Youth Engagement at the IGF 2018 and Ways for Improvements

While talking in stock process youth needs to be segregated as per region and developing zones. Idealizing or looking at the problems with the same can be an issue of difference in level of awareness, technology available and capacity. It needs to be focused and expertized with fixed indicators with variables.     

Regarding the Sponsorship programmes, I have the below recommendations: 

• Increasing the funds and opportunities for Youth from under-represented groups even they are new to the IG space to represent the Internet issues in their communities
• Encouraging the governments and private sector to sponsor Youth to attend the IGF and NRIs
•  Possibility to link youth with sponsors ( not only with funds, but also with mentorship, training and support)

It is not just expanding the youth engagement individually, I personally hoping that as the Youth IGF is the official youth initiative from the UN IGF, there is a need to connect this initiative into ministerial level. Unlike any other UN bodies which have representative in many countries, the UN IGF only based in Geneva and there should be ways to level up this initiative into national level by approaching the prospective stakeholders in the country.

I would suggest that the name of the Practice IV (Practice IV: Additional projects to build youth participation in Internet Governance) should be changed. After asking my fellow student community I can say that this definition is too vague, and it should sound clearer. I would suggest to use the first proposed title for this practice (’Capacity building projects on youth participation at the IGF’). 

Thank you!

I strongly think - Practice IV: Additional projects to build youth participation in Internet Governance  is not appropiate as brainstorming with community l will suggest that using - Practice I: Youth Initiatives organised by the national, subregional, and regional IGF initiatives - will be a good one namely using capacity buiding  projects on youth  participation at IGF as well UN IGF supports national ,regional IGF inititative that place relevance on youth participation.  Looking at the level of digital literacy on our contient for example one will advocate that more capacity building will help to ensure that youth are resource with knowledge,skills and attitude to encourage discussion on internet governance in their community and this will go a longway to help in shapping the narrative and also support policy development as well as support national issues . Funding capacity development events for youth in this same direction will help as it will ensure that many youth from least develop countries can acquire knowledge and skills that will help them to provide expert views or suggestions in the future at major meetings which will help to bridge the gap between many youth from Africa as compared to their fellow youth from European countries or other enhance countires with better education programmes foucsed on IT  . This i this will help improve engagement at IGF .

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"In addition, alongside the self-organizing, multistakeholder youth IGF initiatives, the IGF community took concrete steps toward ensuring that the long-term discussion process shaped"

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In my opinion i think its important to create awareness among the youth from the grassroots therefore build capacity on how the internet can be used to create change and develop communities and not only for social interaction.

In my opinion i think its important to create awareness among the youth from the grassroots therefore build capacity on how the internet can be used to create change and develop communities and not only for social interaction.

Vallarie Yiega

ISOC - Kenya

I suggest to sensibilize the youngsters by adding a new subject in schools that stimulate the discussion about internet topics. 

Stakeholders as well as shareholders shouldn't it? Anyhow, it is interesting to have recommendations for the upcoming event.

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Various toolkits and social media interventions needs to be devised in terms of awareness and capacity building. Mostly when we talk about IGF the participation of youths is very less so fellowship for youth needs to be prioritized. Apart from that recognition of youth perspective is a must and should be acknowledge where most of the times during the IGF remote participation goes unnoticed which needs specific actions.

Agree that it is crucial to develope concrete materials for raising the awareness of youth engagement in Internet Governance. The materials should be built by the joint efforts from the IGF community, and it is noticed that actually some of the YIGFs have also created various toolkits sharing tips on organizing youth engagement events, we could further work based on that.  

For further steps and broader sense in promotion, I would like to suggest exploring cooperations with different youth related or youth led institutions (for instants: Model United Nations and Universities) to adopt the content materials and to put them into practice. Taking the colloboration with Model United Nations (MUN) as an example, "YIGF Operation Handbook" could be specifically designed to support the organizing work of the MUN committees, given that YIGF has commonality in nature with model UN conferences they are holding. The organizations and institutions, sharing the common goals /objectives with the IGF mandates in terms of youth development and engagement in Internet Governance Discourse, could be identified to serve this purpose. 

Everybody uses the internet, but very few people do it knowing at least a minimum about how it works, how it is organized and governed.

To improve we must spread the knowledge among young people at first.

In my opinion the best way to do that that is through classes to held in schools. If school must teach us what we need to be able to live in our world and to be able to improve it, why shouldn't it teach us how the internet works since we almost cannot live without it?

Our daughters and sons chat continuously with their friends over the internet without knowing what there is in between them. We must make them aware on what is going on, on the risks that may exist in using the internet, on how to improve it.

It’s also important to create a wider network to spread information and teaching materials on Internet and IGF processes. The universities and secondary schools could be a driver to improve capacity building on Internet Governance.

As youth IGF Africa Coordinator, on behalf of yigf Africa, I qualify this as a wonderful encouragement of youth to engage on the IG. I would like to add that if the secretariat should think about consulting the youth that has more experience in the domain of IG from different regions so they can bring some add to the development of the materials for having good and knowledgeable tools that can be understandable by the youth.

African youth needs a place to discuss and share ideas about ICT, for that we need Youth IGF. The document to be elaborated should be illustrative, especially I focus on documents which have many images. Because some young people understand more when they see the pictures. So i suggest that the documents would be developed and supported by images.

This is a better way to involve young people in the ICT field.
Young people are the future of the community they must take the lead on the international stage and contribute to the development of the IGF in their sub-regions. This noble incentive will allow the young people to move forward.

creating a concrete materials for youth to understand more IGF and how to engage is a good initiative that can encourage and improve youth engagement at the IGF. Of course it's not easy but it's possible. I think all my point of vue are mentioned here but I can add that after eleborating the content materials for youth by IGF Secretariat, those materials must be explained each NRI meeting it could help youth to engage more. and also IGF secretariat has to give priority to youth participation. Also each NRI can sensitize youth on how to understand and engage at the IGF with the easier maner. For exemple in my countrey Chad where Internet is very cost coordinators can organize formations or training on how to understand and to engage at the IGF.

I think that young Africans really need to learn the governance of the Internet. Youth IGF must be broad within the limits of its missions. Awareness-raising and consultation must be permanent in order to understand the concept of IGF.

Even ahead of any orientation by way of Capacity Building programs, IGF could draw wider insights from youth, if the issues are paraphrased with Illustratiins. It requires a Cartoonist's expertise to percolated down complex policy issues down to suit a level of comprehension that would draw a wider spectrum of youth to Internet Governance. The question "Do you agree with cameras in your classrooms and corridors?" would bring more youth participants to the table than the hypothetical question: "Do you agree with the new parliamentary directive on privacy exceptions?" The insights from the paraphrased question would valuable feedback into the complex IG debate. We need utterly simplified content.

It is very important to build and maintain a repository of  all content relevant to IGF processes; information of past meetings; topics of interest including  upcoming topics, which the youth can refer to whenever required. This will not only help in easy access of information but also help to build awareness and capacity of the IGF process.

It would also be helpful if the content is available in different languages so as to enable non english speaking population to also benefir from this initiative.

In my opinion i think we need to build capacity for the youth in the internet space by creating awareness that change can be driven online just as how we start topics and tweet about them and they make an impact. this can only be achieved by providing the resources to reach out to the digital grassroots and educate the youth on the benefits of the internet and how it can be used for development and not only for interaction.

While I  support this suggestion, I would also recommend  a recognition that age appropriate materials are needed, for instance, materials suitable for high school age youth are different from college age, or those already in a ph.d program/or employed. Materials regarding general processes can be generalized, of course.  But for engagement modalities and topics, it is important to recognize that there are unique aspects, depending on the age group of youth/young persons and certainly, children.  Addressing the topic of Internet governance with school age children may require parental permission, if children are attending or speaking where they are going to be viewed by media, or even video taped.  So far, most of the discussion seems to center on young people who are between 21 and upward... and some of whom are already social or civil activists.  Young people are also employed in government agencies, in businesses, and in the technical community and are not only IGO interns or 'ambassadors' of special programs although that may be where they first encounter awareness of the IGF.  I am not being critical of such initiatives -- they are essential -- but it is important to think about how the various youth initiatives also reflect a commitment to engaging the different stakeholders -- from youth participants.  To ensure that there is breadth to the engagement of young people/youth, materials need to respect the imprtance of the multi stakeholder engagement and not be supported or developed only by those who are from one stakeholder group or two who have been funded to engage.  This presents a unique challenge in the development of materials and discussion about opportunities for engagement but is essential to meet the objectives of the IGF to be inclusive of all stakeholders. 

I have a concern about hte development of the "substantive" topical materials -- yes, it may be very useful to consider inviting relevant experts from the IGF community, eg, drawing from the intercessional work, but any materials that are asserted to be affiliated with the IGF Secretariat need to have some kind of review for neutrality and present all views.  That could be supported by a sort of peer review approach, which is used heavily in such esteemed organizations as IEEE and others. In addition, perhaps development of 'suggested' reading lists that present materials that present different views might also be an approach to consider and would be less time consuming versus developing new materials. However, we should avoid being WEOG centric in the presentation of the materials as many of the materials online are dominated by a few academics or perspectives funded by entities from WEOG countries. I am not suggesting that this work be ignored, but that the perspectives from different regions and social/cultural issues are different, when we consider the breadth of potential interest from youth in Internet Governance, if they understand it is relevant to how they use the Internet at a national and global level. 

 This might mean that a survey of 'what would be helpful' might be a first step, before jumping in with topic specific materials. We also need to always remember that there are lots of useful materials already online, but perhaps there is a lack of awareness, or the field of available materials are overwhelming to a newcomer/youth.  

The substantive topical materials might be could start with the Best Practice Forum and the current DCs. To draw from the publications of the BPF and DCs to produce a one to two pagers for each substantive topics as a starter for youth with reference links to extended reading materials. 

Dear all

I would like to recommend the participation of experts from the IGF community in the school curriculum, especially the development of textbooks for different levels on Internet Governance. Thus, the Internet and its governance will be taught in schools and hence in youth associations.

Since, the internet has become everyone's daily life, surfing the internet without knowing the minumum of data protection exposes the youth a lot. It is a way to make young people understand the stakes of the Internet.

Youth IGF Chad, Mahamat Adam Seid

SUGGESTION 1 - I totally support it. I believe the materials should be developed in a form of so-called «edutainment» - «education» + «entertainment», and be as approachable as possible.
Moreover, as discussed in our community, we see that number of materials in Russian is extremely low. So we suggest expanding a number of materials in Russian.

Thank you!

As discussed , this is very vital to do , and beyond this is to build capacity of youth in this area - the future of the internet govenrnance rely on the youth and as we are the future generation capacity to sustain the pressure or movement -our capaity building is vital to knowledge transfer to the youth and this should be taken seriously intor consideration and l am hereby call on all stakeholders who make decision on the future of the youth in the internet governance space to ceate fund or make available funds o ensure that aactive youth at their locl evel are supported to be part of event of this natre especially from less developing countries like Liberia , Sierra Lone ,Gambia , l mean countries in West Africa ,who play active role in bring their voice of th fellow youth to the world . Developing these material will help but the Africa narrative must be told by Africa ,so Africa youth will help in developing content materials for fellow youth regarding IGF process and topics of interest to also share at such event of IGF .

The youth generation really plays important role, it is vital to train them for the future since they will be the next in line. We can't let legacy just die down without successors.

Yang,  residential electrician

The MAG members’ roles needs to be further expanded with various coaching and onsite regional session with youth perspective needs to be conceptualized.  MAG members have to be proactive and should be engaging.

As I've already suggested to APrIGF, it would also be wonderful to see each regional IGF and national IGF conduct this mentoring program during their sessions. Although the participants to IGF will not be the same with those who participate in reg/ntl IGFs, (or because they will not be the same), it will be great opportunities for youth from all different regions to get involved if this engagement program and especially mentoring program can be implemented in regional/national IGFs. 

Any coaching solution should aim to be self-sustainable, without adding further burden to members of the community. The approach from the NextGen program has proven to be tried and true, in such a way that you first capacitate the young person and then bring the outliers back to coach, in a virtuous cycle.

As I mentioned above, many African countries have a more reliable and continuous internet access problem. To establish a program that allows youth to connect with more experienced members of the IGF community, meetings in some African countries must be physical. Mentors or coaches need to meet mentees in places and face-to-face to be more collaborative and interactive. I must note that sometimes to participate in IGF meetings online it poses a lot of difficulties either the internet is too slow, or it cuts. So sometimes we cannot follow the meetings.

Our team at Digital Grassroots initiative (www.digitalgrassroots.org) is interested in volunteering to provide mentorship for all young first-time attendees at the 13th annual IGF, on how to integrate and benefit from the IGF.

In my opinion this initiative is beneficial especially when it comes to the members of the mag, because the responsibility is committed to better continue their missions through online meetings and webinars. It also adds local awareness through debates etc. to reach the funds of the young people of the different social strata.

The IGF could work with renowned institutions such as India's IIT / IIMs, Yale, Harvard, King's College, to name a few for illustration, for a start, working with existing IGF participants from resourceful Institutions, and institute Bachelor's and Master's program in Internet Governance, with necessary care to recommend and somewhat standardise course syllabus and early faculty to be recommended not by any one Stakeholder group or by any Interests, but by the committed muktistamultista community. The IGF / IGF support communities could consider evolving standards for the IG graduation courses accredited by the IGF / IGF community, perhaps courses branded by some permissible or feasible manner

Mentoring would definitely be an effective tool to improve engagement of youth in IGF. However the mentorship has to be properly defined in order to be successfull.

The expected objectives and outcome would have to be carefully thought. Other importnat questions to ponder on include:

For example:

- Who will mentor?

- What would be the criteria of assigning a mentor for example : will it be based on geography? or topics of interest?

- What would be the expected outcome of the mentorship program?

- What would be the duration of the Mentorship program?

I think this is very premature, so I do not support it at this time. Suggestion 3  ignores that an effective mentoring program has to have qualifications for both mentors and mentees; measureable activities with metrics and tracking, and be overseen by someone who can deal with the disputes which will arise between mentors and mentees -- people are still human, after all.   And it ignores that there are costs -- both in time and in financial support, even if no travel funding is provided. It also ignores that those who attend IGF to participate in workshops, DCs and NRI coordinators are extremely busy when attending the IGF.  A strengthened focus on Day Zero with a more indepth dive into how to be effective could be a first start. I am not a supporter of using the Newcomers briefing to tell attendees how the Internet works -- frankly, in the last IGF, the senior government and business executives I encouraged to attend walked out, as they expected to learn about how to be effective in engagement and how the IGF "works".  I know that MAG members wanted to lecture on how the Internet works, but the Newcomers session is not the place.  Perhaps we can start with strenthening that session and invite speakers from DCs, BPFs, and NRIs as well as describing how the Village Booth is an additional resource for engagement. 

My experience in mentoring programs -- both as a professional during my masters program, later in a high tech corporation, subsequently in volunteering in other groups, and at ICANN  teaches me many lessons. Mentoring programs need criteria and a code of conduct for mentors and mentees; goals, metrics, and tracking. and an appeals approach for a mentor or mentee who needs redress.  For instance, mentee experiences a feeling of reection because they can't  find their mentor at relevant times... at another IG, we have had mentors who  did not meet with their mentees one time during a 5+ day meeting, but reported back that all went well, and we have had mentees who state that they have mentor support but missed 3 out of 5 scheduled catch up sessions.  Criteria matter/expectations matter.  Establishing a formalized mentoring or coaching progarm takes thought, and will take funding.  We are not "there" yet.  

Imagine putting one one, for sure it wouldn't be that easy. Even just coaching is a head ache.

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RE: Suggeston 4. This already exists (I created it). Verson 1 exists on the YCIG website, and version 2 exists on the EuroDIG Wiki. There's no need to engage in redundant work here.

I think that it is a great idea and i do support it. this platform will facilitate our coodination activities and build a strong youth community engagement.

This issue of online observatory of resources is very necessary since its makes available the different documents in order to understand the different aspects of Internet governance. We will like to see this wiki platform available.

A lot of organisations in this domain have special youth programs, it is good to build an dynamic, online resource specifically targetting the youth and acting as one stop platform for information. This can also host special education, IG courses, opportunities and engagement activities best if divided continent wise as a lot of them are structures that way. Also good to collaborate with SIG's which are mainly targetted at youth in various regions to contribute to and amplify this resource. Language maybe a potential hindrance.

A special youth track will be great but if that is not possible owing to location and availability of space, minor efforts to host open youth forums or light sessions for youth discussions at the 13th IGF will enable them to share within the community. Youth participants at IGF come from various backgrounds and often bear the obligations of their primary organisation for representation and hence timing is crucial. Social sessions or after hours are a good way to mingle too considering this year there is no Day 0.

I am a intriqued by the Internet Community Wiki platform as a partner.  Let's explore this as a neutral platform, after we establish criteria for posting, including adherence to the IGF principles, no anonymous posts, etc. 

A great idea! 

Dear all

In addition to what has been suggested, I recommend short-term youth training fellowships.
Objective: To immerse young people in the technical reality of Internet Governance and to become trainers for their respective networks.

Youth IGF Chad, Mahamat Adam Seid

Available resources should be translated into more languages with the assistance of local IGF chapters/alumnin to accentuate inclusivity and broaden reach

Imagine being so ready for physical course class, but then ends up schooling for years online alone.

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This is really ideal to do. Maybe we could consider doin so.

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I wouldn't mind speinding time with such informative article, didn't have a good one for a while.

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