The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University conducted the Summer School on Internet Governance, which came to a close on November 17. The Internet Governance Summer School is part of the global Schools on Internet Governance (SIG) movement.
The Summer School received 152 applications in total, of which 95 were chosen for the preliminary stage and 40 of the best applicants were allowed to the main stage. 38 participants successfully completed their studies and will now obtain diplomas from St. Petersburg University for additional education. It's noteworthy that about 95% of grads are female.
Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, congratulated participants on their graduation and expressed his best wishes for them during the last meeting of Summer School on Internet Governance. “I am extremely happy with the geographic distribution of the Summer School participants: every year, we get students from new nations and continents. Participants who traveled the farthest last year were from Latin America; this year, they came from Vietnam. The conversion of applicants and graduates is cause for celebration. Of the 40 who successfully finished the School, 38 were admitted to the main stage, which is an excellent outcome,” he added.
Mikhail Anisimov, ICANN Representative in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, noted that the topic of Internet governance is still surrounded by a huge number of myths associated with it and wished the School graduates to be critical of everything they read and learn about.
At the project's last meeting, graduates of the Summer School made the following comments on their involvement:
- “This is a truly unique experience in terms of interacting with experts who really understand what they are talking about. I can understand this because I occasionally take part in scientific and non-scientific events. This level differs in quality,” says Nikolai Levshin.
- “The field of Internet Governance is large and includes several overlapping professions with various specialties such as legal, political, technical, and other categories. I like how the School gave careful consideration to each factor in order to provide students with thorough information,” says Egor Simanov.
- “I gained a lot of knowledge from experts, and I also read it on my own while working on assignments. I became quite passionate about this subject, and now I wish to actively take part in Internet governance activities,” says Artemy Tretyakov.
- “Many thanks for organizing and giving me a chance to join! You are excellent organizers and very interesting speakers! I have a lot of ideas for legal papers because of the School,” says Arnautova Alexandra.
School graduates will now have the opportunity to participate in the greatest international Internet Governance Forums; the next one, IGF 2022, will be held in Ethiopia from November 28 to December 2, 2022. Participants of Summer School were also invited to the Youth Council, the debate club "Digital Reality," and other educational and discussion projects of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ by Ilona Stadnik, the coordinator of the Coordination Center’s youth projects.
Also, Summer School graduates will have an offline meeting with project lecturers and RIGF special course graduates, which will be held at the end of November in St. Petersburg.
