The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Welcome, everyone, to the annual DC-SIDS -- all right -- welcome to the annual SIDS. All right. Welcome to the annual Dynamic Coalition on Small Island Developing States.
As you know, for those who are looking it is mostly an online session but I'm happy to report there are actually folks in the room who actually joined us today. My name is Tracy Hacksaw. I'm one of the quo chairs of the DC-SIDS as we all yourselves. To my left we actually have Maureen in person and on site after a very long online version of Maureen. So Maureen is here. Welcome, Maureen. In the room today, we have some colleagues from I think mostly the Caribbeans. I'm seeing Taylor from the CTU and Erin. I believe that is what you are representing today. I'm seeing Nile Harper who is Caribbean by not sure citizen but man of the world now. I'm seeing Nia from the CTU. Welcome, Caribbean folks.
Seeing a lot of guests coming in and seeing some Rapporteurs from the youth Ambassadors who tried to meet me and I only met one. Welcome, Daniel and Temilade Adelakun and Nana Ama Yeboah Addo who wanted to see me. Welcome everyone. Welcome Nigel the deputy from the CTU. Join us in the discussion as we begin. Without further ado as I have been talking for some time people join, let's toss to Rodney Taylor from the Caribbean telecoms union to give us a brief update what is going on in the space in the internet governance internet governance space and. I hope our Keiths at home are awake and if not they will watch it on the recording. Welcome.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Good afternoon, morn, night. Pleased to be a part of this discussion today and I think it is a very important one. And I'm as pointed out rodly Taylor, Secretary General Caribbean Telecommunications Union. We are an intergovernmental organization based in the Caribbean. Dealing with the ICT policy development and Internet Governance and so on.
We have -- since I have been SG for just about two and a half approaching three years, and I think one of the innings I have -- things I have south to do is strengthen the relationship in the region and raise the level in the spaces generally. Even though we talk about Small Island Developing States, it is not necessarily one homobetweenous group. There is a diverse country. Diversity of language and cultures and diversity of economies.
We have some of the Member States are based on oil and gas. Most are based on tourism, of course. And so there is a diverse when we talk about SIDS even though we try to build the coalition there is significant diversity. Of course, there is significant strength as well. I think the UN recognises about 38. And with any international process represents a strong number. In particular, if there is coordination on foreign policy issues or internet governance issues for ICT policy issues within spaces like the IT. And in fact, last year what we sought to do in the IT conference to, first of all, take a strong Caribbean delegation and collaborate with brothers and sisters in the patch island -- Pacific islands and so on to support the leadership positions and upcoming positions on the proposals that went forward through the ITU process. We have been seeking to could the same thing in other spaces like ICANN for example and we have been instrumental into getting ICANN into the corporation to assign names and numbers to actually initiate a study on the participation of Small Island Developing States within ICANN because we believe there is room for improvement, let me put it that way in terms of how we engage.
The sheer volume in ICANN and other international organizations makes it difficult to track all of the processes from the Small Island Developing States perspective because you only have so many people. Last year we helded first Small Island Developing States Internet Governance Forum and had high level representation including the UN tech envoy, Amandi. And we were pleased to be able to execute that. I believe it is recognized as an NRI even though SIDS is not a geographic region but we were pleased with that recognition. And even hosting that had its own challenges in terms of the differences in sometime zone. We tried to hold not as two separate events, Pacific and Caribbean but as one homogeneous event and the challenges with getting up early or staying up late just so have one conversation together, of course, was challenging.
We are pretty much involved in the GDC process. We made contributions in that process and some of the deep dives you may be familiar with. We made statements and in particular emphasized the needs for SIDS to be given special consideration as we go towards the summit of the future that we do have a unique perspective. We are limited in size and resources and therefore we may not be able to actively participate as some of the bigger economies, but we do have a voice and we are looking towards the SIDS 4 which takes place, a UN summit on Small Island Developing States which actually takes place in one of our Member States, Antigua next year and we have been advocating for governance on digit tal policies. Ideally we would love to have an IGF within that SIDS 4 space. I will stop there for now. I think those are just to give you an overview of where we are and what we are thinking and what we have done. I would say we would really celebrate the collaboration last year for the SIDS IGF for the work we have been doing within ITU and within ICANN. But we think certainly there is room for improvement. Thank you.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much, Rodney. Before we move on to the Pacific, I want to acknowledge my Caribbean colleagues in the room and we want to -- that may want to add anything to what Rodney has said. So perhaps you may want to say anything? Anything to add? Not at this time? Any one else would like to add anything before we move on to the Caribbean side of life? No? Without further ado, Maureen, from the Cook Island in the Pacific. And let's get the Pacific updates. Thanks.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thank you. Thanks, Tracy and thank you, so much, Rodney, for that introduction.
And what I would like to do at this particular point in time is first of all, I -- thank you all for coming to this session. But it is really pleasing for me as Tracy mentioned I was here for the 2008. At the IGF for the 2018 launch of the DC-SIDS and then decided to go remote for the rest of the time. And so this is my first time back and I'm really pleased to be here.
But I would like to introduce there has been some interesting things happening within the Pacific region and I'm very pleased to be able to say that I have some people on the Zoom call who are going to report on some of the things that have been happening with regards to the Pacific IGF, which is something that, you know, we had tried to sort of like coordinate something with the Caribbean in this respect but there was something happening within our region so we continued with that and I have an Andrew Molivurae Mo is the president president of the Pacific island chapter of the PacIGF side of things and he will report. And Cherie Lagakali has been involved in cybersecurity issues in the Pacific. And I did have -- have got another member of our community, Pua Hunter hoe is the director of ICT in the Cook Island and has said that she would rather just follow the discussion and she will join in when she can. But, first of all, let me introduce you to Andrew and he will give a brief introinto what happened at the PacIGF. And.
>> ANDREW MOLIVURAE: Thank you, Maureen. Checking the audio. Am I audible to someone? Thank you. Thank you to Maureen and Tracy for organizinged session so we can chip from from the Pacific. My name a Andrew and I currently chair the Pacific IGF which is being hosted by the Pacific island chapter of the Internet society. And Pacific IGF is not new. We have had I think this year we have the fifth Pacific IGF that we are having firstly.
The last one that we had was the one before this year was in -- was held in sort of a hybrid mode where we had online sessions but still did have the islands have their own hubs so it was a different way of doing it, but it was a good session in 2021 where we have probably seven hubs.
Then with the, you know, online community. It was held in parallel with TLD, the first -- when we got that support. And this year, it was the first time again after COVID that we were able to host this face to face this Brisbane in back-to-back to APR and (?) which is the Australian IGF. It was a great session. We had two days sessions where we discussed emerging issues like emerging technologies, and AI and GP chat and crypto currency and went on to discuss the meaningful connectivity within different island states and how this -- the states -- whether or not each state has a policy, access policy that we were seeing. So we are seeing a lot of differences there from different islands.
And then we added some discussions on the digital skills. And that leads to the legal frameworks in in there we can see a lot of improvements since the last few years. A few of the countries have already enacted laws on cybersecurity which is a -- what was really a good sign that we have seen.
And then we had sort of the sessions, sessions, we ended the meeting with a look at the opportunities that we have in the Pacific. How we can sort of come together, progress together to make sure that we lift the sort of the whole Pacific, you know, level of security, cybersecurity and legislations and, you know, that Level just sort of uniform level where as we can be seen as a region that has some strides in especially to do with their own, you know, Internet-related legal frameworks.
So that was basically what we had this year. And it was supported by dot IU or IU dot and Internet and ICANN and APTLD and we also had IGF, yes. We had some support from IGF as well. So it was a good session. Those who were there, and Maureen was there and a few others, it was a good session. But also it was a stepping stone for the next IGF that we are going to have. Hopefully to have another IGF, but this one has put us sort of in another level with recognition from, you know, IGF.
So the link is there. Unfortunately, we have not had the chairs nationally in our islands. We have one from (?) it is still there, starting to get on its feet. But for other islands, we do have -- when this regional sort of IGF plays a key role for Pacific islands. So Maureen, I think I will have to stop there for now. Thank you.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thanks, thank you very much. Andrew. One of the things that he mentioned was, of course, a cybersecurity. And Cherie Lagakali is actually talking a very interesting discussion on sort of disaster management and I would like her to just explain very briefly whatter is session was about. And over to you.
>> CHERIE LAGAKALI: Thanks, Maureen. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me clearly?
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Yes.
>> CHERIE LAGAKALI: Awesome. I probably I wanted to -- well, I wanted to sit back and listen but there was some important updates that I thought were worth mentioning from the region. The session I had at the APR IGF together with the BFCE we worked to speak about stories from the Pacific in terms of the human side. When there is an incident in the region and then in the case of Tonga's most recent incident, what happened and the communities were affect and who were expected to be affect and how did they handle it and really came down to whether this were standard operating procedures in place on how they should be able to handle it. And where did they get the kind of assistance from. And then this session we did it in collaboration with the guys that are doing the Best Practice forum on cybersecurity for the IGF. Right now there is a project working group working on ransomware stories from around the world and we have been feeding in the stories from the Pacific where at the IGF session we had a story about Tonga and the ransomware and also a little bit when ha happened in Fiji in the middle of COVID-19. Right after that, last week the global forum on cyber expertise Pacific hub launched in Nandi. On a Pacific cyber building and coordination conference.
That was hosted by the GFC hub and the security centre and partners of the blue Pacific where we realized that there is in fact an oversaturationion of capacity building efforts in the region and might be time to sit down and coordinate better to avoid duplication and also to in the context of the region how can capacity building efforts be delivered. A lot of times there are template based solutions a lot of times just because it worked in the U.S. or UK doesn't mean it will work the same way in the Pacific and taking into consideration the Pacific culture at this capacity building conference last week we had 22 differentiated countries represented. There was 15. And marshal islands represented and we are looking at a coordinated approach with a regional agenda which we are putting together to feed into the global capacity building conference held in Ghana later in October. And with the support of working together with the Pacific island forum because the head of leaders meeting is also coming up in November.
Everything is doing around the same thing and facing the same issues and how can we learn to work together. And another note, I joined (?) and this is part of a project in the Pacific which will be delivering capacity cyber safety materials to seven Pacific island countries. And so there is a conference in October where we have fellows coming from the a Pacific island countries to come and sit down and discuss how exactly this content can be delivered based on the needs of the Pacific island countries.
With that, I will stop for now, Maureen. If there is any questions, I will probably leave it for later. Thanks.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thanks a lot, Cherie. And if the others can contribute to the discussion so like later on in the thing. If I can just carry on.
You know, I -- first of all, I, you know, we have Rodney up here and you know, I would just like to add my thanks to Rodney and Nigel and the CTU team for the continued support and involvement in the activities of our coalition. And more, especially for embracing and nurturing the interests of Pacific and other SIDS within the support that they already give to the Caribbean and we are really, really grateful for this.
But looking at our topic today, one of the things, you know, we are pretty much aware like one of our topic is, of course, sort of like how can we as a coalition sort of like be more effective in the way we can communicate with each other and support each other. And we are actually sort of like looking at sort of like developing some kind of platform which would be useful for us. And we are already aware there are a number of platforms that are provided for community groups such as the UNDP SIDS community which focuses on climate change. The commonwealth of learning which looks at sort of courses to support SIDS and their education and development of their development goals.
But DC-SIDS looks at things a lot more broadly in a wider context in the Internet economy. And meeting the more global needs of our coalition which will actually encourage us to maintain personal connections with each other and build that global community that we are actually trying to build within -- with SIDS across the -- across the world.
And just to start off with -- start off things, if a personal perspective, I had two key takeaways from my experiences during this year. I thought it would help to start some conversations between you and us about what we might do. And firstly, I'm not quite sure if many of you attended any of the virtual island summit sessions that were organized recently by island innovation.
And they were -- I mean there were participants from SIDS all over. Unfortunately the timing is never right for the Pacific. And so I was only able to capture one session which really interested me. And it was a session on preparing young people for work in an island context.
And what interested me and pleased me, of course, was the fact that there were Caribbean participants and there was Trinidad and Tobago and Orlando Hewitt from Barbados. And I was sharing their educational programmes with, you know, other SIDS from around the world. And this is an example of what we, too, could be sharing more regularly in our own DC communities. I think that this is something that we could be building on.
But my second takeaway was from the beginning of the year when I took part in an E-learning course on digital identity for trade and development which was specifically created for SIDS by the United Nations conference on trade and development.
By the way, they also have a new course coming up on legislation for anyone who is interested. But for this particular course, and while only half of the enrolled participants actually completed the course, 70% of the graduates were from the Pacific and the Caribbean regions. 60% were women. And I have to mention the big successes. Sorry. Which came from Trinidad and Tobago where 33 out of the 39 people actually enrolled actually completed the course. And Grenada where 14 out of 17 participants actually completed the course. And amazing. And understandable result when you sort of know what sort of like support they get within the region.
And although like the Pacific and African SIDS, you know, also had their successes, I just couldn't help but think that there could have been ways in which we as a community of SIDS could have actually sort of like supported each other a little bit more and probably had a little bit more success from other SIDS groups.
Especially as this was a free and very valuable course, but also especially for those of us who are actually involved in digital transformation in our regions. But for this reason, we definitely need a model of platform that is owned and operated by us. The people who use it. And I envisage a -- and I saw this platform cooperativism but business model and creating a more Democratic digital economy. This is the reason that we are here today (?) and that is to hear your ideas how we can best progress the coalition goal.
So, Tracy, I'm going to pass it back to you because you can work with the audience and with these guys online. Thanks.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks, Maureen. That was an excellent segue to the actual topic of what we are doing today which is the addressing the challenges that we face as SIDS trying to get a digital platform up and running. And that platform could be either a solution of some sort, but more likely a sustainable moving very organic environment that we could really work with. To kick it all off I'm going to call upon my colleague from UNESCO, if I pronounce it correctly. Did I do okay? All right. UNESCO has been working on universality in the (?) and this year, UNESCO has been working with some Pacific SIDSs in doing some of this work. Make you could help us along the lines of trying to figure out what we can do, if UNESCO has anything available or what they have been doing in the SIDS so you can give us a quick report on that and maybe some discussions as to what we can do on the digital platform. Join us here if it is easier or you can go to the mic. Whichever you think is -- all right. Grab -- grab this one.
>> Thank you very much. Everyone. I'm actually very happy to hear more about this Dynamic Coalition and to find out more about what you are doing. Many things are new to me. We have been working on SIDS for a very long time, but this particular initiative of Internet universality have been kicked off in the past few years.
So basically -- yes? Sorry. Sorry. Is this good? Yeah? So the idea of Internet universality. So this is the Internet universal is the position of UNESCO on the Internet, the official position which is Internet should be based on the principles of human rights. It should be open to all. Accessible to all. And nurtured by multistakeholder participation and address cross cutting issues such as gender equality, safety and security online, environment and Sustainable Development Goal. We call it roam X and Simon is the technical advisor to UNESCO who is coordinating the project in south Pacific SIDS. This is a holistic tool which helps states or stakeholders who want to do a voluntary assessment of the Internet development at the national level. And I highlight voluntarily because it is owned by the national stakeholders and UNESCO is there to provide guidance and support.
So they use this framework which consists of 303 indicators which sounds a lot. But the idea is to make sure we have 109 core indicators which frame the -- form the basis of this work. And then this additional indicators to make sure that the national context is taken into consideration and the national stakeholders take it and use it according to their context.
So then the assessments of Internet development is done based on this indicators and principles. And then this helps the country really form an idea, map, first of all, the policies out there. The opportunities, challenges and area of improvement. And formulate actionable policy recommendations for all stakeholders concerned on how to move forward and how to improve.
So I should highlight also the process. The process is based on multistakeholder participation. So at the outset, states who carry out this assessments, they form a multistakeholder Advisory Group consisting of the ministries, relevant ministries, Civil Society organizations, international organizations, academia, private sector and all possible relevant stakeholders who guide the process and who participate in the process. So it is the really participatory process. And in the end, they come together to sort of validate what we call a validation workshop, the results of the report to really make sure that and confirm that everybody's voice is heard and the areas concerned to their area of expertise are truly reflected in the report. And we open the multistakeholder continues the work an cascade the recommendations which are formulated from these reports. So we had very excellent results.
So the project is ongoing from 34 countries with six countries having already published it. And what is unique if about this process is that it is not only relevant for developing countries, SIDS, it is relevant for all countries. We have countries like Germany who did it and published it. And it was presented in their national parliament and reflected in the national policies. We have it from Africa, is a country -- 15 countries in Africa and in Latin America and Caribbean one in Dominican Republic and 12 in south Asia and the Pacific. So they really help inform the policy and we had, for example, results reflected in digital strategies of a country.
Or helping inform the laws and regulations. Now, specifically on SIDS as I mentioned, we have it -- we launched it in February in Dominican Republic and Cape Verde has already finalized the report and it is in the process of publication and we launched it in the south Pacific in five country. Solomon Island, Tonga, Fiji. So the process is ongoing. And if Simon would like to later on add, so the idea is that what is really great also about this project in the south Pacific now that it is a project that covers diverse areas. And it's implemented by seven UN agencies. And the idea is to support the economic diversification in these islands. Especially working in the areas which were hardest hit after the COVID. And the idea would be actually also to address different components including you mentioned that there was training for youth to prepare them for work. So actually, this project has a target audience or beneficiaries of youth, women, and marginalized groups. And part of this project will be actually supporting and creating job markets.
And also providing training for various stakeholders. So this is, for example, part which ALO will do and from our side we will support the islands by mapping the digital policies and putting forward policy recommendations. And for example, the other UNESCO section, for example, would help to digitalize music industry which based on our assessment was one of the hardest hit which digitalization of these interests, industry would help to address various needs and support the economic diversification process.
This is in a nutshell. And we would be very happy to cooperate if you see any areas, assessments are ongoing in the Dominican Republic and five states, Cape Verde is now finalized but it is a process that will continue and we will be happy to welcome any contributions and we would be very happy to cascade it in more states. Thank you very much.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much.. Well, I think we will accept that offer from UNESCO of cooperation. And building this collaboration environment. I think it is a good starting point and I think we can reach out to you afterwards and see how best we can collaborate because Kass you know, we have a good metric of the sense and those people that are doing the work in the region, especially on the ground. So I think that is a very good starting point. Let's definitely, I'm glad you came today. Appreciate it. And let's work together and see what we can do to make this happen.
So on this overall topic of collaboration, and working on this platform, as you -- as we mentioned before, as Maureen hinted at earlier as well, SIDS idea is supposed to be sort of an ongoing thing. So it is not h an event. It is a collaboration environment such as what the IGF is supposed to be. In between events, things are supposed to be happening and you can use digital platforms to make it work. As I said, we were thinking instead of limiting ourselves with just events we need to find a way to not a circling around date of two days a year and if it doesn't happen what happens. We want to make sure that we keep that moving. So I know that my colleague to my right SG Rodney Taylor has a lot of details on this. I will put it back to him for some thinking on this. I believe he is going to speak about what has been going on with the Caribbean IGF and how that has been evolving and I think he may have some ideas what may happen in the region next year as there is a conference coming up. A UN conference on SIDS. And the opportunity to do some work leading up to that.
So let me pass to you, SG Taylor and see what kind of work for your ideas. Thanks.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Thanks again. It would be remiss of me if I didn't say that well, this year we had the 19th IGF and it is the longest running IGF in the world. And next year we celebrate 20. So Nigel has been, you know, one of the Stallworths and one of the chief resource persons behind the CIGF. And, of course, it is an event, yes.
And a lot of things happen around events. Of course, there is an opportunity to raise the profile of the discussions. You get a lot of media attention. You know, you kind of work towards it. The good thing about ours, though, is that we have been able to develop a policy framework so coming out of the process, rather than just talking about topics, we continue -- we use the CIGF as a platform for continued engagement with the community but also to update that policy framework which gives guidance to Member States on things like establishments was IXPs and cybersecurity policies and IPv6 addressing and so on. I think -- what is the version, Nigel?
>> AUDIENCE: 4.0 is coming out this year.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: We will be update together 4.0 this quarter. A number of topics were introduced this year. We had high level representation again from the UN tech envoy. We had traditional support that we always get from Maureen, our good colleague mere. And we have Inor here is as well from the same organization. We had support as always from the ICANN, Mr. Albert Daniels who is the senior stakeholder engagement manager.
(?) who has since moved on from ISOC but ISOC has been a Stallworth supporters and Kevin swift, the head of public affairs for Latnig also spoke, a we don't take for granted that the stakeholders, we try to encourage new stakeholders in fact to come so we go back to what is internet governance and why is it important to the Caribbean? In fact, this we are we use as we did last year used a social media influencer again because he wanted to broaden the appeal. We don't want to be speaking to the same audience year after year but we want young people involved, new people involved to bring wider perspectives to it.
We did have a specific capacity building session on the ICT indicators. So written Lan language, what was presented we tried to push a regional framework for capturing the ICT data so become better informed roll policy. And the ITU is doing some work in the area and will be releasing its new framework this year, I believe.
We had another capacity building session around cybersecurity. And we had -- we looked at what was going on globally. Within the UN, for example, we had a presentation from the senior deputy director of public prosecutions and head of cyber crime and digital forensics unit in Jamaica. Jamaica has been doing a lot in the UN on the issue of cybersecurity and cyber crime and trying to give the perspective frommed Caribbean on UN resolutions that are seeking to, a UN resolution in particular that is seeking to have global agreements on cybersecurity. So the UN resolution on cybersecurity.
We had presentations from the interAmerican committee against terrorism as well as Ambassador Claudio who is recognised within the UN as a former expert on cybersecurity and cyber crime.
We in addition, we had I should mention also the second youth IGF. We broke it up. So we had the first day of the CIGF and then moved into the youth IGF. Second youth IGF. Planned by Caribbean young people and executed by them. And we looked at how we could leverage ICTs for Caribbean youth development aled of the global digital compact. And you have spoken on that Tracy, representing TT Mike. We had Phillip Pierre rosy an associate expert in the UN SG tech envoy office. I won't go into all of the topics but AI, of course, featured prominently. Of course, with the young people and that is something that is very topical. Addressing policy and regulatory challenges, guidelines for AI development much like what the discussion that took place this morning in the open forum.
We then resumed the day two with high level presentations from the stakeholders I mentioned. We had a special presentation as well from Chengetai who is no stranger to us. Nigel my depcy gave an update on the CIGF vision and coals as we a20 next year like I said and our plan is to back to the hometown where we launched the IGF in 2010, 20 -- 2005, story. In Ghana. So we are working with Ghana to make that happen.
Then we spent the afternoon working through the updates on the policy frameworks. So that again we can make sure we added the topics such as AI and so on that had previously not been addressed. We look at hot topics. AI opportunities and risks and challenges and fake news and deep fakes and these kinds of things. We have the DIPLA foundation involved there and star apple based in Jamaica who was able to demonstrate deep fakes and how these things can be misleading how they impact elections and so on.
Bridging the Digital Divide, second and inclusion. We had presentations from ISOC anded telecoms authority and from IGF on the project keeper and how they are using the satellites to bridge the connectivity gaps. Another thing that was of a hot topic was the fair share contribution what persons are alling OTT, over the top services and their impact on the ability of operators to build out their regional networks. So how these over the top services are impacting the regional development.
So those are some of the topics. We are actually working, we haven't quite finalized the report coming out of that. But -- this quarter we will be able to provide. But I think we lad about 31 countries represented. We had the updates from the national IGF in Trinidad, Tobago. Saint Vincent and the grenadines and Haiti and UN IGF, of course.
So we -- you mentioned the -- well, I mentioned initially the summit in Antigua that takes place next year. We have tabled a suggestion. We have been saying that while it is event driven, yes, it would be a good opportunity perhapses to have another SIDS. We work towards that. And I believe a digital platform would help us because the hosting of the event itself draws attention to it. Gives us a target to work towards. But what we really want is the intersessional engagement. How do we engage not just in the UN IGF but I mentioned ITU and very often it it is the same stakeholders representing the region in these organizations. So a unified platform that gives us the opportunity to consolidate the issues so that even within ICANN, for example, we know the community there and advance the issues together. We try to influence policy because no one will speak for us, we have to speak for ourselves. So how do we maintain that communication. And leverage the same group across all of these various IGF processes globally or ICT policy development. Like I said, ITU, ICANN, even. And so on. And the other processes as well that I mentioned.
So I think working towards using this huge opportunity, right. SIDS in Antigua and Barbuda, I think we should advocate for some engagement there given the profile of it. But work towards that. And, of course, next year, too, is the summit of the future where the GDC, the global digital compact will be tabled. And I think this is a huge opportunity for us. And we really ought to see how we can set that as sort of the time deadline, but see how we can develop digital platforms, maybe with the support of UNESCO and others to keep the engagement more active. Sometime zones considered and so on. But a platform that allows us any time day or night to be able to go and engage and bounce ideas off and so on and update each other on developments that are taking place. I will stop there for now. Thanks.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks, SG Taylor. We have been talking about there for some time trying to get the volunteers going. Obviously volunteerism is difficult. Relying on volunteers is not going to move us forward. So is there an opportunity somewhere and again, we see UNESCO in the room. There is others. Maureen mentioned UNCTAD and their work in the SIDS space. We have Arie in the room. Is there any way that you think we can leverage either existing work done or get together to get something new done so we can build this platform where we can put information, knowledge, that is -- has been going on because we have been doing there, I know it is not a roundtable today but we have been doing the round table for I think going on ten years now.
And where can we put this information? A lot of information. Disaster preparedness. Information about trying to push SIDS issues, climate issues moving forward. There are 50 plus of us. And I believe it is difficult for us to get our voices heard if we don't have something more tangible for all sorts of reasons. To be more visible in the IGF space, and this platform will get us ready. And I think we need to understand that is what we need to do and let's get it done. But we do need some help. If we leave it around it will continue swirling around the drain as we say. I will open up the floor for the ideas. This is a round table in a room that is not a round table but pretend it is for the time being. And everybody has an equal voice, equal space. You are all discussants. Let's get the ideas flowing and hopefully by the end of the session we can actually get something tangible out of it. And let's act on it as SG Taylor says there is an event. I know events are not the way to do this, but events mobilizes and gets us ready. It will be fantastic to do something leading up to SIDS 4 and launch at SIDS 4 with a SIDS IGF type environment. The IGF not being an event, but more of a platform that we can talk about, release, launch, even feed into the agenda that is there. And I know that Rodney has been talking to the organizers and various political figures there.
Maybe we can get on the agenda itself and have it, you know, sort of concretized in SIDS 4. Those are the items we are starting to play with. I will open up the floor now online and in the room for any thoughts on this. I will ask the online moderator Maureen, any thoughts coming in and maybe just over to you. Don't forget to use the mic. I will hand this over to you.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Can I just say part of the thing is we have engagements in silos so we have the DC process within the UN IGF. We have the -- the UN, of course, has its process with SIDS. We engage, continuously engaged the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, I think it is called, right. That is the American registry site. So there are silos. Not deliberately but I mean the American registry is the American registry. ICANN, of course, tries to stay in its lane. So ICANN doesn't even really recognise SIDS. Telerecognise underserved regions.
And so they don't necessarily want to hear about SIDS or aren't going to set aside resources for SIDS. They want to look at underserved regions and there are topics they will not touch because they are outside of ICANN scope and mandate. And then we engage with LACnic as well and they say within the space. We are working together across all of these different spaces and we want to maximize the few resources that we have and better coordinate our interventions. Thanks.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thanks, Rodney. We actually have two hands up here. I have one from Genelle Lake and Cherie Lagakali. We will have Genelle first. Thank you.
>> GENELLE LAKE: Thanks. Hi everyone. It is actually 2:00 in the morning here. Actually 3:10 in the Caribbean. But happy to be a part of this discussion. It was just last year that I volunteered with cherie with the development of this shared digital platform and I think I tempered all of our enthusiasms when I asked about requirements then and I still have about requirements now because I come from a very practical place in IT and you actually don't get very far with anything with any implementation if you don't have requirements to start off with. It is not fun coming up with require minutes, but it does definitely help to establish where you want to go. It helps us to come to an agreed place in terms of what success looks like.
So I don't know if these things exist. I'm too new to the party to know it. I would suggest we start off with some basic requirements that would help us to establish what it is we need and we will know where we are going and will help us in terms with the potential alliances or assistance from the likes of UNESCO as was mentioned earlier. I think it is important to have the requirements. So if anyone could indicate if we have those, that would be great. Thanks.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thank you, Genelle. Cherie.
>> CHERIE LAGAKALI: Thanks, Maureen. I knew and I remembered that we had this exact discussion last year and we tried to look for a platform. And I think one of the questions that we have coming through one of our side discussions is when we are talking about a platform how easy or simple a platform we are looking at because you know, if we want someone to be able to store something then Google workspaces is there. And I know that for previous speakers we had Gena who had access to these kind of workspaces. Is it as easy as, you know, Google docs with a check list of things that we want to get done by the end of the year. Again, how simple, how easy of a platform we are looking at and is it something that we could run with easily and go with it. Looking at there is an event next year. Maybe we should have two or three people will together look for something look for something and come back and report to people the pros and conditions and options around something like that.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Thank you, Cherie. One of the things that I actually sort of like was asking someone to -- if I would actually mention it -- is that within PIC ISOC for as long as I have been involved in PICISOC, it was in 2006 to happening about before then. They had a mailing list and this mailing list is like I mean there is always something happening within the Pacific. And one of the members will actually raise this on the mailing list and it starts initiates discussion, initiates sort of there are topics that are raised that people sort of like make suggestions of or someone might have a problem on their island and they raise it.
Or it might be a technical one. Someone offers support and, you know, offline support. It is that kind of -- it is that sort of like kind of activity which is used by the members and they -- it is very much -- it is very much engaging because especially depending on what the topic is as to how people, you know, sort of like want to participate. It has been very successful for us. And as I said, it has been going for many years. And it is still a very -- it is still a very active sort of like activity.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks, Maureen. And thanks, Genelle and Cherie for continuing to volunteer to volunteer to help us with it this. We are appreciative of efforts to get this moving. At the end of the day we get it moving. I'm confident I'm not going to come back here next year and have to discuss this again. That is what is going on, not to change the session to something else.
So more thoughts? And I -- (indiscernible) caught my eye. And I think Nevil wants to say a few words and Nevil has a lot of creative ideas from way back in too long to remember about getting stuff done and how to get it done. I'm appreciative that he is going to save us. Save us. Help us.
>> Thank you, Tracy. Yes. Thank you, Tracy. And so good to be back in person. at the SIDS discussion. There are several things that I wanted to raise around this issue of the platform and a lot of it came out of the points that Rodney made concerning the overlap between the organizations and attempts at staying in their what are referred to as "their lane ."
When we consider the level of synchronization in terms of priorities and issues between for example the Caribbean and the Pacific you get a sense of the diversity of the issues that fall under this SIDS umbrella. And so when you consider or when I consider the platform, two questions come to find. Form for whom? To share or to do what? And it is two simple questions but two very important questions in figuring out where we go and how we go forward.
It may be that interest are -- there is a need for several types of platforms. It may be that some of the underlying issues inside of mapping the SIDS landscape, particularly as it relates to research and as it relates to the creation of content may become more important than actually the nature of a single platform to do something. I was thinking about what would be the best place for us to start?
And I know Genelle said we need a requirements document which I think would be very, very helpful looking to use or build a platform. There is a step before even that which is just understanding what is the nature of the kind of interaction we wish to have and with whom. There was interesting dynamics coming out of the work in the Caribbean over the course of last year particularly around engaging new audiences for example. You had the CTU, Caribbean network operators group and others attempt together find what we can call the intersectionality between issues. Not just the IT side of it, not soft the Civil Society side of it, not just the political side but how these things interconnect. In that context where new audiences are being engagend and we are trying to tackle the issues in a brag mattic way. Having -- pragmatic way. Having access to information is important but platforms for interaction particularly across the silos is just as important. So to me, when I think about the issue of platform for the Dynamic Coalition, it comes down to where the people get access to information, who is collecting that information, and who is collating it so that it can be interpreted or understood by audiences that may not have the technical background, that may not have the experiential background or that may not simply be fully aware of how the things that they are doing connect withed things that others are doing. Maureen, I heard the mailing list and for some crowds they work well. For another crowd they don't. They are confusing noisy places where it is very difficult to track what is happening and what is intended to only out of what is happening.
So again, a mailing list may be important for one group but it may not serve the needs of all of the groups. Is it in an arsenal? A tool box of tools that we are looking at? UNESCO combined can existing common platforms like Google drive and these things. I think we have to ventilate a lot of those issues some more before we figure out the composition or constitution of a platform for what we are trying to do.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks, Nevil. All valuable points. And all of the points that you have raised, I think we have tried to get to the -- you know, the -- I don't know what is the word. Under the surface of it. So as a Google doc. Just put stuff down. We have a mailing list already. Check that box. But that is only myself posting stuff about coming to this meeting.
So there is a -- there is a need to have -- we are a Dynamic Coalition. Dynamic Coalition. The dynamicism needs to get moving. How do we get people to really want to get involved and put what is going on and not wait 12 months to come and report what is happening but let's get it moving, talk about it, talk amongst ourselves, share experiences, and want to share experiences.
So the requirement is, quote, unquote or what we want is something that drives us to want to shear information. That's the requirement -- to share information. That's the requirement. And whether it be, I don't know, a sandbox that you can sit down and play in literally. Or whether it be a Google. I don't know. That's the challenge we have.
So we are looking for help. What can we do to make it work and let's get it moving. I know we talked about a website in the past. Doing a database of sorts. But nothing has kind of moved from there. So we talked about it but let's get it moving. So seeing some eyes and hands starting to get moving. So just looking around. Yes?
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: I do have Michelle on the Zoom. Michelle?
>> MICHELE MARIUS: Ly, morning everyone. It is early here in Jamaica. I agree with all that has been said. I was wondering whether or not there is an opportunity for us to focus our efforts on, for example, the GDC and you have this major meeting that is happening next year.
And whether that could then be something to drive us and what one can do, having reviewed the GDC is I think that it certainly is no global position that has been taken but can we look at the various areas that it covers and see how SIDS might be affected and since there are eight areas that it covers, could about we consider whether or not having subgroups that deal with the various areas and to begin to identify what might be some of the cam lengths that sides might face towards those commitments that -- challenge -- that the Secretary-General of the UN is advocating for and even therefore what might be some solutions we might be able to come up with for our own benefit. I think going into the future conversations on GDC, for example, we need to be clear about what the challenges are.
It is a place where I think one's voice can easily get lost if one is not clear and cogent about what the challenges are and probably to be able to offer some suggestions. It may be something that could help us to focus our efforts at this point and may not necessarily be the final constitution of whatever structures we want to put in place.
But I think we can perhaps use the material, for example, that is already in the proposed in the global digital compact to focus us to give us a starting point. Because I think sometimes when we start from scratch, we end up just discussing or going around the issue but not necessarily making any sort of significant headway as to whatever might be the objectives in terms of identifying challenges and proposing solutions et cetera et cetera. Over to you.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks, Michelle. People suggest things get volunteered to do them. Thank you, Michelle for volunteering your good services and time to help us get this moving. We will add it to the list. So thank you for that idea and let's move that. I think let's take it onboard. Sold.
I think I saw was it Nigel first? Yes, Nigel would like to say a few words from the deputy secretary of the CTU.
>> Thank you, Tracy. I put up my hand baseball -- well, I could change and say what she said. You know? We do have you yourself said events mobilize and we have two big ones next year. Focus on the two big events and see what we can do to maximize our inputs to those events. Genelle talked about what are the requirements and Mechele pointed out there is the developing GDC that we could look at what that could kind of focus attention. And I will also say at least for the Caribbean aspect of the SIDS, we do have the Caribbean governance policy framework which identifies policies and recommendations and could feed into giving people ideas as to what the requirements are. What are our needs and certainly ated global level we have the opportunity of the G DC to put some of our needs in there or to advocate for some of our needs to be addressed in there. And we have SIDS 4.
We think about SIDS 4 is that its scope would be broader than just ICT. Right? But at least everyone recognises the important of ICT for all development these days. So that is another opportunity for us to focus the development priority recommendations into the SIDS 4 week as well. I think out of that we could get some reasons people to share information, right, as well as maybe energy to get things done because we have the big things gentleman coming up. And hopefully after that keep it oncoming with the C IGF and the events of organizations in the SIDS world. Thanks.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much, Nigel. You want to say a few words?
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: I think the events provide an excellent way, an excellent opportunity, sorry, for us to mobilize around. And there are three areas that can be very practical. One would be like collection of the documents, reports research along thematic areas in which case any basic site that allows us to do that will suffice. Second around who is doing what where. A calendar of upcoming activities around all of the organizations that are under this umbrella would be in a position to submit their thing without too much stress. You are organizing an event and want to promote it and there is a place to put the calendar entries and this could be it.
The third component of the feature set would be the interactivity. And I think there are a number of very interesting new platforms for us to look at from that regard to -- in that regard to, one, deal with the conversations amongst those who know. But also to engage those who may be unfamiliar with the space and are trying to get their feet wet. Again, that can be organized along some standardized thematic areas. Look at those three components you can actually see how organizations such as the CTU and ARN can take responsibility for the part that they are playing inside of it without too much strain. But still have this meet me point where you can see all of the submitted documents or refer to the links of the important references, see the calendar and then have the opportunity to chat either by joining a mailing list or WhatsApp group or a discord channel for example and have the conversation happen where persons are most comfortable. The key for that is someone to cure rate it to see what is going on there and see should we bring to the central place. Having the three distinct components would be a helpful way to organize our thought around what the platform can be and what it might look like.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much, Maureen. Thank you. Excellent. I think I'm just going to come back to that point as we get close to the endobasion we are looking for someone in the room to sort of get it going. Maybe see -- not necessarily money, but maybe just start it. So I'm going to like look around pointedly at somebody, might be on my right, see what might happen along those lines. Before that, Maureen.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Well, I just wanted to sort of like support what was just said because I think that -- I think it's the term I used is, you know, sort of a platform cooperativism and I think that -- I mean it is like implies a multifaceted kind of platform. It's something because you know, I mean we have obviously identifyd that we need to have something that is quite diverse and it needs to, you know, it might be partly website, partly mobile app, partly sort of like sections that actually cater for different types of community -- you know, different types of groups, different topics. I mean it could be topic based. Could be whatever. Because the things that we actually cover within the SIDS communities is diverse and isn't just sort of like IT.
But as Nigel pointed out it is very IT underpins so much that it, you know, it is going to be part of it in Iway. But you know, I think that this is, we need to get some kind of brain trust to give -- so sort of like devise something that could be sort of like quite innovative and something that really match was ma we need in order -- what we need in order to progress, say this is a goal for us. So yeah, let's -- you just keep looking around.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: This is the last key one now because I will ask colleagues in the room to really step up and see how we get us moving. So the Rapporteurs, report, what is the key takeaway from this J I'm going to ask around the room and see if anybody wants to volunteer who is going to get this moving and who might have some resources available to help us. Anyone wants to volunteer? Anyone? Wants to volunteer? Thank you.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: I'm not volunteering, but I know we are all very busy. We have been working with some of the young people that we -- that we have -- we met in the -- what was it generation connect. The initiative of the ITU. And I think there is potential there. I mean they are young bright people. They are not necessarily fully engaged or fully employed or not to their maximum potential and I think they would be willing to make a name for themselves but giving of some time and effort and some sweat into helping us move this forward. And you know, we, of course, with our support and so on. I think it is important that I think we could leverage some of these young people. Just keep the discussion going. Help us manage platforms. Draw stuff, you know, help to coordinate. So that is my suggestion that we can look not just from the Caribbean but, of course, across the network and give them something to be excited about. At the same time, it is part of our mentorship as well with them. And I -- so that is my suggestion.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thanks Rodney. I will be the devil's advocate. We need someone to coordinate that and get it moving. Any suggestions or what could help?
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Well, Neal is doing a lot of work with young people.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Nia is suggested. Nana just for the Rapporteurs to catch that. Thank you, Maureen.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: We actually Denise in our audience and she is in charge of the next gen. And we were just talking today about, you know, like there should be, you know like what we should be doing is encouraging in order to retain these wonderful young people, is to give them a project. I think we found our group. Denise, they are all yours. What do you reckon?
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Maybe you can respond to get you on the record.
(Away from mic)
>> AUDIENCE: We talked about a project and maybe you start to encourage the
(Away from mic)
I think it is a great opportunity. And then we have a lot of people from the area that they are always engaged with and very capable.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Get you on the record, yes.
>> Okay. We are talking about the possibility to develop a project, created by the next gen. And I think it is a little complex because you have to get some permissions about the procedures and by ICANN but individually, they can be connected, yes. And also at the end the programme, the next gen programme they have assurance that you build up some more consistency. The fellows magically left and apply for another term, they build up something more consistent and clear for the next moment. And for ICANN fellows. So are you talking about the GS very quickly and now put me in this spot. I was terrified. So it is why I think you can elaborate and then be very happy to listen from the guys your suggestion in the future.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much. We appreciate that and could be the part where ICANN who is not SIDSing will get SIDSing now. I know try and do something and work on that before. I think I'm seeing Aaron stepping up to the mic. Sounds like good news.
>> AUDIENCE: I wanted to come up to be sure to distance myself from a call for volunteers. I have some observations or comments organization okay. I wanted to make sure that the group was aware there are grant opportunities from Aaron, Lac third quarter ic and APN IC foundation. I don't flow about the timing. This yewer is practically done so there aren't grant opportunities this year. Be sure to look at those opportunities next year on the websites. Could be something to help either with the determining the requirements for a platform or for perhaps even building one.
I also wanted to it just came to me that you might look at the ITUD regional office for the Americas to see if that could be a resource or some support for this activity. I have been to CTEL meetings and I have to admit I didn't pay as much attention as I should is but there have been SIDS discussions at CTEL a number of times and to reach out to the CTEL friends and see what they might have. One of the things they will for sure have is contributions and case studies about this activity. So thank you very much.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Thank you very much. Getting some very good ideas and I think some good traction here. We got a ten minute windup call. One last call for any further comments. I don't know in UNESCO have any further observations having heard your guests. You heard what you have to say. Any thoughts as to what can possibly happen given what you are doing. I know you have content. You have content but is there any opportunity to sort of use what you are doing to sort of get into this and reach in the SIDS space teacher and help us see this further. Any thoughts on that?
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. There was a mention of including the government for example. I mentioned that --
(Away from mic)
I'm facing the camera. But okay. Okay. So there was a mention of involving the government. Actually, so I'm leading the work of the internet governance there and if we narrow it down to that area, so bringing together all of the stakeholders could some what contribute to it. But I understand you are looking for a more broader solution. There was a mention of regional offices. UNESCO for example has national and regional offices. We an office in the Caribbean. We have regional offices in Africa and we have a regional office in the Pacifics.
So this could be something to look into and at the headquarters we actually have -- we have colleagues working with SIDS so I would be happy to connect. I can't guarantee at this stage, you know, but I would be happy to put you in contact with these colleagues.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Appreciate that. Thank you so much. I think we got some good work done today. Any final words? I'm going to ask Maureen to wrap up. Giving you a heads up. Any final words from the rest of the audience online or from the room? Any hands up? Anything in the chat? Okay. So I think today we have gotten really good traction, got some nails. We got actual things that can get moving -- names. Actual things that can get move and mobilize around events next year. 2024 sounds like we will not gentlemen coming back and say what are we going to do and next we will say this is what we have done and here is the platform and what we have built and here is what we have shown here and take it forward. Let's make that happen. And I know we have our volunteers online as well. Genelle and Cherie and Michelle you volunteered lane teared as well. Ania is going to call all of you in the room along with the generation connect folks and let's brainstorm this and we will all get involved. We are all part of this. I think it is really useful to press it forward.
(Away from mic)
>> TRACY HACKSAW: She was away from the mic as I'm seeing here. But said just repeating for the record that meeting will happen this month because there is the Caribbean youth network meeting happening. Exactly. So perfect.
But we are going to definitely add the SIDS component to that. So the Caribbean will get it going. But we are going to bring the SIDS and the folks on and they are going to work with us, right, Maureen?
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: Yes, of course.
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Over to you.
>> MAUREEN HILYARD: I don't have much else to add. I want to thank everyone for sticking it out 'til the end and thank you, Rodney and the team for being here for us. And we'll be working hard together this year. And working on the ideas that have come forward. Thank you so much. (Applause).
>> TRACY HACKSAW: Meeting adjourned.
Thank you.