On June 2-4, the ITU held the first Global Youth Summit Generation Connect. Participants could join the Summit online or by visiting the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. The Summit was attended by more than 1,500 offline delegates and more than 5,000 participants who joined online.
"The United Nations system needs to become more inclusive as we strive to build a better world for our children to inherit," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhou. “Among the concrete steps taken to address this, the ITU Youth Strategy calls for supporting youth empowerment, bringing young people together for direct engagement, and fostering youth dialogue and participation in decision-making processes."
There were more than 70 hubs in different countries for online participation in the Summit. Participants on behalf of each hub could offer their ideas for solving specific issues stated by the main topics of the Summit, as well as talk about their experiences and initiatives. Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ has organized its own hub, giving an opportunity to members of the Youth Council to take part in the Summit. They shared their ideas during the Safety Online session dedicated to online safety. Following the meeting, participants have formulated theses for the document "Youth Call to Action", which will then be presented at the World Conference on Telecommunication Development on June 6-16.
According to the Youth Council of the Coordination Center, the source for building a safe online world is a high level of digital literacy of Internet users. The Coordination Center implements several projects aimed at developing the skills of safe behavior on the Internet and the development of digital literacy for young people of all ages – from children to young specialists and students.
The members of the Youth Council also noted that the UN and ITU, as international organizations, should act as a coordinator of youth projects and initiatives in different countries, be a unifying platform for building an effective dialogue between representatives of the younger generation and help bring youth projects of individual countries to the global level.
