Youth IGF at IGF 2023

The Youth IGF crew had the amazing opportunity to meet with none other than the Father of the Internet himself, Prof. Vint Cerf. This was an incredible moment for the entire team, as they got to engage with one of the most important figures in the history of technology. The excitement was palpable as the crew got to ask questions and gain insights from Prof. Cerf himself. And, to top it all off, they were present for a live recording of an interview with Prof. Vint Cerf, which will soon be released to the public.

The first day of the IGF was set in motion by meeting with Chris Buckridge and Joao Martins to gather their insights on the event thus far. They shared their thoughts on how the conference was living up to their expectations and talked about the progress that has been made in terms of digital connectivity since last year. Joao also offered his perspective on the role of youth in shaping the future of digital cooperation. Meanwhile, Chris Buckridge delved into the technical community's stance on the Hiroshima process and the ongoing WSIS 20+ review. For a deeper dive into our Day 1 experience at the IGF, be sure to tune into our podcast.

In a recent talk with Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Yuliya Morenets discussed a variety of topics surrounding the eSafety Commissioner's office. The conversation touched on the personal experiences of Julie Inman Grant as the world’s first-ever eSafety Commissioner, as well as the topic of safety by design and whether it should be mandatory for private sector actors. Yuliya also raised concerns regarding regulatory fragmentation and cross-border cases, as well as the potential risks of Metaverse life for kids. This first episode of the interview painted a vivid picture of the important work of the eSafety Commissioner, and highlighted some of the pressing issues we must grapple with as we continue to navigate the digital world.

As Day 2 of IGF 2023 unfolded, the Youth IGF received two incredible guests to discuss emerging trends and insights from that day. Christopher Painter, a renowned global cyber expert and president of the GFCE, joined the conversation with Alexandre Bianquini do Amaral to delve into the latest developments in cyber and AI. Meanwhile, Natalie Tercova, a young researcher from the Czech Republic shared her thoughts and experiences on attending her first ever IGF. Amidst these enlightening discussions, the energy in the room was unmistakably optimistic and empowering.

On the second episode of her talk, Yuliya Morenets had a fascinating discussion with the eSafety Commissioner of Australia, Julie Inman Grant. They delved into the important work that Julie's team is doing to tackle abuse cases and the treatment of victims. One of the most interesting aspects was the verification procedure used by the Commissioner's office, ensuring only genuine cases are acted upon. The discussion also covered the valuable assistance provided to victims, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to learn about Australia's exceptional cyber-victim assistance program. If you're interested in online safety and helping victims of abuse, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Levy's Youth IGF visit to the dot EU booth proved to be a fruitful one as he engaged with Regina and Katerina on the exciting projects that dot EU has been developing lately. The team's participation at the High-Level Forum, organised by the Youth IGF and the EU Delegation to the IGF, proves their commitment to building and promoting youth participation in IG. However, what really caught Levy's attention was the innovative approach the team took in fighting cybercrime through art, and their inspiring work during the Code Week activities. It's amazing to witness such creativity and passion in tackling one of the biggest threats to our digital society.

The final Day 4 of the IGF was filled with insightful discussions. In particular, the ending talk with Einar Bohlin, VP of Government Affairs at ARIN, and Ananya Singh, Youth IGF Leader from India, shed light on their expectations and how they felt about this year's forum. Einar raised a burning question that's been on the minds of many in the DNS industry, namely, IPv6. Moreover, he highlighted the critical issue of securing routing, as half of the internet could go offline if it's not done correctly. Similarly, Ananya shared her interest in the international domain name system and the conversations around it at the IGF. Importantly, they both echoed the need for governance of the AI and the internet we need. Ananya advocated for "one single internet," and Einar mentioned the urgency to tackle this matter. All in all, their insights were insightful and empowering.

EU : If youth do not engage, they do not care and it is also the duty of institutions and society to give them instruments to be involved, but if they refuse to do it then others will do in their place. There should be more momentum around digital citizenship and digital rights and development of global understanding on the Internet.” Brando Benifei, Member of European Parliament responding to a question on how parliamentarians are engaging or hope to engage youth in internet governance issues.

ITU : You can't be part of the AI revolution if you are not part of the digital revolution. So this is a reminder of the 2.6 billion people that are still offline today, that are excluded. - Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union. Doreen was responding to a question imploring her to indicate what needs to be done to ensure the global south is not left behind on AI development. She added that the three pillars of measure were Universal Connectivity, Technical standards and seeing the United Nations as a process that can be leveraged.

Meta: I think that the challenge with generative AI is that we get a little bit stuck on the content and we need to change the conversation about how do we detect bad behavior. Second thing we notice is because of generative AI being the hype cycle, it becomes an easy target for phishing and scams because all you need to do is say, " hey click on this to access ChatGPT - Data for free" and people think it's cool, they are more willing to get duped into those kinds of sort of hype cycles, which is common with things like AI and other things. - Mr. Sarim Aziz, Director of Public Policy Meta's South East Asia.

Rosalind Kenny Birch: Fragmentation at the governance layer primarily relates to the interaction between governance and standard bodies. When these bodies do not coordinate inclusively, it can and does result in fragmentation. The fragmentation can manifest in siloes or duplicative discussions, and exclusions of specific groups from participation, resulting in decisions being taken without consensus from the multi-stakeholder community. It is important to improve coordination between existing internet governance bodies to help address perceived or real gaps in these spaces. Rosalind Kenny Birch, International Policy Advisor.

UNESCO : The user experience fragmentation is maybe the mist interesting type just because it has this positive side when users are served with custom features and content, and the negative side when users are prevented from accessing certain features, and service and content. And the discussion paper is actually concerned very much primarily with the negative side, which is essentially about how these features, these mechanisms actually impose barriers that isolate or trap users into an information environment from which they can't really escape. Marielza Oliveira, Communications and information sector of UNESCO.

Australia : Let me talk about the centrality of the internet to our day to day lives. If anyone thought that that wasn't the case until 2020, they got a brutal reminder of that in the course of the COVID19 pandemic. And whether it's the Internet itself or the services and applications that we rely on that run on top of it, this digital realm, this internet realm is central to our lives, which is why it's so important. So important that the secretary general identified it as one of the two major challenges facing the planet along with the climate crisis. - Jordan Carter Internet Governance and Policy Director at AuDA (au Domain Administration).

India : We in our network and organizations believe that the crisis of digitality is entirely a crisis of its governance. What we need is a new articulation of Rights that accounts for people's development sovereignty in the digital paradigm. A new narrative of data flows with rights, including the right to connectivity and data public goods, the right to be forgotten, the right to be represented or not in digital systems. Data rights for algorithm work environments and so on. We need a people's data and AI constitutionalism at the international level. - Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director, IT for Change India.

UK : Digital policies that aren't environmentally sustainable won't be sustainable in any other terms either, so we should be aiming for an inclusive and sustainable environment policy. We need to consider not just direct impacts from the way we make and use digital resources but indirect impacts arising from new types of activity like e-commerce and the rebound effects that arise when efficiency improvements increase consumption and societal impacts like the changes in the way we live and work and play. - David Souter, APC International ICT and development expert.

IEEE PES : We have done a lot of damage. We have to undo this damage. This doesn't mean that they will be actually the same way they used to be but they have to be healthy ecosystems. On safeguarding and achieving a truly long term sustainable planetary biosphere, we need to address global warming or climate change which means achieve a net zero GHE emissions and reduction of greenhouse gases that are currently essentially unbalancing the composition of our atmosphere. - Maike Luiken, IEEE Power & Energy Society and chair of the Planet Positive 2030 Initiative, on standards and regeneration of ecosystems.

Costa Rica : We as women and as communities demand for participation in the digital technologies for accessible environment, climate change, natural resources management processes that are going to be developed in our context since the beginning of developing collective data models, designing technology solutions together, ideating processes to integrate care as the environmental solutions, etc. If they are collecting data, from our territories this data is our property; we claim ownership coz they are talking about our lives. - Kemly Camacho, Cooperativa Sulá Batsú speaking on behalf of feminist and social movements.

UN : When we look at the statistics, digital technologies contribute 1 to 5% to the green gas emissions and to the energy consumption it is between 5 and 10%. It is a lot. However according to several studies this digital technologies can reduce this greenhouse gas emissions to 20% by 2030. - Mactar Seck, Chief of section Innovation and Technology at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa , raising concerns about the impact of digital technologies on the environment. He added that the issue of climate change was not very well highlighted or defined in most national digital policies in Africa.

GIZ : We had an initiative with the The World Bank Bank and International Technological University (ITU) on standards for green data centers. It was a very useful exercise sitting with experts, and the result is a practitioner’s guide for Green Data Centers that was launched recently in Nairobi on the occasion of the Africa climate summit. It was very welcome and I would want us to invest more. - Axel Klahake, Director Economic and Social Development Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, speaking about GIZ’s work and contribution to the shaping solutions for digital technologies, sustainability.

IGF participant : Last year we had 2.7 billion people not connect to Internet, this year it is 2.6 billion. This means in 25 years we are going to give internet to everyone, which I guess is a failure of conscience for the agreed. We need to stop it. If I can get access to internet at a cafe at the airport free advertising, why can't we give internet to the 2.6 billion people on those models?
We have a high level panel for AI but not a high level panel for 2.6 billion people in mixed priorities. - IGF Participant

IGF participant : I find this forum to be an important step towards consensus and collaborations for the evolved Internet; we won’t see this evolution come to pass as long as we maintain tones about marginalized civilian populations that are actively oppressed by a lack of internet access. Especially those that have had their voices removed from the global stage as a result of weaponised shutdowns and senseless wars. - Internet Governance Forum Secretariat Participant, researcher focused on disaster resilient internet infrastructure.

ISOC : At Dynamic coalition we have produced reports, where are they? They are not recognized by IGF, they are not on Internet Governance Forum Secretariat website. On the DC Advisory website, they will be there. But nobody knows these reports exist yet they bring tangible outputs to this IGF so how can we improve this and what sort of criteria should the DCs meet? And that will provide new focus for tangible out comes. - Vaulter Nates, coordinator of the dynamic coalition ISOC standards, security and safety.