About
YouthxPolicyMakers: Make your voice on digital policy heard!
Young people under the age of 30 are the largest demographic group on the Internet, yet they are still underrepresented at the Internet Governance Forum, and in decision-making on digital agendas. We believe that young people have a high knowledge of the digital world they interact with daily and therefore deserve to play a stronger role in decision making, and policy processes regarding the Internet.
In preparation for the UN Internet Governance Forum taking place 6-10 December 2021, we want to bring together young people and policy makers as equals, sharing and learning from one another. In the course of thematic roundtables taking place online in October and November 2021, participants will get the opportunity to meet policy makers such as parliamentarians and governments officials, asking them questions and advocating for their stances on pressing issues such as sustainability, equality and inclusion online, or digital security.
Youth meets policy makers
Ahead of the roundtables, preparatory workshops will be held August-September 2021. These collaborative meetings will address specific topics within Internet governance, and also contain methodic segments on advocacy work and effective youth participation. Besides getting the opportunity to learn from experts, participants will benefit from each other’s expertise and work together to formulate policy recommendations or advocacy strategies.
The thematic discussions will revolve mainly around the IGF 2021 focus areas:
- Economic and social inclusion and human rights
- Universal access and meaningful connectivity
- Emerging regulation: market structure, content, data and consumer/users rights regulation
- Environmental sustainability and climate change
- Inclusive Internet governance ecosystems and digital cooperation
- Trust, security, stability
Past Projects
Youth4DigitalSustainability
In 2020, the German Informatics Society set out to explore the social, environmental and economic aspects of digital sustainability with a panel of 50+ international experts. In a fully decentralized program, four working groups developed recommendations and accompanying policy papers, which where presented to policy makers, civil society and technical experts in the 2020 UN Internet Governance Forum.
The Youth IGF Summit 2019
The German Informatics Society coordinated the initiative "Youth IGF Summit" in 2019. The project brought together 100 young people under the age of 30 who are active in the field of Internet policy in more than 35 countries. Its aim was to develop a package of clear "youth demands" for policy and business and to represent them at the IGF. The demands were processed in a collaborative three-month working process within webinars with more than 100 participants. In the course of the meeting on November 24, 2019 in Berlin, 11 demands were finally agreed - these are positions on digital political questions concerning education, sustainability, fundamental rights and public goods.
YouthxPolicyMakers is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
