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IGF 2018 WS #99 Storytelling in bridging the access gap in Sub-Sahara Africa

    Organizer 1: Remmy Nweke, African Civil Society on the Information Society (ACSIS)
    Organizer 2: Aicha Jeridi, Africa Civil Society for the Information Society
    Organizer 3: Peter Taiwo Akinremi, African Civil Society for Information Society (ACSIS)

    Speaker 1: Renata Aquino Ribeiro, ,
    Speaker 2: Stephen Mawutor Donkor, Technical Community, African Group
    Speaker 3: Poncelet Ileleji, Civil Society, African Group
    Speaker 4: Mary Uduma, Technical Community, African Group
    Speaker 5: Cisse KANE, Civil Society, African Group

    Moderator

    Akinremi Peter Taiwo ([email protected]

    Online Moderator

    Remmy Nweke ([email protected])

    Rapporteur

    Aicha Chebbi ([email protected])

    Format

    Panel - 90 Min

    Interventions

    The speakers who have been selected based on their experiences and expertise will be given seven (7) minutes each to share their perspectives and a first-hand success story and its impact on their various countries of residence. The session will also tap into the speakers resources and international best practices through a set of questions formulated by the moderator to help steer the discussions to achieve the session objectives. The session will be enriched with the right discussions as a result of diversity, diverse views and practical experience.

    Diversity

    This organizer would make sure there is an inclusiveness in the stakeholder representation from the developing countries, gender balance, youth representation, civil society and technical. The session would also feature the newcomer participation to ensure there is new views and contribution to the IGF global discussions. Remote participation has been a key factor employed to reflect diverse stakeholders perspectives and contribution. The session organizer, who have been a key actor in advocating for remote participation will ensure remote participants are given a priority, and encouraged to be part of the session.

    In this session, we will offer a brief overview of digital storytelling and its importance in the context of the IGF and realization of SDGs. It will further dig deep the pros and cons, difficulties that hampered creation of effective digital storytelling and how success stories could serve as an enabler and motivation for others. The session aimed at harnessing the benefits of storytelling and concretised ways or steps to curating a digital and success story by bringing together internet governance and policy experts who will share their experiences and perspectives. Also, it will raise awareness and reawaken of consciousness on the way we tell digital stories.

    The session facilitation would firstly see the intervention of the on-site moderator introducing the speakers and briefly share an overview of the topic and the expectation of the session. Secondly, the speakers would be given the floor for their initial contribution. Thirdly, the on-site moderator would engage the speakers with the formulated questions to better reflect on their initial contributions. Then, the floor will be open for questions and contributions from participants. The session will also seek to make the on-site and online participants to interact with the topic of discussion to share success stories and benefits of digital inclusion.

    It has been observed since the inception of IGF to have not seen any session or workshop that discussed the importance of digital storytelling in bridging the access digital gap in sub Sahara Africa. Digital storytelling is an effective tool to educate, encourage, instill confidence and for knowledge transfer. There is an increasing advocacy on infrastructure that can aid access and knowledge environment, but often missed and neglect the role of effective storytelling that could speed up the digital inclusion in the world. Digital storytelling attracted little to no attention on how we could better tell digital stories in fashionable ways that could bridge the gender and digital divide that’s of concern to all the actors within internet governance ecosystem and ICTs skills across works of life. This session would look at the pros and cons of digital storytelling, the IS (current state of digital story and WHAT (what digital story should look like) and how it can be used as a great tool for education, capacity building and CENB actualization. This is of concern to the African continent, maybe in another continent too, that have shortage of digital skills in readiness for the digital economy, and that, most of the young energetic youth are now driven towards the entertainment industry because of how tedious and complex we made working and learn in the ICTs industry looks like. There is a need to reawaken the consciousness and focus to explore how effective the digital storytelling can move us ahead to close the digital gap, raise awareness, enable young ones to be mentored, motivated and acquire relevant skills that would be useful. Strategies and effective digital storytelling could be a fast medium of reorientation.

    Online Participation

    Online participation requires careful planning and a knowledge expert. The online and on-site moderator would work hand in hand to carefully plan for the session and likely questions that would be raised during the session. In order to make the session inclusive, equal footing would be given to both on-site and online participants. To achieve this, the on-site moderator would open the floor on a turn by turn depending on the number of participants on the queue (online and on-site). The organizer shall rotate the mics among the on-site participants while the online moderator would read online questions on behalf of the online participant. The organizers plan to draw online participation through African Civil Society on Information Society (ACSIS) mailing list, Internet Governance (IGC) mailing list, Non Commercial User Constituent (NCUC), Non Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG), Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and other various social media platforms. A week prior to the session, the organizer shall ensure an intense publicity to raise awareness and curiosity of participation