 That's my signal. Good morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are. Welcome to the Youth to Connect session of the Road to Addis series presented by the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. I'm David Kirkpatrick. I'm a journalist based in New York. I've had the privilege of moderating these sessions of which I believe this is now the seventh session. We've had previous sessions devoted to partnerships, inclusion, financing, leadership, and innovation. Of course, I should remember that. That was the last one, just last one. So, I wanted to just give you a little bit of housekeeping notes. The session is entirely remote, webcasted, live streamed, and recorded. As a participant, you're free to use the chat during the session for any comments you may have. Questions addressed to the speakers can be inserted in the Q&A function. That's where they should go rather than in the chat if you have a question for the speakers. And if time allows, we will be getting to some of these questions. I think we will have time for that. You can upvote a question by clicking the thumbs up icon next to a question, and Zoom will automatically sort them by the number of upvotes so they become more relevant. During this session, we do provide captioning services which you're welcome to use. And you activate that by clicking on closed caption in the bottom bar of the Zoom interface. So, I want to just mention how happy I am that it is International Youth Day, which makes our session on youth to connect so apt. And the whole series is all about the importance of connecting everyone on the planet into one big global network to get everybody on the internet, which is sadly still so far from completed. So, all these sessions with all these different themes have been about looking at different aspects of how we can speed the process of getting everyone connected. Also, I just want to mention that the World Telecommunications Development Conference, which is what we are leading up to, which is in Addis Ababa, has been rescheduled to June 6 through 15, 2022. So, that's because of the pandemic, unfortunately. So, then, let me just quickly introduce all the speakers we're going to have today, which is a wonderful group, and you'll see them when I introduce them. So, please, if you don't have your cameras on, get them on. Mr. Ahmad Al-Andawi, who is Chair Global Youth Mobilization and the Secretary General of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, and as a former Eagle Scout myself here in the United States, I'm very happy that he's here. Next, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who is our host, the Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. So, I may be moderating, but Doreen is really the person in charge here. Then, we have Sinead Bovel, who's the founder of WEI. We'll hear more about that in a moment, and we have her Excellency, Ms. Akilah Byron-Nesbit, who is the Minister of Health, ICT, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, and Talent Development in the Ministry of Health, St. Kitts and Nevis. So, say her title twice real fast, ten times, see if you can do that. Great to have you, Akilah. Then, we have Dr. Kevin Fry, who's CEO of Generation Unlimited. Roman Gojayev, who's a member of the Experts Group on Youth Rights at the European Youth Forum. Devshi Narotra, who's CEO of Justice Text, and several other important people I want to introduce you to. Jim Rogers, our graphic designer and illustrator on the Road to Addis series, who's been here the whole time. I don't think we're going to get him on screen right now, but maybe we can. Anyway, he will be doing an illustration of this session, which we will visit at the end. There's Jim. Hi, Jim. Jim is a master of capturing our conversations in visual form. You'll be amazed when you see what he does a little later. Now, I want to also introduce Ellen Taylor, who is my co-moderator for this session, and will be joining us particularly for one major section. Ellen, why don't you just say hello and tell us a little bit about yourself? Fantastic. Thank you, David. Hello, everyone, and happy International Youth Day. My name is Ellen Taylor, and I am a 22-year-old student working with IT Youth Generation Connect team to engage and empower global youth as equal partners in building a more connected and inclusive digital future. I am so excited to be co-moderating this session with David today, and before I do so, I would like to start with a land acknowledgement. I am joining you from Toronto, Canada, which is the traditional territory of many Indigenous nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. I thought barriers to our physical world were not important in the discussion around digital inclusion. However, since collaborating with the Generation Connect team and 133 youth envoys from over 70 countries, I now recognize how important our land is in this conversation. It is lovely to meet you all, and I am so excited for today's discussion on empowering youth to shape our digital future. Back to you, David. Wow, Ellen. Fantastic. Thank you, and thank you for saying all that. Speaking of the Generation Connect community, I'd like to introduce Danola Oladapo, my colleague, longtime co-participant and road to Addis veteran, who is the ITU's Generation Connect Engagement Manager. So, Danola, I'll turn it over to you for a minute here. Thank you so much, David. Happy International Youth Day, everyone. I hope you're all excited to hear from the awesome speakers here today. They're also looking forward to interacting with you, so I hope you won't be shy, and you'll share your comments by the chat, and also ask any questions you have by the Q&A function. But what would be really great as well is if you want to tweet your questions to any specific speaker or any comments you have, feel free to do so using the hashtag road to Addis. And, of course, it's International Youth Day. If you're from the Generation Connect community, do use the hashtag Generation Connect as well. And hopefully later on in the event, we'll start looking through some of those and maybe we'll get you to actually ask the question to the speakers. So, looking forward to that and looking forward to this event. Over to you, David. Thank you, Danola. So, now it's really my pleasure to introduce me again, reintroduce again Doreen, who will tell us a little more about what we're about today. Doreen, take it away. Thank you so much, David. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to Youth to Connect, our next stop, as David mentioned, on the road to Addis. I'm joining you this morning from a very hot and steamy New Jersey. David, I'm sure you can relate. I think you're in New York. So, as the world celebrates today, International Youth Day, we recognize the vital role of young people in helping solve so many of the formidable challenges that are now facing humanity. Today's adult generation increasingly understands that we need to involve young people in everything that we do if we want to do it well. And nowhere, of course, is this more true than in the digital sphere, where young digital natives have the power to innovate for change on a truly unprecedented level. I was deeply moved some days ago, when at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, two high jumpers decided not to go for the tiebreaker, opt against it to share the gold medal. One of them said in an interview that they both deserve the gold, and that, I quote, this is beyond sport. This is the message that we want to deliver to the young generation. The messages that we deliver today to young people really do matter, but we need to go even further. And this is no longer a one-way communication from the older to the younger. As the UN Secretary General noted in his message to world youth, it's time to treat young people as full partners in our effort to build a better world. Young people will inherit a world that's being dramatically reshaped by today's technological advances, and some of them are already playing their own active role in defining the evolution of digital platforms and services that are reshaping the world of their elders. Engaging in a dialogue of equals is going to help each generation understand the challenges that the other faces and what each needs from tomorrow's technologies so that we can ensure that digital remains a positive and a catalytic force in building the world that we want. ITU's Generation Connect initiative is all about encouraging the participation of young people as partners and advisors to the leaders driving today's digital transformation. The journey so far has been inspiring. Young people from all around the world have shown us just how motivated they are to get involved. Their unique insights, skills, regional perspectives will ensure that the Generation Connect Use Summit that we will hold next year just ahead of our World Telecommunications Development Conference will generate bold and meaningful outcomes that can feed directly into our WTBC agenda and discussions. Our road to annus, our path towards WTBC, involving and empowering young people is absolutely critical. It's a critical step towards setting out a revitalized and a reinvigorated global development agenda, one that will finally harness the truly transformational power of digital to deliver on the 2030 agenda. I'm looking forward, David, to a super inspiring session and I hand the floor back to you. Thank you. Thank you, Doreen. It's so wonderful seeing in the chat the people joining us from Bangladesh, Nepal, Botswana, Ghana, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Austria, Uganda. It just makes me so happy when I do one of these with you all and see how many of you there are from so many parts of the world who all are on this journey of working to connect us all more closely together. So the next portion of this, we had a speaker who really wanted to join us but could not be here in person. That's Ms. Jatma Wikomaniake, who is the UN Youth Envoy for the Secretary General and a Generation Connect Visionaries Board Member. Since she couldn't be here, she sent this video, so let's take a quick look at her great video. Hello, my name is Jatma Wikomaniake and I am the United Nations Secretary General's Envoy on Youth. It is a pleasure to join all of you on International Youth Day for today's Youth to Connect Empowered Youth Shaping the Digital Agenda event as part of ITU's Road to Addis event series. As you may already know, young people today make up the largest generation that our world has, but most importantly, they are also the most interconnected one. And where connectivity is available and affordable, young people are enthusiastic adopters of technology and they are active users of the internet. At the end of 2019, just over half of the world's population was using the internet, but this proportion increases to over 69 percent among young people aged 15 to 24 years. Yet, unfortunately, despite the high uptake and the enthusiasm of young people as digital natives, 369 million young people remain offline and unconnected to the internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us all with a new reality of online work and learning. But there are still 2.2 billion children and young people aged 25 years or less who do not have an internet connection at home, many of them being young women and girls. It is the part of the rights of all young people to be included and meaningfully engaged in the process shaping the world's digital agenda. But without having the resources to get connected, young people will not be able to take part in discussions around digital development, developing digital solutions, pursuing opportunities online and expanding their knowledge and skills. It is imperative that young people are equipped with resources and support, such as providing young people with better access to the internet, opening inclusive opportunities for youth to take part in shaping digital change and engaging youth as equal partners through youth-led consultations on digital development policies. Investing in the resources and infrastructure to provide better internet access, exploring low-tech solutions such as social media platforms to host dialogues with young people and engaging grassroots youth to be able to expand our reach to young people who are often marginalized and left behind are some of the initial actions that the world can take to make sure young people can be meaningfully included in dialogues to achieve universal connectivity. This support can't be achieved without having a multi-stakeholder collaboration that involves the United Nations, policymakers, industry leaders, civil society, grassroots networks and young people themselves working together to realize this vision. The United Nations believes that young people must be engaged as equal partners to achieve the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In 2018, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched the UN's first-ever youth strategy to strengthen this commitment and to ensure that the United Nations is working with and for young people in all their diversity. Through the work of the UN system and its partners such as the work that ITU is doing with Generation Connect, we hope to engage youth from around the world to encourage the active participation of youth as equal partners alongside industry leaders and policymakers as well as to provide opportunities for partners to work together in providing resources to ensure young people have access to the skills and opportunities needed to advance their vision of a connected future. Today is a remarkable opportunity for all of you, the young people in this room, to take part in the discussion on how we can empower youth to take part in the digital agenda. I hope that you get to follow today's discussion, share your unique perspectives, learn from each other's experiences and expertise and most importantly I hope that you will have a rich and dynamic discussion today in this forum. Thank you very much and I wish you a successful event. Wow, 369 million people from 15 to 24 who are not connected to the internet and 2.2 billion young people all together don't have internet at home. That's why we're here, we've got to fix that. Now we're going to move to our speakers for the first section of the discussion which is devoted to empowering youth to shape the global digital agenda. So let me bring on Ahmad Alandawi who as I mentioned before is Secretary General of the World Organization of the Scout Movement and Chair of Global Youth Mobilization. We're so happy to have you here Ahmad and I just want to note you had that same job that Jathmat has who just spoke. You were the very first UN Secretary General's envoy on youth that must have been pretty exciting and at the time you were the youngest senior official in the history of the UN so a very good representative of youth here so and you spent many years in the fields of youth policy development and empowerment. So what do you think needs to be done to help the youth community be more empowered and engaged in decision-making that shapes the global digital agenda? Well thank you so much David and it's really wonderful to be with all of you and happy International Youth Day to everyone, to all the youth of the world and to my friends in ITU. Always happy when I joined them and to see the commitment that ITU has been consistently pushing for more digital inclusion and for more inclusion in key on decision-making at all levels so my huge appreciation to all colleagues and the team there. I think your question is the right one and I think you commented on the message from Jathmat, the Secretary General's envoy on youth. I think she provided a very good answer for your question. Let me just try to build a little bit further on that and try to see with you what can be done really to try to get him people as to be part of shaping the agenda around the global digital agenda at large but also what impact they are witnessing today and a little bit reflecting COVID vis-à-vis the global digital agenda and here I have to say and I was reviewing some of the previous editions of the conference over since Dubai and Turkey and just seeing probably my colleagues at ITU would agree with me that never in the history of these processes of the of the of the conference that four years or three years might this much a transformation digitally so for me we're not working to add this so witnessing the road to address with a normal base of developments because what happens in a huge part because of the digital transformation, this acceleration of trends which were mainly digital had been during this past year and a half and I think we're all witnessing that that massive transformation but at the same time what we're learning today is is once again that COVID has exacerbated a lot of inequalities, exposed these inequalities and we're seeing how young people who were probably seeing the world as a transforming digital but we are seeing whether for the ones who are not included digitally that 369 million or also that many millions who do not enjoy like proper road down down with the ability to reliable internet they have been suffering the most and for me there's one topic that my invitation for everyone going to Addis and this road to Addis we cannot really afford to take the normal base for this this agenda anymore the question of the digital transformation needs to really be put to front and center we cannot really delay the right to access and be connected in the world it's a human right and actually if we reopen the human right book again and the declaration I think that digital connectivity should qualify as one of the rights but let me let me also talk about where young people can't play a role in this in this journey we have seen and it's most surprised that young people are the promoters they are the ones at the front line of promoting the use of digital technologies in their communities but they are also the investors they're also now the innovators those who will innovate and create new technologies and they are also the front lines of but they're also the consumers and we are seeing whether we would like to apply human rights based argument for the digital inclusion of people or would like to apply a pure economic argument there there's a massive consumer base out there that are also of the market and they are not included yet and that's that massive outreach for young people this largest generation of people in the history deserves to be included and put in the agenda so in my view what will need to really happen today is for the the agenda setting and I'm glad that we have this process today it reminds me of a process that we we enjoyed with ITU and the leader to the Sustainable Development Summit in 2015 with the event in Costa Rica for the ITU and that time we were talking about the need for youth inclusion to be part of the agenda to a large extent we succeeded for for ensuring good inclusion for youth and the SDGs now the task I see today David there is a conversion of processes from the Sustainable Development Goals the climate change the sustainability the biodiversity the thematic areas and the SDGs all of these processes are being converged and we're seeing as we enter this decade to action that the stakes are becoming higher and higher where I'm missing more of our chances just the latest report coming out from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is showing that the clock is ticking and we're seeing all of these agenda are converging together so for me going to add this again I'm trying to to set this agenda digitally we need to understand that digital is becoming a prerequisite to achieving any of these agenda it's also becoming probably our last this chance to make this decade for action something that we could really move the needle and when it comes to the Sustainable Development Goals and to all of that I just don't want to how to make a better case for young people inclusion this but this is really a story bigger than just young people today is a story for humanity that needs digital quality and digital inclusion that would result for us trying to make this decade for action something that could really bring back the earth from the madness that we're witnessing both in climate change I'm missing a lot of the opportunities with SDGs thank you Ahmad digital connectivity is a human right absolutely now let me bring in Shanae Bovel a founder of Way you are working very hard to help young people learn more about technology particularly working to bridge the gap between young entrepreneurs and the digital future by helping get them the resources and tools they need to be better prepared for the imminent technological change that we're seeing all around us so what do you think needs to be done to to ensure that young people are more empowered and engaged in shaping this future digital agenda thank you thank you for your question and on that thank you for that powerful remark and I completely agree and support everything that was just said and so I will echo that right now young people we are the recipients of the environmental consequences of decisions made by older generations and now we're at a point where we have no choice but to take action to right the wrongs of decisions we weren't a part of and so we know firsthand what happened when the opinions of those who will be most impacted aren't included in the conversation digital technology is such as artificial intelligence will bring about more profound change in the world has ever experienced and this time we have an opportunity to ensure that the values of tomorrow's users are included in today's decisions and innovations so the first step in youth empowerment and the global digital agenda is resource empowerment and as we've heard over and over today young people were often referred to as digital natives but two-thirds of us under 25 don't even have access to the internet so without basic digital tools and resources meaningful engagement is literally impossible and it's important to point out that digital resources we need to participate in the global decision-making agenda these are the same resources needed to participate in the future at large from education to health care to the economy digital technologies we know will underscore every sector and industry and so if youth connectivity and digital access isn't prioritized it will have rippling effects for generations to come so beyond resource empowerment I would say the second step in ensuring youth are empowered and engaged in decision-making is skill development and and tech literacy I've witnessed firsthand the power that tech literacy brings to youth communities and to society at large and when we equip youth with the tech literacy they need to understand the technologies and the pipeline not only are we equipping them with necessities to participate in the future but we're also giving them a chance to shape that future knowledge we know turns into ideas which turns into action which turns into change which we so desperately need if we want to be on track with the SDGs by 2030 and finally arguably the most important but often the most overlooked young people need to be invited to the conversations where the future is being created and an invitation isn't just an opportunity for a better outcome but it's a reflection of decision-makers commitment to today and to tomorrow so thank you for the opportunity really interesting shanae just quickly what tell us about the group that you lead and what it does yes so way we help prepare youth for a future with advanced technology so from the future of work and life technology will radically change and underscore every aspect of how we live and I found in my personal experience it often felt like the future was being coded by seven people in a room that I couldn't access and when I further looked at who was in those decision rooms none of them looked like me none of them had similar experiences to me so how could these technologies be representative of the users who will be using them going forward and that to me was an alarm bell going off and you know we don't have people in the room that are reflective of the society in the future we want to build it will be impossible to create that future so that was the incentive behind way we've had about 10 000 young people come through our networks to be equipped with the skills for the future to understand the future and to have a platform to shape it really wonderful that you're doing that work Ahmad so I know you have some thoughts about informal education and training that can help young people so give us some quick thoughts on that just for a second here before we move to our next segment just quickly I mean I think non-form education speaking I am a firm believer that when you speak about the right to education that shouldn't be translated as formal education should also include non-form education many of us would have never made it in life if it wasn't for these non-form education opportunities that complemented sometimes the poor equality of formal education that's one second I'm glad to be actually to join to on behalf of also a group of organization and alliance of the six big youth organization six biggest youth serving organizations collectively serving over 250 million and collaboratively adopting the methods of non-form education to to deploy that and their their own communities and as part of that in fact we are teaming up with the World Health Organization for our global youth mobilizations to tackle that the impact of COVID in young people and today I'm just having to share with you some numbers actually that are showing the power of non-form education we have appointed as part of this mobilization a panel that is fully composed by young people deciding what the projects get funded probably this is global youth fund is the first fund I'm aware of that young people fully decide what the project gets funded and they fund other projects by young people so today we are announcing that 72 projects are being funded at the moment in this first round they were inviting everyone to go and check out the global youth mobilization benefit there's still a lot of money left on the table for a lot of youth solutions that would leverage digital and also promote that a collective contribution of young people and tackling the impact of COVID so we're looking for more of these projects and for me this is a living example of what non-form education is all about last thing quickly we convened the EU data forum and non-form education in Brazil bringing together over 70 organization and youth led organizations work in the field of non-form education I think where I think the future of non-form education can benefit more and that's also another message and connection to others I would love to see more convergence again between the way we have practiced non-form education offline and how we can leverage digital tools as well so non-form education can exist both online and offline equally I think that's another massive opportunity for upskilling, upgrading and just an excellent point we keep talking about digital natives we need to do that catch up exercise for a lot of people who are thought of as digitally native but they are still waiting for a rescue and help and the way ends so they can catch up with everyone else. Thanks a lot speaking of competitions in June this year as part of the 2021 ITU innovation challenges the ITU launched the generation connect pitch challenge which seeks to find meaningful ideas to connect the unconnected and close the digital divide with the emphasis on youth involvement competition closed on July 31st and the judges are selecting up to 10 winning submissions but let's look at this video to learn a little more about it. Do you have a promising idea to connect the unconnected and close the digital divide? In June this year as part of the 2021 ITU innovation challenges ITU launched the generation connect pitch challenge a global competition to find promising and meaningful ideas coming from youth to connect the unconnected and close the digital divide young ICT enthusiasts between 18 and 30 years of age from across the world have already submitted their ideas. Introducing PACAM an all-inclusive waste management software application that connects recyclable waste real-time to recyclers at just a click PACAM enabling a cleaner city digital inclusion is an urgent matter today my idea is to establish digital centers to provide safe spaces with reliable internet connection especially for rural areas. Meet Charles the cyber security boss it can check URLs and tell if they're safe or not recommend better alternatives are called built digital computers provide you with content on how to stay safe it can help you pretend to data on social outreach in concrete. Up to 10 winners will be selected by a pool of experts and the winning ideas will be featured at the 2022 generation connect youth summit. Their creators will be invited to virtually join the summit and to be part of the generation connect community follow the winners and learn more keep up with other generation connect initiatives stay tuned stay connected. Now let me turn over for the next segment to my quite amazing co-moderator Ellen Taylor to talk about including marginalized and unconnected youth so Ellen please take it away. Thank you so much David hi again everyone that video was actually the perfect transition to this segment as we are going to focus our conversation on youth inclusion specifically on including marginalized and unconnected youth in the digital development dialogue. Inclusion is one of six enablers of connectivity for sustainable development and as such it has been a key component on this road to add a series I've really enjoyed seeing it come up in different ways in the past session so I'm so excited for our discussion today I'm really passionate about this topic and we have some fantastic speakers to get us to get us started. So to start this conversation of including marginalized and unconnected youth let's first turn to her excellency Miss Akila Byronizdit. Okay Akila has the best title ever so let me make sure I get this right. Akila is the minister of health ICT entertainment entrepreneurship and talent development in the ministry of health in St. Kitts and Nevis. So good oh my gosh she is dedicated to creating an environment in which young people can be innovative and creative with the goal of helping lead have youth led digital transformation efforts. Akila St. Kitts and Nevis recently achieved independence in 1983 and the young people in your country are driving a lot of really exciting and powerful social and technical change which is particularly awesome given that 60 percent of your population consists of young people so based on your experiences how can we include marginalized and unconnected youth in the digital development dialogue to achieve universal connectivity. Good morning and thank you so much a happy youth day to all the youth that are viewing and listening it is indeed a pleasure to be here I'm so excited I'm so excited to be a part of this particular panel because it's something that I'm passionate about and something that we are working towards in St. Kitts and Nevis. So to answer the question though I'll look at it in terms of what we have been doing in St. Kitts and Nevis in order for us to make sure that we involve youth and especially the marginalized youth in our discussions and in our development of IT in St. Kitts and Nevis and making sure that they are connected. Now back in 2019 the government of St. Kitts and Nevis was on a path to digital transformation and we still are on that path it is our vision really to make St. Kitts and Nevis a world leader in digital services delivery for the citizens or residents the private sectors and investors in a manner that is safe efficient interactive and responsive to the needs of our end users and which would allow us to see economic growth and contribute to our national development. Now we understand and we appreciate that in order for us to be able to get there it's important that our youth play a significant role in getting us there so how do we work towards making sure that all of our youth are connected and our paths of the dialogue in order to get us there it's twofold so we especially over the last year with the pandemic it is evident that there are quite a number of our young people who are just not connected some not connected they do have the capabilities to be able to maneuver in the internet world in IT world but they just don't have the connection and so what we have been doing in St. Kitts and Nevis is that we have been partnering with our number of our telecommunication companies in order to see what can we do to get these young people connected and involved and so just recently we would have launched with the help of one of our in collaboration with one of our telecommunications company the cable and we provided free free wi-fi services in all 17 of our community centers throughout St. Kitts and so what we found is that these because these young persons now have that wi-fi access some don't have that internet access at home we've been seeing quite a spike in the number of connections at our our white our community centers since we've launched that program and so the young people we are finding they're going on and they're trying to see how can I get connected and and the type of connections that we're seeing like they're doing their research and they're trying to build some even trying to build games using this wi-fi connection so you're seeing that enthusiasm to be part of the conversation as it relates to connectivity and so that is one of the initiatives that we took to say okay we may not be able to get you internet directly in your home so we'll bring it within your communities and make sure that you have that access that you need another thing that we did is once we were going into lockdown due to our um due to the pandemic what the education system did was they two partner with one of our telecommunications company and they provided internet to the homes of some of those students who may not have the connection in order for them to be able to continue their school and so we did a survey to find out what is the numbers that we have that would be left behind if we do not provide this service and then we just went ahead and provided that free internet service so that those students would not be left behind during this time and so that is what we do to make sure that persons are connected but it's not only about connecting persons to the internet we also understand that in order for persons to be part of the dialogue and for them to be able to understand that having this connection isn't just about coming on the internet and going on youtube or watching pictures or whatever it is there's so much more to IT than just that and so within our national ICT center under the ministry that I have responsibility for we've established what we call an innovation hub and so this innovation hub we see this as a cradle of digital creativity and we've positioned it so that we'll be able to deliver training in emerging and ubiquitous digital tools and over the past two or three years we have conducted training such as future skills some of camps these target children and teens between the ages of 10 to 15 for about three weeks of collaborative learning in 3d printing augmented reality robotics building code in what we called building code hackathons so it's a way for us to try to get them to understand that there is so much more to IT than just connecting to the internet and browsing the internet or looking at videos and so what that what these what this camp did is it brought together persons who were interested in software development to develop prototypes that digitize the processes within governments even because we want them to start thinking about how can I use this tool as well in order to help move the country along so some of the some of the projects that we had them do was geared towards digitizing some aspect of government as well and so that have been going very well and the young people have been showing great interest in the summer camps we also take it to the schools as well and we go into the schools and teach the students simple coding using robotics and that have shown to be very fruitful it it causes these students to be even more interested and aware of IT which is what we want because in order for us to be successful at creating that digital economy that we're looking towards it means that the future generation must be at a place where they're able to learn and it includes our marginalized youth as well because we get to them and reach them where they are in the schools and then through our initiatives in providing that internet service within the communities through our community centers we make sure that once they leave school they are engaged outside of school in making sure that they continue the learning process and being encouraged and involved and so these are some of the ways in which Zankits and Nevis have been trying to make sure that the marginalized youths are connected and we're so happy to see that the young persons are taking it wholehearted they're running with it they're excited about it and we've been having so much an uptake in the number of persons who wants to do this I mean it's gone so far that in Zankits and Nevis we even have a robotics club for young people and they participated the robotics competition globally and they've been doing very well and so we are seeing more and more young people even those who we consider to be marginalized getting involved in the conversation and participating in it so I just thought I'll share that answer the question by sharing what it is that we do in Zankits and Nevis to achieve that thank you so much your excellency that was so inspiring and exciting I love the holistic cross-sectoral approach you're taking to this issue of connecting the unconnected and digital inclusion and I think that's where our next speaker can also relate and come in so I would now love to turn to Mr. Robin Gojev Roman you are a youth worker a multidisciplinary artist and a researcher who stands for meaningful participation and the inclusive integration of young people youth and digital rights you are also part of the generation connect visionaries board which is a group of international leaders dedicated to championing the voices of young people they do fantastic work and I'm so excited to get to talk to you today you are working in some really fascinating intersections and I'm curious to hear your answer to the same question how can we include marginalized and unconnected youth and the digital development dialogue to achieve universal connectivity thank you so much I think this is me you are talking about thank you so much for the old colleagues that have introduced their own section on the marginalized and unconnected young people and this is really important that we are here about the number of people who have no access and it's not really something that's really hurtful there but first of all before I get started I just want to take a look who those people that we are talking about marginalized marginalized people are those who are those excluded from my instrumentation socioeconomic education and culture looking about young people's rights and human rights so we talk about rights education employment and training but we never say that young people have their rights to access to ICTs and their internet and technologies but this is really important that we have to take a look at a number that's talking here and the number of young people who are still offline is 40% of the rural population and the most important part of it part of them are young people and they are also marginalized people and we were when we're talking about stakeholders and decision makers we just give the the main part of this process to those people who are decision makers but not young people and I just come back to this topic at the end because I want to answer this question truly but before that I want to go inside the european youth firms future work the publication that we have researched all over the world are europe so this publication says that four important mega trends will be shaping our global uh type of work this is globalization climate change demographic change and technological advancement and each story is made by mega trends and industry brings its own unique challenge for young people and the future of work and all of them requires at least basic digital skills but when we're taking a look at people who have those skills we don't see them because uh based on our research more than 60 person of the rural population doesn't have at least digital skills computer team is smartphone and others but in this world in the contemporary century we're talking about the new generation we assume them digital natives but those very similar with technology from a very early age yet this assumption can be a hard for as it finds sort of like the fact that not all young people have equal access to icities and while some young people are well worth in the use of technology such as smartphones and tables and tablets this doesn't mean that they are equipped with the digital skills and that will be useful when engaging in their technology and new mega trends and the future work so uh what is needed here is the education a quality education that we never get in the school and as a result of digitalization icities skills are likely to be required in the most professional future from farming even to banking etc and the European Commission estimates that 90% of jobs will require digital skills but the interesting fact is that we never get it in in schools or universities or other education educational institutions so what we have here that we are questioning is that uh there are trainings opportunities for young people but also those young people uh and those trainings not really targeting the specifically marginalized young people those trainings or opportunities are adopted not the needs of young people with disabilities um for example despite the fact that the unemployment rate among those with disabilities is significantly higher than the average and they are also marginalized but we are never thinking about them uh this also should be mentioned that time for work can be easier to access those who have limited formal education at least or those from marginalized groups such as racial or ethnic minorities who makes the 55 percent of the classroom and those people who are in the process of working and in employment so if you were asking the question how we can include those young people in a digital agenda is that we have to see them as actors in a process of decision making because when decision makers and stakeholders talking about the problem they're just talking about what their capacity and capability as a as an institution works on but we never think about what is the comfort needs and expectations of young people especially those marginalized so uh what is important is that answer your question is that we have to include and involve all young people and especially marginalized young people in the this process and ask them directly and see them with them with them in the same table and see what's there expect what what are their needs and work on this so this will be the digital this will be involved in them in digital agenda and digital development I hope this was clear enough thank you so much if you have any question I'm over here thank you so much rovin thank you for taking the time to define really who we're talking about when we talk about unconnected communities and youth and thinking about sustainability and what that looks like in a digital inclusion effort so thank you very much um so I'd love to present now our third and final speaker in this segment Mr. Tejman Ruzboom is the ambassador of youth education and work at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs he unfortunately could not be here with us today but he has sent a special video address so let's please see that video now thank you ITU for this opportunity the Netherlands applaud ITU for launching their youth strategy generation connect our digital age hold much promise for turbo charging our work to achieve the sustainable development goals digital technologies truly have transformative potential they open new front chairs of productivity they provide new opportunities to people and societies particularly to young women uh to young people and women however digital technologies can also exacerbate inequalities as the world becomes more digitally dependent it threatens to exclude those that remain disconnected which often are also women mostly in developing countries the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted this disparity those without internet access have been unable to benefit from the from for example remote education or digital possibilities that jobs can offer um and actually without the size of action the digital divide can become the new face of inequality and we must take this action together governments private sector academia multilateral organization NGOs and specifically also young people themselves with our youth at heart strategy the Netherlands aims to work on the prospects of young people we want to work on skills we want to work on jobs and specifically bridging the gap between the two digital skills and digital opportunities are actually a very important part of our youth at heart strategy increasingly we want to work with young people to achieve these goals as partners meaningfully engaging them we have much to learn from the generation that will be most affected by the rapid changes currently taking place so the Netherlands looks forward to continuing to work with it you and with young people on a more open free and secure digital future for all so thank you so much to everyone present here today and let's all put the youth at heart thank you excellent what a great message on collaboration and partnerships and a wonderful way to conclude this segment I will now hand the floor back to David to carry on with the final segment of today's session David the floor is yours thank you well and really great job you know the Generation Connect community is a big part of today's session on youth so the ITU's Generation Connect initiative has had a lot of impact and this next video is going to tell us a little bit more about what it means to the participants and why they believe so much in connectivity so let's watch it and get ready to dance what does it mean connected to be connected is being part of something bigger without physical barriers to be connected means to have a bond with someone or something that is established on common goals interests aspirations or even feelings that leaves you with a good impression we are connected when we can communicate with anyone anyone it means to be open-minded to have an opportunity to express my potential and build the inclusive and innovative digital world being connected is being part of something much bigger and discovering new ways to change our world by sharing values and ideas believing in each other to achieve our goals for me being connected means being able to use technology to bridge the gaps that exist and divide our society today what does Generation Connect mean to you alliance marvelous partnership hope inclusion in life inspiring innovation networking sharing interconnected change megas exchange innovation opportunity empowerment connecting the unconnected yeah and our own Denola there at the end uh and that global presentation is really underscored by all of you i see a bunch of people from Nigeria as well as people here from Kenya Brazil Yemen Palestine India really really exciting so we're going to go into our next segment where we'll talk about addressing the digital skills gap so i'm going to bring on our next two panelists Dr. Kevin Fry of Generation Unlimited and Deb Shema Rotra of Justice Text so let me start with you Kevin with this huge unconnected cohort we've heard about of billions of people young people who are not in the digital society that we all rely on so much obviously we need a more inclusive approach to skills in particular and so your organization is a global multi-sector partnership to meet this urgent need for education training employment opportunities so what kind of capacity to build the building efforts and new ecosystems do you try to help us achieve and how should we be thinking about this yeah thanks David and I think it's a great question and I would like to say thank you to Doreen and ITU for having me here today and for Doreen's amazing support of Generation Unlimited for many years it's great partnership between Generation Unlimited and ITU it's actually a question that I go to sleep with and wake up with every single day because it goes to the heart of Generation Unlimited's mission which is to connect the world's 1.8 billion young people to opportunities by 2030 and there's really two questions that the team at Generation Unlimited spend the majority of their time on and that's where are the opportunities for young people both now and in the future and then how can we prepare and connect young people to those opportunities and when I think about young people and opportunity after picture them as existing on on kind of two separate cliffs separated by a deep valley in between the world's young people on one side and a world of opportunity that exists on the other side just across from this deep valley for me that world of opportunity is the digital world and some of the world's youth as we've heard today are privileged enough to have a high-speed bridge to that world of opportunity called the internet and the numbers are astounding and we've heard them again and again over the course of today's session about the number the majority of the world's children and youth were entirely disconnected 2.2 billion so two-thirds of people under the age of 25 they're left alone on a cliff with no access to the world of opportunity that sits on the other side of an internet connection and what are those opportunities it's exactly what you talked about it's opportunities for world-class learning and skilling but it goes a step further it's opportunities for employment it's opportunities for entrepreneurship it's opportunities as we've heard to connect to the world but we can't be naive access to the internet alone is not sufficient young people who do cross that bridge once they're connected have to develop the skills and know-how as we heard from Shanae to navigate and leverage the digital world young people need skills for the future of work and the future of work requires at least some level of digital skills but I would caution because we spend a lot of time thinking about skills that while digital skills are important the future of work and entrepreneurship is not that simple young people have to develop a far broader and more holistic skillset the world economic forum released some research recently that said eight out of the top 10 job skills of tomorrow they call them job skills of tomorrow are deeply human skills like critical thinking problem-solving creativity resilience emotional intelligence and these are uniquely human skills and they're essential for success and the good news is they can be learned and they can be developed now I think and this is goes back to connectivity there are amazing opportunities and I think everybody knows the online global learning platforms that are out there today that offer young people access to world-class learning and certification both formal and informal as we heard from Ahmed earlier on digital and soft skills training but again to have access to that world-class learning they need to be connected these platforms actually promise to democratize learning and skilling by making them available to everyone who's connected regardless of geography that's why I'm so optimistic about the future I think the technology holds the promise of the future for us of unlimited potential for young people I think at no point in history we have the technological capability to deliver this order of magnitude step change in the lives of young people I think the question for all of us today is are we going to seize this moment are we going to connect the two-thirds of the world's children young people to the internet and then are we going to make sure that they have access to that world-class learning and skilling a generation unlimited we have we have a hypothesis and we've seen it play out again and again that to actually solve this problem the private sector has to come together with the public sector and youth and work as one to solve this enormous problem we have been rallying heads of state ceo the civil society organizations un agencies including itu to to bridge the world of digital opportunity for every young person but we have to do more and maybe just to conclude and I think it's important we've talked a lot about youth voice today I want to make sure that the final thing I say is actually to channel and amplify the voice of a young leader from generation unlimited we had a session recently online her name's to yana and and she said and I quote we must establish a bold new agenda for digitally disadvantaged youth by reallocating resources realigning institutional priorities and repositioning young people's ability to drive innovative solutions and this is our chance to pivot to a more inclusive future for all and I couldn't agree with tiana more so back to you David thank you Kevin yeah we need to be optimist but to sustain and substantiate our optimism we have to work really hard from here on in now dev she let me bring you in uh your ceo of justice text you're a quite young but very accomplished entrepreneur part of the Forbes 30 under 30 community so congratulations on that with your business partner leslie jones dove you have created this company which helps lawyers generate automated transcripts of audio video and materials to prepare pre-trial so you've thought a lot about innovation and how the world is changing what do you think we need to do to get young people more ready and equipped with the skills they need for this new world thank you so much for the question david and thank you for having me here um I think I would love to focus my answer on specifically how we can encourage more young people to pursue technology entrepreneurship um because that that really has been my experience to date um one of the statistics that I find incredibly shocking is that in 2020 startups with only female founders received less than two percent of global venture capital funding and as a female entrepreneur myself um this is a strong signal that more work needs to be done to ensure that the ideas of underrepresented communities are not only elevated but supported financially um I think one of the most incredible aspects of technology is that it can equalize access to opportunity and to wealth um but even to this day many tech organizations are not inclusive of the needs of racial minorities and those from low income communities I'm someone who has um previously worked at a lot of large tech companies and in spite of the incredible mentorship I received often still felt a little bit like my experiences weren't reflected and the my own values weren't being incorporated in in the products that that were necessarily being well built and getting the most attention in my experience young people are especially motivated to tackle these issues I have friends who are working to ensure a greater representation in clinical trials who are working to address the climate crisis and I think that universities can play an incredibly strong role in empowering them um for one I think universities should provide more interdisciplinary courses where students don't just get the technology skills but they also understand what it means to conceptualize a business idea around it where they can have important discussions around the ethical implications of the technology that they're building um to call out one example I think Stanford has an incredible course focused on CS for social good which I think is a fantastic example um but my university also um had one that helped kickstart kickstart my journey um another crucial piece um to the equation and I alluded to this earlier is providing funding to young people I think this is a discussion I have a lot of times with um other you know underrepresented founders but I think there's this feeling that you know there's a lot of mentorship available to us but not enough people who are willing to take a bet on us and our abilities and our ideas and so I think universities can start off by giving you know just a small grant to help kick things off and the amount of confidence that gives young people I think is absolutely invaluable um to share a little bit about my story I personally am someone who attended school in Chicago and was incredibly angered and directly affected um about upon learning about the epidemic of police violence in the United States and um upon digging deeper and exploring the racial disparities in our criminal justice system was eager to find a way in which I could use my technology skills to try and make an impact and if it weren't for the resources that my university provided in those early days I definitely would not have had the confidence to pursue entrepreneurship full time um and I hope that these types of support networks can be provided to more young people wow well I agree with you I hope they do too I think that we are working in that direction but it takes a lot of work I think that's what we're hearing from all of our speakers nothing is given we've got to really work to reframe the discussion um so now we're going to move to a q&a portion let me bring in my great co-participant for many many sessions Danila Oladapo uh Danila tell us what you're hearing from your community you're the official kind of connection to the young people even for previous sessions so this is where you really have a very big role and I'm so happy to see you again what do you have for us? No thank you so much David first of all I have to say how blown who I am just uninspired by everyone who has spoken today um and this is really an amazing celebration of young people and I really love the video that we showed earlier those were all young people who were the digital um youth envoys who we've been working with over the past few months from all the different regions and in their own work wearing that powerful um statement of what being connected meant or means to them was just such a great moment there and I'm sure a few of them are watching as well I want to say thank you so much for sharing and for amplifying your voice today um so we've got some really interesting questions on Twitter and also in the q&a so I'm going to just start asking them one by one and hopefully um we can get through a couple um so first of all I'm going to start off with one in the chat which I think will be for her Excellency Akila because it's specifically about government um and it's basically asking um basically what can be done at the kind of local level um I believe it was by um I can't remember who exactly asked the question but basically some of the things that you were saying about government interventions but then asking more about the grassroots level and how some of these solutions to amplify youth voices you know internationally and on a national level can actually be kind of amplified on a grassroots level and basically it's almost start of today what would be the first step in amplifying their voices in the digital development dialogue on a local level thank you very much for that question Denola and how I would answer that is by saying that it's about a partnership and so what I believe is that once you can get everyone together to have discussions to interact to engage then we will be able to see the amplification of the need for us to continue on the path that we are on in terms of connecting all of our youths and especially our marginalized youths and so in in terms of in St. Kitts and Nevis for instance we try to get persons where they are and so we go into the schools and we go into the communities and we try to reach you where you are and encourage you and show you what it is IT can do for you not only in terms of connection and entertainment but also as a way of upskilling you and bringing you to a place where you will be able to engage in IT in a more meaningful way and one that would help us as a country to move forward with our digital transformation agenda and so we are at a government level we are opening up so that we can have more persons involved and be able to participate in what we are doing in terms of our digital transformation and we believe that once you create those partnerships where you have government as well as the grassroots the community groups the schools all involved in the work towards this digital transformation and being able to connect everyone within the societies and communities then we'll be able to see the amplification of the connectivity for everyone within the communities and within our spaces. Thank you so much your Excellency and another question that came in actually through Facebook this one was was asking about when the Generation Connect Youth Summit will be and I'm so excited to share with you that it will be on the from the fourth to the fifth of June 2022 it will precede WTDC so it will precede the World Telecommunications Development Conference so please if you're not already you know engaged in our website or in our virtual communities please plug in because you need to watch this space so much more information will be coming in the in the coming weeks and months as we build up to the Generation Connect Youth Summit and we hope as many young people as possible we'll be able to engage with this both you know physically and as well as virtually as well because we're planning for a hybrid summit so if you want more information don't hesitate to reach out to us on the Generation Connect website and via our virtual communities thank you so much for that question now there's another question on Twitter and this one is not addressed to anyone so please don't be shy speakers if you want to say something about this and it's saying youth are the most powerful agents of change but how can we make sure their voices are actually heard by the current decision makers anyone want to take that I might take on someone if not go ahead I can talk a little bit about this just because within Generation Unlimited we're in the middle of a strategic planning process for the next three years and we were working on a slide yesterday that was called youth powered impact and we were really trying to articulate what does it mean to put youth at the core not to just give them a voice not to just give them a seat at the table but how do you actually make sure that they're driving decision making and that power has actually been shifted I'm not going to suggest that we solved it but some of the things that we're working on is representation in governance so real governance where the decisions get made and where the resources get allocated having real youth representation not a single youth to check a box but real representation where resources are being allocated so that was one section for us second is staffing if you build organizations that are all top-heavy with us old fogies then not surprising that the decisions coming out are going to be focused on the kind of ways we frame up the problems so actually trying to create staffing structures where we have majority of young people in the staff making the decisions on a day-to-day basis and then when we got to program interventions we talked about co-creation of program design making sure youth are actually driving implementation all the way to setting up the evaluation metrics so actually betting youth across the entire spectrum of what we're doing from the highest level governance resource allocation all the way down to driving programs and being part of the staff structure in a in a representative and an ideal majority way so those are some of the things we're working on don't know if I can add to that too some of the other ways to is through road shows and so some of the things that we do here in St Kitsune this is that we take it to the people we say this is what we're trying to achieve and we want your input on it give us your feedback and ideas and then once we put together whatever reports or whatever we come up with we go back to the people again and we said this is based on our discussions this is what we see fit give us your input and thoughts have we covered what needs to be covered and so that way you can get a broader cross-section of persons involved in the conversation and the dialogue and it's not just the government sitting at a table making decisions but rather we're opening up to the people so that they can also be part of the conversation and the dialogue and their inputs have become a part of whatever decision making is it's ultimately which I know I have a question I wanted to ask that came from the audience and it really anyone could answer it but I thought maybe Sinead or Dev she could take a chance shot at this or either or both of them it's really a very profoundly important point which is that there's plenty of places especially in the developing world where there is connectivity but many people are still not using the connectivity that's there and the leaders in those regions are not putting a sufficient priority on emphasizing the importance of doing so and advocating for it so the question is how can we basically push and even force leaders who have been reluctant to recognize the significance of helping their communities do it more Sinead can you can you give us some thoughts on that sorry to ambush you but I'm sure you can handle absolutely I think one thing that also often gets the attention of leaders and decision makers is the economy and when you look at the missed opportunity and foregoing an opportunity to bring more people online meaningfully you're foregoing a massive economic potential a massive revenue stream and so that's one one way that we often often tackle or one that we focus on away but another thing and you had mentioned there's sometimes circumstances where connectivity is possible it's just not fully utilized and that also involves sticking down into different sociocultural norms for example so who do you have operating the digital connectivity stations for example who's working in that seat are they someone that the community feels comfortable with are there tools there to ensure that all people in society feel comfortable going to that connectivity hub or sector so there's a lot of different layers there but I think first and foremost for any leader if you are not taking connectivity seriously that's a massive economic missed opportunity for you yeah Debsi or maybe Roman any of you want to jump in on that yeah I'll briefly chime in on that point about community hubs I think schools are an incredible place to start I think for a lot of community leaders who may not have grown up with access to the same technology it might not be the most clear to them why this in fact is something worth investing in in the future but in my experience a lot of teachers are very excited and intrinsically motivated and passionate to support their students and so I think you know setting up a lab at a local school and hosting community events and slowly encouraging the community to engage and learn about this technology is really the way around it I think a top-down approach would likely meet with some resistance interesting okay yeah just if I can add I just want to comment and say I'm really like what minister Akira said by the way I agree with and I think the circuit has the coolest type on the world so I just think I honestly think digital is about zero one but the solution to digital inclusion is not that binary I don't think we have to wait either full connectivity for everyone in their homes or basically we cannot find intermediate solutions that will get people connected I think the example you cited your excellency on offering that that innovation hub community hub spaces for young people to come together might sound like an awkward thing why we should do that if you're in the context of New York but I mean in lots of our countries that's the spaces where you get connected first that's the spaces where you create also a sense of community a public space that is offline but enabling that virtual connectivity and digital inclusion I think that's that's not to be underestimated I think a lot when we spoke about the user-friendly services these user-friendly centers I mean we'll talk about taking all your centers virtual I honestly think we still have a lot way to go in offering a user-friendly spaces that are not digital yet but enabling that digital inclusion and gradually on the example you cited that just a reminder to all of us okay you know we have someone in the audience from the government of Canada Santiago Reyes Borda I think we have the ability to get him on screen and contribute to the conversation so welcome Santiago thank you for joining us well thank you so much all colleagues and friends and I'm very happy and pleased to be here seeing all young people and most importantly so many young women and congratulations to all and among them my compatriot the Ellen Taylor who has been a co-moderator and is participating in Generation Connect just very briefly to let you know how committed Canada is to youth and at the ITU that we're looking forward we're working with the ITU to see how we can support the strategy how we can support the participation of young people particularly women and girls at the summit and not as a one-off but as ongoing strategy to ensure that you young people have an active and essential participation in the future of ICTs and digital technologies without you there is no future you are the future so please count with Canada's cooperation I will be working with Ellen with Sylvia Paul at ITU and other colleagues to ensure that to the best of our abilities we make the most substantial contribution to an excellent WTDC because this is the most important conference for the future of ICTs and digital technologies again congratulations to all of you and looking forward to seeing you in Addis and working towards the future of you having far more intense and productive participation in the decision-making process of governments like ours on a bottom-up approach and listening to your wonderful ideas because that is the future again thank you so much and congratulations to all of you thank you for joining us Santiago and this has been a great discussion we're going to move to the next segment which is the legendary word cloud portion of the Road to Addis series so what I'm going to do now uh we'll keep you all on screen is I'm going to call your name and you're going to tell us your one word that you would like to see coming out of the World Telecommunication Development Conference in Addis in 2022 so I'm going to start with Doreen. Thank you David I'm going to go with Hope. All right Amad. Inclusion. Shanae. Progress. Akila. Inclusion. Kevin. Disruption. Roman. Consumption. All right Devshi. Empowerment. Ellen. Amplification. And Danola your own word and the community's word. My word is transformation but we are the Generation Connect Asian Pacific group to share their words and the most popular word that came out was inclusion. That's a great word. All right one we've heard a lot about today. All right so we're going to assemble that word cloud and in the meantime let me bring back on Doreen to give us her closing thoughts. Thank you so much David this has been absolutely fantastic and I do want to thank you. Thank Ellen Danola of course our terrific panelists. And you Santiago for jumping in there at the end with with the support from Canada thank you so much. I think it's been a great way to celebrate international youth day. And of course from I think everyone David, that digital can be this world of opportunity that digital has this transformative potential that it opens new frontiers of productivity, but it can also be the new face of inequality. So we're starting up front with our youth envoy, two thirds of people under 25 not connected. That's kind of scary. But I think, and this goes back to my word David of hope we did hear some great recommendations today of how we can tackle this I think very concretely from putting inclusion front and center through engagement like our session today. Through understanding, and of course through action, we can't just talk about it we actually need to take concrete actions. Youth must be full partners in our efforts to build an inclusive fair and sustainable world for all. And we do have this responsibility to enable them to take part in shaping the digital future. And giant them I also mentioned this about engaging them, of course as equal partners through multi stakeholder consultations youth like consultations I think that's also important. As Ahmed and and she needs that in the beginning I think it's interesting this sort of convergence of processes that was noted. So from biodiversity climate digital is the prerequisite right and as Sinait said we need these digital resources to help us participate in other sectors. And if we get it there will be this sort of ripple effect a positive ripple effect. Of course Roman covered this point I think well when you took it through the lens of mega trends for the future. But it's not just the access piece and I think that's also fundamental for us to keep in mind Kevin Sinait others have mentioned this. It's the skills piece the skill development, the tech literacy, but also the pieces around critical thinking problem solving. And of course as Ahmed said, we have to keep in mind, not just the formal education pieces but also the informal mechanisms and Deb she had some great suggestions on the education front. And the important role of course that universities can play in empowering students and she also had some good points about venture capital is specifically for women led businesses. Minister Byron is bit the minister with the best title as I noted, had some very concrete actions that she has taken from the free Wi Fi access internet at home, but also I found interesting. The work that she has done in helping young people understand that access to the internet is not just about entertainment it's much, much more. And then from the Netherlands I think it was great his focus on the transformative potential, the new frontiers as I mentioned before. And of course as Kevin mentioned from his generation unlimited ambassador, you know, really it's time for a bold new agenda for digital. And we need to have common goals I think we heard many of them today, we need to believe in each other I think that's also important and we need to take action together. So putting youth at the heart, putting youth right there front and center. So first David our discussions today and in our next row to action to to add us in September are all parts of not just the WTBC but of course our generation connect you summit that you heard will take place from the fourth to the fifth of June. And then to it's going to be a hybrid event I do hope many of you will be able to join us to continue this dialogue, but also more importantly help to ensure that we do have the right action plan in place to actually move these commitments forward. We're building up to our partner to connect coalition that we have launched some weeks ago, we're very focused on LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. And here we're looking to ensure that young people from those from those countries are included, and of course have full access to digital connectivity and opportunities. Yeah, David, I want to hand back to you it's really been a great session and thanks everyone for jumping in so actively and in the chat. I've learned a lot and look forward to continuing with all of you back to you David. Thank you. Thank you Doreen. Thank you for you putting your team together and having them do such a great job. And really, it's been a pleasure. I want to get one of my favorite things on screen which is Jim Rogers graphic that he's been working on during this entire time. I want to have enough time for you can make that full screen so you don't bother seeing me there we go. This is worth looking at it will be available after the fact on the road to Addis page and the it use website, but look at that done in real time just now. Great session I'm still filtering through all the ideas but it's been really great. It's been some really important points. Hopefully I've managed to get everything on there. You've got a lot on there. Yeah, there's a lot to filter through so many great ideas. We love it. Well as well we're just continuing to watch that I just wanted to point out that in the chat. There was information about how to join the generation connect groups on Facebook. Also how to see the previous sessions in the road to Addis series. So much as I'd love to leave this up. Let's go to the word cloud and are you ready. We've got the word transformation inclusion. So many great words here and in our final stop on this first edition of the road to Addis which is September 20 on the margins of the UN General Assembly we will have a complete word cloud with all the words that have come up in all the different sessions. So mark that in your calendar September 20 to which will be a session that looks at the outcomes of all the sessions we've had so far. And we'll talk about a new road to Addis series as well that will follow that. And we'll also officially launch what Doreen just talked about the it use partner to connect digital coalition so that is September 20 but a lot more to hear about that. So the road to Addis continues. Thank you so much to all the speakers. It was really a wonderful conversation today. And I just want to make sure before we wrap that everybody knows that there is a survey. We'd like you to fill out if possible just takes a couple of minutes. The link is in the chat I believe. So click on the link in the chat to fill out the survey is this link in the chat. Let's see it must be higher up. There's a lot of stuff in that chat. Okay. Oh, there we go. So, again, thank you, everybody. Thank you, Ellen, especially for your great work co moderating you've got a lot of future in this kind of work I can see. Denola. Thank you, Doreen again. And thank you so much to all of our speakers. See you on September 20.