One, two, three. Perfect. Thank you, everyone. The pictures are taken. Excellent. Okay. So let's get started. So hello everyone. My name is Zumael Azoukli. I'm a global shaper at the Geneva hub. Also currently working as a legal analyst at Lexa Law Switzerland in Zurich. Very happy to moderate this discussion. And before I turn to the speakers that we have today, I'd like to make, just, you know, give you a few words on the topic that we will discuss today in a few minutes. So probably that everyone around this table agrees on the fact that young people are central to solution building and also decision making. But for this to be possible, we need young people to answer the call and also you lead young people in the process. And that's really what we're gonna talk about. And to do that, we have some young leaders of various organizations today with us. First of all, we have Eugenie Fontune. She's the curator of the Geneva hub of the global shapers community. And she's also the board member of Baobab Home in Tanzania. We also have Maria Piana-Poletano. She's a young European ambassadors coordinator at EU Neighbors East, the EU Regional Communications Program for Eastern Neighborhood. Then we also have Alex Cook. She's the Digital Content and Communications Manager at Youth Business International. We also have Valentina Sabucco who is the conference co-founder and member of the Intering Steering Committee of the Unisco Global Youth Community and as well Miwa Swafwa who is a chairman and member of that same community. So now that we are all together and that we've introduced all the speakers that we have here, I'd like to turn to them and ask them a first question to allow them to introduce themselves a bit better. And the question is, when did it all start for all of you? Because youth organizing is not something that you just start like this from scratch. Something maybe needs to kind of interject into your life to get you started. And so the question is, what did it all start for you? And also, how did you get to where you are now? So if you could answer to this question in about a minute and a half, that will be perfect. And so I'll start with Maria that you see right next to me on the screen. Hello everyone, nice to be here. And I'm also a global shaper. So who knows, we could meet in the future to organize some more activities inside other networks. So quickly for me, everything started exactly 10 years ago. When I think about that, I just realized how much older I got in all these years. But yeah, I was 13 at the time and a friend of mine decided to involve me in a local organization in Aversa. That is the city where I'm from between Naples and Caserta. And so I started volunteering and after a while I discovered the Rasmus Plus project and I just connected the dots. I've seen how youth organizations were different on a local and international level. And I asked myself, we were doing enough at the local level. And of course we were not. And so I got more and more interested in understanding how to improve the situation and what kind of processes could involve more young people at a local level. And it started different projects. And also I started changing organizations from time to time and contributing to more communities because I've seen how important it was to find new perspectives and each organization has its own take on youth organizations and youth issues. And so that's why it started. And yeah, after 10 years, I'm leading this network. That is a really amazing. Of course, I'm not objective maybe in that regard. But I really, every day I'm happy about the work I do because I see the change makers taking into account the problems, but really trying to solve them in their local communities and with international cooperation. So yeah, that's all for now. Thank you for giving me the word. Thank you very much, Maria. And I'd like to turn to Valentina if you could give us a few words on that. Yeah, thank you very much. So my experience, I have to say, is quite recent. So everything started back in 2019 when I joined the 11th UNESCO Youth Forum in Paris. And of course, as part of the data or specific events, there were so many young people from different countries, like I think that's specifically the recent 75 young professionals and also students. And it was just an amazing experience to listen to what the challenges for each of them were in the specific countries, what solutions that we're implementing, the projects that were working and on that specific case, I found out that there was so much that needs to be done, not just our local and national level, but also internationally, because through collaborations and partnerships, as you can actually export projects so you can work together. And so the impact that you can achieve it, it's definitely much bigger. And this is how I got to decided to volunteer for the creation of a community, which is the UNESCO Global Youth Community, which is a project that in fact was born on that specific occasion. And the idea is then to provide a place, a platform, digital platform, where everyone can contribute, can share ideas, can share projects, can look for sponsorships and partners. So really to try to find a way to support each other because everyone has got specific experiences and background and like by combining forces, you can achieve great results. Thank you so much. Thank you very much Valentina. And I'd like to turn to a fellow shaper, if you can also tell us a few words. Now, hi everyone. Very happy to be here with fellow shapers. It's nice to see the connection all the way. So for me, it started quite late. I think I was one of the usual teenagers preferring to party and so on. And at some point I moved abroad and I think connecting with other people with other interests, not working with me and so on was really another value. And this is when I actually started to see that so by volunteering and by being involved in different youth group, you also discover much more about where you live and your local community, be it your hometown or be it where you decided to live later on. So I think this is really when it all started and that was kind of the moment of truth for me. And back in Geneva, I really wanted to continue distance. So that's why I started volunteering with the global shapers. And I really learned a lot about my hometown. So again, really cool. Thank you, Janie. And I'd like to turn to Alex if you could also tell us a few words. Hi everyone. So I'm slightly newer to digital to youth entrepreneurship generally. I joined Youth Business International early this year after several years of working across kind of charity and creative industries and with young people. And I really kind of got into this because YBI where I work just has such incredible reach and impact. And as we all hear, no young people and especially youth entrepreneurship are the future. And I think I was particularly drawn to YBI as it works on the greatest network organization. So it works on the ground with local member organizations in over 50 countries, meaning that there's just like a huge range of impact but also a huge range of local expertise and just being able to reach an enormous number of young people across the world in our last COVID-19 rapid response and recovery program which was with Google.org. The organization reached over 370,000 young entrepreneurs under 35 globally which is just such an incredible impact to be a part of and being kind of from a communications background being able to tell those stories and both those stories of individuals and individual young people making incredible differences to their own lives but also to their community's lives and to their kind of national economy and then the global economy as a whole that's just an incredible privilege. So yeah, that's really fantastic. It's great to be here as well. Thanks a lot Alex for these viewers as well. And I would just like to tell the people in the audience that they can raise questions in the chat. If we have time we'll address them towards the end. Otherwise I'm very happy to take them as we go. And now I'd like to dive more into the first topic of this discussion. As I said before, I think everybody agrees here that youth engagement is important but I'd like to challenge that a little bit. And why? Because of course a society is confronted to some challenges but in some respects there is this discourse that says that young people are somehow cured of the disease. And some people are turning to young people's leadership to solve these issues. And in the first place I would like to ask do you think that young people have responsibility to act on those matters? Or do we have an interest to do so? And so if you could clarify that from your own words. And I'd like to turn to Maria for the first answer on that. Yeah, thank you. And interesting question. So indeed we have responsibility as any citizen in any country. We have responsibility to actually participate in society and try to change things. But also we have a great interest especially in regards to some challenges that everyone is facing. Like restarting and rebuilding after COVID-19 or while doing COVID-19 still. Environmental challenges and cultural and social divide. So polarizations in our societies. These are issues that need to be addressed right now. Otherwise they will grow and be worse in the future. So it's a great interest for young people and young organization to do something and start to plan something right away. So that we can influence our future. And when we become adults, we are not the adults of now but we are conscious adults that know how to talk between themselves, how to build constructive dialogue and how to find ways to solve these issues together. So yes, we have a responsibility. We have a great interest. Of course our responsibility. How much we can do in regards of this responsibility depends on how much decision makers decide to turn to young people. Because it's great that we have many youth organizations but we're not always entitled to do everything we should do to change some situations or to contribute to the resolution of certain problems. So we always need to not always but most of the times we need the adults in the room or the decision makers, better if they're young but that's more rare to turn to youth organizations and actually ask them what do you want to do and what can you do? What would you like to see in the future? And so we need this too. But yet to conclude, we have responsibility. We have interest. We need trust. We need trust and space to use our expertise to contribute to the solution of certain problems. Thank you, Maya. And this respect especially maybe in an international context. I fear that as we have Green Washington with some respects, we also have Youth Washington in some circumstances. And I'd like to turn now to Valentina because you are currently working and leading this initiative at UNESCO. How do you see that? Do you see that you have a place to also impact on the work that is being done over there? And if you could maybe tell us a bit how. Yeah, no, absolutely. So I think like, of course we do have a responsibility. I think like it's a right for young people to be part of the decisions and play an active role in the changes, the social changes. So it is a right, but it's also a duty because if we don't contribute to these aspects, then we can't complain the future if what we have is not what we want. Now the question is saying it, it's very easy but how do you do it in practice? Of course. So this is what we want. We started discussing doing the UNESCO forum and this is why the GSE came into play. So the GSE stands for Global Youth Community. So the idea really of the GSE is to facilitate young people to provide them with a space where they can interact not just with UNESCO, which of course we know is very active in different areas. So it's reacting in the field of culture. It's very active in the field of society, climate change and so forth. But it's also like a place where, as I did you will see, it's a place where different youth communities, organisations, networks that are actually part of it. I'm sorry, I guess it's back. Okay, sorry, it's just light goes on and off. So it's a place where you have youth organisations that are part of the community. And that I think it's very important because sometimes young people that might have very brilliant ideas, but the question is that how do you put them in contact with the organisations that can enable them to care for whether they project so they can provide support. And it's not just a question of financial support, which of course is very well appreciated and needed in some cases. But it's also a question of maybe they have an idea but they don't know how to implement it on the ground. So process of mentorship that we discussed so previously, I think it's very key. And this is one of the major areas that we would like to try and implement through the local youth community. Thank you very much, Valentina. And I'd like to turn to, we talked about now the international context and let's turn now more to the business context. And I'd like to go to Alex in your context. How do you see this unfolding? Do you see that young people in particular in the business sector see that they really have a responsibility to build this future that they want? This is one of the major areas that we would like to... Yeah, I think Maria had it exactly right I think we all, as citizens have a responsibility kind of towards our collective future globally. But I think young people are particularly in a position to be able to make a huge amount of difference both in terms of kind of our collective future as a global economy, but also in terms of being a more equal and inclusive society or equal and inclusive global business. It's undeniable that 13.6% of young people globally are unemployed, that's over 60 million people. That's kind of the whole population of the UK. So these are enormous figures and young people particularly in the field of entrepreneurship are really well-equipped to address that problem. YBI's strategy is a deliberately ambitious one in response to really, unacceptably high rates of global youth unemployment. And when young people become entrepreneurs, they unlock income generation, job creation, economic growth of benefits, not just young people, but like their whole countries, their whole, the entire world. But it is important to remember as people have said before that young people often aren't the decision makers and aren't the people kind of unlocking these potentials and opportunities. For too many young people, starting a business does feel really out of reach and unavailable to them. So that's why in terms of what we aim for as an organization at YBI, working with our kind of like expert members who know the national context of all of the countries that they're based in, it's really just unlocking that potential for young people and making sure that they're as equipped and have the opportunities to improve our global future, which is what we're all aiming for as a whole. Thank you very much, Alex. We talked a lot now on the international level, but I'd like to go now more to the local level. Eugenie, you're leading a community of young people in the city of Geneva that tries to have an impact on the life of people over there. Do you see that there is a space for us to really drive impact in those areas? Are decision makers welcoming to our initiatives? If you could tell us a few words about that. Yeah, so I think it's a really interesting question. And for me, we do have the responsibility and we need to take the responsibility as well. And I think it's also thinking in terms of how we want to live and where we are the type of community we want to live in. And we have the power to design it to what we expect and what we want to see happening. Equally, I think we should not dismiss the older generations. I'm a big believer that we need to create ecosystems, we need to exchange, and we need to create the safe platforms for people to exchange and to learn from each other. I think Valentina mentioned the mentoring program, for example, I think this is a very good point. How do you do mentoring in both sides? You know, like how can you also inspire the older generation and the other way around? We all have things to learn from one another. And I think Q's group are maybe one of the best place on any volunteering groups or whatever are the best place to do so because you have a lot of different people working together and communicating and exchanging, which I think makes those groups really great platforms for exchange and challenge and so on. So we have the responsibility, but equally we should reach out to the older generation and learn from them. Thank you, Eugenia. And especially for pointing out the importance of the internet intergenerational approach to those kind of issues. And I'd like now to bring a topic that is related to that, which is basically how do you make sure also you include the older generations in the work that you are doing in your respective communities? Because somehow I feel that, you know, we're bound to become also the older generation at some point and how can we avoid to become the boomers of the future generations in some way? So I'd like to turn to Maria now on this matter. How do you actually engage all generations in the work that you are doing? Thank you, Myl. Well, first of all, it turns me a bit to think that we might become the boomers of next generation because I think it will happen. It's a process that we would like to accept, but maybe we can improve it a bit. But going back to the question, so the main way that we involve older people in our work is by taking the experts from the older generation and create learning opportunities. So we do not, we haven't ever thought about a mentoring program because this would require a lot of effort and it's not, let's say in our strategic plan right now, but we find a lot in reaching, involving experts in, especially in European programs as we mostly work with the EU and with its impact in the Eastern neighborhood. It's particularly interesting to get them and to get experts both from the EU and the Eastern partnership because having had two different types of professional and personal development, they bring different issues to the table and it's very interesting to hear their perspectives. So yeah, intergenerational learning, I would say that's an aspect of our network that is very important. And also we do work in our everyday work. So in our strategic development, we do talk with senior experts in the youth sector because there's a lot of youth workers that are from the older generation. And that's a very interesting perspective also to explore because they've been working with youth all their life. So even if they're not youth, they know youth better than youth themselves do. So that's a very important aspect in youth work. And I suggest everyone to try to get in touch with this kind of experts because they can really give a lot of suggestions also in terms of tools and methods to use that can enrich our activities. It's a lot, Maya, indeed, the older generations have been young as well and they've been through the process that we're in right now. So now I'd like to turn to Valentina. How is it happening at UNESCO? How do you manage to involve everybody on board? UNESCO has got like different offices across the world. So when, for example, we originally, we started a project of establishing the community, that was an important aspect that we considered. So how do we make sure to engage different people working in different offices? So that they could provide us with an understanding of what is the specific social situation, the cultural situation they're facing so that they can provide us with insights and inputs on how to best develop the community. And it is difficult because the view is like a distance, the view is like a time difference. But I think like especially now with technology it's quite easy to at least remove the geographical barriers of getting in contact with them. So we did have different meetings, we did organise different activities as well with members of the different UNESCO offices, but not just them, but also other youth organisations that UNESCO offices work with to have like a fit game feedback from them so that we could understand how to better shape the community because of course the last thing you want to do is to have a community that is not actually useful. So you want to create something that takes into consideration what the issues are. And so this is how we came into contact with the different realities, the different problems, but also different projects and solutions that each UNESCO offices was implementing and they were able to share this knowledge they developed on how to reach certain vulnerable groups or isolated communities, for example living in rural areas and help us shape our next step in order to reach these communities and these groups. So I think like information sharing was very important and the UNESCO, different UNESCO offices that contributed a lot on that and they were also very willing to share their knowledge. That was very, very helpful. That's true that I mean for young people to make informed decisions they need knowledge and it's definitely true that we should turn as well to those that possess it. And now I'd like to turn to Alex. How does it interplay in your organization? Yeah, definitely. I think all the speakers before me have really covered it that it's really important to share that knowledge between generations and for something that we've really discovered in when we're providing entrepreneurial services that people need to be able to learn from mistakes that have gone before them. And mentorship is a massive part of our business model. We have expert mentors that work with our young entrepreneurs through our kind of expert members all the time and mentoring in particular in time to change and transition and uncertainty and challenges which is so much of the environment today, particularly the business environment, but also just the state of being a young person with a business at all times. Mentorship particularly with older and more experienced entrepreneurs and business people we find to be completely invaluable. And as I've said, YVO is a network organization with local organizations on the ground and our members will then pair young entrepreneurs with an experienced volunteer business mentor guide to get them through those challenging first stages. And it's really invaluable to just be able to share that knowledge. And another big part of our model is creating linkages between entrepreneurs and private sector actors just to leverage that expertise, the innovation, the technology and the young people being able to learn from older people who've been through it and who have advice and also enormously learn from the young people themselves. What I always find when I'm doing kind of interviews for creating good comms around like the mentorship programs is that older mentors will have got just as much if not more out of their mentorship relationship with a young person with a young entrepreneur as the young entrepreneur will have learned in terms of hard business skills and support. So I think as everyone said, it's just intergenerational cooperation is just crucial in all areas, but particularly in entrepreneurship and it's definitely something that we support right behind. Thank you very much Alex. Now turning to Eugenie, I think that the founder of the Global Shippers community Klaas Svabas made quite a case that intergenerational approach is key. How do you see it end up playing within the global community as well, but also at the local level in the hub itself, knowing that the hub is also already getting I think 10 years older. So just let us know. For me, how do you not become a boomer? And I'm not sure I understand what you mean by boomer. Is it like a negative term because it's supposed to define a generation. So I guess it's the okay boomer thing, I know it's all type of person that you're targeting. And I think age is never an absolute. So if we look at the people in this call, we're already older than a lot of people in the world. And I think what we always need to do and to train is how do we keep on learning? And I think we will always need to learn and relearn and unlearn throughout our life. So we know that a lot of technologies are starting to come into play that we don't know of and so on. So really how do you train your mind to always learn from older generation, younger generation and you never become this know-it-all person that just disregard everything that is being done. And I think that the second part for me is how do you get comfortable working and interacting with people who are different from you? So it can be older generation, it can be younger generation, it can be people who do not have the same ability, the same citizenship, the same language, the same background as you. How do you train this and how do you make sure that when you work in diverse group, you are at your best when you learn and you are comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think this is also one of the key point to take into account to ensure that you always try to learn and to be open-minded. Thanks a lot, Agini, for those words of wisdom. I think it's me. And you've probably characterized maybe some of the criticism that are being made to some, I will say some because of course not everybody's included but some members of this boomer generation. And now I'd like to turn to close also this topic but for just the last remarks, maybe to Maria first. Do we identify some things, some mistakes that have been done by former generations? Like Agini has, for instance, touched up on maybe some uneasiness with getting open to new ideas, the new ways of doing things. Do we identify already some mistakes or some issues with the way older leaders have handed in the world at the moment and mistakes that we could avoid reproducing ourselves? Is it something that you've identified in your role? So I think it's much easier to criticize that you really understand why certain leaders made some mistakes. So I feel like there's a lot of criticism from our generation to the older generation from how they have destroyed the environment. At the same time, it's more difficult to recognize that many things that we know now were not available at the time that some decisions were made. So it's very difficult to say that others made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes and I'm sure that our generation will make some mistakes even though we try to be very informed and critical thinkers. I think as we are here also to talk a bit about the digital world and connectivity, I think the digital world is still something obscure. We live in an era in which there's a lot of information and it's very difficult to understand which is valuable, which is not and how to filter everything that comes to us every day. And as to take good decisions, it's important to have good information until we find a way to really orient ourselves in the digital world and find a way it will be much easier to make mistakes. So that's why it's extremely important right now to understand a bit about digital literacy and how this intertwines with our work. Here we have different organizations that do different things even though we have similar objectives. I think this is an overarching problem that we should integrate in all the decisions we make in our organization and in our activities. So yeah, it's just maybe a positive remark on the older generation. You didn't do everything wrong. Maybe you didn't have the tools to really decide what was the best decision at the time. Thanks a lot, Maria, for these insights. I think you're totally true on that and I like to hear that also from people of our generation that it's not just about criticism and also Jeannie has highlighted that. It's about also understanding the role that they are in today because we will be in their role as well tomorrow. And I'd like to turn to Valentina.  Do you have those kinds of discussions with them on younger people versus sometimes older people? Do you find common grounds? How is it interplaying in the work that you're doing? I think like communication, dialogue plays, of course, a long, I mean, an important role. So of course, I would like to say there are not times where we see things differently. There aren't many occasions and sometimes you also have to understand that of course, Nesco is a very complicated structure as well. So sometimes as a young professional, you would think, oh, I just want to do this. Why can't I just go and do it? But of course there are procedures that you needed to follow before proceeding. So I think it's quite interesting to see how sometimes the younger people would like to do things. So if I can say sometimes maybe I'll be a little bit more impulsive in how organisations which are very complex like Nesco, they develop their own projects and initiatives, et cetera. So there are differences there, of course. But at the same time, what I found that was very inspiring and help growing as well, it was that constant dialogue. So every time that we develop an initiative or a project or even during the part of space that we launched back at the beginning of this year, there were different activities that we wanted to do. But then from discussing with Nesco, especially in particular the youth secretary as well as the different Nesco offices, we kind of reshaped or at least modified parts of our original ideas because they helped us to see elements that we didn't consider maybe because maybe we were not so experienced or maybe because we didn't have as much knowledge on a specific context or situation. And at the same time on the other way around, our way of presenting or dealing with different situations helped them like I suppose to see things from a slightly different point of view or at least consider the different ways that you can use to do a specific activity or a project. So it's really like a different feedback and fitting into each other. And that dialogue helps, I think, both parts to grow and develop really. As because we can take the experience they have, especially on our international diplomatic level and from us because we can provide them with our local context and understanding of what the situation is. So you have to give the national a local and the kind of feeding to each other. So I think that it was a really, really helpful and very important experience. Thank you very much Valenciana for those words. And now I'd like to turn to Alex. How is it interplaying in youth business international? Do you also notice those kinds of maybe difficult conversations happening or how is it going? I think, you know, everyone's right in terms of particularly when we see on just social media in general. And that feels like quite a lot of intergenerational resentment that can arise. But I think in the entrepreneurship space, especially because as I've discussed, there's so much, you know, mutual reliance and reliance and advice and mentorship and leveraging previous, you know, expertise from people who have been through it. I think there's a really support, it can be a really supportive ecosystem, the entrepreneurship space. And obviously we run through a model in which, you know, we have expert members who are supporting young entrepreneurs who are really, you know, a diverse age group. The entrepreneurs are 18 to 35, but the people supporting them in providing training and providing mentorship, it's a real mix of age groups. So in lots of ways, it feels like a very supportive and more solidarity space in order to just, yeah, come together towards a shared goal, which as we've all talked about is, you know, the better future and the better economy for everyone. So yeah, I agree with what everyone before me has said. And I think there's loads of lots of space for just intergenerational support and learning from each other as we go. Thanks a lot, Alex. Now, turning to you, Jeanie, as you kind of open also the topic of the importance of intergenerational approaches, et cetera, the things. Do you have anything to reflect upon after what you've heard from your colleagues in this panel? I think I am just building on all the different answers here is how do you create occasions for people from different age group to meet and to interact beyond, you know, like beyond being just helping out or whatever. I think you need to create the space to go for a walk with somebody that is older than you, discuss with your grandparents, discuss with the senior people at work. And so we all have to learn from one another. It's just not natural, let's say, to go to somebody who is a bit older than us or so because there is this seniority type of fear as well. And I think as younger people, we should not, you know, look at the age group of the people, but just reach out to them for a base on their ability, their knowledge and so on. And just maybe just close our eyes and just look at those people, actually not look at those people for what they look like, but for what they are and the type of skills that they can bring us and the other around. So for me, creating the right opportunities to meet could be the right answer to just avoid all this misunderstanding between generation and whatsoever. And it goes both ways. Us, as older people, as compared to the younger generation, we should do the same as well. Thank you very much, Eugenie. And now making a transition to our next topic, I think that we've talked now about, you know, the importance of communication, how sometimes we just don't understand each other. And there is a process, something currently happening in society, which is this increasing polarization. People seem to disagree on some things and to be, you know, simply not capable of discussing those differences, debate properly and find common grounds. And that's really a process that is also being worsened by digital media, social media in general. And so on this topic, I know that the young organizations represented here all target different issues, different topics, but in your view, is it also this issue of polarization? Is it something that youth groups in general should also tackle in their initiatives by trying to, you know, invite people from different boards into these sessions, et cetera. And to that, for that, I would like to turn to Maria first. Thank you. I think this is something that youth organizations normally do. When young people come together, they give themselves a set of rules and ways to discuss and they try to incorporate as many different views as possible. And this is a practical education to make sure that there's no polarization inside the group. And that's something that then the members usually take outside of the organization and inside their personal lives. I think this also connects to what we were saying before of taking into consideration some topics and putting them inside our everyday work, like digital literacy, but also an education to recognize this information that is one of the main sources of polarizations in social media and then in the real world. We have certainly seen many things happening right now in relations to the vaccine and COVID-19 and different theories and different people's discussing these theories in a way that is not always, let's say, dialogical, there is not always polite, but that sometimes it really becomes conflict. So yeah, it's our role also to take this into consideration and to create constructive dialogues inside our organizations and outside with the older generations. And that's something that we've seen, and I think with the last questions that we're doing already, we just have to keep doing it. Now turning to Valentina. Of course, young youth groups in some ways try to bring also this kind of place for dialogue across the spectrum of IDs, et cetera. But in some ways, some people could criticize that youth groups are also their own forms of silo because they attract specific types of people, people with certain ideologies, for instance, Valentina, you work in a very international context. Do you see the whole spectrum of IDs being represented where you currently work? Are there things that are implemented to make it maybe less exclusive? I'll be very curious to hear about that. So that's a very interesting question. So I would say, of course like UNESCO is a very important, is very very important to have as many representatives of different communities as possible. And with the divide, of course, the mutations are on the number of communities and vulnerable groups that you can reach to. And that was one of the challenges that we had to face during the development of the community. Because when we started talking with different UNESCO offices and youth focal points, what we realized is that, there are certain communities that either because they live in isolated or in rural areas, for example, the ability to have a very good internet connection, it's very limited. In some cases, probably not existent. So, of course, the fact that you can't reach out to those communities, to those groups, it impacts on the variety of voices that you have as a gender group. So really, there are sometimes the challenges on how do I communicate certain messages or how do I involve in my activities of these groups so that they are really inclusive and so that you can be the benefit of a dialogue which is with many different actors. And what we found is that sometimes you really have to restructure and receive the tools you use. So we invest a lot on digital skills.  But when we talk about specific communities, you might not always want to go for these specific tools because maybe there's these communities that don't use them. So maybe you want to go back and use other forms of communication that you can use to circulate a project and idea and get them involved. So the devar issue sometimes is quite, I think you would like to have everyone on board. But sometimes there's about some challenges that you have to face. And this is where probably creativity and dialogue comes into play that can help to find possible solutions. Well, this is what we found was most beneficial as this is from our experience. Thank you very much, Valentina. And I was just told that my wife is with us as well now in the call. If you are here, maybe you can turn on your camera so I can also see you and feel free also to compliment maybe what your colleague has just said. First of all, thank you very much for giving me the floor. Unfortunately, my camera is not working. Yes, sorry for that. Yeah, it's great that I really enjoyed the conversation and Valentina explained everything about the GYC. I'm just going to add one or two sentences about where we started from and where we are going now. The journey of Valentina and myself started in November 2019 in Paris. I was representative of Germany for the youth forum. And in the youth forum, youth forum is a component of the General Conference on UNESCO where each two years this UNESCO youth forum takes place and young people from around the world can join the youth forum. This is two-format, format one is, for example, the first format is the member states propose a delegate or UNESCO secretary can propose or select someone. And during the 11 UNESCO youth forum, we decided to build a youth community, a permanent youth mission in UNESCO, the UNESCO global youth community to give youth a sustainable and a strong voice and to bring UNESCO youth initiatives and projects under one umbrella to achieve counterbalanced youth power to guarantee more effective and inclusive decision-making. Because it's a, we know that's really difficult and it's a unique process that we started. At the very beginning, it was also that no one believed us when we told the people that we were going to have a structure in UNESCO, a permanent mission for young people to represent young people, which is youth lead. It was not believable. But now we achieved after two years hard work together with our colleagues from UNESCO, especially UNESCO youth section. Our colleagues are also here in the call and also a huge thank to them for their support. And now after more than 80 months or two years, we have now a structure. We have our own platform, a digital platform. We created a digital platform. And now we are planning to involve more young people in youth leaders initiatives in the GYC in UNESCO global youth community to build at the global level and also in the next step at the national level and at the global level to give young people a voice to come together and to discuss. Because we have only eight years to achieve the sustainable development goals and it is essential. It's very essential for all of us and therefore we need to work intergenerational. It's only possible to achieve the goals of the sustainable development when we work all together. And this is why GYC is about. And we are working, we work very hard. And now we have, as I mentioned, a steering committee, 11 young people from all region of the world. We have two people from Europe, Africa, Arab states and Latin America and Asia Pacific. But we are not representing a country or a region because it's very, very important because why we are not doing the time not representing Germany. Valentina is not representing UK or Italy. We are representing the global citizenship because we want to also give those people a voice that they don't have the chance to join as Valentina mentioned and they have technical problems and et cetera. And through this way we want to give young people a voice also at the global level to also in one, in maybe in the next years also to have a conversation with policymakers, with the member states, with the UNESCO offices and also with other national commissions. And by the way, I'm not going to make a long statement here but it's something for the future and we are working very hard to make that reality. Yeah, and one other thing I want to also mention here is that it's also very important for us, the young generation, the young people to work with the older generation, to enter generational because it's very important. We don't need to blame somebody and also the people, politicians, we need to work with them to achieve the goals. It's the only way. Just to start a conflict with other people, especially with the older generation, it's helping not us. It's also not helping our goals, to achieve our goals, the SDGs. And yeah, thank you first of all for giving me the floor and thank you for this great opportunity. I will be staying in call and for further questions I will be here. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Mirais, for your comments and your words of wisdom as well on the points that we've touched upon across this discussion. Now I'd like to turn to Alex because Mirais also mentioned the importance of inclusivity and do you see it also happening in youth business international? Do you make it, manage to make it rather inclusive? Yeah, I mean, Perz is absolutely correct. I think inclusivity has to be at the forefront of everything we do, particularly in business. An inclusive economy is a better economy. And when we look at the impact of COVID-19, in particular, 70, 80% of small businesses were impacted, but particularly those run by women, refugees, migrants, marginalized communities. Inclusivity absolutely has to be at the forefront of everything. In our last program that I previously mentioned, our COVID-19 response program with Google, we've reached nearly 70,000 marginalized entrepreneurs, so women, young people, migrants, refugees. And these are all people who are going to move forward and transform their communities and their businesses and the economy. I feel like a broken record, but that's absolutely what YBI aims to do. And it's not just inclusivity in terms of making sure we reach as wide a demographic as people as possible. It's also things like digital inclusivity, which is a huge part of what we're doing at the moment. Increasing digital literacy is a huge pillar of work in the entrepreneurship community because digital literacy and having digital elements to business are just going to be increasingly absolutely essential. And obviously young people are driving this kind of digital natives and have so much to teach an older generation about that as well. So I think, yeah, I would just agree with everything everyone else has said, but underline the inclusivity both in terms of kind of like social but also sustainable inclusivity, digital inclusivity is all incredibly important and really at the forefront of what we're doing and I hope of what kind of youth groups across the world are doing. Thank you very much Alex. Virginia, you're running a local chapter of a youth-led organization which includes as well handling issues such as recruiting people. How do you handle these the importance of inclusivity within the hub? What are the challenges that you face in this respect? Because I know it's a discussion happening quite a lot. Yeah, thanks for this question. I think this is a question that is hard to answer and that we're still trying to answer within the hub. How can you be more diverse knowing that you are not diverse enough if you don't look beyond what you know? So I'm not sure it makes sense but you really need to look at diversity in all these shades. It's not only gender diversity, it's not only citizenship diversity. And so once you have identified what type of diversity you are lacking then you need to ensure that you can answer to this diversity especially as a youth group. How do you ensure that you are interesting for other people and that they will be able to thrive with you. We are working hard on this with the Bluroshapers and we are learning every day because we are all different and I think this is what is really amazing basically to keep on learning and to keep on being more diverse and I think diversity is just getting more diverse and we still have some work to do on this but at least try and learn from it, that's really cool. Many thanks for those words as well. True and like you said also before the importance of being open to others, open to different ideas etc. And now I'd like to go to the last topic before we take some questions which is basically how do you answer the call in general? How do you see the opportunities and if everybody here around this table or virtual table I should say could share basically some words of coming from their experience and how they actually managed to identify opportunities which opportunities they try to say yes to or no to and also how they managed to actually reconcile what is maybe the professional life versus the initiatives they are involved in. So if you could give a few words on that to start with Maria. Thank you well. Well at this point of my life my personal and professional initiatives are one so I don't have this problem of connecting them anymore but generally I think that there's always there's always been something in common between what I've done professionally and what I've done voluntarily. For example when I worked as a startup consultant I found a lot of initiatives in the volunteer sector that could easily become or have become startups or businesses and so everything is always connected especially when you think that everything that you do voluntarily so as a volunteer or in the third sector or additionally to your workload it always enriches you on a personal level and you bring everything you learn into your work so it's there's not much of maybe the only problem that I know many people have and I'm sure you too and all the panelists have is managing the time to do everything because it's hard to say no to things we love but sometimes 24 hours a day are not enough so we need to make choices and then is when you start deciding which priority you give to the things you're doing. Thanks Maya and now turning quickly to Valentina can I see you on the screen? Yeah so I would say like in terms of opportunities for those that I've taken throughout like my career some of them were coming from like my studies so placement for example that I could do as part of my master or when I was studying for my black bachelor in other cases it was like organisations that I heard or I got to know through social media because I think especially like digital tools like social languages in particular it can be very valuable to find out opportunities what is there you can conduct searches even locally and it's great it's something that for sure previous generations they didn't have and I think it's the facilitators who can find this opportunity and make them all staff of them but yeah sometimes it can I agree with my year time management it can be quite difficult so you need to prioritise indeed Yes indeed and now turning to Alex I think yeah I think what Maria in particular said around you can't say yes to everything is great advice for but I think also it's just making sure that you believe in everything you do on a personal professional volunteering level excuse me I would just say that that's at the core of everything really that's all you need Thanks a lot Alex not turning to Eugenie Well I think we should say yes to most of the thing that most of the opportunities that we get we don't know for how long we will get them so I think here there is also a time management issue but I think you learn from everything and you also get inspired and energised by what you do as volunteers and by discussing with fellow fellow shapers for example of fellow colleagues or whatever and you get inspired and then you can inspire and I think this is also where we can really get energy so I would just see all the opportunities that you have they may not be here tomorrow so say yes to most and say no when there really is too much but learn and get inspired to inspire them Thank you Eugenie I like also to hear that it's true that in some respects saying is often sometimes also the easiest thing because you stay in your comfort zone sometimes it's great to say yes and you will manage beautifully I am sure I think we reached the end of the time that was allocated to us I have scrolled through the questions I think we sort of answered in a more general way most of them so I will slowly close this session but thank you again for this beautiful contributions and I think that you've all demonstrated that young people are serious about the commitment that they have you propose concrete ideas concrete solutions and also are open to dialogue for the last generations and I think that's a key that's a key learning for everybody and a last final word for everyone we always ask panelists to what they will tell to the younger selves and as we discussed we will grow older as well so what is something that you would like to tell you for yourself shortly so I'll go to Maria first Take more time to read I love reading books a lot but I wish I took time to read even more because they are the best thing ever Valentina Let's continue to follow your project your ideas so you never get discouraged sometimes things might not go right but it's normal it's part of life so I think a commitment to discrimination is a matter Maria Weiss I will say to myself first I did tell that I worked hard also voluntary I spent a lot of my free time for working voluntary I'm not only working with UNESCO I also worked with the German National Commission for UNESCO I worked also in my community and also in politics I'm also active and working and I will say I did but it is not so much but I tried from my side to achieve something for the young people and also for our future and and I will because it's also a difficult question to say to your future because we don't know what's waiting us in two years and none of us knew that COVID-19 will we will have a COVID-19 a kind of pandemic an epidemic a pandemic at the global level and this is something that is making the question difficult to answer but I will say to myself in future I worked hard for the community and for the young people and also to achieve the sustainable development goals but I also motivated some young people but I'm trying hard to do more to motivate the young people and it's one of the most important point is never give up because we started volunteer and myself 2019 in UNESCO youth farm and we had only a recommendation from the youth farm and from the general conference and we started with this recommendation and now we have a community we have a structure and governance and we are going to the next step young people at the intergovernmental organization UNESCO which is a huge success and it's also something that we never give up it was a discussion that we had volunteer also mentioned but yeah it's difficult but the most important point is never give up and also stay motivated when you have a aim and this aim is to fight for it now turning to Alex shortly I don't have much to add I think everyone said it all I'd say you're more resilient than you think and yeah I think never give up as Moira says it's a great piece of advice all right I think Jeanine had to leave or she just left so closing with did I miss somebody I don't think so thanks a lot to everyone for this beautiful session thanks to to you the audience for sticking with us and also to the organization team especially Victoria and Maria for the invitation so wish you a great following session great afternoon and talk to you soon bye bye everyone thanks everyone bye thank you everyone bye thank you thank you thank you myel for organizing this great discussion and thank you all the panelists Valentina, Mirvais, Alex Maria and Evgeny for your participation and for sharing your insights about your organization about your work and how you support young people today it was incredibly interesting and I'm sure that we learned a lot so we are running few minutes late but I think it's not a bit problem because it was really very very interesting conversation and now I am very very happy to the next session and introduce you as a Generation Connect Europe group champions who will present the youth declaration that was prepared by Generation Connect group and I will give the floor to Marco, Elisa and Franca to give you more details on our session thank you, your floor is yours hello guys we're so so happy to be here and to be able to present our declaration we worked so very hard on during last winter so we really hope you will all stay and discuss with us and think about how we can improve our declaration and really just for the begin we were asked to ask you to turn on the camera for one second so we can take a great group picture and after that we will really go into our session which will be very interesting so if you could just for one second if you're able to turn on your camera so we can take a picture great, here's Sebastian and Gia just started hello Julian somebody I know is there somebody else you can Luisa if you can tell us when you're ready yes yes so everyone smile I will count to three one moment alright so we have everyone so one two three once more one two three thank you very much okay thank you so so much for participating we will share a presentation now and then we can then we can start okay thank you so much maybe first in the begin our names as already was said Franca, Elisa and Marco I'm from Germany I'm a German law student and I'm also part of the Europe Connect youth group so we will present our declaration today and before we really start and go into it we would love to start by talking about why an ITU youth group is important and why youth should be included and should be able to participate in policymaking and also at the ITU next slide please so why include youth I think the most important argument why youth should be included is really that youth makes up more than 30% of the world's population 40% of the world's population are under the age of 25 a number that will even grow during the next years and this group is politically underrepresented this is especially troubling as youth will be most affected by decisions made to date and that's why we the youth demand to see that the table should be on our perspective it's time that our opinions and our perspectives are considered an expertise that is worth listening to and something that we always argue for and what we're struggling with is that we have to fight for that perspective is also an expertise this is something that is changing at the United Nations at the moment that we say okay we don't just need classical expertise to participate but perspective is also very very important so when we talk about policymaking in the technology sector we really want to bring in our perspective and to set new focuses and think outside the box and we don't claim to have the same amount of classical expertise as somebody who studies this for 20 years but we demand that we have an expert and perspective that is worth listening to and that should be listened to so youth makes up also the biggest group of users of digital technologies and that's why the ITU was so kind to introduce an ITU youth group so that we can bring our perspectives on digital technologies and focuses and what we deem important the next slide is for Elisa who will now briefly explain what the youth group is doing exactly thank you Franca hello everyone my name is Elisa and I'm a member of Generation Connect I'm from Albania so I was really excited to be part of this Europe group because it includes Europe not just the European Union so I'd like to talk a bit about our group our objective is to provide a unique process of participation of youth in the work of international communication Europe in the European region we have been active in many events but for first I'd like to present some of those that we have been part of in January we presented our youth decoration and could you please show the rest of the slide yes thank you so these are some of the events that we've been part of as I said in January 2021 we presented our decoration and then in April 2021 again we participated in the European celebration for women 10th anniversary to raise the awareness to share the stories and to encourage young women to actively pursue careers in STEM to bridge the gender digital divide also in December we participated in entrepreneurship a session where young entrepreneurs talked to us about their experiences and their goals and they were from different backgrounds from different parts of Europe and they made this happen so don't further do I'd like to present to you our Generation Connect next slide please the generation of Generation Connect Europe Youth Group has brought together motivated students and young professionals from all over Europe when it comes to digital development we have redefined what future development technology is we are the generation most affected by the digital transformation we have grown up in the information age engaging with technology in more and more ways we are aware of the challenges and opportunities provided by the ICTU now and in the future we can take the lead in assuring that digital transformation is safe leaving no one behind and providing meaningful experiences to people in all aspects of their lives it is important for the youth to be recognized as stakeholders within the field of digital development to make sure that these processes are inclusive and representative and ready to take action and be part of shaping our digital future the result of our common efforts is the youth declaration a representation of our hopes for a more inclusive, connected and safer digital world we are a digitally competent society and a better digital policy these declaration states the opportunities and challenges that we face as young adults reflecting our optimism energy and natural familiarity with technology it brings together our experiences, knowledge and ideas to work towards a common goal of supporting digital development in Europe through actionable solutions most of all this project shows that young people from across Europe can come together to merge with backgrounds and experiences to drive change but we will not stop there this is the first step towards increasing youth engagement and giving the youth a voice in the field of digital development we deserve a seat at the table where discussions on digitalization are taking place as Generation Connect we are committed to playing an active role in shaping this new future together with the ITU and its membership we are excited to be able to to the best of the world telecommunication developer conference 2021 we look forward to the world telecommunication development conference outcomes and implementation accelerating the achievement of sustainable development goals it is important to engage the youth of today to solve the questions of tomorrow we have to prepare ourselves to face new challenges and opportunities in an ever growing digital world the time to shape our future is now let's make it happen well this was this is us so far and before we continue to talk about the declaration we'd like to have some of your opinions so I'll leave my words to my friend Marco to get some opinions for you guys yes hi everyone I am Marco I am part of the Generation Connect Europe Youth Group I am coming from North Macedonia and as Elisa said I am very happy to be part of the European Union but as a Europe at the whole I would like I think the next slide so we can see we have yeah we will use Mentimeter so I will post in the chat the Mentimeter so we can hear your opinion about the what are the topics that you think are important to take in consideration so here is the link but you can also join by the code I will share my screen now so I can present yes so I will start this screen now and wait a few seconds so we can have some answers from you we have some interesting topics here Cyber Security, Digital Inclusion Woman Rights, Climate Change Youth Participation, Entrepreneurship Youth Employment Environment Waste Digital Capacity New Smart City Social Economic System Artificial Intelligence Digital Divide I think we can go on the next question because we have the most biggest climate change and entrepreneurship those are with the most use so I will go on the next one I think that you should see now on the same link and code the next question you need to choose what topics concern you the most from the 5 topics that are listed I didn't say you can choose multiple so it's not a concern only to one I think that we are going to give 5 or 10 seconds more and we can go to the next so the first place is for Environment Digital Inclusion, Capacity Development Policy and Regulation and the last one is Cyber Security from this we have only this one this was to see feedback on what is your concern and what is your top interest in the topics so I would now ask to share the presentation again if possible and to give that to my colleague Elisa if I'm not wrong yes thank you Marco until we get to the PowerPoint presentation first of all I'm really excited to be talking about this topic because it's the one that I also worked in into the declaration so let's first get a few things straight about what Digital Inclusion means so Digital Inclusion is something that affects everyone depending and affects people based on their gender, their age their language also their social economic situation their location, what country they come from and their abilities I think we don't hear you Elisa oh this appears I got muted okay you are back now and and these things affect people so if you could please go to the next slide and I will explain a few things more so the thing is that the increase of Digital Inclusion means that sometimes these things happen not because we want to but because we are conditioned to things that are based on our economic situation and our location and this is also based on our capacity development how much ICTs we have access to but this will increase the digital barrier even more if we let it happen that's why our group came up with this solution next slide please okay so let me explain a few things from this one a bottom-up approach was what we proposed so people could facilitate represent the interest of communities that are marginalized and bring more youth voices into the decision-making processes for instance organizations targeting young people in this community can ensure youth integration into policy-making mechanisms also we have proposed research institutions and organizations produce research papers on the challenges faced by the youth in the digitalized society we have noticed that there are no figures, no numbers exactly that's how these things what challenges young people face so a better in-depth understanding of issues can allow more effective and educated regulations based on their countries also we have proposed that governments and industry stakeholders guarantee inclusive digital technology designed for all particularly for those with specific needs and we don't just mean people with disabilities but also individuals with lower digital skills and also non-english speakers personally I struggle with the last one because in the Balkans the language sometimes cannot get translated into all digital portals so for us English has become not just a choice but a compulsory to learn in order to integrate ourselves into the digital world we also propose that the member states would subsidize the coast of internet connectivity for low-income households and provide free internet in public places to promote affordability and equality of access to digital services libraries or schools should have a high-speed connectivity and provide a greater access to the services among the youth we also have suggested that member states should identify the marginalized groups in society that are more effective by the digital divide and to ensure the protection of these groups against the consequences of digital inclusion this can be achieved by different things like like fostering digital education and ensure access to devices and the internet for these communities and last but not least we have recommended that a regulatory compliance to open business partners should provide accessible digital services and platforms for people with disabilities in accordance to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities thank you all this was for my part and I leave my part then next to Marco who will talk about cybersecurity thank you Elisa yeah can you go the next slide please one of the challenges that we also take in group is cybersecurity which I also was part of this group working together with Franca which is also here so the idea with cybersecurity is maybe more or less understandable I would say we saw during the covid and even after the covid pandemic I mean still it's not ended but after the main part let's say everything moved online and this was a big issue let's say for the security part it's predicted that the damage by cybersecurity by the end of 2021 it will be trillions American dollars which will be caused by companies and also the governments because this everything is moving to the cyberspace and not everybody is prepared or educated so to be how to say safer in this space we are tackling down a several problems or issues that might that are concerning the youth and from about those issues we propose several actions that we want to be done so the issues that we are working on are from lack of government funding in cybersecurity programs or research and institutions where this should be more straight capacity building mechanisms especially in the youth people because not every youth I mean we are raised today with the technology and with digital devices and services but not everyone is secure or know how to use securely those services and applications devices and especially not everyone knows what to post or what to do on the internet because we have seen in the past and also we are seeing a lot of youth are posting or doing a lot of things on the internet which they are not aware or they didn't have think about in the first place what those information that they are putting in the application can do to them so this is correlated the capacity building I would say with more education the problem is that we don't have that much and specific education for cybersecurity also the vulnerable groups here we can say the children and also the women the women that are not that much represented or they have a different kind of threats on the cyberspace here we have also the digital gap let's say or gender gap in the leadership position with women we have very low numbers of the women who are in the cybersecurity part especially in the leadership part so this problem in the youth that we must encourage more people and more youth women to join and take maybe part of this cybersecurity and the last but not least not just the youth but we are focusing here with the youth we are bombarded with a lot of information on the internet which sometimes you cannot divide which is real which is why what is misinformation we only know this as a fake news let's say so this is a big problem especially in the youth because when you are youth you do not know which might be true and what not and yes the most common problem is the cyberbullying to know how the people the youth to avoid those kind of digital aggressions like a cyberbullying next slide please so those that I was talking now were the issues and the problems that we were trying to tackle down there were many more but we needed to include some of them it was not that easy process but what we came out with proposed action is that we want to propose to continue the establishing of the security safer internet centers not just in the European Union but also in the European countries where we can track down digital questions to youths to children and of course to the vulnerable groups next one is to propose a call upon ITU to make education parts with the students correlating with universities where the students can learn more about this and maybe by organizing hackathons educational seminars some programs like ITU generation connect or maybe some different in that real where the students can join and also the students can learn about what cyber securities opportunities can have for them maybe for future professionals also to encourage ITU upon the digital digital media literacy on cyber security on the whole European level the next what we proposed is more this is going more to the governments to establish more funding for different kinds of cyber security programs like education research maybe trainings or just raising awareness in the country or in the community so they can be more understanding about the cyber security and I would say the last is maybe the close cooperation with the process of the UN secretary general high level panel to discuss on the digital cooperation as well as global initiatives like for example youth IGF or internet society programs that's from the cyber security part I would hand out now to Franca which will talk about the environment thank you so much Marco I was very happy to see that also in our little question in the begin environment really was one of the top priorities that people that they're interested in in this group it was a huge focus of our youth declaration and it's also I think the topic that the public eye mostly connects with youth is the topic of climate change and the Fridays for Future movement they can get my first slide it would be perfect okay yes so youth are currently and also prospectively bearing the largest burden and coping with the most consequences from climate change and as a result of actions and decisions taken by all stakeholders where we are mostly not involved and that's why we really focused on the environment also in our declaration that we wanted to talk about when we talk about the ICT we also want them to address the biggest crisis we're facing at the moment so the industry has on the one hand the possibility to reduce their own geological footprint on the other hand really be a great tool to mitigate climate change so what are the recommendations that the EU Europe Youth Group came up with on the next slide it can really be summarized under this four bigger pillars we came up with and the one is regulation, education participation and support so when we talk about regulation we really talk about regulating the ICT industry to minimize their footprint so on the one hand we really invited European lawmakers to encourage producers to transition to the manufacturing of sustainable products so we really asked for the extension of legal warranty in order to enforce device long-livity the prohibition of intended breaking points and the unified handling of e-waste so on the one hand we really want to reduce the geological footprint of technical tools then we also really asked for enabling consumers to make informed decisions so we really asked for an index that would visibly indicate to consumers how long their product can live and how it's manufactured referring from the impact of conflict material we also asked for to think about regulations for technologies that consume an unacceptable number of resources so for example when we talk about the operation of big data centers that we think about how can we reduce the amount of energy they use in the database when we talk about education we really want to be used in a position where they can also take action on their self so large scale advocacy programs where we talk about ICT devices and applications on the environment that can be used by to look at their own footprint and also create e-learning platforms where we talk about sustainability in the internet and when using digital devices our third pillar was participation so youth are particularly affected by climate change and by the environment so one of our main points was really again that youth voice should be included and this cannot be mentioned often enough during the declaration so we also put it in as a main point in the climate change fraction that we again said we should be included on this topic on ICT regulation and climate change so part we really think about that there are a lot of great initiatives by youth at the moment for example youth who is repairing products that could broken our ICT products who are who are not sustainable so there's this actually the most key means and apps and programs so we really asked I think we might lose Franca. Okay well I can take it from there so Franca stopped at support so yes environment is a big issue and we need the support of everyone which is why we'd like to encourage the governments to create roles, education paths and university programs so that will grant the young people to specifically support the sustainable development through the technology they could include roles like sustainability engineers, environmental AI research and many more this would also open the market a lot for many young people who would like to go to specialize in something in something more specific and open job opportunities for many youth that are in the digital sector also from other parts this would drive people even from non technological sectors into helping out the environment even more I'd like to give the word then back to Marcos because we did not just get only these top priorities we also focus on many other more and I'd like Marcos to talk about it. Thank you Elisa, next slide please Okay so as Elisa mentioned we had top priorities where most of the work was doing on these top priorities but we also have looking out in other priorities which are also concerning the youth and the internet itself so the first one is network and digital infrastructure I mean this is well known we have a lot of things in applications that are already online and services but if we don't have a good connection or access to the internet to network we cannot use these services and those are unused for us we cannot take the advantage of the technology so we have some several topics that we discussed under this thematic priority also the next one is emerging telecommunication last year we already saw with the pandemic as I mentioned before also with the fires around the globe that we had this summer one could think that we make this to point out how bad the infrastructure is in Europe but it's really not I'm also sorry for being kicked out before yes so there are a lot of things we saw during the pandemic that came even up even more where we didn't have the chance to put such a huge focus on maybe we would now put a bigger focus as we did before so this is also part of the discussion that we would love to have with you later Marco do you want to you just talked about that internet connection in Europe maybe we should put that also for the emergency telecommunications Marco do you like to give it a go for the last emergency you are muted Marco so I was cut off at the emergency telecommunications yes okay so as I mentioned I don't know where I was cut off the emergency telecommunications are the one that we already see last year with the pandemic and with the wildfires that we had and a lot of other disaster like foods foods where we need to have this kind of emergency telecommunications I'm not sure that we have a lot of this in the most countries but we have there a lot of issues and problems that we tackled down the next one is digital information innovation ecosystem a lot of us as a youth we are going in trying to make some new things to start up our own ideas or companies like entrepreneurship so this is very important especially in the digital world where we have a lot of things like a copyright, intellectual properties and other things that needs to be getting consideration and what issues we are facing with them right now so as I mentioned it's overlapping with some other things it's more on the focusing that today we are more living on how to say application world than in the real world so here is how the applications and digital services are reflecting in the environment and the people with artificial intelligence with machine learning with some digital divide how to say or gap how can they recognize us which we are and a lot of things here are still under development and are open to question and statistics this is the maybe the part where we gather the statistics and a lot of parameters are important here especially some for the youth that might be important as a part of the statistic for the other people or other groups might not be in that case we were we had a lot of topics and different topics but it was very nice to see it divided in the groups where we can tackle a lot of how much we can of course in the time period and with our knowledge to tackle down those topics and issues and propose some actions and maybe solutions that can be taken into consideration in the future next slide please and I will give to Franca so really as I said we did this declaration last year in winter and the pandemic was going on and a lot of things happened during the last year for example the scandal again with Facebook and Instagram or like in general so many discussions so we would really like to ask you what do you think I know that you haven't read the declaration yet probably so you really have to rely on the things we just told you but for us it would be really really interesting to also just to get your questions on certain focuses but also get some input about what do you think should be in the declaration should we redo it would it make sense to make it more regular so I think for us this is what we wrote down what is the priority of the european youth group at the ITU so for us it's really interesting to hear from you what is your priority and do you think we met your priority or we should put the focus somewhere else so if you don't want to talk you can also post your questions in the chat if you're brave you can really also just raise your hand and talk with us and to get into a discussion that would be really amazing so Anthony just posted a question I will read it out very quickly I think you should be updating it really or having a section that is open to the living document when will you update it again so right now we don't have any plan to update it so this is really something we also want to discuss today if this is something that would make sense I think it's a great idea to have a living document what would be for example a topic that you would would like to see Anthony that you would think should be under the section of a living document what I think is for example great but how long digital devices can live that there's a new regulation talking exactly about this that duration of how long a digital product has to live gets longer so we could for example remove that if it's done by policymakers so if they implement something that we also recommended we can remove it but what should be something that we should put in so Salah wrote what are the main limitations regarding digital inclusion today so I think this is a good question for Elisa yes so thank you very much sorry if I mispronounced it well looking at from my point of view so far the biggest digital inclusion barrier is the fact that many people do not have the digital skills and digital skills do not include just knowing how to use an app because the use of it is very app oriented it's about having the skills that are beneficial as a professional and in life knowing how to word softwares and stuff like that so I think the fact that so many things are app oriented can also be a barrier as well as a solution for that problem I also think that language provides a bit of a difficulty to be introduced into the digital world it's different if you are somebody who knows very international languages that it's easy to read the articles to get information to be more into the digital sphere but the problem is that that's not possible for every country I look at it from my region not many people know how to speak English properly and those who do only know the limitations that are within an app so I think these two are those things that need to be tackled along with the fact that some people may not have the digital access due to their economic situation and their location so these are my top three barriers I see in the digital inclusion sphere I hope it answers the question okay thank you Elisa so Anthony just wrote I did not read the full declaration it would be great to work on visual version of a two-pager that one can quickly grasp the point general question how can one be part of the GC European I think this is a really good idea with the visuals also to hand it out to professionals I think this is a really good idea and about how one can be part of the GC Europe group I think oh yeah okay we have the perfect person to answer this we have our supervisor Victoria it's your turn thank you thank you very much Franca Elisa and Marco first of all thank you for this amazing presentation and about how to become a member of Generation Connect we are going to recruit new use in voice so you're all welcome to monitor the web page of a Generation Connect Europe group and follow as the latest updates and so we will have a call for new use in voice and we encourage you to apply and welcome all new leaders to become members of the group thank you I think you probably just have to stay on high alert follow Victoria on Twitter or LinkedIn or something like that I think Julianne was the next one thank you very much it sounds really exciting and I think you do some tremendous work I don't know if I can add much to that but that was just a thought not only young people are struggling in Europe for those aims and issues and I thought whether it would be an idea to also think about a strategic cooperation with older adults in Europe there's the age platform in Europe and they're also working towards digital literacy digital inclusion and participation of older adults and I know they're very well connected and I think that would be just an idea to follow up on to build such an alliance but besides that I can only congratulate thank you so much Julianne I think this is also very I'm writing down everything you said just everybody keeps going I think that's a really good idea I think we also saw in the pandemic that the youth and the older people didn't have a huge agency during the pandemic and they had to leave people's home and go to school so this really might be a very natural way to work together I agree as well like I said digital inclusion affects people based on their ages their genders we don't have to be we don't have to be a limited by our own age to help others to be digital included okay thank you very much Anthony just wrote that he likes your point Julianne that he's apologizing because of that connectivity he can only participate via chat this is a great point it's just as great as a point as Marco and me being kicked out of the meeting due to internet connecting issues so thank you so much for sharing that Gia wrote what are the risks of youth involvement in cyber security in your own opinion and how to address them so I think we will just start with Marco as he's our cyber security expert right here thank you thank you well that depends how you see what are the how you mentioned how youth involvement in the cyber security what are the risks well depends how you see about the risk the point of why we want the youth to be more involved in the cyber security first is about education and the raising of awareness when we say that the program and that we want the funding from the government doesn't mean that the youth needs to be a cyber security professional or experts after that but to have at least understanding and raised awareness of what is cyber security how is affecting all of us because cyber security is a broad topic I would say it's cyber crime and also we have some problems like with misunderstanding with the fake news we have also here some of the things like cyber bullying so the point is more the youth to be involved in the way that they will understand and raise their awareness and to have opinion on those kind of topics it will be also good if some of them wants to proceed their opportunities and career in this but I don't see those at the involvement as much as the risk more as exploration and finding if something is interesting because if some of those are how to say interesting this to proceed that in the future it will be very good because as we mentioned we are using now the technology the youth are every day with technology if not every hour so more or less we see a lot of problems and issue and we are facing a lot of those things I don't know that's more or less for the involvement my opinion but I don't see risk in the involvement I don't know maybe I have understand wrong Franca maybe you have something No maybe you can elaborate what you mean with risk or what you Yeah it's a possible risk that would be really interesting for us to know Connie had a question if directed to me is I as youth delegate and are you part of the youth group that youth have or should have a manual and solving capacity development issues so I think for as I experienced it so far I think youth has a great role in putting focus on certain things so in our role as like youth leaders I think we are in a great position to point out issues that that we see and that should be solved and I think we should always have a seat at the table to serve them but we will always need also the help of the people who actually sit on the table at the moment so we don't want to have an extra table we want to sit on the table and talk to them and discuss with them what what should be done about solving capacity development issues so I think we cannot solve them on our own we really need to participate but we are in a position where we can say as a young person this is an issue I have or this is an issue youth has to participate or solve the capacity issue would add something to that? yeah of course do you think youth have a main role in solving capacity yes to be honest I think that many youths are passionate about different topics in different parts you can see a 15 year old to know more about computers than any of us here for example or you could also find somebody very skilled in languages because he had been speaking 3 languages since he was little so I think these are knowledges that many youths have in many different parts of Europe because the beautiful thing about Europe is that there are many cultures many languages many different backgrounds and I think that this could happen maybe through the academia and mentoring and exchange programs or even a buddy system as you call it like you have somebody that you can talk to while being online these are all simple tools that you can do with each other and they do actually if you look at different platforms like Discord or Twitter or Instagram there are so many communities where youth exchange their own knowledge and ideas and make it work for us it's easier because being digital active is actually a good thing for us they keep us connected so I think that some issues can be tackled by youth but we just need organization and cooperation with the academia and the governments to make this happen Thank you so much Elisa I think you understand the question right away much better than I did and now understood what you mean I agree with Elisa and it's actually also like one of the recommendations we had for example for the environment that we say you also support initiatives by youth who are tackling this issue already at the moment I hope we could answer your questions and yeah we understood it right you're welcome Connie so we have like eight more minutes so if you have a question right now you can now ask them also just some input or feedback on the youth declaration that would be really interesting for us to know so maybe when you're from another continent or you can also tell us what is a focus in your region in the world so maybe when you're right now in another part of the world and you say focus that our youth has we're more interested in this or that that would be of course also very interesting for us to know so if somebody is willing to share we would like to know it seems like we answered all the questions that people had right and right on time well I'd like to say thank you to everyone for joining this session the last session for our event I'm really grateful for people who showed also interest in joining our group let's just say that this was a very a very great event and I'd like to thank everyone once again for joining us today and for listening to us this talk yeah and we really hope to see you again as the ITU youth and in the future and to be part of the group thank you so much I think we have to hand over one last time to Victoria thank you so much thank you thank you so much Franca, Elisa and Marco for this great presentation and explanation of the main points of the declaration and thank you our audience for the great questions we had very interesting and insightful discussion and I was happy to see the interest in joining the Generation Connect Europe group and now I would like to hand it over to the head of ITU office for Europe Jaroslav for his closing remarks thank you very much everyone and Jaroslav over to you thank you very much ladies and gentlemen guests I would like to thank you very much for joining us today I would like to express my gratitude to the ambassador from Estonia for joining us and highlighting the importance of youth engagement in the government discussions especially when related to digital policy I would like to also thank the designated chairman of the PP from Romania for taking the time for being with us and also putting our work in the perspective of the work at the level of the ITU seeing the concrete value provided to the member states in terms of the contributing the voice of the young people in the works and the debates of the member states and the stakeholders and on the other hand also designing the division how this work can benefit to the national level and all those who are working at the level of the European group acting as the ambassadors not only of the ITU of the youth group but also of inspiring so many people from their communities. We had a great discussion learning about youth involvement in policymaking in Ukraine, Serbia, Lithuania I would like to thank her excellency Ms. Valeria Joann and Bojana Visakruna and Mr. Jurgis Vilkas for sharing insight on how their governments include youth voices in decision making process also I would like to thank Ms. Albesa Demiaha for her engaging contribution on cybersecurity and youth related issues I would like to thank Tahaba for sharing her his experience and view on opportunities young entrepreneurs have today. I'm sure it has inspired our audience to take actions and develop innovative solutions. Thank to representatives of the global shapers of the neighborhoods there is youth business international and UNESCO global youth community we could see how various youth groups engage and lead your people thank you, Evgeny, Maria, Alex Valentina, Mirvaj for being with us today. Let us also not forget that 2022 is very particular year for Europe as you have already heard the president of the EU have underlined has declared already has the statement the next year being the year of the youth and I think that this will be a great opportunity to take a look how our efforts are fitting into the discussion on the digital for development from the youth perspective and also to bring those to the discussions at the global level at the level of the generation connect and the summit special thank you I would like to say to generation connects Europe group for organizing this event and to our champions Marco Eliza and Franca for presenting your declaration and sharing the actions related to digital development that should be done regarding the original priorities of the Europe region finally I would like to thank our technical team especially and technical moderator Lisa for their support and efforts to make this event run smoothly and our session moderators look Michael and Victoria for leading such an interactive discussions and I would also like to express my thanks to our team Victoria and Anna Maria supported by many others working behind to make everything happen this was the first ever generation connect digital gem and I'm sure there will be many more great events to come with the one objective to ensure meaningful engagement so with this thank you very much for your time and participation and I wish you a great weekend and thank you very much one more time see you at the next occasion and with this we declare event closed thank you


Every 30 seconds, a new victim is added into the horrific world of human trafficking, bringing the total to 27 million victims in our world today.  As young as 6 years old, the average age of a victim is 12 years old. Each victim will be forced to sleep with up to 40 men a night. The average cost of a sex life is $90, but they are estimated to bring in a profit of a quarter of a million a year. And for those that believe that this is a third world problem but doesn't touch home, there's an estimated of 17,500 victims reported in the United States annually. California harbors the top three cities in the United States for human sex trafficking. Utah is a tier three state for human trafficking. In Seattle, in our own backyard, is in the top 20 cities in the United States for human sex trafficking. It touches us. It touches home. Of the 27 million victims, 30,000 will die each year. And of the 27 million, only 1 to 2% will ever be rescued.  This isn't about guilting you into giving, sponsoring or attending. This is about reminding you of your obligation. Not your obligation as a Christian or as a good person, but your obligation as a human living in our world today. Your obligation to stand and to fight. To raise your voice for those that have been silenced and those that have been captive and broken. To fight for those being abused and of being violated. This isn't about race or gender. This is about your obligation to humanity. Your obligation to fight for freedom. Like Dr. King said, injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.


It was a busy scene in downtown Bemidji as law enforcement today arrested a suspected car thief. We've got it all on video for you. According to Bemidji police chief Mike Mastin, officers spotted a vehicle that had been reported stolen on July 30th. Officers made the traffic stop in the parking lot of the 4th Street to Soros station across from Paul Bunyan Park where they arrested a female suspect and a male passenger. The female was later identified as 22 Bridget Marie Lusher who had a warrant issued for a motor vehicle theft. Many spectators from the Dragon Boat Festival across the street were eyewitnesses to the scene that unfolded. The Bemidji police department was assisted at the scene by the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.