On July 15, the 5th Summer School on Internet Governance started - participants attended an introductory seminar and the first lecture. During the session, organizers introduced participants to the program, selection criteria for the main stage, as well as the interaction and learning platforms used.
The lesson began with a speech by Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, who congratulated the Summer School students on passing the competitive selection and on the start of the course. He also spoke about other projects of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, in which students can take part after graduating from the Summer School.
This year, 248 applications were received for consideration, which is slightly less than in 2023. However, the quality of answers to motivational questions has increased significantly, and the volume of answers has almost doubled - candidates began to describe their motivation in more detail.
Applications for participation in the Summer School on Internet Governance came from 10 countries, such as: Armenia, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There were especially many applications from young specialists who had already graduated from universities and were working in various professional fields.
After a complex and multi-stage selection, 95 people remained who confirmed their readiness to take part in the training, taking into account the expected workload. Law, computer technology, and international relations have historically been the most popular professional sectors (profiles) among applicants.
Participants will study topics such as the protection of human rights on the Internet, the digital economy and digital diplomacy. The main stage will cover issues of artificial intelligence, protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet and other relevant topics.
Assignments for the final works were selected considering the priority areas presented at the UN Global Internet Governance Forum 2024. Participants of the Summer School will contribute to the preparation of materials for presentation at the sections of IGF 2024, topics for which the Center’s Youth Council plans to propose.
After the introductory part, there was a lecture by Karen Kazaryan, General Director of the Internet Research Institute, Director of Analytics of the ANO Digital Economy. The expert told the participants about the history of the Internet, but not only from the point of view of the main historical aspects of the emergence and development of Internet technologies - Karen in his lecture focused on the main regulatory approaches as a reflection of the processes occurring in society at different stages of the formation of the Internet.
“In 2023, one of the School participants proactively created a chat for informal communication, the popularity of which could not be ignored. This year we created the same group. Communication between members of the 2024 class has already reached a fundamentally new level. I am sure that such communication will become the basis for a large friendly community of School graduates from different years. It is typical that after graduation, students stay in touch with each other and even publish joint works in the field of Internet Governance,” Anastasia Savelyeva, curator of the 5th Summer School on Internet Governance, said.
The Summer School on Internet Governance continues its work - don’t miss our next publications!
