Presenting Youth Messages – Keynote 02 2019

From EuroDIG Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

20 June 2019 | 16:00-16:30 | KING WILLEM-ALEXANDER AUDITORIUM | Video stream will follow shortly | Transcription
Consolidated programme 2019 overview

YouthDIG Messages

The Youth Dialogue on Internet Governance is the youth programme of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance and features a three-day, pre-event track full of discussion, learning, networking, and fun. Youngsters will have prepared their messages and let you know what they think.

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-800-825-5234, www.captionfirst.com


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.


>> MARJOLIJN BONTHUIS: Hi, everyone. Hi. Hi, everyone. It's time to start again. We are running already again a little late. And I'm going back to my mantra from those two days, please you would be so kind to come and sit in the middle, in the center. Not up there, not the left or the right. Because for the panel, for everyone, it's nicer to, you know, to don't have to look like this. And it looks very empty.

So, please, be kind and stay -- come over to me in the middle.

Because we have this very, very interesting and I think very important, if not the most important session of the EuroDIG, because we are going to listen to the youth. So -- because there are some youth messages and I would really like to hand over to my microphone to Nadia Tjahja and to present the work you have done over the last few days. And, everybody, last call, please sit in the center. Because they did a lot of good work.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much. My name is Nadia Tjahja, and I'm the representative for Western Europe for the youth coalition and a member of the YOUthDIG planning committee.

I first would like to give the floor to Elizabeth to introduce YOUthDIG.

>> ELIZABETH: Thank you very much. Youth programs have a long history at EuroDIG and are actually an institutionalized part of the process every year. So we tried to bring in each year a group of approximately 30 young people from across Europe, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less and provide them with a two or three day Internet Governance experience, leading up to the EuroDIG of that year.

This year, we actually did three days for the first time which was exciting. The program is always shaped by former participants of YOUthDIGs, to navigate the Internet Governance discussions and to formulate these messages and to really make the voices the young people heard throughout EuroDIG by empowering them to speak up.

The whole process of EuroDIG benefits a lot by receiving inputs from young people, from the next generation, so to speak, and our goal is to provide them with entry points through YOUthDIG. So an entry point to the discussions, through capacity building, and program that we built, and entry point to the community by bringing participants in touch with key stakeholders such as our subject matter experts, but also representatives of the Council of Europe and we had the community to meet commissioner Maria Gabriel. And we hope it's an entry point for the youth participants to come back to EuroDIG and take on other roles in the upcoming years and work on the topics that they are interested in. We really hope that it's an opportunity for them to transfer their knowledge and their expertise to the local context, but also to other Internet Governance fora, such as the upcoming IGF in Berlin, where the messages will feed into the discussion.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: I would like to give the floor to Auke Pals.

>> AUKE PALS: We tried to combine YOUthDIG with two separate tracks, not tracks discipline. One educational and one also just fun. And how did we do that? First, we started with a good welcoming dinner for everyone, so everyone could really know each other, and get to know each other and where they were from and all kinds of stuff. Our group consisted of around 30 people from 17 different countries, from all over Europe.

So that made the atmosphere really interesting. Also, one fun part was the cooking school we did. That was really one of the highlights of the social events, because with the cooking school, actually, we tried to combine also the stuff we learned on the day. Jana will talk about that later on.

Also with cultural part, of these people themselves.

Yes, so we just tried to give them a whole learning experience.

Besides that, we also wanted to, as a host, try to give them a good view of what the Netherlands is. So we provided little traditional lunches and -- I'm only talking about the food but that was also a really important part of it.

So, yeah, that we just gave a good overview and also we visited a local partner here, the Ministry of Justice and Security. So we had a whole complete program with an educational -- educational track and a good social event.

Thank you.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much, Auke.

I would like to give the floor to Jana.

>> JANA MISIC: Thank you, Nadia. So I would just like to contribute by saying what was the main aspect. What were the main aspects of the program and which topics we tackled. So firstly, we were led as a programming committee by the EuroDIG's motto which is cooperating in the digital age. We tried to reflect certain comments.

As Auke mentioned, our visit to the ministry of justice and Security. The participants engaged in discussions with experts and us as facilitators. One of the sessions, human rights in the digital era provided an opportunity for them coming from different backgrounds to answer to questions such as what values and objects do we actually aim to protect in the cyberspace which is a question that EuroDIG also responds to throughout its program.

We tried to discuss some more detail things such as viewership and ownership model. Besides this aspect, we also had cybersecurity session, where -- which was very interactive and a lot of our participants loved it. We talked about the hard definitions or the difficulties of defining cyberspace as such. We also tried to identify different actors and their competing and complimenting interests and agency.

So we reflected on the fact that for any progress that has happened, also in the internet governance community and beyond it, we concluded that the long-term commitment to issues is necessary. So it is great to see that also reflecting in the EuroDIG the following days.

Then we had a session on access and literacy, as a group of young people. Where beyond just having a lecture on what are the key aspects of this topic, we also invited them to have -- to tackle a real world problem an create a project or an idea, a strategy, who would be the stakeholders in this project and how would they get funding for it in, the hope that they could maybe do this in their local communities. So they were required to do a three-member unite elevator pitch. We had great groups that did their best and super enthusiastic and interesting pictures they had.

So we then also had a meeting with the subject matter experts and we had this moving debate, really tackling head on the different issues about how to balance all of these human rights and cyberspace behavior that we discussed on the different levels here.

So I would just like to thank the speakers and participants that came and spent some time with us, from the welcoming speeches, Salima Oualite, to subject matter, Chris Buckridge, and our speakers, Sabrina Vanbow and thank you for spending time with us and also Michael Oghia who is always there to support the YOUthDIG.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much. We started three months ago. We invited everybody online in April for the very first time. We hosted a one and a half hour webinar where we tried to encourage the participants to share the ideas that they have about the Internet Governance, and answer the following opening question: Which issues do you want to highlight as priority points at EuroDIG to European stakeholders?

Together we built an online map in which we will brought together all of these different ideas and what topics they wanted to learn and discuss here at YOUthDIG and EuroDIG. So five days ago we were so happy to welcome them here in The Hague. The youth messages were designed on the last day and facilitated. We used this integration message which is a group process which facilitates team building, innovation and planning. It was designed by Stafford Beard to be nonhierarchical, and the participants have the freedom to complex different content. In contrast to some protocols, facilitators don't take a leading role, but concentrate on guiding the process.

All the content comes from the ideas of the participants themselves and what they wanted to share. So now it is my pleasure to introduce Lili Lise. Please welcome them on stage.

(Applause)

>> LILI: Hello, everybody. Today I actually heard a legally nice definition of what youth participation actually is. So youth participation is having the right and the opportunity, support, sources, space, and means. And over the last few days, we had a lot of conversations with a lot of important people, and we learned a lot, but we're not satisfied yet and I will tell you why.

We need way more than just appearance. We need to have a voice which we don't have always. We need to be heard, and we need to be part of decision-making processes.

You know, sometimes people tell us, don't worry, you are going to be soon enough one of the decision-making people but we worry! I mean, by the time we, YOUthDIG 2019 will actually -- will actually get to make decisions, we won't be youth anymore. So we have to get involved right now, and not in ten years or in five years. That's too late. Because the circle will start again.

So sure, you can always tell us to participate more, to socialize, but still, it's not only us. It's you as well. We need you and the people in this room who have a say on something to ask us, what do you think about this and that? What are your plans for future. How do you expect us to react to anything? Just ask us. I mean, why not use the honest and creative ideas for the future?

And Georgi will tell you everything about our youth messages. I want to quote someone that I really admire. A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. And the youth of 2019, will never give up to get their rights. And now I will pass over to Georgi.

(Applause)

>> So I would like to thank Lily for a very motivational speech here and, again, I would like to greet here everyone. My name is Georgi. I will try to highlight what we highlighted in YOUthDIG 2019, what kind of topics.

First of all, the first topic and most important topic that we really wanted to accentuate, to emphasize was the communication. What we would like to see is the process as related to Internet Governance and the policies, especially the policies which are geared towards youth, that's to be the information and how they are conveyed to the youth, that this process should be streamlined, to be better, to be emphasized more and so the youth are more involved in the procedures, more involved in these processes.

Likewise, when we are going into the -- one of the -- when we are concerning about the block of -- let's say the topic of regulation, we decided to really focus on the emerging, the new emerging threats and dangers like the issues related to privacy, disinformation, especially cyberbullying and we thought that it would be an excellent idea to have sort of a regulatory framework, which shall regulate and really concern -- we should regulate a sort of school curriculum, well enforced, well laid out, structured curriculum which really laid down the foundations for this kind of system, for educating people in this kind of emerging threats.

So they are prepared to really face these challenges.

Likewise, another more, let's say, interesting -- interesting topic, that often gets sidelined is the algorithms and specifically, we would like to see a smart actor -- so called SAPA, a smart active participation algorithm, more prioritized in the multistakeholder discussions.

What we mean by this is with SAPA, the old ads will be gradually and let's say partially replaced by more involved Council of Europe, COE topics, the COE policies, the COE initiatives, and with this, we think that we will be able to involve people on the -- on the entire spectrum of ages and, of course the entire other kind of societal spectrums as well.

So I know that we have limited time. I will try to summarize here fast.

Of course, another thing is ethics. Of course we all know the importance of ethics and in this kind of topic, we would like to talk about -- we would like to see the harmonization of state ethics codes, when it came to algorithms, seeing that if the states will cooperate with each other, they will have a more effective framework, in order to have this -- the algorithms designed.

So with the harmonization and the approximation, this process, again can be simplified and regulated more efficiently.

And another -- this is one more important topic is, of course the inclusion of teenagers in the Internet governance topics, especially the youth ambassadorship programs on all levels like local, regional and state.

So finally, and -- and the final blocks, I would like to mention on the cybersecurity trust and privacy, again, very, very significant and important issues and challenges that we are facing. No to reclaim sort of our privacy, we would like to see governments more proactively involved in it.

We would like to see that the governments are actually not taking reactionary steps, but they are actually contributing -- actually taking steps to actually prevent these breaches, to prevent these kind of leaks. Maybe by fostering public discussion on the topic, raising awareness, or perhaps mainstreaming the topic of digital literacy.

Perhaps even the basic public educational level.

And, of course, how could we even imagine talking about the Internet Governance issues without cybersecurity. I certainly can't. And cybersecurity, what we would like to note is ail collective effort. It's a collect of effort that requires a multi-stakeholder approach, and we should -- to achieve this approach, to achieve cybersecurity, we have a transparency while respecting privacy. We would like to see the internet -- the IoT, we would like to ensure the IoT security as well with cybersecurity measures.

And, of course, the final, let's say pillar is, of course, fostering transparency while encouraging technology. So this were the basic, let's say, summarization of the YOUthDIG 2019 messages. We would like to thank our organizers and coordinators for everything. And we hope that these messages will guide them further, will illuminate the path to the right way in this very often dangerous and foggy and murky area of Internet Governance. Thank you.

(Applause)

Do we have time for questions or --

>> NADIA TJAHJA: So we unfortunately don't have time for questions but what I would like to ask is if all the YOUthDIG participants could stand up. Our YOUthDIG participants are here today and we want to thank you so much for inputting all of your thoughts and ideas. So please give a round of applause and stand for all the YOUthDIG participants.

(Applause)

Thank you, all the YOUthDIG participants for these messages. Over the last couple of days, I had the measure to watch the YOUthDIG participants becoming active in the EuroDIG. Some as rapporteurs, remote moderators but also active participants getting engaged in the actual discussions on the floor. And this is something that we are very thankful for, that you are coming out to support the community, and being part of EuroDIG and stating and expressing your thoughts and opinions.

I would also like to thank my fellow planning committee members for their support and dedication here with me on the stage are Elizabeth, Auke and Jan, and you find several others and would like to thank the EuroDIG for fostering this program.

So thank you very much.

(Applause)

>> And thank you, Nadia, for guiding us through this in the past days and drafting the messages.

(Applause)


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.