What is Youth IGF?

Youth as a majority of Internet user group, their voices are however less heard in any decision making process. With a dedication to raise the awareness of Youth on Internet governance and encourage the young generation to participate in the policy discussion, a group of NetMission Ambassadors (http://www.netmission.asia) has initiated the Youth Internet Governance Forum (YIGF) in 2010 in parallel with the APrIGF.

Inspired by United Nation’s Internet Governance Forum, the Youth IGF takes the same multi-stakeholders’ approach as the global IGF. YIGF is usually a 3-day-2 nights camp which participants are assigned a role as one of the interest group such as government, private sectors and NGOs. During the camp, they are encouraged to think from a new standpoint. Based on equality, YIGF provides an open platform for young generation to express and interchange their ideas and own thoughts on Internet governance freely. It also serves as a preparation camp for them to understand various Internet issues and open their door to the international policy discussion.

One of the core features of the Youth IGF is that the facilitators are all youth themselves i.e. NetMission Ambassadors which signifies the empowerment of youth as well as the peer-to-peer impact.

Key Feature -Role-Play Discussion

All youth participants were assigned to different stakeholder groups for example Civil Society, Private Sectors, Governments, etc. for the discussion of various Internet governance issues. The aim of this simulation session is to let the youth to put themselves into other people’s shoes and encourage them to think from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

After experiencing different perspectives in previous sessions, external meetings will be held for the debates and discussion across different stakeholder groups. This last session is opened to all other APrIGF participants.

Past Youth IGF

2012 – Tokyo (http://2012.yigf.asia)
2011 – Singapore (http://2011.yigf.asia)
2010 – Hong Kong (http://2010.yigf.asia)