IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
17 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION D.C. 10
1430
DYNAMIC COALITION ON GENDER
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. 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 session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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(standing by for audio.)
>> JAC SM KEE: Hello. Hi. Shall we start? Yeah? Thanks for coming to the Dynamic Coalition on gender meeting. My name is Jac. I'm with the Association for Progressive Communications.
Maybe we can start with just a round of self-introduction, your name, where you are from, who you are with; also perhaps what you'd like to see covered in today's discussion.
>> My name is Ren Els, from the UK, from a think tank virtual policy networks. I look at things like virtual worlds, computer games, convergent media, things like that. I'm not sure I have a specific topic. I was at the workshop last year. I said that in the sectors that try to look at the primary issues, tend to be about visual representation of females within games, and females within the industry as well as it tends to be a fairly male dominated industry.
>> Hi, I'm Tamara. I'm a researcher for the Eurotics project of the APC. I'm interested in queer women's issues and I'm actually also interested in maybe touching on the subject of female refugees, and their participation in cyberspace. I'd like to talk a bit about that in this session, thanks.
>> I'm Micheline from South Africa, Eurotics project as well. I'm interested in the LBGIQ community particularly.
>> DIXIE HAWTIN: My name is Dixie Hawtin. I work with Global Partners and Associates in London, researcher looking at freedom of expression issues. I've come along because I don't actually know anything about gender issues on line and so I'm interested to learn. Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Mya Ganesh. I'm from India. I'm here because I'm a feminist, and because I think that there isn't enough discussion around gender in a space like the IGF. And this is the third time I've been to the IGF. Yeah, there is no gender, I see women but I don't see any, enough discussions around gender. I've never been to a proper gender D.C. coalition meeting but a lot of my friends have. So yes, that's me.
>> ANJA KOVACS: I'm Anja for the Centre for Internet Society in Bangalore. I'm happy to see new faces here. That is great.
What I'm hoping for in a way in this meeting or what I was hoping for is that we would think a little bit more about how we could be more strategic, so that we don't have to come back next year and again have the same frustrations that gender isn't there, that not enough is being done, that the issues we find important are unaddressed and also how we can do that in a way that is actually sustainable, so we don't get too ambitious, but come up with initiatives, things that we can build on stuff we are already doing anyways.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Hi. I'm Ginger Paque from DiploFoundation, coordinator in the Internet Governance Forum, caucus, sorry, and remote participation working group. Actually right now, I'd like to point out we have a remote hub connected from Armenia, but they haven't given me their details. I'll let you know; I've asked them to introduce themselves. But maybe they are shy.
I'm glad to see two guys here. (Chuckles).
I do hope that we get a little more active on gender issues. Thank you.
>> I'm from Bangkok. I know nothing about gender issues. But I have interest. But I'm here. So that is it.
>> I'm actually, our organisation works this year, going to work together with, sorry if I pronounce it wrong, High Ridge Bow Foundation from Germany as well under issue of gender and ICT in Thailand. But I'm now involved with the project but I'd like to know more.
>> Hello, my name is Millie and I'm from Lebanon. I'm interested in women and technology, and involving women in ICTs, and ensuring that we can hopefully bridge the gap, the gender gap we find in technology issue.
>> Hi, I'm Jan Moman from South Africa, work with APC women's programme. I'm particularly interested in violence against women in ICTs. But as Anja and Ginger have said, I'm more interested in a working Gender Dynamic Coalition that is focused and, yeah, things that we can achieve.
>> Hi. I'm Mary Ann Franklin, here as an academic, but also as a member of the Internet rights and principles coalition, long-standing supporter of gender presence in some way or another in these situations. I'm looking here to see where we go from here, if we go anywhere at all as a gender D.C. Thank you.
>> Okay. It seems like there is two different kinds of things that we would like to talk about. One is to get a better sense of what is the gender dimension on Internet Governance and what is the issues. Secondly, it's a much more strategic conversation. What is it that we would like to do as the Gender Dynamic Coalition within the IGF or beyond?
I personally am quite interested to focus on the latter, because I feel like this is my third IGF, and my second gender D.C. meeting. I was not able to participate in the last one. But from the first one until today, it doesn't feel like we have been very -- gosh, yeah, it feels a bit like that sentence where you kind of have this emergency and it suddenly happens where it lulls into a kind of...yes, just to start with some of the, an update of some of the things that we have done, so far, in previous gender D.C., and I probably don't have all the memories, so Anja, Maria and Ginger, if you can help me out, that would be great. We have a mailing list whereby APC hosts, we organise, try to organise ourselves in the mailing list and have conversation and share information in the list.
We have plans on using genderit.org as a kind of online repository, to put in information related to gender and ICT policy, and also resource persons who may be able to speak or that we can draw from Internet space, but somehow there hasn't been yet from last year, just very little. We have come up with several statements as well, that we have cowritten or has been written by some of us, from around the issue.
I think that's as far as I can remember. Ginger?
>> GINGER PAQUE: First of all, you have greetings from Armenia, greetings to all from Armenia. I'm Lilia, begins with a J, President of IT and women and geo; nice to have a chance to join your discussion. So Lilia, I'm sure you can hear me, so please feel free to intervene to write your comments, and we would like to hear from you during the session.
I can remember the most important thing for me, I think was in our discussion of what was our, what was maybe a formal meeting in India, and there was a definite change in tactics for the gender coalition. It was a formal decision to be more supportive of women's inclusion rather than critical of lack of inclusion of gender issues, but rather to support actively the panels and the issues that included gender as a -- to me that was an eye-opener. I have seen that it's far more effective. It gets more attention. People are much more receptive to it.
>> I wanted to clarify. I wanted to clarify something that you just said, Ginger. Was what you said about pushing for inclusion rather than being critical for lack of space, was that your perception? Is that your opinion? Or is that what came out of the gender D.C., in the first meeting? I'd be interested to know if people who have been here from the start of the process feel that has been successful. There is this statistic that some of us know, there are only two sessions in this IGF that focused expressly on gender. So do you feel that it's, there has been more inclusion since the beginning? Or not?
>> ANJA KOVACS: I think we haven't really done either very well. For me, the problem is a little bit that we have this meetings, and then have a good conversation usually, and make a lot of very exciting plans. And then kind of don't do very much, except maybe issue another statement, and these statements are usually quite general until the next one.
So there are more workshops on gender this year than there have been before. We had three proposals, I think one withdrew but they were all accepted. That was a step up in a way. Then there is this meeting.
I think a lot of it has to do with how we have or have not been like strategically intervening. Let's say there is supposed to, the Secretariat does encourage gender balance. They also do encourage geographical balance. But if nobody is there in these planning meetings for the IGF to actually say, excuse me, but this workshop proposal has eight white men and nobody else, then none of these things are ever going to change.
You can't leave it just to the Secretariat or like some magical rule that somebody has created. If we want these things to change, we have to be there and make those comments. If we want to intervene in that kind of way, we have to start being much more, work together and think more clearly about what are the big or small things we want to do.
For me, the basic questions is actually do we want the gender coalition in the first place? Because, I'm sure none of you like to spend time thinking about groups or meetings that you know are not going to go anywhere anyway, usually you prefer to blow it off and start something new and do it in a different way, not deal with the history and baggage, whatever. My first question is that: Do we really feel we need a Gender Dynamic Coalition? Because we can also say, many of us are in touch in any case. We can still keep the list.
We can be more strategic next year about what kind of workshops we organise and make sure we have some more. We don't necessarily need this meeting if we are not going to intervene in where the future of the IGF, the process of the IGF. I'm not sure we need this. Maybe we need more workshops. If people feel we do need this, what do they want to do with it? What kind of commitment can each of us make. I'm sorry for being so negative, especially for people who are new. (Chuckles).
But I guess, this is my third gender D.C. and it's been a bit repetitive.
>> Yes, I think this is also something that is confronting a number of Dynamic Coalitions, because they are only dynamic in the terms of the dynamics, which sounds trite, but it is true. We are not the only coalition asking ourselves this question.
I certainly concur with what Anja is saying. I've heard her say this more than once. There could be an interesting way we could just say, okay, we now officially disband the gender D.C., but we keep the list, because we can always resurrect that. But this I'd like to hear from people who are here for the first time. We don't want to generate dissolution out of exhaustion on the last day.
>> I want to add one more thing which is more administrative. If you are a gender D.C., you are supposed to at least file a report after the IGF, what we have been doing here. Then next year before the IGF we have to file another report, about all the things we have done in the whole year. Based on that, the Secretariat gives you a slot.
It also means there is always somebody who actually puts in the effort to write these reports, and all of you know how exciting that is, especially if not much has happened.
>> RT and then Ginger.
>> Hi, I'm actually very agree with you about, I mean, the reason that, it is not only gender. I think it's about almost every issue, is that they are going to have Dynamic Coalition, is because they are not really well integrated already in the process or in the issues that IGF have an attention.
In these four days, I found that there is a lot of, say talking about like youth, and I think that is also because the youth is not well integrated into the issues of IGF or the process of the IGF.
We found that there are many sessions about youth, but it's also, at the same time, it also means that, hey, you guys, that is the room for you. You are just talking with your friends in that room. And the rest of the session is about the adults to speak their business.
I have a feeling like that. And yeah, it's a kind of thing, I'm not sure, maybe the same thing happens with gender or not, that the reason that you guys are here with this session is because of that.
>> GINGER PAQUE: That is a really good point, because maybe you don't want to be segregated. You want to be mainstreamed and be on every panel and in every session. Actually, what I was going to say is that, if we define our objective, why do we want to meet, and do we need a Gender Dynamic Coalition to meet those goals? Or can we effectively work through APC and human rights and mainstream it? And then maybe make a point of those of us who have a chance to be at the open consultations and the planning meetings, to really do it, to do the work without, or without the Dynamic Coalition.
>> Also, just to add another point. This is actually, I got it from my friends. Her child is, she says something like, in Thailand when you are talking about gender and ICT, it is all about, hey, we need more women in ICT industry or education or whatever. We need to teach school girls, need to teach women about this is our literacy or whatsoever. And she thinks this is not really like a thing about gender. So it so like, she say it's about perspective, to look like things on ICT or Internet Governance or whatever.
I think this, if you are looking back to this IGF 10 on the youth again, I'm having a few session on youth and I found that it reflects something that we have a lot of youth speak here in IGF 10. But it's not really a youth perspective. I mean, there are many partner list that really talk about their own perspective, youth perspective. But I thought that some of them or some of the adults actually use the discourse of the youth or gender for their own proposal. Or sometimes they are actually youth speaking, but not for the youth, not from the youth perspective, but using the language of those adults who pick them, and send them here, things like that.
I'm not sure whether that's any contribution or not. But thanks.
>> Thanks very much. I think we have one additional person who just stepped in. Maybe you would like to introduce yourself, and, yeah.
>> Hi, I'm sorry I'm late. My name is Claudia Gray. I'm a researcher in Mexico from the University of the Americas.
>> I work for an online newspaper. And recently in Thailand we tried to set up an informal discussion about genders and ICT, and quite interesting to explore more.
>> Actually I liked Ginger's suggestion to look at what is the role and function of the Gender Dynamic Coalition or what we would like the gender D.C. to be for us and whether in this space or beyond this space. From there we can figure out do we actually need or not need the Gender Dynamic Coalition and in what form? That is actually quite a good place to start from.
>> I don't think the question is if we need or not. I think the question is how to make it active and how to make it really active, so it shows a need for it. I don't think that you have the, we must have the gender coalition in IGF, because especially in the Internet Governance Forum. If we don't have it here, how are we going to make sure that women's issues are going to be brought up? That is point one.
I think I want to suggest a small thing. I was here and connected to many techy women so maybe for the next coalition meeting, maybe you can just invite the people or maybe get a list of the people attending and try to invite the techy people and the techy women especially so we can collaborate more on issues that are related to Internet Governance, because I know it's, maybe there are fewer women, but the women here are pretty good.
>> You know, I think of course when I went to my first meeting, I was also convinced we needed it. It still, there is two things. One is that in a way it is nice to have space for discussion. When we have the introductions, several people said I would like to speak about this. These are things we haven't been addressing in the workshop. We can say we want this meeting on the schedule because it's more freewheeling space. We don't do much more than that.
Or, there is the question of how we intervene in the Internet Governance process and the process at the IGF. What for me has become a real concern over the past two years is that I agree with you, I mean, the question is then how to make it active. That is what I haven't seen happening.
This is becoming an issue for me, because I really believe if you keep in a meeting like this, so now and then we make a statement. These statements are generally these mother hood statements so they are very broad, general, trying to address everything. You want to give this net overview to people can make the connections.
Basically, what it looks like for a lot of people and this is very feminist unfriendly space, no, even the rights language to this IGF is slightly better but it took ages just for that to get through. What it starts to look like is you have a bunch of agitated women who, whenever there is a meeting, come with this kind of statement and flag and say, no gender! No women! Bad!
Then don't really kind of go into the details of.... (Chuckles) so, then how to address that?
With all these techy guys, Government people who work on Internet Governance, they usually, they don't work on these issues. They have no idea where to begin. If you don't break it down for them into bits, where you can say we want you to do this here, we want in the process that this will change, if you don't do that consistently, I actually think it ends up working against the feminist politics.
My point is we can't keep the pot warm, we can't just keep the place and just in case it comes in handy at some point in time. Push the politics, do it strategically or we back out. By now I start to think it harms us because you look so irrelevant. In the planning meeting, we will make a statement, the room will switch off or gender D.C., I can check my E-mail now. That works against us. That is why I'm so concerned.
>> It looks like Tamara, you have something you want to say?
>> I was just going to say, I was going to address the question about whether or not it is relevant to have a gender coalition. It's, for me, my concern is that the most disempowered parts of the population have very unequal access to the Internet in terms of gender.
I think about the Palestinian women in refugee camps. The disparity in terms of Internet access is really stark over there. It's also proven to be a really important space. Anyway, I feel like I'm being a bit redundant. But I wanted to address the first question that you posed, before Millie's intervention.
>> There is two things, one, intervention around specific issues, and one is intervention around Government structure and process itself. We need to address both, in thinking through what is the role and function of the gender D.C. in both these things maybe.
>> I want to respond to Ginger's quite important point about the value of mainstreaming. But at the same time, I'm concerned as well because that assumes that everything is okay everywhere in the same way. And it's not.
Secondly, why not have some conflictual models in the IGF? The consensual model fastens out all sorts of powers and equities, claims that we all understand what we are all saying. I actually, Anja have less trouble with, you are speaking into a fairly sort of hostile environment anyway. The point is, when you object and criticize, are you doing something substantial and substantive, or has it become simply a performative ritual? And it's the latter that I don't want to see. I have no problem with us being critical. I don't want to say we should be one big happy family, because we should show that fairness gender issues are diverse and there are conflicts within them. We shouldn't be worried about that.
The point is what have we got actually to show at the moment that is specific to the IGF issues that are raised.
>> To me mainstreaming does not mean that everything is okay. It means we work in every room at every time at every place at every workshop session, and not apart in a different room and not making in-effective statements, but going to the meetings, and I repeat. I found that strategy meeting was great on support, and I've applied that technique to other areas of my life and I find that it works wonders.
Now, everyone around the whole idea of today and this week I think has been saying, don't bring me problems; bring me solutions. I've heard Markus say it, everybody say it. What we need to do is do things like, there is a workshop proposal and they have eight white men from Canada and the United States, we come up with alternative panellists for them or I have a young black woman, you know. My point is we are not pushing specific identities either. We are pushing our good qualified speakers and experts who happen to also be from certain regions and have others, other points of view. We are not going to look for women. We are looking for experts.
Then we propose those people as alternate panellists, rather than just saying, well, that is not a good panel, it is all guys, it's all men.
>> Okay. So this is what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that this is actually one of the proposal of what the Gender Dynamic Coalition could possibly do with the IGF as well, which is to give recommendations of different speakers. Something we have talked about before, and something easy to do, and there is no reason why we are not doing it and we do have to ask ourselves why we can't do something so simple as well. But maybe so that we don't degenerate into a very, a discussion around, a fluid discussion around what hasn't worked and what, I think that is important to learn from stuff that we have, places where we stumbled before to move forward.
I may be even suggesting something quite simplistic to start with, which is a kind of wish list. If we had our way, what would we wish the Gender Dynamic Coalition to be for us? If we can just have a think, and share it, and maybe from there, we are able to figure out then, okay, if this is what we want, how can we take responsibility into making that happen? Is that okay? Yeah?
One minute to think.
>> Before I forget, can I mention one of our big stumbles? As a matter of fact, I almost think we fell flat on our face. Several times the gender coalition has been asked to form a coalition of director women experts for workshops and other events. We have never done it.
>> First I thought I shouldn't say anything because I don't want to criticize everything. But I must admit I also, I have an issue with this, that we have to propose speakers. See, a lot of spaces I've worked in, in the past, that try to be inclusive, set rules. If your workshop doesn't advertise five people and there is more than three of the same gender, it doesn't go. If there is more than three of whatever region, it doesn't go. It is set into stone.
It forces you as organisers to go out and look. I have a problem with the fact that, also if you come from a developing country, that all these people who mostly are based in the West and meet each other in certain spaces all the time, then you have to draw up a list of speakers, and you suggest somebody who is not in those circles, and the big, the reason why they don't want to accept that suggestion is because they don't know that person.
That is always the thing. Then you have to defend endlessly why the person might be good. But I don't meet all these people who hang out together in Washington, D.C.
So I always have to go by somebody else's opinion. Why can't they go by ours sometimes? I think it's more about the, the people organising the workshop have to change their minds. I don't think we should make it our responsibility to do that work for them.
>> GINGER PAQUE: I did not mean to speak . As a matter of fact, I'm here as remote moderator. I'm not supposed to be speaking at all. Tell me to shut up. I'll be quiet. I have real mixed feelings about that.
I want to explain one thing that I learned after years of being angry at my husband and my son because they always left their clothes on the floor, and they could never clean because they never thought the house was dirty.
What I realized is that I have a lower tolerance for dirt than they do. So I start getting irritated and I need the house to be cleaned when they still think it's already clean.
If I want the house cleaner than they want it, I have to do it. They don't even think it's dirty. They can't see the dirt. Now, if there is a situation, we have two problems. We have one of capacity building awareness raising that there is an issue we have to attend, that there is a gender, that this is the most important part, we need to raise their awareness of it, because they should know and they don't.
But if we want the problem fixed, we are going to, whether we should have to fix it or not, we are going to have to fix it. They are not always going to fix it for us.
>> All right. Thank you. One comment, and I'm going to have to stop the conversation here because we could go on and on, okay?
>> I don't quite know how to articulate what I'm feeling. One thing that bothers the crap out of me is that we have to do the remedial work. I don't think we should be doing that. But I don't know how to address that issue, because I don't think we should be going to people and saying, listen, you need to put us on your panels. It should be an automatic space, and maybe that depends on the leadership and people that coordinate this. Maybe we need to push for more progressive individuals who actually take everyone's interest into account. I'm not sure how to do that and who to approach and how to start the fire I guess.
>> Okay. So, in light of that, we are kind of talking about how, but we are not really talking about what do we want yet. Can we have that conversation, and then, yeah, is that okay?
>> Like a wish list. (Chuckles).
One of the thing that I would like to say, when talk about Gender Dynamic Coalition is gender does not just mean only women. It is a mean perspective, mean sensitivity. We need more diversities of the people, diversity of the perspective who is sensitive in these kinds of issue. We have two men in this room, by biology. So we need more kind of like the different angles to talk about gender, what does it mean? Gender is not like women only. We need discussion, how we can bring this kind of issue. I'm new in the area of Internet Governance. I still cannot have much idea how gender can bring into the Internet Governance policies, things like this.
But I think it should be something relevant, pretty much, as right now there are lots of people already living in the online world. We have many women who are already, used to be the professional women, and then when they have the kids, they already have to quit from job, and to be like the full-time mothers. And then how they can exchange their life or have their own social life within the burden or task of to be a mother.
>> Thank you. What I'm hearing is that basically the gender D.C. can be a space to sharpen our analysis and think about what is the lens of gender and how it applies in terms of Internet and IG.
>> I have a question. Are we, does this wish list pertain to what kind of changes we want to see in future conferences? Or the changes we want to see on the ground in our constituencies? Because I personally am interested in talking about what is going on in the societies that we are concerned with, as individuals. Thank you.
>> I think it can be both. I think we are here at the IGF because specifically, we want transformation that is both material and policy-wise. I think depending on where IGF is going in the future, and if more focus is going to be on national and regional IGFs, what is the Gender Dynamic Coalition in this configuration? If the interest is in order to try and motivate or get more women excited or interested in the field of how the Internet is governed, then this is the conversation we need to have.
It's really a wish list. Imagine if you can do anything you like to the gender D.C., what would it be?
>> Instead of having a mailing list, I'd like to have a Web site, where people can actually Google and go there, and so on the next list of participants in the new IGF would come, someone would go browse that list, get the name of the people, and probably E-mail them or let them know what we have actually in details. It would be a good place also to archive and put the videos that happened already on those workshops.
We had two workshops. We can add them little by little. Like that will be available for other women and other places too. Like it's a hub for people to connect. I don't know if it's valid. Just a wish list.
>> Something that bugs me a bit about gender issues is that it becomes a woman's problem. I'd like to see graceful collaboration perhaps almost with youth, generational dialogue, into gender dialogue, something to that effect. Because you know, some people are thrilled there are two men here; I was disappointed. I'd like to see it becoming people's issues as well, that they take it on as their problem too.
>> I've been in these kinds of situations where the gender or the women's hub was the place where all the action was happening, and everyone wanted to be there, because there was energy. There was substantial things going on and it was fun. That is what I'd like to see, including a diversification, more men, more young people, more stakeholders. After all, the Dynamic Coalition, however we might feel about it is by definition all stakeholders.
So more fun, more people. (Chuckles.) More action, or put it on ice.
>> Somebody phrased it nice on Twitter.
>> Someone is twittering now.
>> Somebody is talking, she wrote the gender D.C. is about destabilizing the ways in which the IGF functions, race, region, language, gender. That was Mya. I think that would be great. If we could do that, we would become that space for the hub for fun, the cool people would all converge to that. Did you raise your hand? I didn't see that.
>> That is okay. I was going to right after you.
Actually that is kind of what I've been thinking. That is why I wasn't talking. Otherwise you know I love to talk.
I completely agree, statements about things or trying to get people to see your point of view doesn't really work. It is not only about gender. There is so many things which are, I mean all these things intersect, race, region, language. I feel like this is coming from what you said about the standards that are just put in place at a conference.
Is there a space to be kind of, some kind of vigilantes? Or how do you monitor? This is structural and systemic. You have to have some way in which you can monitor what it is, how it is that the IGF conducts its meetings. There has to be, I don't know, pull a race card, pull a developing country card, pull a gender card. Say that you know, actually, there is so much inequity in it. Fine, maybe some of the suits and techies, whoever, won't get it. But if you can make people feel bad, gender is easily pushed under the carpet, because it's gender. But there has to be some way in which to bring all these concerns to the floor and say it's about representation, and if it is about saying, go out and find the experts, it has to be worked into the system.
Maybe that is, I'd be happy to be part of a system that tries to do that, and say for the next IGF, can we just ensure that the kinds of sessions we have are different? That there is better speakers, representation, women are not -- women are really there. Maybe that is just a start.
We can, yeah, so, is there some strategy? I think doing something, identifying amongst us who are our allies, let's be sneaky, let's be strategic. Let's not necessarily play by the rules, you know. Vigilante.
>> Sneaky, cool, and fun. Can we hear from people who haven't spoken yet maybe?
>> If it was my wish list, to start with, I'd wish to belong to it. Then I was thinking about my experience in another Dynamic Coalition. I went to the one referring the people with disabilities and access to Internet.
They were very organised in terms of the agenda and the debate they are working. They have this conferences on the phone and Skype and things like that. And they interchange and they have meetings in between in order to work with the IGF sessions and workshops and stuff.
Now, I'm not saying that that's a better experience or anything. I'm just sharing my experience. This is the first time I'm on the IGF. I do think that the coalition must persist for many reasons. One of them is because technology and Internet is a masculine field, traditionally this is a masculine field.
I've seen in all the panels that I've been to, that they are usually men. In cloud computing, for example, that I ended up in that session, not only the panellists were men, but also the people who attended the session were all men.
As long as this coalition has a proper involvement, bringing women into these topics, into the panels and into the sessions, you know we get interested as a sex, then we would probably get more participation as a natural process of it. Not because we are putting so many restrictions in terms of the number of people per Se, but because of a natural way of involving women. I don't know if I'm making myself very clear.
So, I do think the coalition must persist, to conclude with. And I think we should work on an agenda, what we, now you, whoever, needs to work on the agenda, of the same, of what is the work to be done within the next year, if the Kenya event happens.
>> Does anyone else like to add anything? Or shall we move on to agenda? Jan.
>> Just to add to what Mya is saying about constructing the space, one thing I hear all the time -- this is only my second IGF -- but the story I heard about what happened at WSIS is a disruption of the physical space. Sometimes you need to be outrageous. You need to occupy space as loudly and publicly, because sometimes if you shout loud enough, people sometimes believe that you actually have influence, whether or not you do. That is what you capitalize on. I think that will also make it fun and strategic.
I think for me as a women's rights activist, that is my strength. Our strength is being unconventional, going into spaces in ways that are not necessarily according to the rules. You make them up, because we know what works. And, yeah, that's it.
>> I think that one, if we want more women on panels and things, then surely the place to start is with us, seeing as most of us are women, and for us to volunteer and ask and say you want to be on panels, because it's true that if you see a panel with women on or you go to a meeting and women are speaking, at least for me that makes me feel more confident to do it myself.
I think one idea would be to find out who it is that has the power in these situations, and to bring that person here to your gender Dynamic Coalition and to educate them about the issues and about why you need more women represented, representation on panels. I think education and awareness building is really important, because apparently, there are lots of issues, although I'm still trying to work out -- I mean, I understand that there are issues in terms of representation and in terms of inequality of access. Personally I'm still really hoping to be a bit more educated about the issues, although I know that is not what you want to use this meeting for.
But maybe someone could tell me afterwards more about it. But I want to know and I'm finding it hard. So there are some people that don't want to know. So you need to go to them and tell them. Thanks.
>> I guess I'm somewhat conflicted about most of the issues here. I should have said I'm also an academic. I write about ethics of technology. With an academic hat on, it seems like the discussion in academia is, what is the most effective way of dividing up a problem? We can see that all issues here may resolve down to human rights issues in a particular way. You can say the human rights coalition should take over all this stuff. But then they work at such a general kind of principle level.
Maybe it might be good to focus on what it is, the real purpose is. Again, a long debate in academia. This is the gender coalition. If it's in fact about women's issues, should it be called women's coalition? Or is it more broadly women's transgender -- but it's a big debate.
And then, my issue with the IGF in general is, it is such a matter sort of event, and a lot of the IGF seems to focus more on the process of the IGF itself, when we are talking about representation of women on panels and that. Should that be a specific focus? I don't know if everyone knows, there is a Web site called geek speaker which is women in technology. There is a resource out there that is specifically for people who want women technologists to speak on panels.
But I guess I'm more interested in the substantive issues. Might have been one of my panels that you alluded to, I proposed a panel on social media and women's voices which is inspired particularly by the use of Twitter by women in elections. For personal reasons I had to withdraw it. But I'm interested in getting down to actual individual issues and looking at the very specific interfaces between technology and gender issues.
From a personal point of view, I did have a strange reaction when I told people that, propose that panel. They looked at me bizarre, like why would a man propose a panel on women's issues? What is wrong with you? (Chuckles.) I'm sorry. It just seemed...(off microphone)
(pause.)
>> (Off microphone) find four or five women (off microphone) not only organise gender (off microphone).
>> (Off microphone).
>> Those of you here for the first time (off microphone).
>> Get with women in technology, somebody in that space (off microphone.)
(Standing by for audio.)
>> You have to go with everything you got (off microphone)
(standing by for audio.)
>> I don't think so. Now, yes, if we want the floor, make an example of it, we could. I would like to go back to something you said. I don't think we, I personally don't think, and I understand that it's something we need to discuss, but I think if we are doing a panel on cloud computing or on, whatever, that we need good panellists to address the issues, and we choose them because we want to be good panellists, and hopefully there will be gender balance, regional balance. But politics are also not a qualifying issue.
I think if it's not about politics, their political leanings aren't --
>> Personal politics, progressive individuals who can speak to issues. See more feminists honestly.
>> If that is the issue, if gender issues is what we are talking about, or whatever the topic is, they should be experts on the topic. If we are talking about how to fix hard drives, their personal politics aren't particularly relevant. I understand that is debatable. I would like to, maybe I don't have time to go into that today.
I also want to address something that you said, which is, you ask are you going to be here next year? I don't think that's fair, because I might not have money. I might not have time. I might be busy. But I can participate by remote participation.
The question is, will this still matter to me next year? Am I still going to be willing to work on it? I don't have to be here. Thank you.
>> Anja.
>> I was going to move on to the next thing already. So unless -- there are still points that wants to be raised. Okay.
>> I want to address the comment about panellists and political orientation. Yeah, I want to address what you were saying about panellists and political orientation, and how relevant their political leanings or political thought is. It is relevant, I think, because we are in a policy Forum after all. We are trying to influence policy.
So you need to reconcile the person's expertise, certain political strength of thought. I think everyone, all of the panellists here have a certain position on policy and the issues that we talk about. I think politics is definitely relevant, as is expertise. But I don't think you can separate those two things in a Forum like this. Thanks.
>> Anyone who is going to speak on hard driving solution has to agree with us on politics?
>> I think what Tamara means and you mean is you need to understand what is the issue really. If you are talking about cloud computing and want to bring in a gender perspective, you need to understand what the hell is cloud computing. You need to understand how to apply a feminist lens or gender analysis into the issue. There is all these things around security, privacy, openness, and how it relates to gender. You need both. It is not an either/or necessarily. Is it okay to stop there in terms of this conversation of representation, or not?
>> Can we continue on the list? I don't think we are going to resolve it today.
>> Sure.
>> We can --
>> I'm tending to be devil's advocate, and more aggressive because I would like to bring out the issues. I don't see this as an animosity.
>> No, me neither.
>> I would like to continue the discussion on the list.
>> Me too.
>> Okay, thanks.
>> That is our next step. Anja.
>> Unless you wanted to -- I have a suggestion for the future. I don't know if that is what you wanted to address in the next, you want to introduce it first, Jac? Or -- thanks for pointing out gender, that we don't have to be here physically to participate, but why I ask the question is just to get a sense of are people willing to do things?
I'm trying to tie together several things that have been said, that comment Mya made about how we should destabilize it. That is what many of us are trying to get at.
The fact that that hasn't been happening in the IGF, it seems to have been happening much more in the WSIS process, which I wasn't part of myself, and where there were many more NGOs and much more excitement and many more creative ideas, many more grass-roots organisations. All of that is missing from the IGF.
I hear a lot of people, if you check blogs, even people in suits and geeks are saying the energy seems to be going out of the IGF, and like something is missing here. I was thinking, maybe we have a real contribution to make here. Maybe this is what the whole IGF needs. Maybe actually we are really important, but it's high time we do what we are good at, which is shake up things in a nonestablishment way.
Then I was thinking of Jan's point that we don't play by the rules normally. My suggestion is that we get out of the Gender Dynamic Coalition phrasing. The Dynamic Coalition's work on the particular pattern, that is a suggestion that, I mean it is part of the IGF as a process. We just get out of that, and make a new group, something like the IG vigilance or something. Give it a slightly creative name. Start from a feminist politics. If all the people want to tie up with us, that is great. If they don't, this is also fine. We try and start a Web site. We have a booth next year, where we, I don't know, play some jazz and do some cool stuff.
Maybe start from a different structure, and through that also think in a different way. With the baggage of the D.C. I'm not sure it's going to happen. It is maybe actually too much in the system. Maybe that has been the problem. That is not where we belong. Let's make our own and do it here.
>> I'd like to see us do just that. I'd like to second that motion that we go underground. I mean it quite seriously. We have a list. We have a viable list, that operates, we go underground. We release ourselves from the straightjacket.
Secondly, I would like to move in turn that perhaps idea about specific topics that can go to workshops that address gender or women, or break it down in some way on specific issues, that this underground organisation now starts to work on those specific kinds of topics, assuming that Nairobi happens. Certainly wherever the IGF is next year, we make contacts with groups, gender, gender related groups in the host country and get them to come in, perform, dance, speak, that sort of thing.
>> This is my first time in the IGF. I'm a person who likes to work with civil society. I'm a big advocate of thinking global and acting local. I feel like the IGF is (off microphone) we need to infuse it more with concrete examples. And we need to create a better connection and make acceptance, we need to create better connection with what is going on on the ground. Otherwise I feel like we are just talking, the ideas, staying in this room, and I just find this extremely frustrating.
So can I suggest that we infuse our discussion and our strategies more, with more local, more diversity, diversity of local issues and try to -- I've lost my train of thought but I think I made my point. Thank you.
>> This is what I'm hearing in terms of action that we would like to take from the conversation earlier. One is to start an online space where they can either continue to have conversations, share information, share resources, as an online space where we can congregate and do things and plan. Two is organise more workshop panels, bring that more range of specific topics, and to -- yeah. Need to get more speakers, organise more workshops, that is very specifically feminist agenda oriented and more technical as well.
The third one, start a small working group that tries to influence the Internet Governance Forum structure from itself. Then interface with other dynamic coalitions more effectively. How to build more knowledge on gender, organise a disruptive action, and break out from the Gender Dynamic Coalition current configuration, and start to organise in a much more, I guess more activist way in that sense.
Forget about multistakeholder, because amongst this I'm not sure if we are anyway. That is kind of my alarm bell. One of the great things about being a Gender Dynamic Coalition is even if we are not present, but if we are organised enough, we can really get other people to be able to participate, to be able to share resources, have this thing going on and stuff, and do something.
Maybe that is not really working out anyway, because that is just dissipating our energy and we are sitting here, trying to hang on to things that we don't capitalize on.
So, yeah.
>> At the moment for us to know. Sorry. We lost -- we still have Armenia. I have an introduction if you want to hear it. The moment passed. We did lose one of our people. We still don't have sound. They are going on the captioning. That is what these guys are doing there. They are working on it.
So let me....she says, my name -- no, sorry. Lost it. I'd like to tell you a little bit more about me. My background is computer science, image recognition and digital signal processing. I was a full time scientist for ten years, full time mother, another ten, full time project manager in IT industry the last ten years. What I want to say is that being a mother doesn't mean being out of society at all. Even more in that case, you have a big influence through your kids in upbringing you are carrying out.
She should have been reading that because she is still there. Since I have a microphone and I keep hogging it, I'll continue my -- there are four members of the remote participation working group here. Three of us are women.
>> I'd like to continue about the structure of the meetings, the schedule, every other things here. If going to believe what is said by people who doesn't recognize or have a perspective on gender image, so there is a possibility that these structures are not so comfortable with us also. So I support the idea of maybe doing something different, like you say, do some drama thing or whatever.
One of the idea that I used to have an experience with, and I think it's interesting, have a meeting, where it's technical, it's about social reason or not. It's format of unconference. I think many of you guys explain this, there is activities going on, called by cam which I think around the world and quite spread out. So the format is like you bring the people that have the same interest in some specific issue, not that so specific, it can be really general. You have a room for them, and have a big wall.
Everybody when they arrive to the venue write down the topic they like to discuss, the issue that they have a concern, and put it on the wall.
After that, everybody who attend, all the participants put something on that piece of paper, and so it's kind of like the topic, maybe top 20 or top 10 got the room to speak of, something like that. I don't know, maybe we can set up Internet Governance Forum, we have an Internet Governance by cam conference. I don't know whether it's possible or not. That is one thing about the structure of the meeting.
Also one of the things, you have to keep a chart. Most of the station only have an hour. Because of the time frame like that, everybody to speak right to the point. There is no time allow for you to repeat the things that everybody already knows about, already have been talking some conversation on the day before. That is one thing.
Another thing is, I'm not sure when you are talking more like going underground, it makes me feeling like world's economic Forum, something like that, ten years ago I think. If there is something like that happens for the next IGF host activities to the Forum. Thanks. There are many interest to report the Forum in some different ways, which I think, for example, the Web site (off microphone) there is a Web site called IGF, but I don't think that is quite actually --
>> Where are we going from here? What are we going to do after this? Where do we want to arrive in the next IGF? We have one quite concrete suggestion of disbanding the Gender Dynamic Coalition.
I don't know how people feel about this, and whether this is something very exciting that you are kind of like let's do this, let's remove all the shackles and do something really exciting and cool and fun, because we are just tired of all these structures. And do we want to do this?
Or, do we, actually, I don't know the next "or," and maybe if I can just remove myself from moderating the next session. And Anja, can you take this forward?
>> Is that strategy to shut me up? (Chuckles).
>> I want to participate now.
>> Can I make one comment or question actually? I want to raise earlier, because you raise this issue of whether we would still get this kind of support and resources. I think we should talk to the Secretariat about that. Why not? If we are saying this structure doesn't work for us but we want to work together, can you please support that? We want to work on IG and make this space better. If we show we are active and we are trying to be constructive. If they don't want to support that, I think that is something to start making a big fuss about actually.
I'm not sure if it wouldn't be there. It seems I'm moderator. Right. What are the questions? Where do we go from here?
>> I have a contribution. First is what we really need to do for the gender issue in the IGF, that is one thing. How do we continue this kind of works, not only come to meeting at IGF, because maybe there need that to be before IGF if you want something like that. For me, I have three kinds of -- one is we need more decision to address about gender issue in the session. Actually like the social media, governance should be one of the issue that can be addressed in the session.
We should try to prepare these kinds of things. Maybe it's for trying to collaborate with some academy who already work on these kinds of study, and bring these kinds of issues, come into the IGF session, IGF Forum. This is one thing.
Another thing is, IGF is Forum compared to, in my experience, so we should (off microphone) let them understand what gender means, not kinda like we are in trouble, but we can make fun. We make the rules because we have the gender links. This is another issue.
We do really need to work on the paper, drafting some paper on what is the Internet governance policy, that the gender issue need to be addressed, and somehow the country proposal, try to advocate the Forum. The activity need to be done before.
>> Let me at this point rephrase the question, because I think there is concerns that something needs to continue. And to know where we need to go from here, the decision we need to make first, do we want to continue with the structure of the Gender Dynamic Coalition or do we want to move into a new structure? Whoever makes an intervention next, please maybe try and make some comment on that as well. Mya wanted to speak.
>> I was actually thinking more about next steps practically, like if you actually want to be able to organise and pull something off for next year, then one of the things that need to be in place can be, take responsibility for things, how do we organise money for it? You know, to really make these things happen, I think, even if there are small little ideas that we have, let's go with them. We are all connected to different organisations. Maybe we can try and work through them. We maybe have spaces within the organisations to say that, even if it means budgets from other places that we can pull in, that is used as much as we can, and how much commitment can we get around the room? Even from people who are outside of this room. I'm thinking more in terms of things like, I'd be happy to be more involved in that.
>> She was asking about commitments. I really don't mind if I can help, if you think it's a good suggestion, if you are okay with it for building the Web sites and collecting the videos and transcripts and putting them on something for this domain. And also my friend was the one organising the remote participation. If you want, I can collaborate with them, see if next year they are going to be organising as well.
Maybe I can help be in the teams that are doing remote participation. Like this we can at least engage people to remotely participate in our next meeting, or at least to forward the questions that are related more to find these topics that get asked remotely because I think maybe next year is going to be in Kenya. I'm not sure how this will be managed. So try to have people not only on panels, but also on the remote moderation, and try to invite people to come to this remotely and all this stuff, especially women in Africa and all those places.
>> We keep the list, so that people who want to have a place to go are on the list, so we can engage, that we check also with the idea of changing our, how do you call it, morphing into another kind of more matrix organisation, call it what you like. We morph into something, we are shape-shifters. If we are going to do that, as long as there is a list, everyone here in this room is on and it generates discussion, and from there we work outwards and downwards into the Forum.
My only concern is for next year, that if we officially disband D.C. as such, whether that delineates a space in terms of how the Forum is organised. Someone might want to check that in terms of the institution. Need we say anything. We just basically morph.
>> I was going to make a similar point about, we can disband and reconstitute without necessarily changing our status, the status that we have within the structure. I don't think that we should fiddle with that too much.
Other points I wanted to make was around the sustainability of the energy here in the new, in our new form. And just to think about that realistically, because we all have, well, for myself we have a lot of other work that is going on, to think quite clearly about what is realistic, yeah.
>> I think to sustain energy, we need to have very clear specific things we want to do for next year. At least can we say we want to be able to organise between us at least four workshops, at least propose four workshops that looks specifically at gender dimensions of specific issues. Just agree on that. That is one thing.
Secondly, maybe we also need to agree on, we want to do something kind of cool, kind of subversive, kind of disruptive in the next IGF, whatever that may be but that is what we want to do. Thirdly, we can say we really want to have a, we want to be able to have more participation of X number of people working on the women's rights issues in the next IGF, whether in Africa, whether it be in the context we work on things we brought here, able to commit to doing. Maybe that will help sustain it. Then we can talk about, so we can continue conversations on the list. We want to have a Web site. We want to have technical issues and so on.
>> I'm making a list, old-fashioned technology. Does everybody want to take part, in this room, with the list we already have to continue this conversation? Yeah.
>> More formal workshops that I think the people are going to come to the workshops a lot of the time will be people that are already maybe more seeing things in that way. I personally love the idea of getting a booth because that way you can have someone on it during each of the sessions. You can have stuff to pull people in. I don't know, cookies or something stupid. But you can stop people that pass and you can force them, you can have let's say, four issues that you have a little pamphlet about each one that you explain why a gender, a gender lens on that issue is important. You can stop the people that pass. You can stop, I don't know, the director of ICANN, who is unlikely, unfortunately, to come to the one of the workshops, and you can explain to him why it's important. Anyway, that's my...
>> To respond to that, make a concrete commitment in terms of what we will do, we will come up with two fact sheets, one on violence against women in ICT and one against sexuality in ICTs, that we can definitely do.
>> Violence against women, working in ICTs.
>> A little bit like the session we had this morning, looking at the interconnection between violence against women and Internet governance issues.
>> I put myself on the list. I want to add to all these suggestions, also still small working group to influence process. I don't depend I guess on whether people are able to go to private meetings at all, but I think if all this other energy is there, it is good that we also still think about how does this space organise itself, and how from a feminist perspective can we intervene in that, and what be changed in that. I'm happy to commit to that working group.
Jac as well. We can do a round later of what each and every person thinks they might be particularly interested in or keen on. Something I was discussing earlier with Mya as well as, the thing I notice this year as well, I proposed a workshop that wanted to look at issues of openness, specifically from an activist perspective. Of course we were asked to merge with another workshop. That is another thing I notice that if you propose topics that are politically fairly new on the agenda, then this push for you to merge and basically merge you into oblivion until you don't exist, I call it. I was thinking what we did last year, so the workshop on Monday, Tuesday, was proposed by ALF, CIS, APC. Next year what we should maybe all do is submit proposals separately, so that we don't have four proposals, but we effectively have say 12.
We know beforehand that we will probably merge, which is all fine, because we will all have discussed all these proposals together. Actually this shouldn't go in the transcript. (Chuckles).
You know... (Chuckles).
But you all get the picture, no? So but that we, effectively will have four, rather than being told that we suggest four and they are all related, so they will say, the gender workshops can go into one because we don't have enough slots. The other thing, Tamara's point about having more connections with reality outside of the IGF is very important.
I've never been to Kenya, but from what I understand, it has a very vibrant civil society. And so another thing maybe we should think of is if we are going to do all this version next year, maybe we should start working now on building connections with people there, and that will be interesting for us as well. And kind of build on that, to use those spaces in a different way. So it's also not just us. I don't know if anybody has connections though. APC might.
For the moment, so I think that what we have decided is for now we will leave the structure as it is. At some point, we might want to give ourselves a different name. But we will keep that spot within the structure anyways. And the concrete proposals we have on the table are at least for workshops, some kind of subversion and lead to a booth or some kind of permanent presence. More participation, so that we have to think of the working group, and then cite the larger issues to support that on our Web site and E-mail list. Are there other proposals on the table right now?
>> Remote participation, a link in, for coming from our remote participants and encourage them to take part. We are thinking still very physically on site.
>> Basically, that means prepare remote participation as well.
>> Yes, I think generate that energy from outside, because that is, many women cannot get here for all sorts of obvious reasons, and others.
>> The last one was this building coalitions with people on the ground, at least in places where IGF is taking place.
>> Just one small favor, if I'm here, if I'm not here next year, do not have a booth with cookies. Can you please have like a big fashion, because guys don't, are not really comfortable with fashion. Women are really good with fashion. Maybe we can do this geek fashion booth where people will stop and there will be interesting stuff. But please, not do something traditional. Sorry, I don't want to sound ugly. But please no cookies! (Chuckles).
Personal opinion.
>> I'm terribly comfortable with fashion actually. (Chuckles).
>> Many geeks are not really.
>> I don't know if this will be any effect whatsoever, but the workshops on the Web site, quite early, look at them, workshop after workshop and doesn't look like there is a single female name there, write to Markus and say, what is going on here?
(Pause)
>> If that is it for now, can we do a small round, and because I would really like to put down names.
(Chuckles.)
So that we can chase you up and make sure all of this gets done.
That doesn't mean of course you are responsible for this alone. But if this is something to start working with, and then first of all, announce it on the list, and see whether we can get more people involved in that.
And then, hopefully also look around more, and see who else wants to get involved.
I do think, even from people like the communication rights movements which was very active there are people who want to get involved in stuff, but don't see a space for them in the IGF as it exists.
I'm hoping that if we really manage to put our energies into this, we might actually be able to energize some of those people again as well. Mary Ann, can I start with you?
>> This is a tech issue. Can I break in? I would like to get on the transcript that the people that are on remote, please chat to me, if they can hear the sound now. You are reading it or you are hearing me, would you please let me know which? Thank you.
>> If the people on remote can also say if they are interested in getting involved in any of this stuff, and in what, that would be great. Is that an okay proposal for everybody? Have a think about what you might want to get involved in.
>> I'm looking at you, Brit. Yeah, hi.
>> I'm not.
>> What is your name again?
>> Ren.
>> Sorry, excuse me, Ren.
>> I'm interested in thinking, willing to have a look at some forms of cyber performance on line, bringing in screening in, anime'. I'd like to liaise with anyone in the group who has ideas who we can contact, who might want to be involved in a booth that has a screen.
>> Things like women in games, welcome liaise with things like the women in games booth which is a group, if you want things like create bandwidth (off microphone) groups such as that already.
>> I've got one, we can, liaise on. Brilliant.
>> Ginger?
>> Sorry, I've been trying to solve this problem for the remote. You are looking for commitments on what we are going to move forward on?
>> If there is any of the things we have discussed so far that you say yes, I wouldn't mind taking up responsibility or being part of an effort to do this. That was the idea. You want to come back at the end maybe?
>> Actually I need to come back in about a month on all this. After I'm the new coordinator of the governance caucus and I'm off.
>> That is fine then. Next person.
>> One thing that I can contribute now together with all the people is, maybe can do a survey, short survey, with questions to those participants outside of this room about what they think about their participation, how they feel about all the kinds of conversations so far in this IGF 10. Also, I don't know, think about it, gender issues or prospective process, interviews for (off microphone).
>> Commitments regarding Web site, putting stuff on line and helping remote participation, spreading the word, so we get interesting participation.
>> In terms of trying to mobilize the women's programme (off microphone) rights and communication (off microphone) as Jac said there are two fact sheets, and also people who are participating in our violence against women and ICT project.
>> Clarification, the last bit, you mean mobilizing people who are already in the project to come into this space as well.
>> Yeah, because for the 12 country project, they are working particularly around A.C.T. policy and violence against women and advocates who would both benefit from being in the space and also be able to contribute and shift the space.
>> Happy to be part of the general sneaky brainstorming thinking group, see what we can do, handling the mailing list. And also to meet people through (off microphone) has articles already and how gender policy intersects and also lead people to the tech.net campaign site which has information around gender definition of ICT and feminist approach to it.
I'm also starting to think, how can we also mobilize campaigners to be more active and more interesting at the next IGF.
>> How to mobilize campaigners, people.
>> Yes, people.
>> I'll do one also.
>> You will work with Mary Ann on this subversive booth.
>> Something around the formative.
>> For the next IGF.
>> Yes, definitely I'm going.
>> I think I will continue for the discussion in my countries about an agenda, explore more, as we already did get interesting ideas. The identity, gender identity to the Internet that people already have experience with, that is one issue that maybe -- trying to think about probably there are some kind of gender study regarding to the ICT thing, try to think about how we can come up with things like the knowledge of these issue in my country. That is one thing.
And for the next IGF, I'm not sure I will go or not. If not, I will like to do a remote participation contribution from there.
>> Not exactly sure, but I'm thinking something along the lines of, I'd like to sort of keep my ear on the pulse of gender ICT issues in the South African region and maybe try to maintain a channel of communication between the issues over there and this committee.
>> For myself, I'm going to do a lot of research and reading, because I still have many questions. I would be very excited to be part of a group working on the booth.
>> Hi. I think my contribution could be (off microphone) for next year. Mailing list, I can (off microphone) also to provide communication between Latin America and Mexico in particular, bring some issues and make some contributions to the general IT.
>> I'd also like to support writing proposals and suggestions for panels, things like that. I was also thinking about other communities that, like the open source community is quite big and strong. There are links, they are men but it's also, there are also women. It has also got certain kind of perspective in politics which is often sometimes at odds with more establishmentarian policy making governments etcetera. That is a group which came to mind when saying representation, kind of discussions. They are a group of people who also have skills and also have engagement and stake.
I have no connections myself, except through friend. But I'd be happy to kind of be part of trying to look at what kind of other connections exist locally. Who are the other kinds of people, like communication rights activists to bring, there are also people who may work on technology, media communications, but don't see themselves in the policy arena.
Are there side events that can be organized along with it? We know somebody is going to do a by cam or tech related things in, how do you leverage and negotiate for them to say can you do it one day or one week before the IGF or one week after, so there is sort of an environment there where there is different groups of people with related, working in related areas, who show up. At least as a buzz being generated around, even in the City of Nairobi for example or whatever it is, some more sort of things like that, getting other kind of NGO people involved or communication rights people involved, helping them see why it's important, and trying to say that, can you have an idea for a panel or if you need money for it but what are the ways in which one can facilitate that? I'd like to do that brainstorming or help facilitate.
>> My personal capacity, I'd also be happy to be part of that working group, that also tries to keep an eye on the whole process, as well as think through of it more maybe places in the agenda, where we can strategically intervene in terms of topics, new things. Also myself, a note we are looking fore for more people who can work on these issues and bring that together. It is great to hear this. This is a lot of people looking at mobilization which is important and people who want to work on a more visible creative presence. People who want to work on panels, process. Then of course the Web site.
So I think that there is an awful lot here. I'll write up my notes, and of this second bit of the session and send to the E-mail list what we discussed, and invite others to also indicate where they would join. I will also request that the people who have taken up responsibility for something kind of, some things, certain things we have to start working on earlier than others.
But I think it's good if people think about what they want to do when. So we start that conversation also on the list. And preferably very soon, because say for instance the Web site, I think it's great if we can get that up in not too, not in a perfect way or something but if we can get something up and running, those keep the buzz going and keeps us going.
>> She said (off microphone) gender IT she is pointing there are many resources there. Before you made your intervention, I was going to ask if you think we don't need to put new stuff, if there is a place already. That is what I was going to say before she said about the Web site.
Regarding how soon I can put the Web site on line, I can make a commitment to put it in, like within a week, if you do the design stuff, it is easy to put.
>> I want to make sure we are not building unnecessary stuff, because if there is already a place for it, let's use it. If there is no place for it, or if you think we need to have a separate identity for it, let it be. Just making sure that we are not duplicating stuff and let's reuse stuff. Okay.
>> I would actually recommend, it's fine. I think the spaces is there and we talked about using genderit.org as well. It is a gender and ICT policy Web site. It has a lot of resources. I would recommend more of a social networking space for us, so that it's more informal. It is more dynamic. It is more discussion-based.
And at any content available can always be pulled. But I am actually more recommending more of a social networking kind of space, I think.
>> The manager buzz me and ask me to convey the following. She said that she followed the meeting and is all for subverting space through activist action, and to remind you in WSIS, one of the most effective strategies was the T-shirt campaign where they wore T-shirts with the gender paragraph, and people paid attention and referred to the paragraph on the tiny T-shirts. She said Government delegates supported the paragraph on the T-shirts. And yes, a social networking space rather than Web sites.
>> A process practical question, Jac, can we get a clear time line about submissions and dates? Because I know I dropped the ball last year. I lost track of when things have to be submitted and stuff. Can we have that coming on repeatedly so that people don't forget? In terms of organisation and getting things together to submit.
>> Actually the E-mails from the IG Secretariat goes to our mailing list. So it doesn't also necessarily have to go through me but yeah, for sure. I don't know the dates offhand.
>> I don't think they have been fixed yet, because we don't even know yet strictly speaking whether there will be an IGF next year. It depends on the date of the IGF also, when the planning meetings are and when deadlines will be. But I do think it's still a valid remark in the sense that maybe that is one thing that this working group can keep an eye on, that we think of strategic timings for intervening in the process, in that sense.
I do think it's good if people in the group every now and then generate a buzz about it also apart from the formal E-mails from the Secretariat saying that you can now submit workshops, etcetera, etcetera.
About the question of the Web site, for me, one issue with gender IT and take back the tack is that the ownership as far as I'm concerned clearly lies with APC. If we really want to broaden work in this space, I think we need to have a space where we can go beyond that.
Obviously, I mean, to start with definitely whether we have a Web site or more social networking kind of thing, we should link to those resources because they are fantastically important. But I think one reason why it has never taken off is, I mean the connection between the gender D.C. and say gender IT is because of this reason, that it's, it has an identity, which is already clearly defined and associated with a particular network. We are kind of trying to go beyond that.
I think linking is good. But I wouldn't collapse them. I think that is important.
>> Right. Any more comments?
>> For the next IGF, if we would like to have more energies in the IGF, we need, we really need to connect to the local women organisation at the local level, to get them more, because as the numbers of the women right activists who engage in the IGF itself is not enough to create a fun space or intervention that more. And also have to work quite heavily in other sessions to address so we need a colleague to link with local organisation who, concerns on the women issue or gender issue. I think in Kenya probably it should be start from that, and bring them into the IGF.
>> That is a very true, so any more comments for now?
>> One last comment. We need to set a date for the next time we are going to check in and where. That's it.
>> If we do it on the E-mail list, say I send out a message by the end of next week. I'm traveling until then. I don't want to make commitments before that. People try to reply within a week. Take it from there. Or do you want something more beyond that?
>> That's fine.
>> Is everybody here on the list already? No?
Can we just add you? Since we have collected the E-mail addresses. Is there anybody who doesn't want to be added? You want to be included. Okay.
We will do that. I hope, I mean, I know that if I sent that message and you guys respond, there is traffic on the list, things will take off. I think the main thing now for all of us is to just keep the responsibility that when the message comes, please reply, even if it's just a very short message saying, I don't think that what I want to do can start within the next three months. But I'll check back with you in January or something. So we have something to follow up on. Then we know when we can get back to you and say, hey, it's January. Any ideas? What's the buzz?
If we do that, I'm sure that other people on the list, because I think there is actually quite a few people on the list, will get energized as well.
I hope that is a commitment all of us can make.
Any more comments for now? Jac, why don't you finally wrap up the session then.
>> I can passionately say this is one of the most exciting energizing gender D.C. meeting I've ever been. Thank you very much, everyone! I sincerely hope we will rock the next IGF sincerely.
>> I second that. Thank you, everybody.
(End of session)
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