The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> We all live in a digital world. We want to trust.
>> And to be trusted.
>> We all despise control.
>> And desire freedom.
>> We are all united.
>> EMILIA ZALEWSKA: Hello, everyone. I think that we are missing our session Moderator. So we'll just give him a minute to join us. If not, we will ‑‑ yes. You got promoted. Congratulations.
So maybe I will just start with introducing to this session. Okay. So welcome, everyone, to this session called Youth in IG Policy Making Process. Let's talk about MHLB. My name is Emilia Zalewska and I am from Poland. And representing the youth IGF Poland. So firstly I would like to shortly introduce you, our four speakers for today's session.
So first is Juan Pajaro Velasquez who is from the University of the Cartegana and has a master's in cultural studies at the National University of Rosario. The main research focus has been alphabetic and queer representation in media. In the last couple of years they started to focus on gender online, Internet Governance and on topics related to Artificial Intelligence and social computing as an independent researcher.
The second speaker is me, Emilia Zalewska and I am a lawyer. I have been involved in the Internet Governance for five years. I am a Steering Committee member and a cofounder of the youth IGF Poland. And also this year I took part in preparing the youth Summit as the project youth Summit organization.
So the next speaker is Bruna Santos. She is a visiting researcher from Berlin and a recipient of the German fellowship for future leaders. She graduated from Central University with a bachelor of law and brings along experience as a specialist in data protection and Global Internet Governance. She actively participated in discussions for Internet and the Brazilian personal data, sorry, the text disappeared. For the best ‑‑ this is Bruna.
And also our online Moderator is Juan who is here in the room and just got promoted.
So firstly, I would like to give the floor to our panelists. So firstly, there will be Bruna and then Juan and then Eileen and the last speaker will be me.
So Bruna, please if you could, if you could tell us more about what are your thoughts on the MHLB and the different viewpoints we heard on the last weeks. Like what are the objectives and challenges.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Hi everyone. And thank you all so much for the invitation. Well, just going a little bit through what is the multi‑stakeholder high level body or should be the multi‑stakeholder high level body, we have seen increased attention from the UN Secretary‑General. In 2018 we had a high level ‑‑ very high level discussions in a group that was assembled in order to discuss what digital cooperation was and how can we develop in a common strategy for the world and for the UN around digital cooperation and what was the role of the IGF in all of that.
So this has led also to one round ‑‑ one roadmap that was ‑‑ that was made as a result of thematic and multi‑stakeholder Round Tables in the process that was led by the UN. And some of these discussions, one of the Round Tables was also about possible improvements to the IGF regarding strengthening and also strategic improvements to this fora because there has been some criticism and some discussions in the past year about how the space might be losing its relevance and everything else. So this was all part of the roadmap and related discussions. But when you look at the roadmap, we have the paragraph 93 that says that one of the goals, one of the ideas that were listed was the creation of a strategic and empowered multi‑stakeholder high level body, the MHLB building on the experience of the existing Multistakeholder Advisory Group, which is the MAG nowadays which would address urgent issues and follow‑up and relay some policy approaches and recommendation to make the IGF more proposed or more present in some of the policy related discussions.
And in the same context, a few year ‑‑ a few months ago or maybe years, I lost track of time in the past two years but that was also a document by the cochampions that led the Round Table on the digital cooperation discussion, the document that was called options for the future of global digital cooperation. They also listed that there was a significant demand for stronghold digital cooperation in leadership with regards to Internet Governance. So that's when the multi‑stakeholder high level body and now the leadership panel all come in as an attempt to make it all more relevant and more present in some of the policy discussions. But when we started doing the debate around the MHLB there was also some points about how this group should work together with the MAG, Multistakeholder Advisory Group and how this should not be like clashing with the MAG's functions. How they would together. And the idea was for this new group to never overcome or represent any weakening of the already existing spaces and everything else.
But like just to wrap up, last month IGF Secretariat and the UN as well, they both announced this call for the IGF leadership panel which is kind of the ‑‑ how everything is coming up to form which is ‑‑ which has invited international Civil Society, Intergovernmental organizations, private sector and Governments and everyone to submit names of candidates from Developed and Developing Countries to be part of this panel. And the idea is exactly as I was saying, like to have a more space that's with more relevant names to kind of help debate the IGF mission and everything else. And as you were saying on the past few weeks there has been a lot of discussions about what is this group, what are these people. Like why do ‑‑ why is there a need for like a new and high level body. And whether or not it will represent that all of our efforts around multi‑stakeholderism, around the IGF, they would instantly become topdown, because as part of the digital cooperation discussions, these were all ‑‑ these ‑‑ this is also a UN led effort, a UN led effort that's like mostly supported by Member States. And this is one of the main concerns.
And just to finalize everything, yeah, so like the comments were about yeah, this overlap between this leadership panel and the MAG. Also why would we need to give way more space to private sector, social media companies and maybe even some groups in Civil Society said that there was a concern about an uptick of all of our discussions and maybe we should like kind of a concern that this new leadership panel should introduce in to the IGF space some imbalances in between private sector, Civil Society and everything else.
So I guess yeah, trying to sum up what is the MHLB, leadership panel and the past discussions in a few minutes. That's kind of what I can say. Thank you.
>> EMILIA ZALEWSKA: Thank you very much, Bruna, for making a lot of interesting points, I think. And now I would like to pass the floor to Juan who will ‑‑ who has been, sorry, yeah. Who you have been on the IG ecosystem for several years. So if you could give us an overview of the youth participation in the IGF, and evolution of the youth led initiatives.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Hello, everyone. Since yesterday I have been part of this ecosystem. I don't even know that I was part of the Internet Governance. During all these years I have been seeing so many efforts of people trying to get a main and common goal in different spaces. Sometimes these initiatives were in another ‑‑ doesn't so much. And a few, the main characteristic from my point of view of those initiatives that has been straightforward, is the ‑‑ they understood that even with some conflict and interest, why ‑‑ they want to achieve is a community of diverse groups. It is bigger and more important, not just to them but as of the future view, as a one voice in the decision‑making process. As a player among the rest of the stakeholders.
For me ‑‑ with the process that I'm seeing right now in the Internet ‑‑ in the IGF ecosystem. When I started, with different groups, organizations, collectives, or young people that decided to join forces I had constant evaluation of the process and force on how they can contribute when ‑‑ when in policy making, using spaces as NRIs with a view at regional, national and local levels and coordinating between the position that I have been reflected in a global and local way. Being at some point all these efforts at some point, multi‑stakeholderism model of Internet Governance can work if we had of ‑‑ for everyone and we are open enough for diversity.
But that situation right now and that has been ‑‑ that has been because we are driving the necessity of change. Something that we never forget. Because that was the fuel of the youth Summit. You see ‑‑ that you see you are standing group, like light years, we had a voice representing youth in the IGF opening and closing ceremony, dedicated especially to us in the main evidence of the IGF. There is a lot of work to do. We had to organize that. But if we continue the way in this ‑‑ in this way we are going in the right direction. And we should continue joining forces from coordination globally because that's the only way of being tokenized. And start making decisions in the main environment where a lot of ‑‑ where lives have been living right now. And will probably be for so many years. If we keep quiet we will be letting others to the final pressing. And remember we are everywhere. We are everywhere. Just in case we forget it. And someone make us the opposite.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Juan. Now Eileen, my question is for you. You have been a YSIG Steering Committee member for two years now. So what can you tell us about the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance on the participation of youth in IGF workstreams like the DCs?
>> EILEEN CEJAS: Thank you very much. Hi everyone. Well, the Youth Coalition has been contributing actively in the Dynamic Coalition's ecosystem starting from collaborating and support the statement on the core intravalues which was signed last year with other DCs. We also collaborate, participate in webinars and most importantly engaging in the DC paper. Basically this DC paper describes the story of the Dynamic Coalitions and the achievements and suggestions for the future. Especially making a call of action for remembering the work done so far by the Dynamic Coalitions and how it could fit within the roadmap on digital cooperation and the multi‑stakeholder high level body. I invite people to read this paper. Also I want to check the report of the DC main session that took place yesterday.
Going back to the Youth Coalition Internet Governance we have been advocating for the voice of youth for 11 years. We were reflecting on discussion. Youth is getting more attention and highly involved in the ecosystem. This year and last year we have the opportunity to organize the Youth Summit with the support of the host country and several partners. Personally I want to thank Emilia and the youth IGF Poland and Committee members for trusting in us to contribute in the organization of such an important event for youth. However, and this is something that we are still finding, is that nonyouth people have doubts about youth participation and how we can contribute meaningfully. We still see tokenism. We still share our messages, our recommendations to all the stakeholders but for the other side we are not seeing the response that we wish.
I can share briefly that from the Youth Summit Working Group on inclusive Internet Governance ecosystem and digital cooperation, for instance, we mentioned several recommendations to the IGF, like increasing the linkages between, sorry, the youth NRIs and bringing voices from marginalized communities in to the discussion of IGF. When we say youth as a stakeholder we are not saying to put a tick on a list. And just ‑‑ for example, giving youth five minutes to speak at the panel, that's not ‑‑ that's not what we are looking for. We are looking for equal participation. And that's stakeholders could see us as an agent of change that we can participate in equal footing in decision policy making bodies. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for your interesting input. Emilia, we have been hearing and participating at the Youth Summit. Could you tell us more about the planning and points of actions elaborated by the Working Groups? How is it connected to the roadmap of the digital cooperation and the UN common agenda?
>> EMILIA ZALEWSKA: Thank you very much, Eileen, and Juan has already mentioned a few things about the Youth Summit. So I just would like to get you a little bit more details. So the Youth Summit, the project Youth Summit because we called it a project. We had this mandate, but it was of a whole process. So it was the idea of it was born from last year experiences. Something that Eileen just mentioned that those led by youth maybe are listened to, but we don't see much power, much effect that those postulates were causing. So we thought about the ways, how we could change it. Like how we can find a way to make those postulates more effective. Like effective in real life causing real changes, even the small ones.
So hence the idea of having it in a form of the project. So preparing those postulates in advance. We have been working in eight groups led by youth experts from youth observatory and Youth Coalition on Internet Governance, like Juan, like Eileen, who supported the groups, the group participants with their knowledge and their experience in the field of Internet Governance. And each group was looking for the challenges in one particular area of the Internet Governance.
And the final result of the work was points of action. And the idea of those points of action was that they will include answers to three questions. So first one, what is the challenge in the particular field of the Internet Governance. The second one what is the solution. So it is like a classic postulate. The third part to whom this point of action is targeted, like who could actually help implementing that.
So what we wanted, why we wanted to create such points of actions is that they could be directed to the very specific groups of people or Governments or companies or organizations.
So our really amazing groups, because participants are all very, very brilliant people, the same with coordinators. So they prepared points of action and we have already presented them during the Youth Summit. I see that Eileen is pasting some links in the chat. If you could paste the link to the web page when you can access the first version of points of action. Sneak peek in to this work. But soon we will publish the whole report with all the points of action we've researched that extends behind each of them.
And also we would like to start targeting them to delivering them to particular groups of people or politicians or organizations. And we just want this idea to evolve, to be continued after the Youth Summit. Right now I am ‑‑ I can tell in which way it would be exactly. But I really hope that more and more young people and initiatives will join us because we already are having conversations with initiatives like youth policymakers, or with friends for leaderships which are also the youth initiatives. And we just hope that if the more of us will be on board, the more perspectives we'll get, the more voices we will be able to include. And maybe the more power we will have. So yeah, so that's from my side about the Youth Summit this year.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you, too, Juan. With this speech we will finish the first session of our talk. And let's go to the fun part of the session which is discussing on a shared document about some policy questions. So I will send the link to you or yeah, one second. I will send the link in the description. So yes. This youth position towards the present and the future of digital cooperation, we ‑‑ we will gather opinions from the participants of the session and later thoughts from the partner youth initiatives, like youth SIG. YSIG during the following weeks of the IGF, the idea here is to expand the impact and the products that we create here.
So the document will be published in early '22. And it will be widely spread through the IGF mailing list and other platforms. So the idea is that everyone can participate regardless they are onsite or online. And for those who have connectivity issues, our ‑‑ me, I will get your comments, and try to show to the onsite public. So these documents we will have three sections. One, about what are the remaining challenges of including people in the IGF process. We will have also what roles should young people have in the development of MHLB initiatives. So this is the second section. The third section, what are relevant stakeholders that can help us improve our participation and how can we influence them. So we invite everyone here online and onsite participants to send comments, suggestions and inputs to this document.
So the panelists will go through each section, one, two and three. So please give me your contributions in that order.
Remember that me, I'm going ‑‑ that I will do the connection with all the people. Okay. So let's discuss about the first section. What are the remaining challenges of including in young people in the IGF process. Pedro, wants to talk please. Introduce yourself.
>> Pedro, from the Youth Observatory. I believe that one of the main problems that we have today to include youth is and that we actually don't talk about that, that much is reaching new audiences. Meaning that usually the people that are included in Internet Governance ecosystems are already part of some institutions, some organizations that already has this context, for example. In Brazil it is really concentrated in some states or Universities. I have noticed in other places in European countries, in Asian countries is also really concentrated in this same spot. So it gets kind of a place where everyone already knows everyone. And the new people that come in are part of groups already included. And it's something a little bit hard to do, to get to this new places, to this new groups. But it is something important to make diversified, not just regionally. Not just when we are talking about things like gender but also getting out our more traditional spaces that we already reach normally.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, Pedro, for your inputs. I am seeing that Nicolas is adding some comments to our document.
>> NICOLAS FIUMARELLI: Hello. Nicolas Fiumarelli from youth IGF Uruguay. I think in order to have what are the challenges for including more people, more young people in these processes, I think that Pedro stated it very well, the issue is that there are people that are out of this processes or maybe they are not ‑‑ they have no knowledge about that, these processes exist. They are like this multi‑stakeholder processes happening when everyone has a voice and every voice counts. Not every time people know that. But the Internet Governance Forum is a place where all these voices will be here for these people that do the decision‑making processes. So it is very important that we create more online platforms. Software based platforms for people that can't participate onsite or sufficient Internet connection. They could also participate by document drafting as we are doing already today. But we need to share this more diversely like in social networks. We need to reach other spaces. Also marginalized communities in rural areas.
We could prepare some temporary Internet hubs there. Providing some satellite Internet or something for a period of time. So these people, for example, the unconnected one could participate because something that always happened is that we talk a lot about the unconnected. But we are the ‑‑ the connected ones. So we need to raise more voices. And also something I was thinking in the last IGFs was to include, for example, People with Disabilities, maybe blind people. So we could have like different groups of youth, people, for example, I don't know, some school of blind people in a country who also have their own youth initiative. Which because they will have some opinions and some recommendations for the future of the Internet, that maybe has a difference in the way that they communicate, no? But at the end we need to have this inclusivity of all the people. So I think we need to reach more spaces. That could be my opinions. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I ‑‑ your inputs is very valid. Because when we think about the internet, we think from our perspective, right. So bringing marginalized groups. And bringing people that are not usually being heard, it is very important, very essential to us to understand what are their problems. And work on it together.
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: For me one of the main challenges is to be included in the decision‑making process. Not only as a consultant person, but someone that just held the opinion. But so that ‑‑ being the ones that take the decisions is for me ‑‑ is the main goal that we should go, we should try to achieve. That's what we had to do in the future. And also what was ‑‑ what Nicolas says about the inclusivity, thinking the way of like these testing, testing these new technologies to be more adaptable to people, that's a great idea. We are developing new technologies and new ways and new policies without thinking in ‑‑ in thinking and including really the people that we think they need to include.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Juan. I am seeing that our brainstorming document becomes very extensive. So thank you all for participating.
It would be nice if we skipped to section 2, just to gather some ideas around the subject because our ‑‑ we are running out of this time. But please remember that we will ‑‑ we will continue working on this document for the next few days. So let's remember about what is section 2. What roles should young people have in the development of the MHLB initiative?
>> JUAN PAJARO VELASQUEZ: Okay. I'm going to say something about this, the multi‑stakeholder high level panel is a place where they didn't include any policy related to young people. They are pretty much going to transmit some of the results from the IGF to the Government. But they don't mention in any part of the document young people. So if you ask me, we have to start with that. To include in the multi‑stakeholder high level panel, young people.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, Juan. Nicolas, you were going to talk, please? Go ahead.
>> NICOLAS FIUMARELLI: Yes. Nicolas Fiumarelli for the recording. About the roles that the young people have in the MHLB or could have, as well as the structure of the MHLB is to advise the Secretary‑General in the urgent issues, like coordinating follow‑up actions. So I think that we ‑‑ the enormous work that the youth has already done, I think we would need to be like considered another stakeholder in this level body because this would be like the risk between the IGF discussions and outcomes and all the things that are happening in the best practice Forums and Dynamic Coalitions. And one of the key functions of these level body will be to receive the reports from the MAG and then to promote to the IGF in order, in the way of outcomes. I think that the ‑‑ we ‑‑ the youth need to be like the stakeholders that can be more engaged in this processes. I think.
In another sense, I think that the youth has a role that is to communicate these outcomes also for the rural community, in social networks as I say before in my comments. We need to go broader, to the wider community. And try to reach all the youth initiatives with these outcomes. So they could read what the outcomes were.
So in all these full process and then contribute like how to say, like in a retro thing, right? So at the end we will be constructing the future of the decision making and the actions, follow‑up actions that will happen from every part of the world. That could be my recommendation for the MHLB.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I completely agree with you. And, you know, everyone that worked or participated at ‑‑ that don't have this kind of initiative, you feel the lack of participation from other groups. You feel that there is too restrictive. And when we work with this kind of high level bodies, you bring people together. You say like oh, we have these youth and we need to integrate them, to renovate the ideas, to bring new perspectives. So yes, I totally think that we can do a lot with this kind of initiative.
Okay. Juliana is coming to speak. Please go ahead and introduce yourself.
>> JULIANA NOVAES: Hi I'm Juliana just for the record. What I wanted to know is how from Emilia's perspective how easy was it to interact with the Government and receive support to organize an event such as the Youth Summit and in general from the other panelists as well, what you think are the challenges and opportunities that youths have when coming to ask for support from external entities, either their Government or companies or yeah.
>> Please.
>> EMILIA ZALEWSKA: Thank you for the question. So in this year I considered we were lucky and unlucky at the same time. We were lucky because the initiative of the project Summit was supported by the IGF Secretariat and also at the same time by the host country. Like they were interested in what we are doing. And in the same time they didn't really interrupt us. They didn't try to impose their ideas which was actually quite good because we are the young people. So yeah.
But we are also unlucky at the same time because when it came to the private companies, for example, they were not very eager to invest in this year's Youth Summit. Because they just ‑‑ they thought that it wouldn't happen. And not at least in the physical Forum. So, for example, we plan to bring much more people here. And firstly, everyone was very enthusiastic. We had some propositions of funding but then people started to ‑‑ like the companies started to wither because they thought those people ‑‑ those people wouldn't make it to Poland anyway because of COVID and restrictions.
But what I can say is and I think it will be answering more the third question actually, is what I think who could support young people is private sector. Like I think this is very a underexploded area of potential cooperations. First of all, because private sector is money, is power, is influence. If we want to have very, very strong backup, I think that the private sector is a perfect place. The big companies like Google, like EY, like PWC. Different kind of companies because a lot of them maybe they are not very technological companies but they have something in common with that.
They could be great partners because, you know, there is also a lot of them are just ‑‑ there are people who are enthusiastic about helping out young people. We had great cooperation with PWC for some time and they were just very, very supportive. So I think that if we are looking for some supporters, of course, the different kind of organizations, public and nonpublic. For example, Nask they were a great supporter for us. The Youth Summit wouldn't have happened without their help. But also these private companies is where I would look for support and help.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Yes. The core of the IGF is about multi‑stakeholderism. So it is very important the input you are bringing to us because these joint efforts that make ‑‑ that made this event happen every time. So thank you for your inputs and explaining what ‑‑ what's ‑‑ what were the difficulties you had here. But here you are in near the end of the event. And everything went perfect.
All the sessions, everything. So we ‑‑ with that in mind, we know that these multi‑stakeholder process works. And we are trying to improve it, bringing the youth perspective. Okay. I would like to pass to the session 3 about what are the relevant stakeholders that can help us improve our participation and how can we influence them.
So I saw that someone already added some text here. So I will say the idea that appeared here. Okay. So like applying funding to programs like the Internet Society Foundation for Youth to be able to participate in the IGF process during the whole year, the whole year as you said Emilia in the last ‑‑ your last talk, about the difficulties of that ‑‑ the lack of funding in the ‑‑ in the ‑‑ so near to the event you had a lot of trouble to reschedule and plan the event. But so maybe if we work together to a joint and long‑term cooperation process this could diminish this kind of instability that usually tends to happen.
Another suggestion here is about the mentorship programs or similar activities that allow us to ‑‑ to get connections with high level representatives, because it doesn't matter if we talk about the subject, but doesn't pass beyond our circle, this information.
So it is very important that we could reach other stakeholders with our work, like representatives of organizations, like the UN, ITU and so on.
And, of course, we need to work closely with the private sector because they are maintaining the Internet as we know. And they have a lot to contribute.
I see that Nicolas wants to talk. So please go ahead.
>> NICOLAS FIUMARELLI: Yes. I think that relevant stakeholders could be very necessary to talk to them. When we return to our local communities, we ‑‑ for example, in Latin America, the ‑‑ there are some countries from the OA has open national Government plans and at these open national Government plans you can propose things. Those places would be nice to reach the authorities, the ‑‑ and say well, we are a group of young people in Internet Governance. Maybe you could state like projects in your country with the help of the Government. I think this could be a strategic thing for open Government plans. I don't know how the plans in communication with the Government are doing in the different regions of, but in Latin America I think it is a nice opportunity to engage more with Governments. Maybe they could help in the sense of organizing some more meetings, creating a wider local community. There are some ideas that would help talking about the Government stakeholders, right? Thank you so much.
>> MODERATOR: Oh, thank you for your inputs. Sorry. What? Oh. Nadia raised her hand. So please go ahead.
>> Nadia: Hello?
>> Yes.
>> Nadia: Okay. Thank you. Hi. My name is Nadia. And I am from the European Dialogue of Internet Governance or EuroDIG. I wanted to take the discussion from the other side. We are a ‑‑ EuroDIG organizes the youth dialogue on Internet Governance every year. And one component that's extremely important to us which I also think was something that you tried to, you know, tried to address with the section 1, is an important thing for us is to empower young people through skill building. So it is also something that was reflected in the Youth Coalition on Internet governance meeting beforehand, I think that was yesterday where we ‑‑ where it was said that making sure that young people have the right skills to be able to sit at the table, things like negotiations. Things like public speaking. Giving them therefore the opportunity to bring forward the points that are important so they don't get obfuscated by things that people are fearful about. This is one thing that EuroDIG tries to aim to do. We are always working together with young people. And every year our programming Committee changes with new young people from previous years to keep bringing this input in.
And this is also what I hope to see at different levels that we are continuously also engaging with each other. So we're always talking, or a lot of the discussions were about engaging other people, but I also think that it is important to remember how we can foster the ideas among each other, not just about how we can reach out to others. But what kind of skills do we have among each other to be able to reach the goals that we want to achieve, whether that is bringing a point across that's so important to you or to your community, whether or not it is finding a position with a job, for example, getting the support that you need to be able to participate in events like this.
A few years ago, when I was part of the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance I supported 35 people with their visa application and only one was able to get to the IGF in the end. And that is a really ‑‑ that's really poor.
I think that we can do better, not only in the amount of people we can support with visa applications or with, you know, documents that they need to access places like this, I think building that type of community among each other allows us to support each other.
And then I also wanted to comment on the mentorship. I really love mentorship programs and I think this is a great way of engagement. My only concern is when I think of mentorship programs the concept of mentor in itself is a trusted advisor. Someone you build a connection with. Someone that you ‑‑ that understands you. Someone that's looking out for you. And over time I have people within the Internet Governance Forum that looked out for me, like telling me oh, this is a great session. I really think that suits your skill set or that you might find it interesting or you will learn a lot from this speaker.
If we focus too much on the type of people we want we might forget about the connections or the interesting you. So if we think about mentorship programs and thinking about what we can get out of them, then sometimes we forget a little bit about ourselves. Things that we cannot see for ourselves, but mentors can be younger and older. I have a lot of people at EuroDIG that are a lot younger than me that tell me about the unique opportunity that I should get involved in or learn more about. And I think that's such a great opportunity to make sure that we bring that information out there.
So it is not limited just from the topdown because then we might as well all sit in a webinar and all get the same information. We can connect each other. We are all living in different parts of the world. All connected on different levels and fronts. Any little bit of information that I can give you, I'm always willing and prepared to put you in touch with people who try to make your life easier. I hope that you also share that sentiment, that when you see that not only for like yourself but also for other people, you do that, too. I think you two should be connected.
And I also have many times at IGF that people came up to me and said there is someone who is talking about the same topic. Maybe you should talk a little and that's great. And I think that together, as a ‑‑ as a growing from this sentiment, we keep getting youth that is stronger and stronger and willing to connect with each other, and willing to overcome kind of that fear of the other that we sometimes seem to have when we talk about America, Europe, China, Latin America. This fear of who is who. Among us if we can find this camaraderie we can solve a lot of problems as well just by being supportive. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. You brought some interesting points to us. Actually I believe that the ideas we built here should not be self‑ ‑‑ to be contained just in an event that happens once a year. So it is very important that we can grab our ideas from here and apply during the whole Internet Governance process. I would like to thank you all for participating at this session. I think we discussed about the MHLB.
We also ‑‑ actually pretty interesting brainstorming work here in the document. I really appreciate it. So please let's applaud our panelists.
(Applause.)