On May 13, Moscow hosted the youth forum Forming an Information Culture in the Digital Environment. It was organized by the Association of Documentary Telecommunications in collaboration with Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU) with the support of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. Over 200 students and professors from Moscow universities, as well as representatives of government agencies, scientific and production organizations, and the expert community, took part in the forum.
The list of its main topics included establishing the framework of regulatory legal literacy upon using information and communication technology, technical regulation, use and introduction of Russian technology, and new contexts of morality and norms of behavior. The forum’s outcome document states that “within the framework of the forum, information culture was regarded as the skills to interpret, process and spread information without hurting oneself, one’s friends and relatives and one’s country. It is especially important to train these skills in young people and teenagers who do not possess sufficient moral and ethical experience in interpreting, processing and spreading information. Forming an information culture among young people enables them to adapt to new, modern conditions of working in the digital environment.”
Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev made a speech during the forum’s plenary session, where he focused on practical aspects of the students’ possible participation in formulating the rules and policies of the global network and its Russian segment. Namely, Vorobyev invited those enrolled in bachelor’s and master’s degree programs to join the Coordination Center’s Youth Council, where Association of Documentary Telecommunications and Moscow State Linguistic University experts would train a group of students that will represent the Russian youth at global and regional internet governance forums, ICANN’s and the International Telecommunication Union’s conferences, and many other events. The director also extended an invitation for linguistics students to train at the Coordination Center.
“We are highly interested in having the MSLU students train with us,” Andrey Vorobyev said.” The list of interesting tasks for them to tackle includes finalizing the educational module of the Learn the Internet, Manage It! game to ensure its further scalability and translation to foreign languages. Moreover, the youth’s views on solving internet development issues are important from the standpoint of improving the quality of studying internet technology at educational institutions.”
The Coordination Center’s social projects manager, Viktoria Bunchuck, expanded on the Learn the Internet, Manage It! game. She gave a presentation on the components of the center’s educational project, which consists of an interactive website, mobile app, quiz, local online tournaments and annual national online tournament, and invited the audience to participate in the project’s further development.
