NRI and Youth Assembly – Update on the global processes and how to participate? – Pre 04 2022

20 June 2022 | 14:45 - 16:15 CEST | SISSA Main Auditorium | |
Consolidated programme 2022 overview / Day 0

Official launch of IGF 2022 youth track focused on digital transformation and IG engagement

Session teaser

Building on the demand from young people, as well as on the outputs of the last year’s Global Youth Summit and related youth engagement opportunities, the IGF 2022 aims at creating a set of activities to connect youth from around the world among themselves, and also create opportunities for them to network with senior stakeholders, experts in Internet governance. As digital transformation was among the topics of interest to youth, the capacity development activities will also tackle specific issues nested under this broad theme.

This workshop will outline the basics of digital transformation and related digital policy and is the first capacity development workshop of the IGF 2022 Youth Engagement Track.

Session description

We are living in a time when each and every aspect of our lives is going through digital transformation, ‎from education and work to communication and entertainment. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted ‎the power and importance of digital technologies. While the physical distancing measures associated with ‎the pandemic have closed schools across the world, disrupted people’s ability to work and forced families ‎and friends to stay apart, the Internet has enabled many to continue their education and jobs and ‎maintain social interaction.‎ However, the increase in the use of online technologies prompted by COVID-19 has exacerbated many ‎digital policy-related issues and has starkly illustrated the widening gap between the connected and ‎unconnected. For example, it has highlighted the importance of issues related to online security and ‎safety, data protection and utilisation, as well as freedoms and rights on the Internet. Even before the ‎pandemic, there was broad recognition of the need to conquer the digital divide, particularly the gender ‎digital divide, as well as online segregation and discrimination of various marginalised groups. These ‎problems have been around ever since the Internet entered our lives, just over 50 years ago, and the ‎complexity and global nature of the issues require the involvement of multiple generations. The ‎youth of today will be tomorrow’s Internet leaders and experts. The sooner we start developing the ‎capacity of today’s youth, the sooner we can start to make progress, across the generations, and create ‎an Internet that benefits all. ‎

Format

14:45 - Welcome and Introductions

14:50 - Youth in Internet Governance: why and how (with Q&A)

15:15 - What is digital transformation about? Looking at key trends, issues and opportunities (with Q&A)

15:45 - Youth on their way to IGF in Ethiopia

16:10 - Closing

Further reading

Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Main page of EuroDIG

• Call for Youth Funding Research

People

Key participants:

• Nadia Tjahja is the youth coordinator for the Youth Dialogue on Internet Governance (YOUthDIG). She is also the Communications Committee Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) and sits on the Youth Advisory Board of EURid. Previously she was the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance (YCIG) representative for WEOG in 2017-2019.
• Elisabeth Schauermann, IGF Germany
• Anja Gengo, IGF
• Daniel Akinmade Emejulu, Microsoft UN Affairs
• Rapporteur: Lily Edinam Botsyoe

Report

by session organiser

The IGF 2022 youth track was officially launched at the 2022 annual meeting of the European Dialogues on Internet Governance (EuroDIG). The co-organizers¹ structured the first workshop to introduce the track, announce the next activities, explore the demand from youth and unpack digital transformation policy challenges and opportunities as the overarching theme of the track.

The moderators were the coordinators of the youth programme of EuroDIG (YOUthDIG) Ms. Nadia Tjahja and the coordinator of the German Youth IGF, Ms. Elisabeth Schauermann. The rapporteur was Ms. Lily Edinam Botsyoe, coordinator of the Ghana Youth IGF. The workshop featured two speakers, Ms. Anja Gengo from IGF Secretariat and Mr. Daniel Akinmade Emejulu from Microsoft UN Affairs.

A vibrant interactive discussion engaged many young and senior stakeholders who exchanged views on the format of the track as well as on the policy aspects youth could discuss within the youth track in preparations for the final global youth summit at the 17th IGF in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The meaningful and vibrant exchanges of over 100 participants onsite and online underlined the need for creating synergies between youth and senior stakeholders throughout the track and at the 17th IGF. Many recognized the need for fostering cooperation among youth from al regions and backgrounds as a guarantee for more equipped future generations of experts and leaders and with that a more promising future.

Below is the overall summary of the exchanges.

Key takeaways

• The Global Internet Community should foster inter-generational collaboration between youth and the older generation(s) by responding to issues of language, funding and barriers to accessing the Internet. Placing paramount attention on youth demands now and not as a secondary matter can be an effective starting position for this.

• Digital transformation should be pursued in sustainable ways with the participation of all stakeholders, especially from the private sector, by approaching digital transformation on sectorial lines which helps better understanding of needs, challenges and opportunities.

• To benefit from digital transformation processes, it is essential to bring meaningful access to all young people as a pre-requisite for any online activity. Many local communities lack resources to deploy infrastructure and create conditions for developing necessary skills. There is a need to assess the conditions youth lives in and direct the investment toward developing their digital capacity which will lead to a better future for all and leaving no one behind.

• The session opened with an understanding of ways of possible engagement in Internet governance through a shared journey of the YOUthDIG coordinator. Several learning opportunities were shared, and participants were encouraged the tackle barriers to participation and access.  Youth was invited to cooperate on building a repository of funding opportunities. There were examples cited from Belgium where PhD students receive conference support by applying twice a year, an opportunity from Switzerland (Movetia) for Clubs, associations, NGOs or public bodies and others from the European Union (Erasmus+).

• Building on the value and opportunities for engaging in Internet governance, the IGF Secretariat explained that the youth track aims to create synergies between youth and senior stakeholders. The first workshop at EuroDIG will inform other subsequent workshops expected to be hosted at the Asia Pacific Youth regional IGF and Youth Latin Americana and the Caribbean IGF.

• The Chad IGF coordinator underlined the need for youth voices to advocate for issues of youth importance, as well as the need for north-south collaborations and consideration in language for global audiences. He added the need for support for visa processes for attendance at international events.

• The session continued with unpacking digital transformation policy challenges through a presentation from Microsoft which highlighted key trends, issues and opportunities from the private sector perspective sharing some of Microsoft’s Digital Futures initiative’s examples as illustrations of the expressed arguments. The presentation is available for further information.

• Acknowledging the transformative nature of digital technologies, it was underlined that their effects must be considered looked on sectorial lines to be able to understand the needs and challenges.

• Specifically referencing the sustainable development goal (SDG) 2 which focuses on Zero Hunger, several examples of the digital transformation footprint in agriculture were shared.

• Access and connectivity were highlighted by many as the prerequisite for rural and urban areas to tap into digital transformation, expressing concerns that many are not connected at all to the broadband Internet.

• Participants also exchanged views on the ways digital transformation helps education tapping into the SDG 4 focused on quality education.

• Matters of agriculture attracted interest and some noted that this area should be promoted in ways that make it attractive to young people and encouraged climate-friendly processes. 

The workshop concluded by explaining that each youth track workshop will feature speaker(s) from different stakeholder groups to ensure the entire track provides a multistakeholder perspective on the topic. The next workshop has been under planning by the youth track co-organizers building on the key takeaways of this workshop.

__________________

¹ IGF 2022 Host Country – Government of Ethiopia, youth IGF coordinators, youth-focused international initiatives and IGF Secretariat as listed on the IGF website https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-youth-track

Video record

https://youtu.be/5vpD0i1I8mc?t=17865

Transcript

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This text, document, or file is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text, document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Is this on? Yes. Hey. We’re back from our short break. Hello, everyone for the first part of the NRI Assembly on youth, what we’re going to do in the next 90 minutes is have a closer look into what the digital transformation means for youth messages participation, how we can as young people participate in the IGF 2022 and beyond and what different modes there are for youth to get engaged and stay engaged in internet governance.

My name is Elisabeth Schauermann, I have in the coordinated several youth initiatives and those of you that are here interested have seen me run around the room because my main role is to manage the stage production.

I’m joined on stage by Nadia Tjahja, the current YOUthDIG coordinator among many other things and she will start us off with a presentation on different mechanisms and funding mechanisms for youth participation. Thank you for being here. And with me on stage, it is Anja Gengo, from the IGF Secretariat and Anja will give as you close insight into the IGF2022 and the youth track which is kind of kicked off today at EuroDIG. We’re very honored this is happening. Online we have Daniel Akinmade Emejulu –

>> I want to give you assurance, we have nearly 50 participants online joining us from across the world from really all continents because what we’re discussing now, in the past we have focused on European NRI and this year’s topic is more broader, so most participants are online and around the world.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: I wasn’t worried. I knew people would show up from all corners of the world and it is good to hear. Online joining us is Daniel Akinmade Emejulu who will speak on digital transformation and how we can all participate in that regard.

Without further ado, we can share your slides and then Nadia will start with her presentation. Wonderful. Thank you.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Good afternoon. Hello to everybody worldwide joining us to talk about youth and internet governance. I wanted to start off the session and talk a little bit about my journey into internet governance and why it is internet governance. I come from a communications background myself.. I was working on a project and looking for opportunities to further my gross to learn about the opportunities available and how our decision making being done regarding education on media literacy and fact checking and how do it better.

I started to attend activities, one day I came across someone who said why don’t you go to the Internet Governance Forum. I asked him what internet governance was. He couldn’t explain it to May quite. He said if you go into Internet Governance, maybe a lot of your questions that you have will then be answered because the way you’re looking at things is how is this phenomenal tool you’re using, how are we looking at this, questions about disinformation, fake new, it brings together people from all over different places. Why don’t you go there.

When I turned up there, I learned a lot. Not only in terms of what is my subject area and how does it feature in kind a wider sphere. You always look into your kind of niche area. Going to this forum allows you to put your specific area in a broader context, you look beyond the communities and realize how larger the communities could be if you knew more about the ecosystem.

I was so happy to be at the Internet Governance forum. To get there was not easy. My first Internet Governance forum, you never forget the first one, it was in Geneva, an easy jet flight from the Netherlands to Geneva was only 30 euros but it is a trap! Geneva is very expensive. I have to pay for a hotel about 200 euros a night, five nights, that means I’m broke or eating rice for maybe a few months. To have that opportunity to go to Internet Governance Forum, it is in part really a great privilege for learning, for experience. But has an access issue. I wanted it so bad, people talked about it so much, I looked for different opportunities, some of them, the deadlines had already passed and most of all I went to the private sector and finally after a few months I found a private sector stakeholder who was willing to fund my way to the IGF.

This is why I would like to start talking about mechanisms to attend international opportunities and at EuroDIG, therefore, we would like to launch the call for funding opportunities.

Could you please click?

The call for funding opportunities is realizing that there are opportunities for us out there, and with the announcement of 2022, as the European Year of Youth, there are a lot of schemes coming out in the field and the thing is, we need to use and collaborate with each other to get into these opportunities because sometimes these are part of larger schemes and sometimes it requires a larger group of people to get involved in them.

Next slide, please.

So for example, if you look at Belgium, if you’re a PhD student or post-doctoral student, if you study out of a Flemish University, you can apply up to two times to attend an international conference they pay for it fully, the conference fee, the travel, the per diem, the travel fee, local transportations and the only criteria you need to have, you must be an active participant and EuroDIG and IGF unlike any other forum gives you the opportunity for easy access to participation. You can speak at the open mic, you can present your ideas and thoughts. You can reach out to the different sessions in EuroDIG, you can join a session organizer and those things show how much you can be involved within a community. This is what they want to see.

What is really great, because you can apply twice, you can go to EuroDIG and the IGF.

If we have a look at Switzerland, there is a national agency that has a project called Youth and Politics. If you’re a young person between 13 and 30, you can participate in this..

Let’s say for example you were going to come to Italy for your EuroDIG and you wanted to do a participation from Switzerland, then you can apply, you and 30 of your friends could do an exchange to come then to EuroDIG to learn and then you set out a programme, this programme could be attending specific sessions, preparing to do an open mic, you can request an org team, a BigStage, you can set up meetings coming to EuroDIG, we see people that are individual consultants, activists, academics, we see so many different is a holders and bring the communities together, it is an amazing learning experience.

I’m sorry, it is really hot. I’m starting to run out of air.

The great thing about this, you don’t have to be a specific group. Youth IGF, you can apply. These things are really great to then access EuroDIG and we hope that Switzerland will absolutely consider to do that.

When we look at the European Union, Erasmus+ has some youth exchange schemes. This is amazing. Say for example you’re a Youth IGF somewhere and you say I’m doing a youth exchange with a Youth IGF Italy. Then you come here, you join EuroDIG, go, perhaps do a tour of Italy so you have a cultural binding experience. You get to meet some of the people who are involved and you can also learn a little bit about different types of communities you’re involved in. This is a great way to have a large group of young people come to the events and engage them the exchange opportunities that we perhaps may not have had on such a large scale.

Although I have mostly been talking about youth, I would also like to talk a little bit about organizations.

May I have the next slides.

There is also in the Erasmus plus scheme an opportunity for organizations. These organizations can send students or staff or trainees, apprentices, youth workers, a variety of different kind to get involved. One of the things we have been saying, to get youth involve Deputy Director General at “AREA Science Park” to educate the educators. This is one way of a scheme to get educators more involved in Internet Governance and giving them the tools and access to teach them how can you go from these different spaces and then access the Internet Governance sphere. To access these, it’s very – I wouldn’t say it is per se easy, they provide accessibility because they offer it in your national language. Every country has their own national agency and because you have your own national agency you can stay at home, you have the opportunity to talk to them in the language that you’re comfortable with and this is extremely important because it gives you the most access when you do applications. Applications often that are only done in English, they restrict those that have not had a very strong or a very comfortable way of expressing themselves in English.

Being allowed to submit the work in their national language, going on the international exchange in English gives more access and opportunity for people.

With that being said, I would then like to give the floor back to Elizabeth and I hope that you will join the call for funding opportunities at EuroDIG because what we would like – if you go to the EuroDIG Wiki, we have set up slides like these and we’re calling on the NRI Assembly to please have a look at the opportunities that are available in your country. Please add them to the slides. Then when people want to get involved, find ways to bring large groups of people or even you yourself, an individual application, to go to EuroDIG, to go perhaps beyond EuroDIG, then we can make sure that we have all the information in one place and then when we have this information in one place we can see what kind of opportunities we can coordinate between each other. Things like exchanges, providing support to each other, I think that would be a great start.

I hope you’re willing to build with us on this.

Thank you very much.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Nadia, for the insight. As we all know, as we have been in this space for the longest time, a pillar of participation obviously is how to get to the places that you can participate.

Are there questions, comments from the room, from online? Nadia will not be with us the whole time. Anything that is directed at Nadia we can take now.

>> We have a question online, would you share with us the link? I think since it is published on our website it is already publicly available. It leads you to a Cloud pace where everyone is invited to add more content on the country of which he or she is aware of, what funding opportunities exist and our aim is actually to have an overview about other funding opportunities which is available through the EuroDIG website..

There’s no other question at least.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Someone requested the floor you said? Sandra, could you maybe check in the Zoom room? There seems to be a request for the floor. I think we can take it. We have enough time.

>> Did I miss it?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Should be right on top of the participants list.

>> The hand raised. Sorry, my brain is a bit slow today. Yes.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Please, you can take the floor, ask a question or make your statement. We will unmute you in the Zoom room. Maybe, Sandra, you may have to make her cohost and help her unmute.

>> Or unmute her.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Yeah.

>> ANNA KRUPNIK: Hello. I represent the Youth IGF movement.

My question would be the following: How can the EuroDIG community let’s say contribute to involving more policymakers to this programme where youth meet and youth exchange so that young people can be given let’s say more possibilities to talk to decision makers directly?

Thank you.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you so much for your question. I like your question a lot.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: In Europe, right now, we’re starting to prepare for the European elections next year. What is very interesting about that, it is that of course with the digital transformation being high on the agenda and later we’ll be listening more about the concept of digital transformation, this is a great opportunity for young people to reach out to policymakers and ask them questions. To then actually get them involved in these things and because this is the time that they’re actively campaigning. They’re really reaching out to young voters specifically. They noticed in the polls lately in Europe that young voters are strongly voting in very radical patterns. Now it is more crucial, more and more, you have the face-to-face campaign, getting people involved.

We want to have policymakers at the table to realize how important digital transformation is or the concept of Internet Governance, they should know this is a high part of the agenda worldwide really and because of this, they should pay more attention to this and when we reach out to them, we should tell them, remind them, we’re voters. We’re going to vote for the elections. We are interested about digital issues. I would like for you to come and talk to me about digital issues. If they don’t want to engage on this, they’re going to be left behind because digital transformation issues are going to be extremely important over the next three years. You see that also at the U.N. level, this is more and more an active engagement. Policymakers should be on top of this, if they don’t know about consultations like the global digital compact, if they don’t know about things that are happening in the digital community, when we address them, we should tell them, this, this and this is happening. We want your opinion about this. This might frighten them on one hand and actually make them shy away saying I don’t actually know about this topic. I’ll shy away from this. Hopefully, this will inform them how important it is to bolden the people that know about these topics and they will fight even harder for things we want, listening specifically to the youth voice.

Next year, so the end of this year, next year, they’re a very important years for the European elections. If you want to engage policymakers here in Europe, this is what I would say, go and reach out to your policymakers. Remind them you’re voters. Tell them about the issues that are happening in Europe and worldwide. Make sure that as much as you can learn from them, they can also learn from you by raising the issues and challenges in the communities that you face, wanting to bring it to their attention. Just because they want to – just because they want to engage, so the youth community, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to listen to a lecture, you can offer saying we would like to raise some challenges to you and have a discussion on how you could see the future. There are very many different ways and forms and partners and we could all collectively have a discussion on how can we approach this. We would be happy at EuroDIG to continue this discussion on how we can engage policymakers during the European elections.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Nadia.

Just want to say – last year, when I did a project specifically on policymakers and youth, it turns out sometimes it is hard, but specifically to get the parliamentarians to these spaces, we have tried at the IGF, at EuroDIG, and at the national IGFs, but what many policymaker, parliamentarians, they’re actually open to just talk to young people, so don’t hold back, we don’t need an intermediary per se, we can do that ourselves, especially if we organize.

Maybe now would be a good time to talk more about the Internet Governance Forum 2022 in Ethiopia. Anja, if you could just give us an overview of what the youth activities are going to be, what we may be already need to bear in mind before we go further in this session.

>> ANJA GENGO: Yes. Thank you very much.

I see that my colleague Abdeldjalil raised his hand in the meantime. Maybe I’ll ask my dear friend to wait a few minutes for an overview, we’ll hear a lot from Abdeldjalil, he has a lot of experience in running the IGF.

It is a great pleasure to be here. Thank you, Elizabeth, Nadia for supporting to organize this workshop. I especially would like to welcome and thank all Youth IGF coordinator, they’re the drivers of this year’s youth engagement. The Government of Ethiopia is working with all of the youth coordinators through a number of international organizations that run youth-focused Internet Governance to design a track that will meet the needs of young people for engagement in Internet Governance processes.

In terms of the mission of the IGF Secretariat, but I’m sure I can speak for other partner organizations organizing the youth engagement activities, also for the MAG as well, we do sincerely believe that it is critically important to engage young people from early stages. We seem them as the next generation of experts and leaders, next generations that will be soon making concrete decisions on Internet Governance and earlier we start to equip them with knowledge, with experience, which is very important when it comes about interpretation of certain policies and norms of digital domain in general, the better. I think with that we guarantee sustainability for our Internet Governance processes, including the IGF and IGFs that are set around the world.

With that notion, we are dedicated to this year continuing to build engagement with young people, building, of course, on the work being done in the past starting from especially 2019, Elizabeth and her team were really important in building the youth engagement process there and then, of course, Poland last year. This year, our idea is to work with the Youth IGF – through the Youth IGF coordinator, a number of international organization, such as ISOC and the Youth IGF movement that were mentioned and a number of other, to understand what is the concrete demand and to respond to the demand of young people.

Here is what we know so far. The young people have spoken very clearly during the taking stock process at the beginning of this year, that they’re thankful for all the opportunities that young people are given in Internet Governance processes, but they are strongly objecting to creating processes within a process that are just for young people exclusively meaning that we’re isolating young people from the current generations of experts and leaders. So we’re certainly this year trying to respond as much as we can to the best of our ability to that criticism, very honest feedback which I think was very reasonable to come, the idea, it is to create synergies between the current generations of experts and leaders, decision shaper, decision makers, with those that tomorrow will take those positions.

It will be done in a forum such as this one, this is obviously the pilot, we’re launching the project, but what is upfront of us, it is three capacity development workshops which will be done in cooperation with the regional IGFs, we’re hoping – we’re certainly going to the African IGF to host a second workshop and we’re hoping for cooperation with the youth Asia-Pacific IGF and to have our presence there in Singapore. Then also, probably one that will be completely online, hopefully maybe also in cooperation with the youth, Latin American IGF.

Young people also have spoken last year and one of the priority topics that they – that we saw that they mapped, it was around digital transformation. This is very broad concept I think for all of us, it needs a lot of unpacking, an understanding of what particular issues and topics young people want to focus on. Also we’re looking at what’s the focus of the senior stakeholders, just to create synergies in that sense. That’s why today this pilot basically selves to understand what digital transformation is all about, what are the issues, what are the policies that we need to focus there, is there a need for capacity development. If yes, who can do what, how? We’re very happy to have a colleague that’s been working on this quite a lot this year, from Microsoft, colleague Daniel, he will provide us a high-level overview of digital transformation and then we’ll need your help. We’re hoping that once Daniel presents we will understand from you what is the priority for you, regardless of your representation of a youth in an age criteria or if you’re of the generation that’s now outside that have group. This workshop will inform other workshops, whatever we see as a priority here, those issues and topics will be the focus of the subsequent workshops happening starting from July.

Going into Addis, all of the workshops will feed into a big global summit, a meeting point between young people from around the world but also as I said, senior stakeholders. We’re going to strategically aim to have everyone present there especially parliamentarians as I was speaking this morning on the panel are very important to us. We’re hoping to have really a roundtable dialogue as equals between those that are internet users and represent youth generations with those that are currently making policies or not making policies and making our problems being persistent. That’s the overall plan. We’re hoping on cooperation and strong collaboration with all of you. It will also certainly include a lot of planning between the Secretariat, the involved parties that I mentioned, the Youth IGFs and international organizations, the host country, with members of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group. As I said, this morning, the IGF, it is all about people, the programme is really dependent on the session organizers and the youth engagement will need strong cooperation with the session organizers. That’s the step we’re also entering but we’re in a good way in our capacity to manage to create an effect to conclude this year with young people knowing young people regardless where they live, if they’re interested in Internet Governance but also to create synergies between as I said the senior experts, senior stakeholder, decision makers, and young people in their respective communities.

Thank you.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you very much, Anja, for the insight.

Before we come to Daniel, you said your colleague was requesting the floor. I lost the name. Could you maybe check if we give them the floor for an intervention.

>> Yes. Abdeljalil Bachar.

Can you try to unmute?

>> ABDELJALIL BACHAR BONG: Hello, everyone.

>> We can hear you but now we can’t. I’m sorry. It seems to be some kind of an issue.

>> ABDELJALIL BACHAR BONG: Now it is okay?

>> We can hear you now. Go ahead.

>> ABDELJALIL BACHAR BONG: Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for the team for this opportunity to bring to you a young people’s voice. Thank you.

I need to add that young people, we need to have only one voice in this ecosystem, we don’t need to have many voices. What you have said about exchange programmes for youth is very important, very key. We need to have a programme like the young people between South and North, it is very key and I think that also many young people don’t speak English. We have to look at the language barriers. This is important to see if we can bring people to France, Belgium, Geneva, for English speaking also, Arabic speaker, Spanish speakers, it is very important.

Also, what we have seen for the Internet Governance Forum, we have seen problems with the visa from the South to come there. You need to address that also for the appropriate delegations, so for the visa issues such like this.

Ask IGF, we’re open to host also people from every day youth, to come to Africa, to explore, to work with them. It is very important also.

What I need to add also here, in our national IGF, we have many young people. We don’t need only to say that we’re young people, we stay young people, but we need to look around and to go to the EuroDIG, the continental IGF, the other IGFs and push relationships there. Also to work in ICANN and other sites of Internet Governance like international telecommunication, like ISOC, everything. So I just need to add that.

Thank you for this opportunity. We are hoping to work together to bring the voice of young in this one ecosystem.

Thank you to the team.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you for raising this point. I think we have also more time after our input to kind of talk about the input itself and also the more general questions.

Now I think Nadia, you have to go, is that right? I think yes but we have time for questions later.

Okay. I didn’t see you there.

I think for us to get a good overview of what we’re talking about, it would be preferrable to hear – very brief comment, yes, please, go ahead.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: I want to thank you for raising those issues. You said so many of them, but I really appreciated it, notably for me two things: The north/south collaboration, the European Union recently had the E.U. Africa Summit in which they were focused on that collaboration and there is increasingly more attention to this. Let’s ride on this. New initiation and to have more conversations about this, how we can connect with that..

The visa, when I was a youth coordinator, I set up a scheme where people could submit the visa applications to me, I would correct them and build them – I would have conversation to talk about the background, things you do in your community, things I thought that would be good on applications. We went through this scheme, I hope the time to build that scheme further but at the time only one person got their visa that time. It was painful, we got that person on stage at the IGF to tell his story from his very small community in Pakistan. It was an amazing experience for him. He had the opportunity to meet Angela Merkel and it was wonderful.

I hope that we can find more opportunities of young people collaborating with each other so that we can do things like visa checks. Maybe if one person who speaks English can take one other person, we can overcome these boundaries and also have a better connection in knowing each other better.

Thank you for allowing my brief comment.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Nadia.

With a look at the time, as to not keep our speaker wait, I would now ask Daniel to take the floor and tell us more from your perspective about digital transformation, what it has to do with sustainability and youth.

Daniel, I hope you’re ready and the floor is yours.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Thank you very much.

So let me thank Nadia, Anja, Sandra, the broad EuroDIG community.

It is a pleasure to be here. I’m representing Microsoft, specifically a team at Microsoft that is called the U.N. affairs team. We have worked with the IGF as mentioned on various initiatives. We work on capacity building, and one of our capacity building initiatives is called our digital future. That’s actually the title of my presentation today.

Before I go into the presentation, I just want to acknowledge that we are here at EuroDIG and we are focused on the youth track. This is as I understand the official launch of the youth track. A lot of the topics that we cover today in the digital transformation topic, how they apply to different sector, different areas of life, I think they’ll be ongoing conversations in this youth track and in this intention that you have with the IGF.

It is quite a task on my happened to try to cover a broad range of topics. I hope to do so with a clear focus on the ways in which some of these digital transformations in various sectors interact with each other. I think by looking at digital transformation on this sectorial level across education, agriculture, et cetera, you get a specific idea of what our digital future can look like and is starting to look like in each sector. I’m just pleased again to be here with the EuroDIG. I’m in Geneva where the weather is 33º in and it is actually also quite hot here. As we work with IGF, as mentioned, we hope for more opportunities to see you all in person.

I would just mention at the start of my presentation, I plan to ask you some questions so please use this chat box and let’s talk to each other. I would rather not present at you the entire time. If there are questions that come up and the moderators wish to share that question, let’s also feel free to go back and forth and to make this interactive in that specific way.

The other thing I will say, I will share one, two videos, and maybe even three, depending on time. I think it is a way to bring some of this discussion to life.

With that, I will share the screen and this is the fastest way to make the presentation. Bear with me as I bring this up.

This is the part where you see all my tabs and don’t judge whatever you might see!.

Okay. Can you all hear me fine? Can we have an indication?

>> ANJA GENGO: We can hear you and also see your slides.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Fantastic. Fantastic..

A pleasure again to deliver the presentation at the official IGF youth track launch. I just want to start off by sharing the Microsoft principle on technology and how our technology interacts with the world.

You can see this in the box on the left.

For those that may not be able to see, I will read it out to you, the principle is set by our President Brad Smith who is the Vice-Chair of the board at Microsoft as well as his chief of staff and collective communication manager, Carol Ann brown and you will see this in the book that was originally published and updated to reflect the pandemic activities in 2021.

Here is the quote, I just want this to sit with you, see how you reflect on it, when your technology changes the world, you bare a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create.

I think this is so applicable to digital transformation. Digital transformation is going to change the world. It is going to have many challenges, also many opportunities. As we’re here at the Internet Governance Forum, we have to think about how to do digital transformation in a responsible way. Part of that responsibility is with the private sector that owns and operates technology and part of that responsibility is blended across all stakeholder groups to set governance, to agree on policies and best practices.

So that is just what I want to say, the grounding of this discussion. Next, I’m going to pivot to a question, okay, we have a question from Vlada, does someone want to moderate that?

>> ANJA GENGO: I think, if it is okay with you, Daniel, we’ll take the questions after your presentation.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: That works. Vlada, don’t forget your question.

>> ANJA GENGO: We will have an eye on it, Sandra is moderating the chat.

>> I have sent to directly –

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: It may have gone to you directly.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Can I suggest that we have the question box so, we can get to it.

There is a bit of an echo. I will move to the next slide though.

Okay.

So just to make sure that the chat box is working, let me see, please, if we can do a quick exercise. That exercise is to know at the moment what percentage of farmers or farms I should say, are ran by people under the age of 40 in the E.U. region? Do we think it is 10% of farmers in the E.U. that are ran by people under the age of 40 that’s youth and what is the age of the average farmer in the developing world. I’m curious to see before I share the answer one or two responses in the group.

I see 20% from someone who is quite close. The actual answer for the E.U. is 13%. 13% according to E.U. data. 11 to 13% to be precise.

I’m seeing somebody say 25%. The answer for the developing country question is 34 years old. The average age of a farmer in a developing world is 34 years old. That’s very striking to me. A lot of times people think of farms and farming in terms of the elderly populations, the older populations. We have an average image of a farmer of somebody that’s usually quite old and they do exist, as we are with IGF, as we are at EuroDIG, as we are looking at the youth track, I just want to let you know that farming is very relevant for young people around the world. As you may have suspected, this is an area of digital transformation I plan to cover. I’m sharing Microsoft’s views on projects in this area.

What better project to start than looking at SDG2, in this context of SDG2, you have zero hunger as the goal.

If you look at the world resources institute, the UNDESA statistic, together they project that we’ll have close to 10 billion people in the world by 2050, by the middle of the decade. With that growing population, with the land, the idea is that we have to have food production increase by 70%. How are you going to increase food production by 70%, which is aligned with the goal of zero hunger, in a sustainable way? Microsoft’s view on this, position on this, it is outlined by two projects in a very notable form, one is something we call farm beats. Farm beats is using the power of AI and data and giving that power to farmers. It gives them through sensors in the ground, through satellites in the air, through drones hovering around the farm as you see in the picture, a very accurate reflection of their soil in terms of pH levels, moisture level, acidity level, and with that accurate picture not only are they better able to use limited resources in a more precise form such as water, precision irrigation, which is beneficial for SDG6, we talked about a lot of the enter activity, but they’re also able to increase their yields.

I think this is a key area where digital transformation is playing a role to meet the goals that were agreed in the SDGs or with more discussion as well as to benefit the lives of now we know not just the traditional farmer but increasing populations of young farmers around the world.

We have the similar project which is called sun culture active in Kenya and many other countries. What I would like to do is play the first video for you so just bear with me. I want to get this up and hopefully the sound comes through as well. I would appreciate from the stage if there is some indication when I play it that the sound is working.

I’ll start is very shortly now.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: We can hear the sound but not see the video here on stage. Also the sound comes through a little muscled. I don’t know if there is a different way to –

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: What I’m going to do, I’m going to display it in a different way.

Just bear with me.

(Video playing with captions).

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: I believe I’m back to the main hall. Is that correct?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: You are.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Fantastic. Fantastic.

I’m just going to share the PowerPoint again. Thankfully, we have only two more videos. We’re in good time.

Now, what I hope you took from that, was two things at the minimum. The first, there is technology that is helping farmers in a digitally transformative way. It is helping them not only to create better yield but to earn more significant income as a result of that higher yield. Microsoft is not the only technology provider in this specific solution area, however we do hope that you see that there is a room for technology and digital transformation here.

I mention at the start that I want to point outweighs in which digital transformation interacts across sectors. In that spirit, I want us to just think about the fact that a lot of what we saw in that video relies heavily on one thing, and maybe some people already are thinking about this precondition and I would love to see ideas thrown into the chat, but there is something that this relies on, and that thing is connectivity. You cannot have data being fed into clouds from sensors and drone, satellites, farms, that farm is connected to the internet.

One of the ways in which we need to see digital transformation work for development, it is to connect people in remote and rural areas. We know that there is already a profit case for connecting people in urban areas, but too often private sector investment does not go to the proverbial last mile where farms often are. The reason why they do not go to the proverbial last mile is that it is not considered as profitable. The gold standard for internet connectivity is broadband fiberoptic cable and just to give you context, that costs about 50,000 per square mile. So you can already do the formulations to see why it is seen as unprofitable to get a return on investment. The only investment that goes to the last mile, it is a social impact investment, an investment made in the benefit of corporate responsibility, usually by owners and operators of infrastructure, and our exercise in this area is the Airband Initiative, it is connecting the unconnected.

So I would give you a sense of how this digital transformation is occurring from Microsoft’s vantage point in remote and rural areas. We’re using a mix of technology, satellite technologies, wired technologies, we’re using dynamic spectrum. One of the other technologies we’re using in that space is the TV White Space, we have people here, even youth in the community, I’m sure we have people here that are old enough to remember being in your house at home and using a TV antenna either on the roof top or top of the actual television, like I often did, trying to pick up a signal from a TV tower to clarify the TV reception you are receiving at home. Essentially, at a simple level, this is the concept of the TV White Space being repurposed, what this refers to, it is spaces between different stations, television stations with a blank to separate the sections. With that TV white spaces, from the towers, the station tower, it now on each agenda emits wireless signals to unused white spaces and those wireless areas can reach people in 50-kilometer radius. This repurposing of technology in remote areas, it takes something that was analogue, it brings it to the topic of this presentation, a digital transformation that is helping to connect the unconnected and helping to enable this space, including in farming. So this TV White Space, one of the many technologies enabling the Airband projects. This is a presentation of where we are around the world as a company that’s originating here in America, it is important to connect people in remote, rural areas in the U.S. We forget that even within the OECD countries, there are often high-levels of people that do not have access to broadband internet. Around the world, especially developing countries, the same is the case. Microsoft is aiming to reach over 40 million people around the world with this initiative.

So I come to you where this fits under the SDG, if we look at SDG9, specifically target 9C, which is focused on connecting people, especially the most deprived of people, we have to look at this from a human-centric standpoint. Microsoft has done so since 2017 just two years after the SDGs were adopted. It is not doing it alone of course. It is working with Telecom equipment makers, non-profits, entrepreneurs, Sun Culture, a partner that we have, you saw that in the last video, in this suite of offerings, and Airband is essentially in the countries you see there, a dozen or so countries..

This is another video. This is an accurate picture of how it is working in practice. You see the partnerships on the Airband front, they are from India, a video I wish to play, another area in Ghana and the way it works in Kenya. So I’m going to play this video for you. Bear with me as we go through those gymnastics as we did earlier.

Send me a chat, confirm that you have both the audio and –

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Yes. Yes. We can hear and see. A little bit of a lag, but we can.

(Video playing with captions).

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Thank you very much. I believe we’re back to where we were.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: We’re having sound from your side of things.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Okay. Page now. Is it fine?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Yes, we can see your slides. Just a quick reminder, if you could wrap up in the next five minutes so that we have enough time for questions and answers. That would be wonderful.

Thank you.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: So thank you, all, for, you know, baring with this hybrid presentation format. This is the world that we live in now. I hope that you saw how the world that other people are living in is also being enabled with online transformation. You see communities that didn’t have it before having it.

There isn’t much time, as we have just heard. I will just highlight one more area for you. I think this is to quality education. What I wish to highlight here, it is we know during the pandemic there were millions of displaced children from schools. According to some estimates, over 200 million children were displaced from schools. When children are displaced from schools, if we look at the education sector more broadly through a pandemic, through a refugee crisis, their learning is often interrupted. If you look at the pipeline from learning to earning, that disruption is often solvable with a digital transformation solution.

One of the things that’s happened, working with UNICEF who have pioneered this initiative, Microsoft has digitally supported this initiative, we came up with a learning passport. The learning passport helped to continue education because it gives children and young people a digital record of learning that they can use and gain readmission back to their prior levels of education or an advanced level of education by holding that digital certificate and presenting it after the disruption has seized.

During the window of time that they’re away from school, they have digital application and the digital technology that is able to keep them learning while they’re offline.

Microsoft and UNICEF has worked on this and moved into the next frontier, which is after school, what sort of skills? Specifically digital skills, can be offered for free and are based on roles that are in high demand in the real world. There’s a programme that we developed there called the passport to earning.

You can also put that – this is about skilling people, to allow them to go out in the world of work and to have the skills that will get them an income and they can do this again from remote areas through the promise of digital transformation in these spaces where oftentimes they don’t occur.

There was one more video I wanted to play, a few more slides I wanted to talk you through.

I think we might pause here and I would love to take your questions..

Do we have time for one more video?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: The video, could you say that again, please? Did you ask about the video.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Do we have time for a short video on this learning passport?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Sure. We have a minute. I can give you.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Sure. Bear with me.

(Video played with captions).

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Let me just say thank you all very much. It has been a pleasure. There were more things however, but I hope you enjoyed the information. This is how we can help people around the world.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you very much, Daniel. I don’t know if it is the sound in the room or the microphone. I couldn’t hear you well.

Thank you for covering this broad topic of digital transformation giving us examples of the work that you’re doing.

We now have I would say 15 to 18 minutes time for questions, statements either from the room and I promise this time I will look at the microphone but also from our Zoom room which is very active. Sandra, do we have anyone that wants to take the floor or comments from the online?

>> Yes, indeed. Hello. Yeah. Indeed.

Vlada raised his hand for quite a bit of time already and then we have Sivasubramanian have raised their hands and I’ll also check the comments.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: I think we can give Vlada, the first the floor.

>> Can you unmute yourself.

>> VLADA TATAROVA: Hey, everyone. (Poor audio quality). (Poor audio quality not allowing for captioning).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: I’m sorry, we cannot hear you properly, Vlada.

(Poor audio quality).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: You seem to be breaking up.

>> Vlada: Can I just – (poor audio).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Maybe we take the next person in the speaker queue and then we take a statement here and then we’ll be back to you, Vlada.

>> Let’s go over to Sivasubramanian.

>> The vision for farming future as presented in the farm field, drones, satellites, artificial intelligence, this is making farming complicated. Maybe there is a vision of a typical size of a million hectares or more, most of the farmers in developing country, they’re small farmers. Aren’t you making farming far more complicated than starting and running an engineering factory? It is like a farmer requiring the former traditionally required seeds, they waited for the plant, the water was brought to the plants, the plants grew. It was as simple as that in the past.

Then came fertilizers, pesticides, and then genetic engineering, and then all kinds of scientific techniques and then bio sphere and everything in hydroponics and now artificial intelligence. It is all requiring a farmer to have an investment outlay to have a crop. It requires them to go to the bank, take a loan, get in a debt trap and each harvest is a struggle. It was not like that before. I think that the technology –

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: I understand the question. If we could move on to others that will ask as well, I’ll take them all collectively.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: May I suggest, unless your question is also directed to Daniel, is it?

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: It was not really directed to Daniel but it was to the topic proceeding the input from Microsoft and the promotion of Microsoft projects. I will respond to that as well.

On the issue of agriculture, it is interesting that you raise the age of farmer, Daniel. It is a concern in many countries in Africa. I want to go a bit on what’s been said, I think that that average age of 34 is pretty meaningless if you don’t look at what type of agriculture, cash crops, subsistence, commercial agriculture, if you don’t look at what type of economic, social context it is, so it varies very, very widely.

I look forward to the IGF Village at the global IGF being used for us to see these initiatives by companies. They’re very welcome. Particularly in the IGF Village, perhaps not necessarily in the main sessions.

I wanted to respond to the question about policymakers and youth. I think it is so important. My name is Anriette, I’m currently on the MAG of the African Regional IGF. We had a discussion, because this year at the IGF in July we’ll be launching the African parliamentary network, you can correct me if that’s the wrong term and we have a youth forum but they’re taking place in separate silos. I do not think that’s how it should happen.

What we try to do, to create at least a lunch where the youth participants can talk to the members of parliament and get them together. I think that for me is the lesson of the IGF and of really integrating youth effectively.

If we can get to a piston where young people can talk about internet shadow, Human Rights on the internet, data protection or about the open internet and internet protocol and DNS, if they talk about those issues first and then say I’m a young person then I think we would have succeeded. I think we have to put the issues front and centre, young people are not just future stakeholders, they’re stakeholders now. I think the IGF has to expand and be more inclusive, but not by creating separate drawers and a huge big filing cabinet for different constituencies in each drawer. The value of the IGF, it is a huge, big, open marketplace, forum where everyone can come together.

I think particularly, we want young people to say challenging things, we want them to confront decision makers, confront companies whose policies they don’t like and network with governments and I think we have to be very careful about not creating silos where we go and put our young people and then use them for advertising and promotion purposes.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you. Very much agreed.

I think Daniel if we collect questions, we may need – we may end up in a situation where questions are directed to different people.

Do you want to come back and then we’ll see where the next questions go? We have people in the room who are lining up and may also be in the Zoom.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Thank you and I’m happy to answer the question. (Poor audio quality).

I was clear to project that the stats that we gave – I think there is a bit of an echo. (Poor audio quality).

The stats that relate to youth, the 10 billion, with a B, by 2050, it requires an increase of agriculture around the world, not by 5%, 10%, not by 20%, not by 50%, we have to increase agriculture productivity around the world by 70%. If we want to increase agriculture or we need, I sawed say, to increase agriculture productivity by 70% according to the world resources institute, according to UNDESA, in order to have a fed population, we need to move beyond subsistence farming. That’s the calling. We do not propose that Microsoft has all of the solutions there.

Is no one technology company that has all of the solutions. What we do know from the SDGs is that it calls for a mix of means of implementation for the SDGs, including technology.

Given that the topic of this discussion is digital transformation, and we want to look at key challenges in the world today, it is only relevant that when we think of scaling up technology by 70%, scaling up productivity, the 7 0%, we look at how digital transformation can help that. There is no intention to replace subsistence farmers. This technology is giving farmers that wish to produce at scale an enabling technology that supports them in the yield, it cannot replace them..

I have used the term U.N.-centric.

On the second point, I will share I happen to come from Nigeria, I have lived in after architectural frameworks I have lived in Nigeria. I’m blessed to have friends that are working there, close to the age of 34 and who are using not necessarily Microsoft technology, in fact not at all Microsoft technology, but they’re using technology in their farming ventures and enterprises. A big part of the reason you see this, it is because many countries especially resource and commodity-based economies are diversifying their streams of revenue at a time where commodity prices are volatile. Oftentimes the agriculture sector is one sector where the government funds engagement of people who are moving in and especially young people, and they’re not doing this with hoes, with shovels, they’re doing it with digital technology. I have seen it firsthand.

It is promising to the members of the audience that are also from communities that are using agriculture to escape poverty, to escape the effects of the pandemic. I want to encourage you to think about the ways that digital technology support what is you can do regardless of where and who we partner with.

Microsoft partners with UNICEF in these presentations, many other companies. I just want to emphasize that this is not something we do alone, and if we’re promoting anything, we’re really promoting the great work that some of our partners have led and asked for support on. Those are the initial responses for now.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Daniel, for getting back to the question. I suggest we take at least one more from the Zoom room and then at least one more from the room here.

Sandra, do we have a request for the floor? Should we try Vlada again.

>> We could try Vlada again and we have Wisdom waiting for a while and we have as well Thokozile and I have two, three questions to read out and one very short one that Daniel could possibly answer really yes or no if it is possible compromise to believe share the PowerPoint slides with the audience.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: Yes.

>> More to read out.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Okay.

We have – we will see how far we get. Maybe we’ll try Vlada again and then we’ll see where we land.

>> Please go ahead.

>> VLADA TATAROVA: Can you hear me well now?

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Can you say more words for us to see if that works?

>> VLADA TATAROVA: (Audio issue).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Just keep talking so that we can see if we can hear you.

Now we condition hear you at all.

>> She’s again muted. Vlada, you have to unmute.

>> VLADA TATAROVA: Yes.

>> Please continue talking or otherwise we can’t say.

>> VLADA TATAROVA: As I was saying with (poor audio quality).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: We have big audio issues with you.

Maybe you can put your statement or question in the chat and so that we see it, I don’t know if we can take it now but maybe we can take the next one in the queue.

Please be brief, question or statement.

>> Yes, Wisdom Donkor is next.

>> WISDOM DONKOR: I have some small contribution from Ghana to make and I’m going to speak with a perspective of Africa.

I really like the presentation of Daniel, but there are a few things that we think we need to address if we really want to solve the issue of agriculture in Africa.

The first one, it is the youth that we currently have, they’re not in agriculture. I don’t see a great – when they venture into their ability to make it, that’s number one, we need to look at that. If you look at the age grouping within that, those that are involved, it is mostly the 50s, 50s and above, those age of people, those are who you see mostly.

Also speaking now, the trend that is happening now, it is that farmers, they have learned to go into agro, it is not good for them to venture out of it, we have to look at that and see how we can address that with technology. That’s a first one.

The second one, it is you did mention the TV White Space. I agree with you, a few years ago, we tried to implement that in Ghana and it was very difficult. The first thing, if we really want this white space to work, we need to look at spectrum allocation and currently the spectrum that we have, it is the bigger companies, they are leveraging the licenses and the smaller organizations that are beginning to go into the rural areas. This is one thing I would like to look at, to see if a portion of the license could be made available of the non-governmental associations. That’s why we can begin to see maybe an impact with the technology that you have.

The other thing –

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Wisdom, I don’t want to interrupt you too rudely, but I guess I am now – I really have to have a look at the time. I think as you kind of lined out your statement. I think it is very interesting.

I have to cut you now if that’s okay.

You can continue your discussion afterwards. I think there are many people who are interested specifically now in the topic of agriculture and the digital transformation there but I would like to give one more person in the room here a chance to also make a contribution and we have to wrap up.

The floor is yours.

>> Thank you. I’m Jennifer. My hat is varied, but I will just say speaking on behalf of the Secretary of the Asia-Pacific Region of the IGF. My comment, I’ll try to be as brief as possible is more tied to the first part of the presentation, how the youth can effectively participate in a meaningful manner. I think Anriette touched on the crucial part of it, we have to make sure that the youth are not siloed, however, we have to give them agency to create their own agenda as they’re speaking among the youth to tease out issues and policies and topics that are interesting to them. At the same time, we need to balance quite adeptly how to also give them space to talk to policymakers, talk to decision makers to be able to participate meaningfully in an equal manner. I think – I mean, I’m not part of the youth coordinating team in my own region, I have a colleague who does that – but we also face the same issue in Asia-Pacific where we need to make sure that we’re not siloing the youth in their little buckets when they’re meeting and making sure that they are part of the main programme in a very meaningful way in a way that they would like to be. We don’t want you to prescribe anything to the youth because they can speak for themselves, they are stakeholders and they could, of course, in the future, also move to different stakeholder groups. The youth themselves are already stakeholders. One thing I regret not being able to participate in the two days prior of YOUthDIG, I think it would be supremely helpful and useful for all of us here to be able to hear more of the youth voices. I hope as mentioned and Daniel mentioned, this is a launch of a youth track, that this – that the outputs that are discussed at YOUthDIG are captured well going into other regional, other IGF, other NRI, youth meetings so by the time we get to Ethiopia, there is a rich tap industry from all of the different regions, from all of the different national initiatives, from all of the different youth initiatives that can become the basis of a very meaningful conversation. I don’t want us to lose any part of that and, yeah, I commend what you’re doing right now. One last point is the point that Nadia put out regarding funding, that is an extremely great initiative. I will take this learning from YOUthDIG and try to implement it or suggest to my colleagues that this is something that is always a big problem and hurdle for youth to be able to participate in person, that part of the experience is absolutely invaluable and kudos to having this initiative.

Thank you.

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Jennifer, for pointing that out and that we all can learn from each other.

We see that there’s a lot to be said, a lot of people want to take the floor, which is wonderful. This is not our last time that we can exchange. Maybe you can just briefly line out what the next steps are for the youth track.

>> ANJA GENGO: The next steps I think, we have heard good I puts, we have a lot of homework. We have tape these inputs thanks to the great Rapporteur, Ms. Lily who is with us, next week we’ll be meeting to set up the programme for the session that will be in the African IGF that had been mentioned. I think you brought a lot of important points for the format and the fact that we need to create synergies between everyone, with young people, that’s something that we will carefully be working on. You are all invited, of course, to continue advising, suggesting, we can benefit from that and I sincerely thank everyone for that.. This whole track is a multistakeholder nature, as we heard today from our colleague from the private sector, it means in the subsequent workshops we’ll hear from experts from other stakeholder groups and the idea is to really impact all aspects coming from different stakeholder groups going into different regions to also learn what are the specificities there.

Thank you very much.

>> DANIEL AKINMADE EMEJULU: (Audio quality too poor for captioning).

>> ELISABETH SCHAUERMANN: Thank you, Daniel, thank you, Anja, a big thank you to Nadia whose not here anymore, thank you for the input. All that participated, it is great to see this is so dynamic and we can create a bit of heat in this discussion. As you heard, this discussion, specifically, it will be carried on over the next months and we will meet in Ethiopia and here at the EuroDIG, also online here, we have a short break of 10 minutes and then we continue with the second part of the NRI Assembly, looking into structural questions of the IGF within the U.N. system. Thank you very much. See you soon.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Please let me add, coffee is served outside at the moment.