Session
Organizer 1: Jenna Man Hau Fung, DotAsia/ NetMission.Asia
Organizer 2: Victoria Lovins, Major Group for Children and Youth
Organizer 3: Nicolas Fiumarelli, Youth IGF Uruguay
Organizer 4: Mauricia Cindy Abdol Tshilunda, ISOC IGF Youth Ambassador
Organizer 5: Edmon Chung, Dot Asia Registry
Speaker 1: Tristan Norman, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 2: Mauricia Cindy Abdol Tshilunda, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 3: Edmon Chung, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Jenna Man Hau Fung, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Nicolas Fiumarelli, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Emilia Zalewska, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Round Table - Circle - 90 Min
(1) What hinders the development of technology and Internet access in certain parts of the world?
(2) Are there any systemic issues or historical factors that make the difference in the level of digital/ technological development between countries?
(3) How can we utilize the functions of DPGs in society to close the digital gap?
(4) What should be the key elements if we were to develop a new social contract to reduce the identified issues?
Connection with previous Messages:
10. Reduced Inequalities
Targets: Through the discussion at the workshop and its outcome, we expect to contribute the discussion outcomes to a framework or a new social contract. We believe this will be a good input from the community for policy-making. This will encourage a sustainable mechanism in governing the issues related to the digital divide, eventually, engender equality in our community through capacity building and utilizing DPGs.
We are dedicated to engaging responsible stakeholders to stay committed to the work the eliminate the negative impacts brought by digital divide on all of us. By magnifying the power of all and the potential of DPGs, we hope to engender equality throughout collaborations and dissemination of work and to make positive changes to society with the power of all by achieving some of the SDGs.
Description:
The advancement of technology and global Internet connectivity have accelerated the spread of information, human progress, and innovation across diverse areas. In the past decades, we have been addressing the rapidly changing development of technology and its impacts on us. With the introduction of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Roadmap for digital cooperation, we are going to govern how digital technology is shaping our future before the issues of digital divide parts our world into two extremes.
Improvements in digital technology might have benefited the well-connected group while exacerbating inequality within the marginalized groups across countries. As the world is moving towards a high use of ICT infrastructure and digital technologies, issues of access and governance should be addressed.
With the above policy questions, we expect to gain insights into how we can address and govern the issues of inequalities caused by the digital divide. By designing and suggesting inclusive policies and processes, and redefining existing normality by eliminating systematic bias, we believe our community can engender equality through digital public goods and develop a new social contract for all.
Ensuring access to the Internet is a critical element in bridging the digital divide, however, it is not sufficient to eliminate digital inequality. In the policy brief by UNDESA-DISD, the concept of digital public goods (DPGs) as a solution for engendering equalities was introduced. In this session, we aim to provide a platform for our community members to discuss and come up with some policy suggestions for the creation, adoption, and governance of DPGs. By exploring the existing issue of digital divide, we will first try to identify its causes and reasons, then we will invite all attendees to suggest some essential elements to be included in a social contract if we were to develop one to encourage different stakeholders to solve the issues together.
Below is the proposed agenda for this session:
Introduction of workshop (10 mins)
Guest speakers’ sharing (30 mins)
Panel discussion (15 mins)
Breakout-group discussion (15 mins)
Roundtable discussion (20 mins)
In the policy brief on digital public goods (DPGs) previously published with the efforts of UNMGCY and YCIG, several issues are identified as the major barriers that hinder the development of an inclusive society and cyberspace. We believe “equality” in general can be engendered through DPGs, and building a social contract with all stakeholders will be the key to the achievement.
After this session, a publication with the outcome of this session is expected to be published on the website and/or social media platform of the organizer(s). We expect attendees to suggest essential elements for the social contract, and such inputs will be translated into policy suggestions for a final statement of this session with the consensus of the attendees.
A framework for the new social contract should be developed with examples, cases, and/or statistics that indicate or reflect the contexts of different geographical or stakeholder groups.
Hybrid Format: The session starts with an introduction to Digital Public Goods and challenges or issues we identified in the DPGs policy brief. Our session is designed for both online and on-site participants and speakers. To ensure the best experience for every attendee, we will assign an onsite moderator to lead the overall moderation of the discussion in both the physical and virtual rooms. The online moderator will generally facilitate the discussion in the virtual room while ensuring the key opinions or comments raised in the chat of the virtual room are communicated to the onsite moderator.
As we highly value the engagement of online participants, we plan to assign a special voluntary role for the onsite team to communicate with the online moderator, in order to manually keep track of a queue for the Q&A session for the audience in both the physical and virtual rooms. Both online and onsite participants will be given an equal chance to ask questions and make comments.
While during the breakout sessions, we would make sure each breakout group has an onsite and online facilitator with a digital device that allows them to communicate and interact with each other. We will also encourage participants to join the virtual room on their own devices to directly interact with online participants and speakers in the virtual room. Since we adopt the hybrid model for the event this year, volunteers who are familiar with the overall logistics of the workshop are needed to lead the dynamics of the breakout sessions, to enable a productive discussion. The organizing team of this workshop will make sure there are enough preparation and coordination regarding facilitation prior to the session.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.