The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin, Germany, from 25 to 29 November 2019. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> AVRI DORIA: I will not ask people to move. I know when I'm sitting in the back of the room and people tell me to move up, I never do it. After you get everybody in the back of the room to move up to the front of the room, then people go to the back of the room and the people in the back of the room were already happy.
I did want to ask any of those who were going to be on the roundtable speaking for share schools, to come join us up here, even if we need to get more seats, just so we're not that spread.
It looks like we've started even though I really haven't started yet, but that's okay.
>> AVRI DORIA: Can we have the website on the screen, please.
Thank you.
Okay. So when we have the agenda up ββ fantastic.
This session is a roundtable on the Dynamic Coalition. Hopefully you're all here, otherwise, we may have a short session. In any case, the agenda we've got, first it was going to be a roundtable of shelf introductions, so I guess we'll just go through it and get people to introduce.
I see this is the old agenda. But anyhow.
Basically, a little bit about what the Dynamic Coalition is all about, what we're trying to do, where we're trying do go with it. Then look at the work that's been done this year, basically a quick review of what we've done and the document that's being worked on. And then look a little bit about the screen, at the website that's been built and how we go on it. Then, basically, we'll talk about what we would like to do next year and sort of what our next steps are, what kind of things we would like to do.
As I said, I'm Avri Doria. I'm not the lead of this group. That's Sandra Hoferichter. She fortunately is in a main session at this point and, thus, it fell to me to be the one doing this one. She has asked that we start with a going around and introducing ourselves. What I'm especially interested is having those of you who are either managers of schools, teachers of schools, someone who is designing a new school, someone, et cetera. Basically, tell us a little bit about your involvement with the whole notion of schools and Internet governance. Definitely interested in your name and where you work. Other than that, what really is important is what is your involvement with schools and Internet governance.
We'll start with you, Rainer, and go.
>> I'm with the School on Internet Governance that has helped in Germany. It exists now, for I think, 14, 15 years. I went to school for three years. I'm more or less the district facilitator for the school.
>> I am with the African School of Internet Governance. I'm an alumni. There's been seven editions. I've organized the school from 2017 to date. I'm also your online moderator, just to say we have Glenn McKnight online. Who else do we have?
>> I would like to go around the room. Imagine yourself at a virtual roundtable.
Please.
>> I'm Gustavo. I'm from the Brazilian school. Events been a freelance at the school as an evaluator, not as a teacher. So I'm not part of the permanent staff. And I am looking into establishing some kind of seminar in my local context, my local community, to go around the technical institutes to engage students from a technical background.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Would you like to say a few words?
>> I'm here purely from curiosity. I'm from Finland, representing Electric Frontier Finland.
>> Good morning. This is secretaryβgeneral Bangladesh Internet governance forum.
>> AVRI DORIA: Counting our roundtable.
>> My name is Christine more or less. I'm here because we're organizing the first IGF in the country. So I wanted to know and learn about your experience organizing this kind of event, teaching, that kind of thing. That's why I'm here.
>> AVRI DORIA: Fantastic. That's sort of the whole kind of resource we're hoping to build. So, please.
>> Hello. My name is Katerina. If you have any notes to go into the report, let me know. I'm here to report.
>> Good morning. I'm part of the advisory people team to the Brazil Internet committee and part of the organization of the Brazil School of Internet Governance. It's within held since 2014. So six editions until now. We have an annual meeting, intensive course, but also, we had activities and we have some school focused on law professionals. So it's a diverse project, but we have this specific course.
>> AVRI DORIA: So that brings us up to four schools or five? There was four schools already. We had one, two, three, four.
>> And online, the North American ββ
>> AVRI DORIA: So we're at five schools in the room. I wanted to check. Sort of what I hoped to have was all the schools, at least, around the table. So five schools already, which is already a good ββ it's already a handful.
>> I organize the African School On Internet Governance. I participate with great pleasure and honor in the European School of Internet Governance from time to time. I'm happy to be here because I'm writing a report on the IGF's role in capacity development. I'm hoping to learn today not just about the schools but also about how you feel the IGF can be more effective as a partner, or platform, for capacity development.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So now that's six schools.
>> I'm Alejandra from the Internet Society. I was a participant in the summer Internet Governance School with all these amazing speakers we have here. I'm now a coβorganizer of the first Internet school in Bucharest in two weeks. So I have my feedback as a participant. That can now help to do a better school in the future. So thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And seven schools.
>> All right. I will see if I can add some. Adam peak from ICANN. As an organization, we're involved with a number of schools either as supporters or sponsors or electors and so on. I've been involved in a school that's not quite a school. It's called APrIGF. It's a partner we have with a government agency. Usually master level students come from Korea, and then we have an open fellowship. It's about 60 different people and a different structure for many different schools. We support, as I said, various schools around the world. I've been involved in the Asia Pacific School of Internet Governance. We're beginning a new program where the university professor will put on a school, will be open for students and others from their region, and we try to allow them to get master credits. So they will attend the school and take credits back to their university on typically a master's level course. This is an internal university Internet Governance School curriculum.
>> AVRI DORIA: It's nine, tenish. Ten is a nice number. I will call it 10.
For those just coming in, this was meant as a roundtable, but since it isn't, I'm the rounding back for. I'm walking around with a microphone on a tour de tabla.
>> I'm a curious. I just wanted to find out more about the School of Internet Governance.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much. We're going to get another school here.
>> I'm from Nigeria. I drive the west AfricanβAmerican School of Internet Governance. We started that in 2018. We have done the second one in Kambia for 2019. I want to see how others survive because we have a survivability issue. Since I'm talking to a board member of ICANN, I'm hoping that ICANN would actually give greater support to us to continue.
We believe when we do this school ββ we believe that when we train these young people, build the capacity, they will be able to continue with the discussion and the IGF beyond us that will be retiring. So this is why I'm here. I also want to say thyme happy that other schools are here so that we can exchange ideas. I want to be a member of the DC.
>> AVRI DORIA: You added two schools. So that brought us to 12.
>> Hi. I'm Dustin Loup. I'm chairing the North American school. It moves around on a rotating basis where not only does it rotate locations, but it rotates chairs and leadership structures. I've participated in schools and spoken at them, but I've never organized them.
>> AVRI DORIA: I don't get to add another school because we added it with Glen earlier. We're still at 12. I'm doing a tour de tabla. Introduce yourself and any involvement you have with Internet governance. I've counted the new schools, and we're up to 12.
>> Hello. I'm from Berlin. I'm in charge of Internet School of Governance in Berlin. So it's my first time here ββ I'm from Benin.
I'm here to learn and see how I can gain a new experience and even a more shared mind.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Thank you.
You guys are next.
>> Good morning to everybody. I'm from Russia. I'm collaborating with our authority. Actually, we still have no Internet Governance School, but we're planning. Stay posted on the mailing list.
>> I'm from Italy. I don't have any Internet Governance School. I'm sorry.
>> AVRI DORIA: No. No need to be sorry.
So we're at 13 now, right, because I didn't raise the number when Benin said a school. I look forward to the 14 there, but it's still 13.
>> Hi. My name is Daniel. I'm from the center for international media assistance based in Washington, D.C. I'm here mainly because we're, as an organization, interested in making sure that journalists and news media professionals are more engaged and involved in Internet governance. I think Internet Governance Schools are a component to making sure the IGF lives up to its multistakeholder aspirations.
Also, for numbers, I once participated in an IGF training.
(Laughter)
>> AVRI DORIA: I mean, it doesn't matter whether I'm 13 or 14. I know a lot of schools. I've seen occasions when journalists do come and join the fellows. I think that's good thing to have journalists participate in the learning in addition to the reporting.
Please.
Still at 13.
>> Thank you. I'm from the Fiji island, a small island in the Pacific. It's my first time here to participate in the IGF forum. I come from the Minister of Education ββ Ministry of Education. We've been developing a lot on the Internet Governance Schools ββ I'm here to learn as much as I can and gather information for best practices which I can go back and implement back in Fiji. Thanks.
>> AVRI DORIA: Fantastic. And definitely should be able to start a school with the ministry you've got. Thank you.
>> Hi, everyone. I do not have a (?) Yay for me. I have participated in the African School of Governance and worked with other people setting up in their country. So I'm interested in learning about the space more.
>> I'm coming from north Macedonia. I'm also coβfounder of the IGF initiative in the country, and I'm running the civil side organization. I'm dealing with trainings of teachers, parents, and children within high school how to deal with Internet governance issues. I don't have any information of School of Governance. There a possibility of establishing one? How does it function?
>> AVRI DORIA: It's interesting. We'll get to it. Part of the document we've been working on ββ we'll talk about it later ββ a taxonomy. We've been talking about schools, but one of the ones we're talking about, it's program within another school. So people working with universities or high schools or whatever could, indeed, establish something. Perhaps it's not a school but it's a program. Yeah, the information we have should hopefully work for that.
>> Hi. My name is Tiko. I'm now with the government's international security, but here in my private capacity, I've had the opportunity to attend the School of Governance in 2014. I enjoyed it at the time. This is my first IGF. It took me until this week to appreciate the depth and amazing schedule that Sandra and you guys put together. I was curious to catch up with recent developments. So that's what drew me to this session.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
>> I'm also an alumni of EuroSSIG. I'm here to see how we can cooperate the schools together.
>> I'm working in capacity as a journalist. We are not from any school, but I'm here to observe the Internet governance to educate my fellow journalists back in Afghanistan. Maybe we start some program with help from other countries to initiate something in Afghanistan is the first thing.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
Basically, what I'm doing is this was supposed to be a roundtable discussion. So I am, at least for the purpose of this round, the virtualization of a roundtable, walking to each one and saying if you're with a school, mention it. If not, I will move on.
>> HANS BECKMAN: Well, thank you. My name is Hans Beckman. I'm a teacher in Germany. I'm interested in what I can learn here.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much.
>> Hi. My name is Ruben Juggernaut. I'm part of the a multistakeholder advisory group. As a firm, this year, we're starting incorporating schools into our Internet Governance Forum. What we're doing for this year for 2020, we've visited some of the schools to inform them about Internet governance and the Internet Governance Forum to get more participation from them. Hopefully, in the future, we'll expect that it will evolve into a separate Youth Internet Governance Forum.
>> AVRI DORIA: Fantastic. I think that brings me to 14. Does I lose count along the line?
>> Hello, everyone. I'm from Armenia. My organization ββ our organization has a center where people with blindness, also children with blindness, study how to use Internet and how to use computer with screen readers. Those are special programs which blind people use the Internet and computer. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much.
And last person on my virtual roundtable.
>> Hi. I work for the Free Software Foundation in Europe. One of the thing I'm sorry working on is trying to convince European schools to deploy free and open source to increase technical literacy among the young people.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much. I would like to ask that the rest of the virtual roundtable be done by you going to microphone. I didn't want to ask everyone to go up to the microphone.
Did I miss you?
>> Yes. I just walked in.
>> AVRI DORIA: I thought you did.
>> We deploy integrated learning transformation programs in schools all over the country where we introduce ICT labs, Internet, and so on. I'm very interested to hear the discussion here today, like how to go ββ a lot of schools in Africa are not online. That's the next step.
>> AVRI DORIA: In addition to the 14 schools we've got, we've got at least three or four different schools that could add Internet governance programs or courses or something along the way. So it's a good sort. I will put this back and go sit up there.
It was a rather long one. So talked a little bit about what the DC School of Internet Governance. The Dynamic Coalition, this is supposed to be a coalition of people that are actively working on something. It's supposed to be dynamic. We have to keep doing stuff. We can't call ourselves a Dynamic Coalition and not do anything. And it's supposed to be a multistakeholder coalition where we have various people from various stakeholders of walks of life. People that happen to be teachers, farmers, what have you. Basically, that's what we are.
What we're trying to do is not in any sense determine what is or is not a school. In fact, in our first effort, it's to build a taxonomy. What we're trying to collect is sort of what are the varieties of things people are doing and calling schools or the variety of things that people are doing to create an educational opportunity. So that's one part of it.
The other part of this taxonomy, which, by the way, you will notice when we get to 0.7. We do not call it 1 yet, we've worked on it for a year, but there's still more to go before we call it complete. We're trying to find a common language so when we're talking about our programs, we're talking about the curricula, we're talking about how we organize schools. We can start to have a common knowledge base, a common vocabulary.
I noticed teaching at a couple ββ I've taught at two and others other the years ββ when talking about people at schools, I would sort of be handβwaving, and we would be using different words for things that sounded sort of similar. So while this is not in any way establishing this is the way one must talk about it, what we're trying to sort of do is collect together a set of concepts, a set of words, a set of descriptions.
And that has been largely ββ let me look at the agenda so I remember where I am and I don't handβwave my way through this thing. Right. That's where we are.
I believe this is the end of our second year. We spent our first year sort of trying to figure out what is it we want to do, trying to get people to sign on. We've got a fair number of schools that are sponsors. It might be good to go to the page that shows our sponsors and stuff. Do you have that there? The members? Wiki. Okay.
And, basically, what we're using for our materials here is the website which has been part of the work that's been done this year. That's where most of the information is collected. That's the names of the schools. Did we have the list somewhere of all the people that have signed onto the coalition or is that on the IGF site? If you can find that, just to see?
So other people can sign on to our coalition, we've collected the names at the beginning. There's a list of the founding members. These are the people that came together at the beginning. To found a Dynamic Coalition, you need to have partners, people that signed on from the formalized notion of stakeholder groups. Basically, that's what started us.
So that's what the DC Dynamic Coalition on Internet Governance is. Any comments on that before I go to the next part of the agenda?
>> Okay. I'm from Nigeria. It looks to me that the DC is spread across the stakeholder groups in the IGF. Does this mean the school would also have to put that into consideration?
>> AVRI DORIA: I don't think so. Other people may have other opinions. My opinion is a school should certainly try to reach out, but if a school wanted to form itself or a program for children or a university program that was just going for students, all programs do not have to be multistakeholder. The Dynamic Coalition has to be multistakeholder. There's an advantage to having a school that touches all the multistakeholder groups. You will find, as I talk, that sticking strictly to the preordained stakeholder groups from antiquity is not necessarily the best way to bring together all the stakeholders of the Internet that we have.
I think while in terms of being a DC in IGF, we need the three plus one or two. In terms of being real in the world, we can have stakeholders of many different kinds. That will be my take on that one.
Let me go through the work we've done. Largely done by Rainer here, there's a website. Perhaps we can do a quick walkthrough of that. So you're in the Wiki at the moment? No. You're in the website. So, basically, one of the things we've got on it, we keep on meetings. The schools, one of the things we want to do and I want to welcome the participant of our 15th school ββ I went around and did a virtual tour de tabla. If you want to say something about your school ββ yeah. I was counting the schools, and the southern school had not been counted. I can count it ββ
>> Just came in at the right time.
>> AVRI DORIA: Anytime you came in is the right time.
>> You're my friend. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: You're welcome.
>> I'm from Argentina. We started with the south School of Governance. It's different than other schools. It's more outreach. We believe our region needs more outreach toward the understanding of these issues. We started with a group of 30 students. You were there at the first edition. We have approximately 180 or 200 students. The last one this year was organized in the Secretary of Economy of Mexico. Then we'll be in Buenos Aires. We pay for meals for the students. It all depends on the cost of the city, but at least 40% of the students receive a fellowship that includes hotel and meals. And, of course, nobody pays for the training.
We have translation in three languages, Spanish, English, and Portuguese. We have video and audio streaming in the languages of two or three dependent on where it is organized. That's it. I have a book. We have produced a book.
>> AVRI DORIA: I think you're the first ones to actually produce a schoolbook. I might be wrong, but I think you're the first ones to pull that off.
>> Maybe. It's a book we published jointly. It's translated into English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
>> AVRI DORIA: Fantastic. I think I made it to three or four of yours.
>> You went to Panama, Buenos Aires ββ something else, we rotate among countries. We do it every year in a different country. Sometimes we'll repeat countries because it's difficult to find a local partner and the city and the place, but the beauty of rotating, it's a lot of work, but it brings people from the country in each edition. I will stay here if you have more questions. Thank you very much.
>> AVRI DORIA: And please contribute. Part of the thing, as hopefully people have read the taxonomy or they look at it, they will see one of the kinds of schools indeed is one that rotates. You would have to repeat at some point because there aren't an infinite number of countries.
>> Thank you. My name is Satish. I'm from India. I'm with the Asia Pacific School of Internet Governance. I gather it's been mentioned, but I will add one point to that. The most obvious outcome is you get trained, capacity is built, et cetera. We have an agenda for us, which is to build a community that can support the IGF itself. The School of Internet Governance, after two years, we have set up a Youth IGF. We have completed four editions of the school and two Youth IGF. We aim to do the actual IGF by these steps.
>> I come from Pakistan. I'm with the School of Internet Governance. We claim to be the pioneer school in Asia Pacific, the pioneer school, because we started in 2015, in the capital of Islamabad. We don't have countries, but we do have cities. In 2016, we did it in provincial capitals. Every year, we go to different cities. Next year, we're going to the mountainous area. We're up for it.
One thing I wanted to mention out of our experience with the school, when we started out, we were actually heavily dependent on funding from the international donors and foreign speakers as well. When we held it in 2014, all the speakers were local experts that were able to come. Most of the funding, almost 80% of the funding was through the local operators and the local community and the local businesspeople.
The best thing that I think about our school is that the Secretariat of the school is actually being managed by the government and civil society, which is the Internet society chapter. It's a sign, a notion that, the government and the civil society together are (?) Something about the school.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I just wanted to go back to the map we've got there. We've now hit 18 schools. We have three dots. Part of what we're trying to do ββ because there are a lot of schools. There are a lot of efforts. I'm not sure we have it all defined correctly in our taxonomy. That's why it's 0.7 and not 1. I encourage you. Some say, Yeah, our school moves around, and we don't have a specific place to put the pin. We give you a choice. If you have a home office, you can put the pin there. If you want to move the pin each year, Rainer has said, Hey, send an email that says, We're here instead of there, we'll move it. We would like to see it. There's a richness. One of the things that has not been captured yet, which we're trying to try, the richness and diversity of schools that people are coming up with, the types of curricula that they're coming up with, how they're funded. You know, each one of you, I don't mean to contradict you when you say yours is different. My reaction is each one of them is different. That's really cool, but what happens, what we're trying to do ββ and you will see this more as I go through ββ is collect the information so that the person who says, I'm thinking of a school but I'm not really sure what to do, how to do, where to do has a resource to go to. Here's a bunch of examples. Here is a bunch of ideas. Here is a bunch of templates. Use them, don't use them, but when you want to start a school and someone gives you a blank pad of paper and says, Okay. Write it down. It's hard. You guys have done it. 18 of you have done it.
Sorry to give a speech while you were waiting at the mic.
>> Thank you. Because you already mentioned some issues that I wanted to. One thing that I forgot to mention is that we organized the third edition this year of the Argentina School of Internet Governance inspired by the regional model, which is similar but the program is three days. It's not translated because it's intended for Argentinians. The idea of the fellowship is to bring students from the provinces. Argentina is a quite large country. Many of the things happen in the capital city, in Buenos Aires. So the idea is to bring students from the interior of Argentina. We have fellows that came from Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico. They requested that. We thought it was okay. It was three times organized in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So in between cities, we hope we can do that next year.
For the moment, it has been easier for us to organize because I live there in Buenos Aires, and it's much easier.
>> AVRI DORIA: It's a nice city.
>> They were very, very well attended. The room was absolutely crowded, and we were very happy with that. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So you've brought us now to 19 schools. There's still only three pins there. That's the first part of the website. So, please, we encourage you. We don't ask for a lot of information. Sort of the name, is there a website, where do we put the pin.
Do we require anything more than that? We give you the option to add more info, but that's one thing.
Okay. Another page we've got, that's the fellows. We offer a chance for people who have attended the schools who want to speak about their experiences, that want to put their face before the world of saying, Hey, you're looking for somebody that does IG stuff? I went to this school. Come talk to me. It's basically an opportunity to do that. There's a form, you can go, and you can say, I went to such and such school. I think you can say more about the school. It was good. It wasn't. Hopefully, you don't say it wasn't. But it was good, this is why, et cetera. But sharing, sharing the potential for people to contact you if somebody in your country or elsewhere wants a specialist in what you are being a specialist in.
And then there's faculties. Basically, for anyone that has been on a faculty of one of these schools that wants to list themselves, that wants to talk about it. So, for example, if a school ββ even if it is well staffed locally ββ needs someone who does the economics of whatever or needs someone that will talk about particular technologies and doesn't have someone. Knows how to reach out, either to bring them in or teach something remotely or to give them advice. Hey, you're into economic aspects of Internet governance. We need a teacher on it. Do you know anybody local in your context from your other conversations? Do you know someone in my area that knows that? These are all faculty members. Faculty members are always happy to talk about other possible faculty members. So, basically, asking those of you who have taught in these schools, so sort of add yourself there as part of the resources that we have for people to share.
As I said, going back to one of our main purposes, other than defining a language that we can talk in, in terms of vocabulary, that we can basically have similar meetings on. Yes, it's still restricted to English, but at some time we may move behind that. And the problems that we would help solve on that one is how many of these terms are easily translated into your language, and do people know what those terms are?
So I would love to see this taxonomy, at some point, spread to being multilingual. I started writing it, and the only language I could write it in was English. That's a possible project.
There's the curricula. What's in there?
>> It's blank.
>> AVRI DORIA: That's why I don't know what's in there. It's a place that had hoped if people have defined curricula, they're published, this is the curricula of school X or school Y in 2018, they could be published there as examples. Is it your schedule? How it works. When you're defining a school for the first time, you haven't even thought about things like two classes, then a break, what kind of activities, do we do stuff at night, where does dinner fall, where does lunch fall?
And the curricula from these schools they've seen but don't have permission to publish, there's an agenda and there are many different models. So one of the things we're hoping to collect there. If you've got a curriculum that you're willing to contribute to a list here, and then we'll figure out how to organize them, please let Rainer know, and we'll add them to the list.
The next thing we've got, we've got a Wiki. Basically, some of the schools that have contacted and started giving information, we list with Data Foundation. If you give us a URL of where to go for more information on your school, we'll list that. You know, there's a school there. There's a European school. We had a lot of information on it. It was easy to fill in. Equally, there's a form for any of you to fill in as much of it as you can or as much as of it as you want. We may ask questions that make you go, That's nonsense. I don't know the answer. I don't want to give the answer. Don't. It's really up to you all when you're filling out the form, what information. If you've found we've left a criteria off a line of information that should be there that hasn't been there, please tell us. This is a growing project. We're not at all defensive of what we've put there and what we haven't.
Let's go on.
Any school that wishes to share the material is welcome to contribute. To do so, please request an account and share your plans with the Wiki maintainer via ββ and then an email. Basically, Rainer is willing to work with you all to put your information in there the way you want.
For example, we have ββ and I'm not going to go into it, but the North American school ββ please come to the microphone or somebody can bring you a microphone ββ the North American School of Internet Governance, which had a couple of brief introductions, has graciously donated all of their information, a very rich section of the Wiki covering things like their operation manual, their plan, their recruitment. I mean, basically spent a bit of time working with Rainer, giving the information, figuring out how to organize it. Happy too that with any of the other schools that want to add their stuff that way.
Please.
>> Yes. That's actually my question. We've been going since 2013, so we know. All the material is on our website. Isn't it possible to just link or is it not? Do you want to repackage the material, or can we actually just have links to our material?
>> AVRI DORIA: Either way. Basically, there's the ease of doing a link, but links, especially links to links to links sometimes get lost. Sometimes, if there's a set of core information, not everything you've got, but some core information you think is particularly valuable that could be stored in this one ββ it really is up to what you want to do. Certainly, as a first step, a link is good. As later steps, storing the material there can be good, too, but really what works for you.
>> Just one more, while I have the mic. Can we change taxonomy to glossary? When I look at it, it seems more like a glossary.
>> AVRI DORIA: We can. That's why I put a definition of taxonomy at the bottom, but we can change it to anything.
>> But is it to have a classification or is it to have explanation of context?
>> AVRI DORIA: It's kind of both. Maybe what we need to do is separate them out at some point. But at this time, it is a classification, but it is also a glossary, but a glossary is sort of a simple thing. Yeah, we can change it. We can divide it over time, if we decide this. But, basically, what it was was: Here are the blank pieces of paper. Let's collect the information. Give it a name. Gustavo and others have contributed a lot to it. We've already reorganized it several times across the year. We'll not get into long arguments about what color we're going to paint the bike shed. Basically, we can build another bike shed and paint them as many colors as we want. I don't really want to worry about the names.
>> Every remote participation or suggestion around video testimonials for the schools that have been organized. So his proposal is to consider having some testimonials. From the contribution, I can see it's got a lot to do with supporting those who actually want to start up a school. He also proposes having a howβto manual. I think we had a slight consideration around it about would it be a new section or would it be added to the Wiki. I think it's something to think about.
>> AVRI DORIA: My first answer is: Way cool. It would be good to have that. Definitely, I could see adding it to the Wiki. That's a resource.
>> I think in the first place, it should be added to the Wiki because the Wiki should be open to everyone who wants to do stuff themselves. It's not meant to be me editing the Wiki. You can publish your content yourself.
>> AVRI DORIA: And one of the things I was thinking about, in relationship to the question you asked, should we put stuff in the Wiki or should we use our own. Sometimes having our own information in a useful location is a good thing. Especially, if there's bandwidth problems, it's best to store it somewhere.
So there's a Wiki. It's expandable. You can have your own section of the Wiki to do with as you think is necessary, obviously under the care and supervision of the Wiki maintainer.
Can I go to now on the taxonomy or glossary or taxonomy and glossary. One of the reasons I called it a taxonomy, to be honest, when we had the charter, we were going to work on that first.
I'm going to show the table of contents. Stop there on the taxonomy. Anyhow, I did put in a definition of taxonomy because I, myself, was feeling a little insecure about what we meant. Is the practice and science of classifications of things and concepts, including the principles that define the process.
The topics that are in here, this is the other thing that you will notice at the bottom of each page. The bottom of each page, there's a Google Drive URL. The document is open for suggested changes and comments by anyone that has the URL. What we have is what was called a monthly meeting that happened six times over the course of the year because it would get canceled for one reason or another. It took three months to set up the first one, et cetera. The notion was a monthly meeting where one thing we would do is go through all the changes people had suggested in the document, discuss them, and either accept them or continue to discuss them, including changes I was putting in.
Basically, though, I'm the only one at the moment that is listed as an editor. Actually, Sandra might be. You might be. But, basically, I make all of my contributions in suggest mode only. The only stuff I do as an editor is basically go through and correct typos, perhaps, and accept other people's stuff once it's been discussed in a meeting. Basically, we have a month where people can add content. You added quite a bit of content. We basically add content either as comments or as suggested new text. Then we have the meeting. Please come to the mic. It's a virtual roundtable, but you've got to find your own mic.
>> Cool. Hi. I'm Ellen Strickland from Internet New Zealand. We've looked the last two years of setting up Oceana. I wanted to, first of all, say thank you to the group and the work that you're doing because it's really valuable to us. I also just wondered if there was a way to indicate ββ and I know there were a few ββ works in progress or process, so people can contact each other in the region. I wouldn't want to list us as a school because we're just thinking about it but whether or not that's something we can do.
>> AVRI DORIA: Is that something we can do?
>> RAINER RODEWALD: Everything, we get input in and can put up on the Wiki, for example. Happy to do so.
>> AVRI DORIA: Maybe pick a different color of pointer, something that says "in planning," "in design," "coming in 2021." Great idea. Thanks.
That's what's happening with the taxonomy.
Just to look at the topics for a moment, you can see it's sort of a cross between a definition. We talk about, you know, various curricula issues. And that's the biggest section of the document. Then we talk a little bit about focus of schools. One of the things noticed as we were talking, some of the schools were focused on the general notion. Some are focused on preparing people for the IGF in their country. Some are focused on preparing staffers for government, et cetera. Some may be focused on programs to help somebody fulfill a requirement of aβdegree. So basically trying to correct a different kind of focus. If your focus is not listed in the document yet, please add it.
Funding models, we don't have that much yet, but there are a couple of different fundal models that people have. I know that there may be a certain amount of confidentiality in how you fund, but to the extent that you can explain your model to someone else who is sitting somewhere and saying, I've got a great idea for a school, but I don't know how to fund it. I don't know where to find the funding. They can find a clue. And that's really the point of this.
There's lengths of programs. You can see there's anything from the halfβday to a week to longer, if it's a school program to a semester or term ββ I know semester is vacation in some places and its school in other places. You know, to a term, et cetera. Just how, looking at that kind of thing.
In other words, basically, what we're trying to do here is show that there isn't any one model. If you look at a particular model and you've got particular goals, is what you're thinking of more appropriate to a threeβday model? Or is it more appropriate to a oneβday model, et cetera? Hopefully, this is end up useful in that respect.
Metrics and reporting, you know, a lot of the schools, probably most of them, they get funding from someone. Have to report, have to measure. What are the ways?
Please.
>> We have a training center for young IT graduates, professionals in the training program. We prefer to use some of the curriculum. I have two questions. I think the curriculum page is empty at the moment, but I'm sure a lot of schools have materials. I think that would be great to be open source for anyone to use it if there's no property right there is.
Another question is: If I look at the list, I miss data protection privacy policy as ββ I would think it's a huge one.
>> AVRI DORIA: We have it in a couple of places, but certainly. As I said, anything that's missing, once you've read it and you see that it's missing or you may find what you're looking for listed under a different heading, and you may say, This should be moved.
It really is a document that's written by the people contributing.
Yeah, please.
>> So, again, my name is Gustavo. A situation we faced throughout the year was we had a core team of volunteers who were trying to offer their knowledge, their specialties. And that's why the taxonomy is at the 0.7 stage. We really want that kind of help in really trying to fill out all the subjects. It really is still a work in progress.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yeah. You will notice my answer. Almost any time someone tells me something is missing, is, The document is open for you to add it.
Over the years, I've gotten support. Somebody says something is missing but I can't, then we'll put it as a heading, and at some point, I will go through and add it to the best of my ability. There are some things I can't add because I know there's some stuff that I can put a stub in that says, This section would talk about X. That's as far as my knowledge goes.
Really, my answer to anything that is missing is: Please add it. It's a group work.
We've got 25 minutes left. I want to leave some time for the last thing.
So talking about partnership, different schools have different partner models. Can they put something?
Residential status noticed, in one case, people are in a hotel that's being paid for. In another place, people are living in a converted monastery. In another place, they're coming from their homes because it's local thing. The whole notion of: What are the different models? Just so nobody assumes there's one way to do thing. There's a multiplicity of ways to get these schools built.
Requirements and acceptance of a program, anything from anybody can come ββ I've seen we've received this many applications. We'll take them. To there's so many applications. We give them a test first. So we come down from 5,000 applications to 600.
So really, there's different models there in figuring it out who you're going to accept and how many you're going to accept. Types of session, numbers of students per class. Everything from little things to big things. How does it work? What does it mean? Why is a big class okay for some things but not for others, et cetera.
As I say, we're at .7. I would like to get to 1.0 by next year's meeting. We have a whole bunch of time. Even if it means dividing it into two documents. Happy to do it. Let's look at what's necessary.
Okay. Any more questions or comments?
So, basically, that's what we did this year. Please come to the mic. That's what we did this year. We try to have monthly meetings. We'll get in six or seven in the year.
>> By the way, I was checking the document, the Google doc. I noticed there are people in there. That's great. If you have suggestions for topics which we should include to the taxonomy, you can go right there right now, and this can be part of our discussion.
>> AVRI DORIA: If you're not sure about writing something in the line of text because you're insecure, add a comment. Really, it's up to you. We're going to go through it. Nothing is going to get judged. It's basically all going to be discussed at our next meeting, anything that anybody adds. We'll decide if we keep it, change it, or move it.
>> Adam peak: Adam Peak, it would be health for some of the supporters for people who get involved around the world, to have notions of which schools have which attributes. If your school has the attributes from those taxonomies, tell us what they are. It would be helpful to look at it.
How do you assess students and applications. That's one part. The other part is preparing the students. One of the things we have is the ICANN learn courses, which people are very welcome to do. If you come talk to ICANN about that, you can probably set it up so you know which of your students or perspective students have actually taken those courses, because they can be monitored, if you wish to do that. You with make it a prerequisite or requirement. If someone wants to do, you can consider a funding or something like that so people have a base level of knowledge and understanding.
I know the Internet Society has various courses.
>> AVRI DORIA: Two responses to you. One is, yeah, we have thought about once we have a stable set of classifications and such of adding those to system of the school listings, to some of the faculty listings and some of the fellows. I think that is an intention, but we really need to know what those are first before we start doing it and tagging things.
In terms of the stuff on ICANN Learn, please add it. Add it to the Wiki. Add it to the document. Talk to Rainer. Find you a place. You want an ICANN page for the Wiki to add all your school stuff, add it. If it's something you then want to mention within the document that sort of says, Hey, when you're picking students or preparing students ββ what you just said. What you just said could also be added to the various documents. Please, add it.
And if you don't know where to add it, just tack it somewhere, and we'll remove it to where it belongs.
>> There's a response on the participation online which is a response to Adam's suggestion on sponsorship operations. The comment is that it has validity, but there's doubt that people could actually want to provide all the information on their workings for fear of losing their sponsorship.
And the next question is for you, Avri, on the curated notes put on the taxonomy to say there's fear that some of the comments will be ignored. So you need to provide access to the curated notes ββ
>> AVRI DORIA: I'm not sure what they mean.
>> So the notes added to the taxonomy. You mentioned that you're the only one that has editing rights. So how can people comment ββ
>> AVRI DORIA: Everybody has the ability to add anything they want. I'm the only one at the moment ββ and I'm willing ββ at some point, when we find somebody else who wants to take responsibility as an editor, I have no problem with it. But everything is there. Because it's a Drive document, they can add any comment they want. They can add any text they want. Basically, if you know working in a Google Drive in suggest mode, anybody can add anything, and it becomes part of the history of the document, and nothing is ever lost, nothing. Even if I delete something, it's still there in a previous version. Unless there's a problem I don't understand ββ which somebody will have to explain to me ββ nothing should be getting lost. In terms of the accepting or nonβaccepting, as I said, I do those based on the discussions we have at the monthly meetings. I don't make any decisions on my own. We have a monthly meeting. We do a walkthrough of all the changes. We accept it or not accept it. Even if we don't accept it, it's still in the history.
Thank you.
>> I was late, so I want to ask if at the end we can have the different links or URL for the website, the Wiki and the document to take note and do some add and comments.
>> AVRI DORIA: We don't have to wait for the end. The name is ββ it's all at ββ actually, you read it out. I will get it wrong.
>> RAINER RODEWALD: Igschool.net.
>> AVRI DORIA: Www.igschool.net. It's a cool name, I think.
>> I have to go, but I wanted to say one of the things we do in the African school is evaluation, and we take evaluation very seriously. We can share our methodology. I think it would be good to also have a space for that, but aside from doing an annual evaluation, which is an anonymous evaluation that participants complete, very detailed. It gives very detailed feedback to the faculty as well. Sometimes negative feedback or critical feedback as well, and that's a good practice.
We started doing longitudinal research on the impact of AfriSIG. It looks at how it's impacted people's professional lives over the longer term. How is the network and how has the alumni network helped people become leaders in Internet governance, actually. It's a simple methodology. We work with a consultant. Our methodologies are open source. We haven't put them there yet, but it's a reminder. Just to add that.
The final thing is, it would be useful to see which ones ββ which schools have actual supported networks and which ones don't.
We do have an alumni network. We have found that incredibly powerful. There's some in the room. People actually connect with one another and selfβorganize with one another, meetings and sessions. Many of the alumni have started schools. Being part of the alumni network, they support others as well. It's also important to get that alumni network involved in this process. Maybe you can bring up that interface again, the idea of where you have alumni sharing information about themselves. I think that's a really important and nice aspect of the DC's work.
>> AVRI DORIA: I just want to mention we're now in the third section of the agenda, which is possible plans for the coming year, possible things we can do. We've got 14 minutes left. There are many of you in line. I'm going to shut up, but don't speak too long.
>> Okay. Thank you very much.
>> AVRI DORIA: Give your name.
>> Our experience in Nigeria and West Africa is when we open the registration, we have as many as 700 applications. We have the challenge of where to put them and there's a duty of evaluation for us. It's such a big task that at tend of the day, we may have only 30 people for the school because of limited resources.
I don't know what we can suggest here. Possibly we break it down. Instead of having it once a year, probably we do quarters. What we did was to say, Okay. We can continue on online webinars on it so that those who were not able to come physically because we don't have all the resources to attend to them, then they could join the webinar. And we're also asking that members of the DC, when we call on you to help us do the webinar.
Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
>> Again, Gustavo. About how it works, the editing process, I would just like to share a little bit about my experience. I joined the DC last year, started contributing. In over a year of production, six meetings, never did a single comment that I made get deleted without justification. No. Everything was discussed in the meeting. Everything was put on the table. There was a lot of very productive commenting and discussion. So if it concerns you, if you're concerned about how the process is, I can tell you it is very effective. It is very friendly. I think it was just great.
Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
Please.
>> Hello. I'm from ICANN. I wanted to just flag a couple of elements of the school that will be happening in roughly two weeks, from the 9βth to the 13th in Bucharest. That's part of the Southeast European IGF and comes from an experience we did last year before the Barcelona meeting in Spain. In both cases, the school paired up. The local institutions that, basically, in order to have the school there requires an evaluation form at the end of the week. That was very helpful to the first edition. Something we learned and would be interesting to share is that since the university is there, they require you to have basically an academic community to look into the program.
That allows you to provide credits to the students. In Europe, the system called European transfer system, ETS, no matter where you're going, you can transfer those credits toward your diploma in other countries. That we found out was extremely attracting. Students graduated the program ββ in order to get credit, you have to have a number of hours, a look at the program, and a test at the end. For those who want the credit, they can do the test at the end and take the credit toward their diploma.
If you're not interested or already working, that's something you can discount. We saw that. We attracted a lot of graduate students that wanted to do the school, are interested. The other incentive beyond the topics of interest. That's a topic I wanted to share.
Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And getting some of that information collected in our group would be good. One of the things I do plan to do after this ββ hopefully, we do have a good transcript ββ is to get as much of this stuff into our next year's type of work plan. So thank you very much.
>> Okay. I wanted to follow up on what was said. She left. Spontaneously, since 2015, it started with the (?) Group. Every year now, when we select the fellows, we have a ββ they can have their own groups and participate or not. It's not mandatory, but they remain open after. We feed content after the schools, and they remain open for years, and they get connected. It's very powerful among them. They get value from the group. They share travel experiences and that's something we can share.
>> AVRI DORIA: One of the things I've noticed from various schools is they also look to the number of their fellows that have, all of a sudden, gotten roles in various institutions, companies, processes, and such. That becomes significant.
I like the idea of actually getting them into a group before. A couple of schools have groups that start after, but the idea of starting one beforehand is really quite good.
Anyhow, I thank you for many of the ideas. I'm not necessarily going to rattle them all off at the moment because my memory is not that quick, but, certainly, there's a lot of suggestions there. I'm definitely going to go through the transcript, if we can get ahold of it, or if there's a recording. I think they do transcripts. But basically get all of these collected and find out.
Now, this is not all work I will be able to do over the course of the year. I will certainly do some of it. I will certainly track it. I will certainly coordinate it. But going to need all of you that had these wonderful ideas or perhaps students and fellows that you've worked with that could translate your ideas. I know many of you are probably as busy or busier than I am. So your ability to actually do all of the ideas ββ many of you ββ what? We had 18, 19 schools? You all have fellows. If you can get your fellows to sort of help with some of this, that's good.
One of the things I want people to be sure of is: You don't have to get it right when you put it in the document.
There shouldn't be any fear. You can put it in under your name. You can put it in under Orange Koala. It's on Google Drive. If you want to put it in under your name, that's fine. If you want to put suggestions in and you're not sure if you got the spelling right or the grammar right or if your idea makes sense, you're afraid ββ Purple Mango is fine. I love some of the names. Some are just people that heard of the document, that sat in on one of the meetings, that had something to say. They put it in there and then left it to our meeting.
I don't have that much more to say. We've got five minutes or less left. I've got any other business. Does anybody have any other business? I see nobody at the line.
Do you have any other business? You're one of our most prolific contributors, so I'm hardly surprised.
>> I think I can really suggest that we need perspectives. We need technical people. We need a lot of perspectives to really make this curriculum shine, as it well should. Again, you guys can just put your comments. If you're afraid, do it anonymously. It's fine. Come to the meetings. They're very productive. They're quick. And let's just work on this together.
>> AVRI DORIA: You have a remote comment?
>> Yes. I have a comment for remote participation. Glenn McKnight wrote: We do great notes. We do a tweetstorm to encourage social media sharing.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Glenn's whole ββ Glenn Satish, others, the whole program there with the daily note of sessions, you know, is really quite good. Quite a lot of work on the people that do it. You know, other schools ββ for example, I think it's the African school, has every morning, an open session for people to come with questions from sessions pending from the day before. I want to collect all of those things. I want to get all of those wonderful ideas and practices that people have collected so that other people can pick and choose among them and use the ones that make sense to them.
Last call for any other business.
Yes, Mary.
( Off microphone )
>> AVRI DORIA: Microphone.
>> Hello. Hello. This one is working.
>> I just asked for contribution in other languages because my community ββ like, she'll do it in French.
>> AVRI DORIA: Yeah. It would be great to have things in other languages. I will need excessive amounts of help from people that are specialists in those languages. I've got English. I've got a bit of Italian, a bit of Hebrew, but little of these other languages. If you want stuff in other languages, you're going to have to take responsibility and guide it because I can't. I'm happy to help in any way I can, you know, set up documents, track things, coordinate, et cetera. I can read French. I can understand a little Spanish, but that's about it.
So, anyhow, if nobody has anything else, I thank you. As I said, www.igschools.net, it's easy. As much information we can collect there, that's how much information will be available to you all.
Thank you all for the contributions you've made in this meeting. Our next meeting will probably not be in December. It will probably be sometime in January. We try to be global. There's not that many times of the day that work, so there will be two or three times to choose from. We pretty much picked one last time that we just kept to it but picked a day. Anyhow, I will do that. Hopefully, you're all on the list. If you're not on the list, there's information on www.igschools.net to get yourselves registered.
Thank you.