The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF 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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>> Because we have a meeting for presented group five. I will leave in the middle of the conversation. I'm really glad to be here. I think it is exactly the kind of discussion we need to be having about having you not on the manual, but sitting on the table and discussing.
>> Hello. My name is Chris. I'm from Bolivia. I'm the current executive director of Internet Bolivia Foundation and secretary of the coalition of 11 societies and organisations working towards promoting digital rights in Latin America. I'm here just to learn and if I have something, I'll share it with you. Thank you.
>> I'm Areal McGee. I'm a programme officer for the Asia region. I work with the media and media adjacency, journalist, and about kicking off the project on the human right center. We are part of that have a large fellowship programme. Curious to hear what you have learned and how we can implement that going forward.
>> Hi, everyone. I'm Faye. I'm a master student in Taiwan. I sometimes walk with Dennis and I'm considering doing a PhD with him. Yeah. I'm just interested in what you are going to talk about.
>> It is on.
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>> I'm going to translate for him. Hermumbo. He's from Brazil. He created the raid owe model at his community which is mostly defined as an inside to inside communication. He's a popular communicator. I'm from Brazil. I'm responsible for the campaign of ours that we created which is a campaign which provides fellowships for popular communicators in the whole country where they can provide knowledge and information and we did two editions for 2021 to inform the public about the dynamic. Then we had one less here for the elections. We figure it was an effort to guarantee some evidence to guarantee that it would happen. And it did. Right now we're having an agreement. We're here to learn and exchange experiences on the fellowship. It is a great thing we've done. I'm very proud of it. I'm proud to be here and excited.
>> Hi. My name is Oscar Jimenez. I'm from Costa Rica in Central America. I work in the research centre that promotes the freedom of expression and equal rights. I'm also the executive director of Museum of Identity and Pride. It is uncovering the history in Central America. I love the title of the session. I'm here to learn.
>> I'm a PhD candidate at Montreal in Canada. I'm a guest researcher here in Tokyo. I work in AI and human rights. My focus on international human rights law.
>> So one of the first things we like to do because we know that sometimes when it is getting towards the end of a session, and people have to leave or one forgets. We have a small survey that I would like to show you. If you could fill in, that would help us to better understand the demands and interests are of people in fellowships. It is also questions that you can answer in this in case you run a fellowship and provide funding for a fellowship. Just to get some resources together. We like to learn from this as we develop our own models. We're going to show the link in a second. It is a short link.
I just wanted to say it is a very short survey. If you can leave your e‑mail IDs, we'll be happy to also share the analysis with everybody. That's precisely to account for the conflict in priority that we have. The voices are not carried right through to the end. That's the link. I'm going to also circulate this ‑‑ please write a little bit bold or something. Capitals are not very good at deciphering handwriting. I'll start right here. Would you be interested in receiving a copy of the ‑‑ do you need a pen? Yes.
Soon after we can open up the session. We probably take about five‑ten minutes for this.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: We'll comment to those online. Welcome. Welcome. Fill in the survey and let us know your e‑mail addresses. I'll post my e‑mail here in the chat. You can send me an e‑mail with your e‑mail address or just send me an e‑mail, we'll send you the results as well.
>> How is everyone doing on the survey? Finishing up? Wonderful. I just wanted to make sure. I was going to say something about current activities. Then we can jump into the exchange. Let me share these.
As I said, I'm one of the co‑founders of the Digital Constitutionalism Network founded in 2019 in Germany by academics from mostly Europe and also from around the world with people ‑‑ currently people from all continents represented in the network and the network is focused on research, but also teaching and training. That's what we're going to talk about today. And advocacy that's related to today and human rights and Internet. That's the focus here. We run a database on digital bills of rights. Documents that proclaim rights. We have a database. I'll show you in a second. We have a database of 308 documents that we have assembled. It is a great resource ‑‑ or research activities. We also have an annual teaching partnership which we do online and in person. We are now currently planning for long‑term ‑‑ one‑year research to be conducted. This is how the database looks. You can check it out. It is a helpful research tool also for advocates and advocacy to see what other documents are out there and demand human rights and principles on the Internet and digital field also related to AI and the database is going to be updated soon. We do research with this. Last week we spent a week with students across Italy and Europe in order to teach human rights online and the documents and database. Going forward the Digital constitutional Network not only wants to partner with additional partners and open to other partnerships, we're thinking about on the one end how can we combine the teaching that we do with the students into translating knowledge to activist, to young activist who come in and can benefit from the change. One idea is to create year‑long research incubators by which people from different ways of life and walks of life can join. That being supported by members of the network and of partners and expert advisors and there will be MA and PhD students among those that receive part of the fellowship cohort and also members of Civil Society groups and NGOs and independent young researchers. That's pretty much all of the pitch or idea. We're still working on this. We're working with IT for a change. We want to be more open. We'll have some open discussion. Not on this. But on the things that you all do and the things that you can advise us also on doing when we pursue such a scholar practitioners. We have an opportunity to also gain academic knowledge and who have a background in NGO or Civil Society organisation or any other place really. Media organisations, for example.
>> Thank you so much, Dennis. I wanted to add a couple of things. In many ways even five years ago if you looked at people working in the cross roads on various issues that occupy the time and energies of social movements, they would find they don't understand what digital rights are and they don't engage with the issues. Very rapidly since the pandemic, that situation has changed. Although it used to be the idea of digital activism or using digital spaces for activism, in the past few years movements have begun to embrace the idea that their own issues are beginning to be redefined by digitalisation. We have had to grappled with technologies and others, for instance, in the health domain are quite worried about what will happen to health data and data flows. Et cetera. Et cetera. We are grappling with the idea of trade agreements and non‑transparency in developing countries because of the free trade agreements. The field is changing. Younger people are beginning to understand and grapple with the issues. By that I don't mean to over generalise who the youth are. I think broadly talking about those will normally a part of the very, very fabric of struggle and dissent in their own context. People who are showing the way in terms of the dimensions of human rights that we would really like to present; right? So we have ‑‑ I've changed two rounds of, you know, I would say mentoring a fellows
One was on the digital economy and gender through the feminist lens. That was very rewarding. The other one was one week fellowship programme that we did Thailand. If you have two minutes, maybe you could say something. Maybe the two of you that have to go. Is it already time? It is already five. I understand. That's fine. On the frames and frontiers for the digitality, we found it extremely useful that professionals from different organisations. They had a lot to say about how they would shape their programmes. And the programmes that they were holding either as officers and let's say large organisations have been working on poverty and development, all of the organisations that have been working on the rights. These are very instructive. One of the things that came out was existing fellowships for digital rights leading us in a way to a kind of individualised paradigm where institutional strengthening is not happening. That was one of the questions that typically tend to privilege certain kinds of fellows who may not contribute back or the entire structure of the fellowship may not allow the contribution, you know, of their work to sustain social movements. The effectiveness of the fellowships was something that was called to question. That's a problematic, you know, just a provocation to analyse. I wanted to put it on the table. We just have to get questions for the session. Maybe Dennis, you can?
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Yes. Many questions that we have. We have proposed two things to the crowd and we're happy to humor other questions. The first one here also on the screen would be what does the current landscape of funding and fellowships for young activist working in the digital spaces look like? What is out there? What can we kind of collect as the brainstorming? Who wants to start?
>> Hey, everyone. I think I'm going to share a little bit about the youth programmes that I'm been a fellow and how they are organised. It is not exactly funding, but more like fellowship. The one thing I had a course and one thing that I think it is really important about is mental health during this kind of procedure. Why? Because the true programmes that have participated have a competition vibe. People were really competing against each other to be able to reach the activity. This caused a lot of problems. This is an issue. Another one is the fact the courses are very difficult. They are all ‑‑ you have the accessibility things and something that makes me wonder if the most vulnerable people they are able to reach the opportunity and even the fact that it is very difficult for understanding, like, infrastructure issues and understanding the debate and competing against each other to be able to get the fellowships of all of this, I think, are things that we have to face it. Another thing that I think the programmes today they allow you to reach opportunities like I went to the 2018 IGF. This is the only reason I'm here today. It changed my life. I saw this is what I want to do. I want to participate in the space. But you don't have a lot of continuity to be able to in the programmes listed in Brazil from my perspective to be able to continue your engagement. What I did is I will go after Civil Society and the NGOs that exist and I would try to get a job. That's basically what I did. I don't see a lot of youth‑led organisations in the sense. Let's empower youth and ‑‑ because of this programme, let's do an organisation. I think there are a few aspects of this. The importance of project management and skills to go after funding and risk assessments and things that is important to apply for a lot of rent. The programmes do not help you with this kind of skills and abilities. This would be very important to empower people through fellowship so they can form organisations and another reason is they are funded by the big guys. You have particularity on what you can do and what you can speak. Even if it is open. The importance of having freedom. It is a chilling effect of the funding activities that we have. These are a few of my considerations. I think that ‑‑ I think that's very transformative to be able to participate in this kind of event. This should continue. Also allow to more long‑term engagement and for alumni network, how alumni can become mentors and help and engage people with their experience and be able to build the futures. So I think I approached the two questions a little bit. Maybe later I can share some other facts.
>> Well, the Asia‑Pacific office we have designed a very different model for the fellowship. It is more of a flexible combination of fellowship to forum and experience and mentorship programme that runs for a whole year instead of the short‑term. So we have this group. We called 2030 every year. Every year we select 30 from across the region and different field of experiences. We give them a capacity‑building programme, mentorship with our advisors, and connection with the country offices. So they have the data and evidence and the strategic overview of the organisation of what's happening in the region and also connected to the country offices and where the implementation is happening. But that doesn't stop there. That's more of the preparation phase. Those groups are amazing. They are like leaders and activist and CEOs of company and researchers. So what we do with them after that, we work with them in co‑creation. They co‑create campaigns. Right now we're launching the online GVB. The co‑designed with them. You know, what's really unique about the work that they do that they want to create a knowledge product as a living system. It is not just the knowledge product that will put it on the shelf and forget about it. No. We update it every year. So last year it was one version. This year we're updating and adding more forms of violence, for example, innovation and the stakeholders who are working on it. Then building campaigns and also initiatives on the ground. It is being translated into nine languages right now in the region. Then other experiences that, you know, some of our members would really like. Some flexibility to attend their own preference on events or forums and conferences. So they get to select some of the events and we support them whether it is financially or elimination to attend some of the big forum. We tend to be speaking on the decision making forums. Like the conferences and the general assembly. So it is kind of the breeze on we investing on them. In the same time they are the one who is giving us their expertise and what they now. At end of the year, they have the choice to stay for another year as more of a senior fellow. Then mentor the other ones who is coming and be part of the identity or they can just move on. But all of them they decided to stay. Yeah. I think it is ‑‑ one good, you know, practice that we find it. It is the flexibility. To give to especially for young activist a lot of them they are studying. They have their work. They are doing other amazing things. I think it should be giving them the flexibility to come in when they need to and pull out when they need to and get attention to other works in their life. Especially if they are not paid or well paid for some of the work. To take a break when their mental health is needed. I think they have that ‑‑ when they have that flexibility, they give you 200% of their time. Because they come at their own terms. Also getting them involved in practical challenges and giving them real‑life experiences that they relate to it. They don't have to attend other things that's not of their expertise or relevance. I think ‑‑ I mean from our ‑‑ we have a U.N. organisation where we can dominate them to large scale decision making processes. I think this is where they see the value ahead of the states and be able to communicate, you know, the reality of their life. I think it is very different when they say it than when we say it and when older people say, oh, yeah, I was young once. I know what you feel. No. You are not. This is a different reality. I think it needs to be said by themselves.
>> Thank you. A few more minutes. Then we came back. It is very interesting. I'm glad I can help and collaborate as well. Just to go really, really quickly on this two questions. One thing that I do feel that I miss in some of the funding processes is the ability for the person who is being funded to participate in the design of the process. To be heard. Not only be thrown into the process as a tool that will be sent throughout the phases. Be someone who's opinions we listen to. In this way, they will even engage more; right? They will feel that their opinion not only on the content, but on the process as well, is very well the goal. Maybe for the funders, they will not get exactly the results they wanted. They envision. Maybe they will get a better result in a different form. I think that's one approach that I would like to bring. Another thing that I think relates to what we're talking here is we have to have the balance between mentoring and trust. Because I think it is important when we're talking about funding to have someone who is there for the process and listening and helping, but also must be trust in the sense of flexibility and understanding that the person who is being funded by the organisation is being funded and it is not an anti‑vessel that needs to be filled. It also has their experiences and a lot to teach. Not only learning. So I think I kind of gave this overview on the issue. But if I had to choose two words, they would be the balance between guidance or mentoring and trust in the person who is there.
Thank you.
>> Hi. I wanted to talk about our experience in Brazil, article 19. This campaign started in 2020 with the pandemic. We had this money that we would use to activities and things that we're doing in person. We couldn't anymore. We figured we would reroute this popular communicators. We figured they were the most qualified people to inform the Brazilian people on the state of the pandemic and what we should and shouldn't do. Especially because at the time we had a government that was spreading misinformation. We had to combat that. There are some things that we're thought of in the programme. We kept doing it. And making it better. The first thing is that it is not technically digital rights fellowship. But it is also extremely related to it. Because all of this fellows, they do what they do online. They do what they do digitally. They do what they do using technical things, technology. And also, we are thinking about an expedition specifically on digital rights. So that's ‑‑ I hope we can do it. The first thing that we realised at the time is we couldn't have rules for this spending of the money. This is because firstly it was a pandemic. People were without their jobs; they were without their normal lives and everything else. We have an expensive territory. You have to spend the money on buying stuff to produce the information. You have to spend this money on these and not that. Because we had people at the time using the money to pay bills. So this was the first school that we decided on. And I think it is the most important one. I think it is the most valued rule or known rule that we have in this programme and that people appreciate more. I think it is created a trust between us and our fellows. And I think it is about respect too. I think we're trusting them. You can do whatever you want with it. You just ‑‑ we're just trusting you are going to keep doing what you are doing. That's communication. Qualified and communication. And this is about respecting their identities. It is about respecting their agency. And their autonomy and their realities. Because we figure we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't ‑‑ also in the formats of the productions like we couldn't tell them, oh, you need to do three‑minute video. Because each reality was different. We had people that were doing things that were not necessarily as we think about popular communication. Because there were dialogues with indigenous people. There were dialogues with territories. I am very proud to tell this every time we have new fellows. No. We're respecting your identities. We're respecting your autonomy and it is great to see their reaction to it. Also the capacity building. This was something we implemented over the last few editions. We have courses and workshops and creating this capacity for them to produce what they produce already so well. But any specific things. Also the community network building. We see the campaign and the fellowships as a group. We also have what is approved. We can communicate. They are all over Brazil. And this ‑‑ they also cited it is already this creation to ‑‑ community creation where they also participate in the design of the programme. They also take and make decisions with us on what they are doing on the results of this. Lastly, the active engagement of the fellows with the rest of the organisation. Brazil has four or five dramatic areas. They all interacted with the fellows all throughout the campaigns and ‑‑ we call them to new projects. We call them to things that aren't necessarily part of the fellowship programme. But they ‑‑ we are engaging them with article 19 all the time. And I think that's it. And mutual learning which was also already cited. We love to hear what they thought about the addition and about the fellow and the implement new and better things in the next editions every time. I think that's it. Thank you.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Just pass the microphone.
>> Yeah. I'll build upon what's been said there. There's two things that I found super interesting. The first one being trust and if you want to trust that you'll get something better than you are expecting. I think it is something that's extremely valuable as a comment. Often times I feel like when you have to apply to fellowship, you have to pay, like, in a year I'll be working on this and that or that. Technology is fast paced. It is hard to be working on the thing you said when you apply. Trusting fellows and allowing them to work on whatever they want to work on often times gives a good result. I think. I hope so. And the second thing is mental health and competition. This is something we like as a family community and if fellowships were able to provide that to create a sense of community and solidarity between people. It would be super interesting. I have noticed that it often happens when you don't have people all of the same when you have people that will be quite different that comes from different field of expertise, different countries, and the competition is less present in those circumstances, because you have to ‑‑ you can learn from one another. Instead of competing with each other.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Thank you very much. Just looking online. Anyone online that wanted to intervene?
Doesn't seem to be the case. We do have a few minutes left. Does anyone want to comment again?
Yeah. I said that. I sent a message. I asked. No. It doesn't seem to be anyone online. Any questions here in the room?
>> ANITA GURUMURTHY: Thank you. I'm sorry.
>> I think one thing that we learned also from the past experience is that engaging the fellows in the re‑design of programmes is very important. Having them to be part of the governance of the programme itself. I mean what we did is that we chose a group. They drove from the experiences what worked and what hasn't. They would love to do more on the kind of activity. We picked up those and made them the core of the group. Also when we included them in the election process, so there was also a group that we asked them different presentation from the group to be part of the election process of the next fellows. That, you know, gave us a little bit of ‑‑ well, first the ‑‑ they knew a lot of those people. They give us more insights. They also have more, less bias. They bought that perspective of they are in the same level. They know what certain people would say. Also they could feel that certain fellows that doesn't have the capabilities to market themselves. A lot of great people are too modest. But they also know about some of their great work. We know that person is, like, really amazing. They are doing this. They did not mention this on the application. That was really helpful to have on the ground validation of our members. I think that's really helpful to have that check from the ground and the connection involved in re‑designing the programme every time you get a chance to do it. I think having responsibility in the management also really helped. It elevates some of the workload from us. But it would give us also more chances to get that responsibility. So they also feel from the perspective of the management of the fellowship or the programme what is happening and why certain decisions are made this way. But by including them, we also get insides of other ways to do it. It could be easier or faster. Sometimes it is not faster. But at least when we make a decision together it is common responsibility. People feel good about it. Because it is our own decision. We're in this together. You know, when it is ‑‑ there's that freedom to make the decision together. It takes time. But it is really helpful to just get them all on board for the decision that they might be affected by it.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Thank you so much, everyone. If I can reflect on the plans and what I've heard. This is so inspiring to hear the things. Things that we probably haven't thought about so much. I by the digital constitutionalism network and also with the cooperation we can learn a lot. Participation in the governance coming from the university setting that's assumed. When we teach, we know there are formal roles for students to have in university governance. If we branch out and if we engage other stakeholders, they don't have the same rights. We need to develop new governance mechanisms. We can be flexible with the mechanisms that can be better than the ones that we have. It is ones we haven't thought about. Your solution to the question of competition being people from different places. That really doesn't put them in the kind of competition. You in Asia‑Pacific have this automatically if you take one or two from each other. This was really, really, really helpful for us to think this through. We were developing this. And we'll also update everyone on the e‑mail address today if there's something coming through. And we'll be taking notes and we've taken notes. We'll put it on the IGF web site. You'll get the survey results. Anita, anything that you want to say?
>> ANITA GURUMURTHY: I want to thank everybody for being so generous with your reflections. I think there's a wealth of experience coming from different standpoints. Thanks for the candid feedback and your time to fill in the survey. Thank you.
(Applause)