On June 14, the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ hosted the first meeting of its Youth Council. Young people from all over Russia expressed their interest in joining the council, therefore, the meeting happened online via Skype. Participants were also able to write their comments via YouTube live streaming. The meeting was attended by over 20 people from Barnaul, Grozny, Krasnodar, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk and other cities.
Opening the meeting, Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev spoke about the goals, objectives and the future plans of the project. “The Youth Council was created to involve the younger generation in internet governance and to form an employee pool for the Russian domain sector. We hope that council members will take part in the Coordination Center’s various social and educational projects, will become speakers and listeners at our events, and learn about our experts’ work,” Vorobyev said.
Urvan Parfentyev, coordinator of the Safe Internet Center and leading analyst at the Regional Public Center of Internet Technology (ROCIT), also spoke at the meeting. Participants in the council’s first meeting decided to set up several working groups to deal with legal, engineering, social and educational projects. Any member of the council can join these groups. The participants also discussed arrangements for further activity by the council and candidates for the council’s chair.
The decision to establish the Youth Council was announced at the Russian Internet Governance Forum in St. Petersburg in April 2018. The council comprises students and young professionals who work in internet and communication technologies, information security, IT education and other areas of digital technology.
“The involvement of young people in internet governance and the training of young experts is a global trend. The Coordination Center follows this trend and invites young people and students to its events, implementing several youth programs aimed at improving internet literacy among the younger generation. The Youth Council is part of our youth policy and I am sure that its members will have many great ideas for the entire sector,” Vorobyev said.
