Description: The workshop aims to reignite the Internet's spirit of openness and community-driven innovation, highlighting the voices of youth in the global digital governance landscape. It will provide a platform for young people to discuss the goals and principles of the Global Digital Compact (GDC), focusing on digital accessibility, data privacy, the digital divide, and other critical issues presented in the final version of the GDC, set to be released in September 2024. Young professionals from various stakeholder groups and continents will explore how youth can promote key issues and challenges within Internet governance, with the reflexivity in their diverse and multi stakeholder backgrounds. Emphasizing diverse social, cultural, and economic contexts, the discussion will allow young people to engage with one another, share experiences, and learn from different approaches to digital challenges across regions. Another central focus of the session will be the novel concept of data cooperatives, which update cooperative principles for the digital age by promoting democratic governance and inclusive participation. The session will serve as a platform to lay the groundwork for establishing youth-initiated data cooperatives as entities, where young individuals collectively control and benefit from shared data resources. This will highlight youth initiatives, such as the 50-year Internet celebrations, including insights from the Internet 50 Youth (i50y) event and from discussions at the Science Summit during the UNGA. Speakers will address key questions such as who needs to be part of this conversation, what values are being pursued, and what ethics and best practices should guide future data cooperatives. The workshop aims to pave the way for starting with a simple digital cooperative that embodies the values of traditional social cooperatives, entailing the collective management of an Internet platform by multiple organizations, serving as a foundational step before advancing to data collection and management.
Open Zoom
