Ilona Stadnik, Youth Project Manager of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, became a fellow of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD).
As an APTLD fellow, Ilona Stadnik attended the 2022 Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) held in Seoul in late August.
The APIGA offered a busy program: four days of studying and working on group projects, plus the last, fifth day, when the participants left for a tour around Seoul landmarks and got to know the South Korean culture.
In addition to lectures by representatives of the Asia Pacific internet community, the program included a number of business games and interactive sessions. For example, the APNIC Regional Internet Registry, which manages Asia Pacific IP addresses, gave participants an opportunity to feel like ISP representatives who need to provide internet to imaginary islands, as well as manage IP addresses and routing policies.
In conclusion, NetMission Academy (an organization working on getting youth involved in internet governance) prepared a special game not unlike Monopoly but featuring IG specifics such as tokens, NFTs, examples of careless handling of personal data, and delays in paying for internet subscriptions. The game was a way of summing up the discussions between the speakers and APIGA students during the training.
In addition, the APIGA 2022 program included several training sessions: one on developing proposals for the IGF and an ICANN mock meeting, where participants role played as representatives of three stakeholder groups (ALAC, GAC and GNSO) and had to prepare their positions on DNS abuse, which is actively discussed at ICANN meetings.
“My main goal when applying for APIGA was not to study internet governance basics but to get experience from my Asian colleagues on how to organize programs similar to our Summer Internet Governance School, which I have coordinated for three years now.
“After two years of Covid-19 lockdowns and numerous online meetings, it was difficult to attend a week-long in-person event. But it was interesting for me to learn about the activities and practical exercises prepared by the APIGA organizers. Society had to quickly get used to online learning with limited interaction between students and teachers, and now has to return to “normal” formats and take full advantage of the benefits for communication and exchange of experience that offline programs can offer,” Ilona Stadnik said sharing her impressions.
