Youth IGF 2020

Youth is the largest demographic group of internet users. However, their voices are less heard in decision making processes related to the internet. With a dedication to raise the awareness of youth on internet governance and encourage young generations to participate in public policy discussion, Youth Internet Governance Forum (YIGF) has been initiated and is an integral part of Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) since its inception in 2010.

What is Youth IGF?

Youth Internet Governance Forum (yIGF) has firstly been initiated by a group of NetMission Ambassadors (www.netmission.asia) in 2010 in parallel with the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF). It aims to raise the awareness of youth on Internet governance discourse and to encourage the young generation to have more active engagement in policy discussion and the decision-making process.

Inspired by the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a multi-stakeholder forum for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance, the yIGF is also established in the same multi-stakeholder approach as the IGF.

yIGF is usually a 4-day-3-night camp which participants are assigned with roles as one of the interest groups, including government, private sectors and NGOs, to brainstorm their ideas and voice out their opinions on the issues of Internet governance from new perspectives.

yIGF provides an open platform for the youth to express and interchange their ideas and own thoughts on Internet governance freely. It also serves as a preparation camp for them to understand various Internet issues and open their door to the international policy discussion.

You might find more details on www.yigf.asia.

Organizer

NetMission.Asia is a network of passionate youth from Asia dedicated to engage and empower youth on Internet governance discourse with the aim to enhance youth mobility and create impact in Asia.

Students from top tertiary institutes or universities are recruited every year and will be provided with a series of training workshops. We are endeavoring to empower young minds and to constructively contribute to the local, regional and global Internet governance discourse through organising the Hong Kong Youth Internet Governance Forum (HKyIGF), international conferences and community projects.

NetMission Ambassadors are actively participating in various international Internet conferences, including ICANN meetings, IGF, APrIGF, Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) and Asia Pacific Next Generation Camp (APNG Camp).

To support and encourage youth participation on Internet governance, the ambassadors have been organising the yIGF in the Asia-Pacific regions, including Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Delhi, Macao, Taipei, Bangkok and Port Vila since 2010.

The NetY Program (www.nety.asia) is also initiated for further outreach to secondary school students from 2012 to 2014 by partnering with Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong. In 2016, it was firstly marked as HKyIGF (hk.yigf.asia) followed with a 3-day-2-night camp and an Internet Summit with the same approach used in the yIGF model.

Key Features

1. Role-Play Discussion

All youth participants will be assigned to different stakeholder groups, for example, Civil Society, Private Sectors, Governments, etc. for the discussion of various internet governance issues. The aim of this simulation session is to let the youth to put themselves into other people’s shoes and encourage them to think from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

After experiencing multi-stakeholder perspective of thinking in role-play discussion, preparatory session will be organized to discuss some of the APrIGF workshop’s discussion topics from youth perspective. While the best way of practice is by actual participation, yIGF participants will attend APrIGF workshops and sit as panelists to share their discussion outcomes after preparatory session, that youth can bring contribution to actual Internet governance discussion in APrIGF.

2. Idea Wall
   This session aimed at exchanging views and thoughts on various hot Internet topics. Participants are expected to put their ideas on the ideal wall by writing down their own thoughts on the sixth themes listed in the synthesis document, including 1) Cybersecurity, 2) Online Privacy and Protection, 3) Access and Empowerment, 4) Digital Economy and Emerging Internet Technologies, 5) Diversity and Inclusion, and 6) Multi-stakeholder Participation in Internet Governance.

Throughout the session, participants will interchange their insights freely and have a discussion all together on the selected themes after reviewing the posted ideas on the idea wall. Participants will be split into six groups according to their own interest to have further discussions on the topics. They will present and exchange their discussion outcomes at the end of the session.

3. Mini-Townhall Session
   Mini-Townhall session is designed to build the capacity of participants for the synthesis document townhall session in APrIGF. In this session, participants were asked to raise their concerns or comment on the synthesis document. Participants have familiarized with the basic ideas of the synthesis document and have been equipped to voice out their opinions in the townhall session based on the following themes, including 1) Cybersecurity, 2) Online Privacy and Protection, 3) Access and Empowerment, 4) Digital Economy and Emerging Internet Technologies, 5) Diversity and Inclusion, and 6) Multi-stakeholder Participation in Internet Governance.

The mini-Townhall session will be divided into three parts. Participants will firstly be encouraged to raise their ideas in the first 30 minutes based on the sixth themes in the synthesis document. Participants will then be asked to comment and expand the discussion on the raised ideas for 30 minutes. Lastly, participants will form into groups according to their own interests based on the above sixth themes to facilitate further discussion and make comments on the synthesis document.