Quo vadis, youth?: Youth Atlas of Internet Governance
Funding Area: Community governance / Gobernanza comunitaria
Problem Statement: The Youth Atlas project creates a space where young people from all over the world can share their experiences and perspectives on their participation and impact in the Internet Governance ecosystem. Through the collection of stories, interviews, and images, the Youth Atlas creates an open, transparent, and comprehensive picture of the challenges and opportunities that young people face today. The Youth Atlas project is designed to be a collaborative effort, with young people at the center of the process, to provide a valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders who are working to create a better future for young people. After the experience of the first edition of Youth Atlas in 2019, where it was mapped the participation of young people who have taken their first steps in Internet governance worldwide, the Internet Society Youth Standing Group wishes to understand what is the legacy being left by these first cohorts of young people, who are now young professionals, and in which direction the new entrants are moving, what keeps attracting youngsters into the Internet Governance and share an updated version to all the Internet Community.This edition will be divided into 2 sections. The first section will be dedicated to newcomers who have recently entered the Internet Governance space, while the second section will focus on the stories of experienced young professionals who have made significant contributions to the field
Proposed Activities: The project consists of the following:1.Call for volunteers: It will consist of gathering people for the following steps of making the different sections of the Atlas.2.Call for Interviewees (Survey): This is made in order to guarantee a collaborative process between Youth from around the world that are willing to contribute with an interview in order to be part of the Youth Atlas. This is expected to have a less biased demographics sample by having the representation of all stakeholders, all regions, genders, and others.3.Interviews: The volunteers that decide to be Interviewers plan and execute the series of interviews with the interviewees (choose from a previous survey) in order to gather from them some responses to predetermined questions. These questions are the same for newcomers and experienced young professionals, until a certain point where the second group has more insightful inquiries related to what they live in Internet Governance spaces and their future on it.4.Transcription & Survey Analysis: This is made by another set of volunteers or as shared responsibility by the interviewers. The idea behind this is to recall the interviews and have a written version of them with a deeper analysis.5.Editing Videos and Transcription: This consists of an edition of interviews in order to be shared in the final version of the Atlas. The transcription edition mostly consists of summarizing the important parts and putting it on the first draft of the Atlas.6.First Proofreading: Review by a professional the first draft to find grammatical and orthographically mistakes, unify the voice, and others that could make the reading of the Youth Atlas hard to understand for a first-time reader.7.Design of The Atlas: Professional designers do the design of the Youth Atlas, following the inputs based on our own tastes and needs and how it is expected to be by our sponsors.8.Second Proofreading: After the design of the Atlas, a second reading is made before past to printing in order to make sure that the reading of the Youth Atlas isn’t hard to understand for a first-time reader.9.Printing of the Atlas: This will consist in hiring a company to print limited versions of the book.10.Release and Publication: Publication in an open format online and ready to download, and also a presentation in public at an event with physical copies of the book.11.Engagement Activities: This will require a social media team that will publish the findings of the Youth Atlas. Also, these activities could consist of discussions on how to use the Youth Atlas as a way to promote the Youth's participation in Internet Governance.12.Finally, the book will contain data analysis based on an open survey. The objective is to collect input from at least 100 young people from at least 50 different countries. The results of this analysis will be shared through various sessions that we will submit in different Internet governance-related forums.
Openness: The Youth Atlas project can be considered an open infrastructure project because it involves creating a collaborative platform that allows individuals from around the world to contribute content related to their experiences and perspectives within the Internet governance ecosystem. This platform or Youth Atlas serves as a centralized hub for collecting experiences, interviews, and images from diverse stakeholder groups of young people involved in Internet governance. By doing so, the project provides a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities faced by Youth in this field while promoting collaboration among different stakeholders such as policymakers, researchers, and others interested in shaping the future of the internet. Also, the project seeks to gather insights from previous participants and identify emerging trends and interests among newer generations of young people entering the Internet governance ecosystem. Finally, the Youth Atlas will be a project open and accessible to everyone. This means that the data collected is going to be freely available to download and use because it will be licensed under an open license that allows people to reuse the data without restriction. After its release, we hope to continue engaging with the community through the Youth Standing Group of Internet Society or the Youth Coalition of Internet Governance or similar through the publication of regular reports or post about our finding between both editions.
Challenges: 1.Contact enough volunteers to write, transcribe interviews, summarize, and review the atlas during its process 2.Contact enough people to be interviewed as part of the atlas in a way that we can guarantee gender balance, multistakeholder balance, regional balance, and others, and less biased. 3.Proofreading and making sure that the contents are readable consistently and univocally throughout the Atlas, which in turn relies mostly on the volunteer work of multiple young people from different parts of the world, who do not have English as their native language. 4. Hire a design company that can fill our design expectations and the ones from our sponsors. 5.Find a place that covers our necessities of quality and quantity when it comes to printing 6.Being able to create a Youth Atlas that can be informational enough that can be used for educational purposes and can be seen as a valuable piece of evidence of the commitment and work on Internet Governance of the young people around the World.
Neglectedness: Yes we applied before for the first edition as a grant from Beyond The Net of Internet Society Foundation and thanks to that we could design, proofread, print, and do some shipping of the Atlas during and after the Internet Governance Forum at Berlin 2019 where this book was launched also with some money of the Beyond the Net grant. For this second edition, we will receive part of our funding directly from the Internet Society to cover some of the basics that could allow us to design and proofread the content, but not to print and present the book at Internet governance-related events. Firstly, compared to the first edition and following the economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the costs for design and publishing have undergone a steep increase, and we can no longer rely only on ISOC's grant. Secondly, as an internal policy, ISOC does not allow spending on travel support. Therefore, we would not be able to share our findings in none of the Internet governance forums we planned to.
Success: To measure the success of the Atlas, some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can track the progress, impact, and contribution to the understanding of youth involvement in Internet Governance: 1.Number of submissions received from young people around the world 2.Diversity of participants represented in the Atlas.3.Quality of content submitted, as measured through peer review or expert evaluation 4.Engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments on social media posts promoting the Atlas 5.Number of downloads or views of the final publication and video interviews. 6.Feedback received from policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders on the value of the Atlas as a resource 7.Comparison of data collected in this year's edition versus the last edition, including changes in areas of focus or trends observed 8.Increase in awareness and understanding of Internet Governance issues among young people due to exposure to the Atlas 9.Successful integration of youth voices into relevant policy discussions or decision-making processes as a result of the Atlas 9.Monitor whether the project is being used as an educational resource in learning institutions to raise awareness and understanding of Internet Governance among young people. 10.Ability to track progress made towards specific goals set forth by the Internet Society Youth Standing Group based on insights gained from the Atlas.
Total Budget: 15650.8
Budget File: pdf
Affiliations: Internet Society
LMIE Carveout: The five persons in the core team came from LMIEs countries, India, Brazil, and Colombia, but not only for that reason most of the people involved as volunteers tend to be from African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, Namibia) either as the ones doing the writing, the interviews or the ones being interviewed or doing the proofreading of the book or some aspect of the design for social media. We can’t determine by now the exact number of volunteers and their nationalities but based on our previous experience working in the first Atlas we can make the past affirmation and is easy to check on the first pages of the Youth Atlas, first edition.
Team Skills: The team behind the Youth Atlas has skills and expertise in technical capabilities, and also possesses knowledge in the fields of internet governance and digital policy, allowing them to effectively curate and analyze the contributions made through the Atlas. The team has demonstrated the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and coordinate across different time zones and cultures. They have established relationships with key organizations and networks within the Internet governance community, including youth leaders, civil society representatives, government officials, and private sector actors. These connections enable the team to tap into existing resources and leverage the strengths of other initiatives working on similar issues. Also, members have participated in international meetings and events focused on internet governance, bringing firsthand understanding of the challenges facing young people in these spaces and the importance of amplifying their voices and perspectives. Furthermore, they worked with marginalized communities and underrepresented groups in online advocacy efforts, ensuring that the Youth Atlas reflects the diversity of experiences within the Internet governance ecosystem. In another hand, they value partnerships and actively seek out collaborative opportunities with like-minded organizations and individuals, that’s why they are capable of bringing this project to success.
Submission Number: 120
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