Session
Emerging Youth initiative
Gabriel Karsan, Emerging Youth Initiative & Youth@IGF, Youth, Africa Catherine kimambo, African Child Project, Civil Society, Africa Samaila Bako, CSEAN, techical, Africa Milton Cabral, Cabo Verde Ministry of ICT, Government, Africa Vallerie Iyega, Bowmans law, Youth, Africa Edinam Lily Botsoye, West Africa Youth IGF, Youth, Africa,
Catherine kimambo, African Child Project, Civil Society, Africa Samaila Bako, CSEAN, techical, Africa Milton Cabral, Cabo Verde Ministry of ICT, Government, Africa Vallerie Iyega, Bowmans law, Youth, Africa Edinam Lily Botsoye, West Africa Youth IGF, Youth, Africa, Tehillahe Chimfwembe, Financial Sector Deeping Zambia, Technical, Africa
Tehillahe Chimfwembe
Edinam Lily Botsoye
Vallerie Iyega
1. No Poverty
10. Reduced Inequalities
Targets: SDGs 1, No poverty when one can access an affordable connection for skills, markets and flow of trade SDG 4, quality education is an inescapable marriage with STEMS and digital literacy realisation SDG 8 when labor force is digitally adept we can create local innovations, adopt new labor and future of fourth industrial revolution work. SDG 10, a populace that is informed and independent in making its decisions on the ecosystem ripples across the community and increases access to digital resources hence reducing inequalities
it is an informal dialogue gathering among our panelists who will guide the conversation with participation. A roundtable flexible seating
English
These are the post pandemic times and its sad to say in many rural Tanzania villages access to broadband or simple cellular 3G access is a challenge, this is similar to most of Subsaharan Africa statically 1:600+ computer to student ratio in the whole of Tanzania a country of 60million people and 60% being youth below 25. Most students have the curiosity of Netizens and are independent sponges that can access , learn and build better when given access to meaningful connectivity, Teachers are empowered with new means of education and knowledge delivery with Massive Open Online Course Social media content and open classrooms and workspaces that improve the quality of human labor, meaningful connectivity goes hand hand with digital literacy at all levels of education, this begins with improving and creation of local government digital policies and digital competence centres, advocacy of internet governance practices and the role of localised multistakeholderism. We need to begin with a user centric human oriented digital policy framework with a bottom up approach, from connectivity access with initiatives such as community network, Digital competence centres, local e-commerce engagement, network and hardware access, training of local expertise so digital communities could be sustainable and connected to a wider arena of resources, markets, education information and knowledge that enhances human condition and spirit. Our outcomes will be learning on best practices reforms from stakeholders, in the post pandemic era how do we collaborative on best practises and recommendations on digital town square of open interaction. Our case study will be from Tanzania and our project on school connectivity it's success and challenges, whilst we open up other cases and find means to heighten our cooperation to meaningful connectivity and an open Internet access to all citizens of Earth.
We begin online by hearing our online audience through chat boxes and setting tone to the discussion before our speakers begin, our moderation mechanism is a 50:50 ratio of participation of online and offline audience, use of social media and a dedicated member of the organising team acting as a vocal representative of online audience ensuring they are listened and inputs collected, social media usage and simple reaction will be used to collect feedback.
Report
Investing in an open and interconnected local backbone network that acts as a bedrock of meaningful connectivity, example community owned networks that build on literacy, local content and service provision hosted in an schools as digital centers
The multistakeholder approach needs a reorientation that facilitates inclusive infrastructure in incremental impact projects from literacy to utility and this should empower academia in pushing for creative informed communities through investment in digital labor.
More inclusion in digitizing academia through local and alternative connectivity infrastructure.
Affordable access and new economic models to innovate on free basic internet access in schools
The main question in our session was a redefinition of what access meant, not in a lens of infrastructure but at a society narrative built on its pillars of inclusion.
Remarks from Prof. Noll were parables of challenging academias role in teaching connectivity and acting as public living labs of community connectivity programs.
schools have a lot of social and knowledge capital and are mainly operated with a local model of community, the added layer of digital literacy, digital connectivity through meaningful access in schools as points of outreach with a cascading effect.
To achieve this the role of Community Networks was brought up in form of community living labs offering alternative connectivity mechanisms to teach and empower the youth with modern 21st century skills that are needed to run the digital engine.
At a policy level we drew the logic from Kenya as a representative of KICTANET shared how their agency as civil society actors in the internet governance space led to the development of a community network act thats is pro people with lower fees and consensus from the government, Use of TV white spaces with dedicated bands for public image and text information to be accessed for free or cheaply for the sake of information flow on the free open internet.
Young participants who are self taught internet entrepreneurs shared the importance of access to tools and network in their daily lives having created software business with a social benefit from being ably connected and autonomy to innovate in the open network.
The role of dedicated bandwidth for affordable access is important, the needs of the new labor will highly depend how academia takes part in pushing digital inclusion and transformation as access points to affordable connectivity , experimentation on innovation and protection of the open internet and importantly literacy and inclusive society digital design to empower the new labor-force, Progressive Digital Academia.
Policy makers should work closely with academia in designing and incubating digital policy structures that are for the benefit of the people in ensuring digital policy borrows best practices of the internet governance pillars, Schools and Academia should be ground zero digital think tanks pushing for meaningful connectivity