IGF 2023 Networking Session #80 Radical Imaginings-Fellowships for NextGen digital activists

Time
Monday, 9th October, 2023 (07:30 UTC) - Monday, 9th October, 2023 (08:30 UTC)
Room
Room C-2

IT for Change
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Deepti Bharthur, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Amay Korjan, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Nick Buxton, Transnational Institute, Civil Society, Western Europe and Others Group Sofia Scasserra, Transnational Institute, Civil Society, Latin America and Caribbean Group Claudia Padovani,Digital Constitutionalism Network, Civil Society, Western Europe and Others Group

Speakers

Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Sofia Scasserra, Transnational Institute, Civil Society, Latin America and Caribbean Group Nick Buxton, Transnational Institute, Civil Society, Western Europe and Others Group Claudia Padovani,Digital Constitutionalism Network, Civil Society, Western Europe and Others Group

Onsite Moderator

Anita Gurumurthy

Online Moderator

Amay Korjan, IT for Change

Rapporteur

Deepti Bharthur

SDGs

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Targets: The fellowships that are envisioned are to be targeted around those working within the broad remit of the SDGs that have been selected here. In particular, the fellowships are intended to facilitate work that takes a critical, global south-centric perspective to challenging the inequities of the digital economy, challenging forms of neo-colonial dependency and extractivism, propagating robust multilateralism, and fighting for a sustainable and climate-sensitive digital transition.

Format

The session will be advertised and invitations sent to relevant stakeholder groups in order to create a gathering of audience members that can provide constructive recommendations for designing the fellowship. There will be a brief presentation by the organizers outlining the broad scope of the intended fellowship as well as some of the key areas that feedback is being sought. After this, the session will be divided into breakout groups for collating feedback and suggestions in a structured manner. In the last fifteen minutes, we will reconvene and have a representative from each group share some high-points of their feedback. Finally, the organizers will provide all participants with a survey link to fill out in order to get a synoptic understanding of audience recommendations on some key metrics.

Duration (minutes)
60
Language
English
Description

Today’s youth constituency includes the most highly educated and politically conscious citizens in modern history, yet they simultaneously face economic uncertainty, precarity, and the erosion of democratic and public institutions. At IT for Change, we believe that this generation must be at the heart of building the digital institutions and economies of the future. We are working to develop fellowships to facilitate early-career scholars and activists to be engaged in transforming the digital economy towards feminist, sustainable, equitable and just alternative futures. To this end, in this session we hope to collate feedback from partner organizations and youth towards shaping this fellowship. In particular, we seek to tailor this project around the needs and challenges of young activists working in CSOs, research organizations, academia and trade unions, as well as identifying key areas and types of work that remain significantly under-resourced.

The organizing team will ensure smooth coordination between online and on-site members through adequate pre-event technical checks and schedule mapping, as well as ensuring there are team members present for troubleshooting both at the venue as well as online. Moreover, given the rationale of this session is to collate inputs, the break-out group structure will ensure that smooth, small-group discussions can take places both online and at the venue, with organizing team members documenting the key points that emerge. Moreover, the use of administered surveys will add another layer of richness to the audience input, and will ensure that everyone’s particular comments and suggestions are recorded.