furthering the multistakeholder discussions of internet governance.

The second item on the agenda was a recap of the year's activities in the Dynamic Coalition. Basic activities included continuing work on the DC’s web site, where information about schools and curricula can be posted by the participating schools, and continued work on the two living documents that the DC maintains; one a toolkit on how to start a school and one a document, still in its early stage of development, on operational advice on running a school. Additionally, a program was run where interviews were done by Glen McKnight with the founders and organizers of many of the existing schools. These interviews can be found at: https://www.igschools.net/sig/sig/video-interviews/. The group discussed some of the challenges that were brought up in these interviews.

The third item on the agenda involved planning for 2022. Each year, the DC tries to chart its plan of activities for the following year. The first item to be discussed was an initiative by the IGF Secretariat to work with the DC on Internet Governance schools and its  members, as well as with the broader community, to design a global Internet Governance syllabus. Farzaneh Badiei, the consultant hired by the IGF Secretariat for the task spoke to the group about her plans for the project. 
In the discussion of future project, some of the suggestions for 2022 include:

   * There was a discussion of what collaboration would be possible with the IGF Secretariat project to design a syllabus. While the consultants plans to collaborate in producing a version of such a curriculum, it was unclear to what extent the IGF Secretariat project included participation by the DC in the long run.
   * There was discussion on  ideas for collaboration among schools  This include both linkages among the fellows and the faculty from the schools, not only those from the same school but also the possibility of communication among the schools.. Some of the current methods of communication, such as email list and social media, were discussed.
   * There are plans to update current SIG documents. The Toolkit needs to be updated each year so that it does not become stake. Additionally there are sections of that document that need further work. In terms of the Operations Guide, it is currently an annotated outline of the issues an organizer needs to deal with. The Guide needs further work, the kind of work that can only be done by volunteers who have the experience establish a program that focuses on methods for obtaining sustainable funding for schools of Internet Governance. A near universal problem that schools have is finding adequate funding for schools, faculty, and support of the fellows. 
   * There was a discussion of establishing schools that paid special attention to the issues within countries. Most schools have focused on the international and regional scope of governance issues. More programs are needed that look at the issues in terms of their national and local effect. The idea was presented of producing curricula and support for specialized schools for parliamentarians and legislators..

These items will be discussed in the meetings during 2022, and volunteers will be sought for the various tasks involved.

The final item was a presentation by Wolfgang Kleinwachter, the founder of the first School on Internet Governance, the European Summer School of Internet Governance. His remarks are included in full:

Thank you, Avri.  Thank you very much.  I'm really fascinated, you know, how this idea which came out of the early days of the Information Society was 15 years ago has evolved over the 15 years, and we have now this wonderful network of national and regional and global Schools of Internet Governance. 

On Monday, in the Day 0 event, I met again virtually Francois from Singapore, because he, like Avri, was a member of the WGIG and was with the President of the International Information Society and I was with the International Association for media and communication research NGOs and UNESCO.  And we organized a meeting, like the Day 0 meeting on the eve of the World Congress of the ICE, in a small village where we said, what can we do now with this agenda as academic persons? 

So, two ideas came out.  One was the Giganet and the other one was the concept of the summer school.  And the concept of a summer school was driven by two basic ideas.  One basic idea was that Internet Governance is a multidisciplinary phenomenon.  And normally, universities and academic institutions are organized around disciplines.  You can study law, business, infomatics, political science.  But Internet Governance goes across a lot of disciplines.  And so far, we had to invent something new and an interdisciplinary course. 

And the second thing was, it's not enough to have academic teachers.  So, it's learning in a multi‑stakeholder environment.  You have to understand your role of technical people who manage this.  You have to see the business perspectives, you have to see what are the users' perspectives, and you have to understand the role of government.  So, these two basic ideas, the multidisciplinary and the multi‑stakeholder approach, where the starting point for the pilot project, which we did 15 years ago, and I'm very happy to see that, you know, more or less now more than 20 schools have taken this concept and have further developed. 
So, I remember in 2008, '09, '10, we discussed, why not take a global academy?  But then we rejected this idea and established the Dynamic Coalition.  And I think this was a very wise decision, because this Dynamic Coalition gives you a lot of flexibility, because you have different local needs and you have different experience of different models, you know, how to design a special school in your country, in your region. 

So, the beauty of the whole process now, which has started 15 years ago, is also the pluralism, the diversity and the different models that have emerged.  So, I think this is very good because we can learn from different models and can be inspired. 

And I'm in particular thankful for Avri, which has collected all of the experience and channeled this now via her leadership as [Coordinator] of the Dynamic Coalition.  I'm also thankful to Rainer, because he is the good ghost behind the managing of this network.  And I'm also, in particular, thankful to all the sponsors for the various schools, because this is really a community effort.  So, we have not a state budget or other big budgets.  Each school has to find its own way.  And with engagement of many units from the Technical Community, from the private sector and other organizations, in particular, the various constituencies, ISOC and in particular ICANN.  I think this is extremely helpful. 

So, I'm looking forward.  I would see three issues which could be further discussed.  I think it's very good that Farzaneh is now on board and will help streamline work plan for the years ahead of us.  This is also a conclusion from the debates we had now in the IGF, is that I see a low level of understanding of many new stakeholders on the differences between public policy issues and the technical issues.  So, I think to understand that this is a layered system, that the governance of the internet on the technical layer has to be different from the governance model on the public policy layer.  I think this is an important thing that has to be delivered also by our schools.  And as somebody has said, you know, this is a moving target, to substance and curriculum of the summer schools has to evolve according to the special needs.  And 2022 is different from 2012 or even earlier. 

What I would also see is an opportunity to establish something like a SIG library.  So, we have now seen a lot of documents which came out, you know, the great video series published by Glenn McKnight.  But this is still unorganized, I think to have something like a SIG library, where we have online materials, in printed form, or can be downloaded as PDFs or videos.  I think this would be a very good step forward. 

And then, the third and final point is, we have to look at, you know, what is going on in the more broader environment.  What I see now as a new beginning is the decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations for the establishment of an open‑ended Working Group for cybersecurity where capacity‑building is a high priority.  So, they have a five‑year plan now for capacity‑building in cybersecurity.  And certainly, we can make a contribution to this. 

And this is also then related to how we focus our activities, so in two directions, whether we develop curriculum for special issues, like cybersecurity, digital economy, human rights, or what else, and then how we have to right target the Fellows.  So, the capacity‑building processes are merely for diplomats.  But what the lady from Tanzania said, we could also develop a special course for parliamentarians.  Because they are the lawmakers, and they have to understand what's going on, then, to make the right laws.  So that means there are two lanes for further development for specific causes on specific issues which are pressing now and on the global agenda, also powers the Global Digital Compact, which is proposed by the UN Secretary‑General, and then special targets, diplomats, structures, parliamentarians, and also young people. 

You know, our model, learning in a multi‑stakeholder environment, so we want to have a right mix so that people can learn from each other.  This is good.  But on the other hand, if you want to go to a high level, you need specialized courses, and probably this is the next step in a process, you know, which, hopefully, will bring us forward to the 2030 when we have the final day for the Sustainable Development Goals, because capacity‑building, learning, education is one of the key aspects of the SDGs. 

And I was just saying thank you very much and I hope we can find good successes in the future.  Thank you.
 
The meeting was then adjourned.
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