 Good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd love you to please take your seats. We are starting in just one minute. For those who are still outside, could you please enter? We are beginning. This is the day. This is our last day. I would love you to please take your seats as we begin. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. How are you? Should we try it again in Kinyaranda? Okay, you just repeat what I say and add the word Neza at the end. So if I say Mngaramute, you just say Mngaramute Neza. Mngaramute. Amazing. That is beautiful. Thank you very much. My name is Arthur. We are together the whole summit starting from, when did we start? On Thursday, we were together and I'm here again on the last day. Thank you very much for being such amazing people. I hope you're enjoying the summit. Well, welcome to the third and final of the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit sessions. Now, we have some that are here and we also have our colleagues online, those following us online. Thank you very much for joining in. Now, today we are opening the program with the fourth and the last intergeneration dialogue. I'm hoping you've been enjoying these conversations and I'll be telling you more in details of what we have later on. But the intergeneration dialogue four is called Mind the Gap. That means turning equality into reality. Now, this session will be moderated by Ayhita Gangavarap and Roman Gojaev. And they are going to be taking us through that moment. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah. As they take stage, I would love my team to please play us a video that is going to set the tone of this conversation. And I would love you to also watch it and get ready for the conversation. Otherwise, turn to your neighbor and tell them welcome to the last day. Thank you. Due to gender inequality in our communities, women are the most left out in the digital space. To seek to break this gender divide, it is important that we support women focused initiatives that seek to provide digital inclusion of women either through training or providing devices or internet connectivity for them. Building the capacity of such initiatives will ensure that they get to reach out to more women and they are able to have access to the digital world. To break the gender gap and foster gender inclusion, we must first start by breaking the bias. That STEM careers or the use of ICT devices are year more towards men than women. On the other hand, it is essential to help give confidence to every woman who is interested in taking their first steps in the STEM world, providing them not only with educational resources, but also with the necessary personal tools. Don't you think it's time to break with all these old labels? Don't you think it's time to bet on women and girls? Digital connectivity is a very important part in my life. I work from home thanks to digital connectivity. I learn a lot of new things thanks to the internet and I even can stay connected with my family and friends. Digital connectivity is a crucial part in my life. Can we really call this a fair world if in the 21st century not everybody has access to those tools? A very good morning to everyone. Welcome to the last day of the first ever Generation Connect Youth Summit. I am Aitita Gangavarpu. I am from India and I'm a member of the board at the Generation Connect Visionaries Board. I'll be here to moderate today's discussion offline and I have my wonderful colleague Roman Gojaya who is also a fellow board member to be moderating and coordinating those joining us remotely. Hope you all slept well because today's session is extremely relevant and important for all of us. Welcome to the fourth intergenerational dialogue titled Mind the Gap, Turning Equality into Reality. So in the past two days there has been a lot of discussion around how equality into reality and turning that into one is a challenge for most communities. We have not only had discussions around what it means but all the challenges that are there. We not only need equality in digital space but we also need that, we also need digital tools to foster equality. Are the framework system structures designed to cater to the unique requirements of the youth, women, girls and the minority groups sufficient? Could digital platforms that facilitate continuous learning, remote working, flexible working hours help maybe to bridge this gap? How do we ensure that the digital transformation sweeps across all aspects of the societies that we don't miss out on the opportunity to ensure digital equality for all? And this is an area of action that decision makers need to act upon which has been stressed by the fellow youth in the call to action. With new technologies building digital skills to enable women, girls and minority groups, the benefit from being active contributors and show leadership in the digital society in today's world is a must. To give insights from their experience and expertise, we have an incredible panel who have joined us today both offline and online. Welcome. And I'd like to introduce all of them. We have Mr. Lassina Kone, the director general smart Africa, who's on his way and he'll be joining us shortly. We have her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice York, the Generation Connect Visionaries board member joining us remotely. We have Ms. Fosia Andreas, who's the founder and CEO of Fosia Andreas Ethiopia, requesting you to join us on the stage. We have Ms. Hedy Shudris Fox, the acting high representative of the United Nations office for least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states. Ma'am, please welcome. We have Ms. Michelle Sumulas, the assistant to the administrator of the Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning at USAID joining us remotely. Hello. We have Ms. Raquel Cartero-Variz, who's a public affairs advisor, Telefonica also joining us remotely. And we have Ms. Esperanza Ibanez-Luzano, Netflix public policy director, Spain and Portugal joining us remotely. We are very excited to have our speakers and all the few delegates who are joining us today. I would actually like to give the floor to Roman Naut for the online moderation. Thank you so much, Ihita. I'm really excited to moderate this session with you and I'm really excited to go surrounded with extraordinary panelists online and offline. Welcome this session. This is the last intergenerational dialogue of the very much first gender global youth summit. But it doesn't mean that we stop our dialogue and advocacy for ensuring our participation, decision-making tables, not only as a dialogue into developing but also implementation of the processes. And this is not by chance that we put this session as the last one because we have to discuss equal participation, taking into account that the digital future is approaching faster than we expected it to be. It's really important that we discuss about the equal participation of young people, but not only, but also the women and girls and those from marginalized groups of young people. So I will moderate the online discussion. We have amazing young people from around the world joining us today and this is actually showing that how important the discussion for them. I would like to ask them kindly to share their name and surname, country and time zone in the chat box. And let's keep the chat box to ensure our dialogue is there in here in Kigali. Thank you so much, Roman. Actually, I would like for you, Roman, to ask a question to her Royal Highness and start the conversation today. Yeah, sure. We have great moderators, as Ahita introduced, and we have her Royal Highness Princess Beatrik here. She is our board member of the Generation Connect Visionaries and she has her advocacy in women leadership. I would really love to hear from your site, your actions that you have taken and your suggestion for equal participation of women and girls in decision-making tables. Please, floor is yours. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. I'm so sorry that I am not there in person with you, but I'm sure you're having the most spectacular first global youth summit. It's been an honor to be on the board thinking about some of the ideas that we're focusing on, so thank you so much for inviting me here today. This is probably one of the most important subjects for me as an advocate for a global change because when you think about the role that we have now, the time is now to get to get this right, to change that woman's life by giving her the access to the education that she needs in order to support her family, support her network, support really is the time is now. We've seen over the last few years what we've all been through with the global pandemic that we really have time to change the narrative. I was so moved by what I saw in the video in the warm-up about, is this time not to change the narrative? I think it is, but we need to get it right and I think that that comes from a place of collaboration, so I'm really excited also to hear from the panelists today a little bit more about the ways that we can collaborate because I don't think that this gets done in isolation. This is about how every single person can think about the long game as well. What does success really, really, really look like? For me, that comes to looking at tools, so not only is it about giving devices and giving access, but this is also about safety, security, and the opportunities that that comes with. So for example, financial independence that actually can give women and young girls the right to control their lives, and if we get that right, especially with some of the fantastic fintech opportunities that are coming, I think we can really change the narrative. And I think that for me is the most important part as an advocate for women in leadership, is that this narrative needs to change. This is not about who has and who hasn't. This is about what can we do all together to make sure that everybody has an equal opportunity. But I think the conversation is so important to have now, and especially when you've got a lot of young people who are navigating their way back into the workplace. I think that that's something that's really, really important to focus on. We've got new opportunities to work from home. And I know from my experience being a new mom, that that was really helpful to me when navigating back to the workplace. This is some of the things that we could really, really excel and really do well. And then we could really, we could change the narrative for reaching our sustainable development goal in goal five by really unlocking this potential. But we have to level the playing field. If we don't do it correct, if we don't do it correctly, we're going to, well, it's the gaps going to get wider. And that is if that is a fear for me, if we don't move, if we don't move fast enough. But I'm so thrilled that we're having conversations like today, like, like you've had over the last few, few days, in order to make sure that we're doing everything that we can. The most important side for me is that we collaborate. And that message has come, that's the message that I found really, really helpful when I think about the work that I'm doing in education as well. Nobody can do this alone. And nobody can do this. And nobody should be doing this alone. And we all need to work together. And there's no space in this conversation for competition. So I really think this is about safety, inclusion, and giving young people, and giving young people the tools. So I'm really excited to, I'm really excited to hear from the other panelists as well. But as an advocate, women in leadership, I'm really honoured to be a part of the conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Princess Beatrice, for your inputs, and also for setting the context for discussion that we're going to have today. We have Mr. Lassina who's just joined us, and I'll be directing the second question to you. So what do you think about, you know, your perspective on turning digital equality into reality? Thank you very much. We thought it was the KCC, so the KCC-99 happened to be here. First of all, I think to turning this into really inequality, it's something that's very important for all of us here to really know. Preparing the future for current generations is different than preparing the current generation for the future. It's only when you're able to do both, and we're able to do both in a collaborative way, then we can build a nation. I'm saying that a smart Africa, a Pan-African organisation based in Rwanda here, of course, with the sole focus on the digital agenda on the continent, it's very important that we look at the both side of these equations. Now, how do we make it equal? Because as you can see, a lot of, all the statistics show that the digital, there's a big digital divide, not only between the rich and the poor, there's also a very big digital divide between a woman and a man as well. I'm talking about women and young girls. Some statistical, you probably know it globally, not only 16% of female student graduate from STEM. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute only 30% of the tech professionals, and only 18% to 31% are involved in the STEM ICT. According to recent GSMA reports, the gender gap in mobile ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa is about 13%. So what do we do? Let me tell you about what do we do to actually bridge this digital divide associated bias. We need to probe the technology innovation value chain and go even deeper to probe the value and principle that underpin the technological design and development. So I'll tell you a little bit about what we do in Africa. I quickly will share about five things that Smart Africa do, and Spartan stakeholders are working together every day to support the gender equality in the digital divide. Our programs and the project to mainstream gender as a central part in our digital transformation agenda. Number two is that through Smart Africa SIDA, which is a Smart Africa Digital Academy, we built the technology capacity of African citizens to develop and use the technology. We've also facilitated the development of digital infrastructure that address the African. Basically, what does that actually mean? When we are thinking of the overall on the continent level to build the intro Africa connectivity, we're not specifically actually targeting certain gender. It's actually the continent as a whole. The second thing here that we put together with the Smart Africa Digital Academy, if you look at it, it's a really multi-layers approach which targeted one decision makers, IT professional, advanced IT professional, IT professional, STEM, and general public. When we say STEM, actually we are targeting young women in rural area to be able to tackle the ICT question. Something very important you will see. It's very important also to note as we are moving ahead with the technological advancement, someone might say more we are going into meta verse world, for example, the gap will be widened and that's a reality. And what do we do actually to shrink in that to make sure? I believe that artificial intelligence is a good opportunity for Africa to be able to catch up with that gap because today with artificial intelligence, we can teach our young kids in the street in the Kigali here, Zimbabwe in Nairobi, they're developing the natural processing languages to allow our technological devices to actually understand the local language and translate it into action. It's only by that way because the speed of the technology is the way that if we are not careful, we'll be actually opening the wider gap, even gender inequality, all of that between the poor and the young, a bit of poor and rich. So we use artificial intelligence. We promote that to be able to develop artificial intelligence in our advice. That's exactly what we're doing in Smart Africa. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Asimov. I especially like your point about how technical advancements are inevitable, but can we use it to bridge this digital inequality or the gap that we're facing right now? So thank you very much for your points. I would like to now turn to Ms. Pazia. As a young woman entrepreneur, very active in the field of textiles and apparel, how can digital skills increase one's opportunities in this domain? Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me. I would like to thank ITU and Ecos for giving me this opportunity to be able to connect with all of you. I'm a fashion designer since we didn't have an introduction. I'm from Ethiopia and I work with sustainable fashion and ethical wear. Regarding the question, I think the digital skills play a really great role in the fashion industry in different aspects, starting from the first stages of making the mood boards and then up to being able to present those final products to our customers. I think one of the aspects would be sustainability because using the digital skills will help us to save more time and also to save more of our resources because it could be a simple ask paper. We could be making a lot of sketches and making designs, but we could use these digital skills in the design and making process and it will make the time shorter and more effective. Another aspect would be regarding visibility. Of course, we have all witnessed how the digital skills, the internet and the social media helped us to be connected with the world even in times of COVID and lockdowns. People were able to buy things online from different continents and this was simply possible because of the internet. Regarding visibility also, it also helped us to be connected and to be able to share our stories with the rest of the world, especially at this time when people are asking lots of different important questions like they would like to know how the pieces are being made, how the textile is being made. So the social media, the internet and tech has been a really important tool to be able to show those stories to the rest of the world. I think another important aspect would be education because fashion just like any other sector would require us to be continuously studying, growing our knowledge and experimenting more. People can study online at this time easily. Again, during the pandemic and after that, we were able to conduct different workshops online and being able to do lots of interactive sessions with different people from different countries was a really, really interesting thing. I think this would be the opportunities we could use the digital skills for. Thank you for all your inputs. My next question, I would like to turn to Ms. Hedy. For digital inclusion itself is an integral part of removing gender barriers in ICT and providing equal digital opportunities for everyone. How can we promote digital inclusion of women and girls within social structures and support skill development in particular in the least developed countries? Thank you very much and good morning to everyone. Really happy to be here. Great energy in the room and really pleased to be part of this wonderful panel. I work in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York and we have an office that supports the 91 most vulnerable countries. They are grouped in three groups, least developed, landlocked and small island developing states. And of course, our host country Rwanda belongs to two of these groups. Rwanda is both least developed and landlocked. And so the issue of digital inclusion and gender empowerment are hugely important for these countries. When you look at the numbers, only 15 percent of women in least developed countries use the internet. And this in comparison to 86 percent in the developed world. So there's a huge gap there. And there are about 3.7 billion unconnected people around the world. And the majority of these people are women and girls. So the digital gender gap really is an important thing. And globally I think the global numbers are that women and girls use the internet 12.5 percent less than men and boys. So we need to make sure that the opportunities of the internet and the digital world are provided equally for everyone. Women, girls, men and boys, everyone. And so your question, how can we do this? And I have basically three points that I would like to emphasize. And some of them have been mentioned already by previous speakers. But first of all, the obvious. We need training. We need skills. And this needs to start at the very young age from elementary school throughout the schooling. We need to make sure that girls have an equal opportunity and are encouraged to learn technical skills. But not only for the usage, but also for the programming, you know, how to design programs, how to do coding and so on. Because sometimes even in the programs there are some inherent gender biases. So we need women doing that kind of work as well. Then we need to make sure that the access is affordable. In particular, in the lower families with low incomes, women very often put preference to their families' needs, their children's needs and so on. So if internet is not affordable at an affordable rate, they will not be using it. So affordability is something that we need to work on. The third thing is really that we it's not only about education. It's having gender balance at all levels. And what do I mean by that? We need women in the technical, you know, businesses. We need women tech leaders. We need women in parliament so that the political decision making and the policies also don't have a gender bias. And I think this country is an excellent example of women in politics. We have very good numbers here in Rwanda. And then maybe the Royal Highness has also mentioned this and I also want to really emphasize it. Fostering safe online behavior is essential. So when we teach these skills, we also need to make sure that people are aware of the some of the dangers and that cyber security is always put in the forefront. So those would be the points that I would give in order to make sure that we can narrow this gender gap. Thank you. Great points, Hibi. Thank you very much. I would like to actually move to our remote speaker. We have Ms. Michelle joining us remotely. So based on the policy development work that you are carrying right now, what measures can decision makers and institutions take to ensure that there's greater equality of access and use of digital? But in your view, what do you think we're missing? Thanks, everyone, and really glad to join remotely. This seems appropriate since it is a digital conference. I'm really glad to be here on behalf of the US government and on behalf of USAID. We have made digital access a very, very important part of our agenda. And we've done quite a bit of work. We believe it's safe and inclusive access to digital technologies is crucial to advancing development, powering communities and individuals and strengthening our overall security. And although COVID-19 has had a positive effect in terms of accelerating the number of women and girls who are online and narrowed that gap, the reality, as was said by other speakers, is that over a billion women are still do not have access to mobile phones in the internet. And so we're making this gender digital divide very much a part of our new digital strategy, which was released earlier this year. We think that the digital space provides a really important opportunity to reinforce, not to reinforce, to address the existing socioeconomic inequalities. And by giving women and girls access to the internet and to digital opportunities, we think that we're going to be able to expand educational opportunities and increase online access to business skills, training, mentoring, potential angel investors and other e-commerce platforms. We also want to, though, focus. We don't want to see all the benefits of digital use without understanding the risks. And we are really looking at technology facilitated gender-based violence and what can be put in place now to address that problem. Because over three quarters of the women who are online have been exposed to some sort of violence or cyberbullying, and that's just not acceptable. It has the same impacts as physical and in-person bullying and stalking and hate speech. And so we want to make sure that survivors do not suffer emotional and psychologically due to the abuse. And so we are committed to ensuring that women are equal actors in this work and we have included them extensively in our digital strategy. We have several projects that we're looking at that focus on changing social and gender norms that reinforce the gender digital divide. And we recognize this is a complex problem. But we don't want to solve the problem with top-down approaches. And our administrator, Samantha Power, has been very focused on how do we build a locally led development and approach to all the issues that are important. So we're applying that locally led development and approaches to this issue. We're seeking local partners who know what's happening in their communities and trying to empower them directly to make a difference. We're looking at models that are successful that may be different from what we've used in the past, public-private models, working with a lot of youth organizations, working with women, youth, Indigenous communities, disabled communities, and others who've been marginalized, including LGBTQ communities, has become very much a part of our effort. And again, we've created several new public-private partnerships. So I have, I can talk about some of them as we go forward, but let me stop there because I think it's important to hear from everybody. Thank you, Misha. Thank you very much for your points. And actually, I would like to carry the thoughts that you shared and the work that you've done just forward and then direct the next question to Rekha, who's also joining us remotely. Hi. So as an operator, you know, who's present in many markets across the globe, what are some of the measures Telefonica has put in place to foster greater connectivity and inclusion of women and girls and inclusion of everyone in general? Could you also share with us the three key measures that have been taken? Thank you. Yes, of course. Thank you. It's an honor for me to participate today in this conversation with such inspiring people. And well, if I may, I will continue my intervention in Spanish following the idea that the General Secretary of the IDU committed a couple of days ago about how the ICG can also play an important role in cultural and language diversity. So let's try. Muy bien. Respondiendo a la pregunta, Telefonica es una compañía comprometida con la inclusión digital en todas sus vertientes, no solo la parte del acceso de la infraestructura que consideramos que es la primera puerta de entrada al mundo digital, sino también en otros ámbitos, como la formación de habilidades digitales que estamos comentando, la brecha de género que necesitamos cerrar, o también el acceso de personas con discapaciones o necesidades especiales a los servicios digitales. De ahí viene la misión de la compañía de conectar la vía de las personas, pero siempre haciendo nuestro mundo mucho más humano. Y tenemos en marcha distintas iniciativas para conseguirlo. En el acceso a internet hemos impulsado proyectos muy relevantes para conectar a zonas las que normalmente no es rentable invertir o desplegar infraestructura por ejemplo, son esas zonas rurales o de difícil acceso que tienen baja densidad de población. Y un caso de éxito ha sido internet para todos Perú. En esta iniciativa colaboramos con Facebook y con bancos de desarrollo, como pueden ser BIT y CAP, para llevar la conectividad a estas zonas de Perú. Y desde el año 2018 que pusimos en marcha la iniciativa, hemos conseguido dar acceso a 2 millones 100.000 personas. Así que estamos muy contentos con este proyecto y creemos que podemos seguir por esta vía. Sobre la formación de las habilidades digitales, es cierto esto que estamos comentando sobre la necesidad de la alfabetización digital, es decir, de tener habilidades digitales básicas. Pero qué pasa con los trabajadores que no tienen las habilidades digitales necesarias para participar en el mercado laboral actual y que están sufriendo esa etapa de transición y se ven desplazados dentro de las oportunidades Pues a este respecto hemos creado un hub mundial de innovación y talento en Madrid, en el que hemos invertido 100 millones de euros hasta el año 2024 para conectar al menos 100.000 personas por año y poder proveerles de estas capacidades digitales, upskilling y reskilling. Y por último sobre la brecha de género que estábamos comentando, además de reducir las diferencias e incluir a todos, lo que queremos es que las niñas de hoy sean las líderes del mañana, especialmente en el ámbito tecnológico. Por eso colaboramos con programas como Scale Up Women para impulsar el emprendimiento femenino y su participación en la economía o la iniciativa Mujeres Hacker, que lo que busquéis inspirar a las niñas, a las jóvenes, pero también a los niños y a los jóvenes, en la formación en carreras estème, en las carreras más científicas y tecnológicas. Al final lo que queremos es romper esas barreras, esas barreras son esos estereotipos de género que a veces existen en el mundo tecnológico, pero paro aquí porque estoy deseando escuchar también el resto de panelistas que soluciones pueden aportar. Muchas gracias. Thank you very much, Raquel, for your inputs and for the motivating statements and also the work that has been and you are still doing in this domain. Moving to Esperanza, also joining us remotely. Hello. How can content providers contribute to increasing connectivity and amplifying gender equality and inclusion for all in the society? Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us to participate in this panel and to have the opportunity to share with you our view on how a company like Netflix can contribute to the economy, to the connectivity and also minds the gap and embraces, inclusion and diversity. First, and Raquel was mentioning it before, we see a symbiotic relationship between content providers and connectivity providers. Content providers like Netflix invest in content for members to enjoy and customers to subscribe to internet services to access any content that they like. Because of the symbiotic relationship, Netflix invest massively in making our service more efficient and works with thousands and thousands of connectivity providers to optimize their networks and deliver the best experience to users when they choose to use their network to watch Netflix. In that sense, for example, and we can discuss about it later, but we invest in a content-delivered network which localizes content close to user, which is open connect and makes it much easier to enjoy the content that Netflix offers to our members. Coming back to the values of IND and how we as a company endorse those values of IND, how we mind the gap, as I was mentioning before, our IND heads, Berna Mayer says, diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance. And how do we manage? No, how can we invite people to the party and to dance? As you know, Netflix is an entertainment company which means that our core relates to the best stories, no matter where they come from. Netflix's greatest impact is in storytelling. Titles like Never Have I Ever, Money Heist, Hair Stopper, Broading Representation, Empathy, and Understanding. The power of stories is what connects people all around the world. And we have more than 200 million members in over 190 countries who want to connect with those stories, who want to see themselves represented on the screen. And for that reason, finding, telling those diverse stories has become a core part of our strategy. So we can talk about working on this space in three different dimensions. The first one is of course content. Our content needs to be authentic, need to tell authentic diverse stories on the camera. And for that, we need to make sure that those voices that tell about those stories are represented behind the screen, behind the camera. To give you a few examples, for example, our first police show for Netflix, 1,988 features an old female group of creators. The series, Serious Quick Sun, we had female leads, writer, producers, content executives. Here, as another example here in Spain, we have the mess you leave behind or Valeria, which are mainly produced and managed by women who are leading on positions of responsibility within those content. Moreover, we of course work with production companies led by women. You know that outside of the U.S., we never produce content ourselves. We always work with local producers. And in that sense, we really are aware of the need to work with companies led by women. Also, we are very much aware of the need to bet on the vision of creators of any identity, background, condition, who represent and endorse the values of diversity and inclusion. Furthermore, we are working to span the spectrum of voices that sub and subcontent for Netflix. We offer special collections to our members to make it easy to find content where these values are preserved, such as the story of she or celebrating disability with a mention featuring over 50 shows and films with characters of stories about people living in disabilities. But to achieve a better representation on a screen, to impact what we do externally, we also need to start with representation in our house in the office. So we believe that we will do a better job if our employees come from different backgrounds and if we really create an environment of inclusion and belonging for them. So we do not only have a global IND department led by Bernard Myers, as I was referring before, with representatives in all the different regions, but we also apply different policies, such as transparency on data, on how we internally progress towards a bigger IND representation in the office. Beyond this data, we apply salary transparency policies. We have flexible working hours. We have flexible vacation days, global parental leave policy of up to one year for everyone. So this flexible approach help us to promote equal opportunities in the workplace. In addition, of course, we have other measures such as our employees resources groups, which are vital to make our employees feel like they have a home at Netflix. And we have many groups such as Latino, Black, women, disability communities, which purpose is basically to make sure that those visions are well represented within the company. But none of this is enough to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to be invited to the party and to dance. And you have mentioned it a lot during the debate. You have talked a lot about collaboration, about visibility, about the skills, about trainings, and the gap exists as well in the audiovisual ecosystem. And this is why we work with others. We collaborate with others to advance in terms of IND in the creative ecosystem too. Last year in 2021, we created the Netflix fund for creative equity, investing more than $100 million to help create new opportunities for unrepresented communities within the entertainment industry all over the world. In the first 12 months of this fund, we have worked with over 25 organizations globally towards programs that help identify, train, and provide work placement for unrepresented creatives around the world. Of that, over $5 million is specifically to support women. And I don't want to spam more, but just to give you an example of, for example, here in Spain, we have worked with FEMA, which is the Women in Audiovisual Association to develop FEMA in Pulsar, and that basically is focused to mentor women in audiovisual to create and produce their own projects. And we can discuss about it further. But in summary, we believe that diversity and inclusion unlocks our ability to innovate and to be creative. And the way in which we work with this is to have these different dimensions, content, Netflix success, helping to be a legacy of inclusion in the industry to ensure what I was saying before, that we are all invited to the birthday and to dance. Thank you so much, Esperanza, for your inputs, for your perspective, for a content creator perspective, content provider perspective, sorry. And also a stressing on the importance of having an inclusivity in your workspace, so and how collaboration is key. I would actually, you know, based on the multi-stakeholder discussion that we've had so far, I would actually like to open the floor to any questions or comments that you may have. But before that, I would request Roman to see if there are any interventions that have happened online, and if there are any questions online, directed to our panelists. Yes, sure. Thank you so much for interaction. I will, I'm really happy to share that we have 44 young people from around the world. Hello, Haydi from Oman, from Turkey, Taiwan, and we're really happy to have you here. We don't have any questions yet, but I would like to ask the participants of remote group, please share your questions to panelists, and please mention the name of the panelists if you have direct question to them. Thank you. Well, as we wait for any questions and comments online, how about we take some questions and comments offline, and I can see quite a few hands here. So maybe we may start with you. Hi, I'm Walker. I'm from the United States. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. When it comes to an equitable and equal internet, there definitely needs to be a conversation held about social circles and the culture, especially on certain social media platforms and in communities like the eSports and video game community. There are massive discrimination issues that exist in the status quo. How do we actually go about addressing the cultural issue that has existed on these platforms for almost as long as they have existed in order to create that more equitable internet? How about we take one more question and then thank you. I am Altanza Inezza from Gashogas in Rwanda. So I think it's really essential to start such conversations concerning gender divide and digital world to fully reach the level of inclusivity. However, most women at some point in the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a metaphor that represents all these barriers women face in their past to succeed such misogyny, discrimination, and all others. So my question is what tools can the youth utilize to break such grass ceilings or barriers in order to make such initiatives to be effective as want them to be? Thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. I would like to request the online panelists if they would like to answer any of the questions first. Hello, maybe I can go forward, could it be? I'm going to continue, in fact, in Spanish, answering the second question about how the youth can participate more. It is true that the youth are underrepresented in the institutions, but all the decisions that are taken affect us directly. That is why I think that this type of initiatives should start by visibilizing the youth's voice and giving them space to participate in the space to make decisions. A clear example that I think can inspire us is the initiative of the European Commission in 2022, which has been named just this year as the European Year of Youth. And here different debates are being celebrated to try to give that voice to the youth and to participate in the decision making. In the end what we see is the need to create an intergenerational debate. And in that debate the conclusion must be to establish a new social contract, a new pact that makes us understand, that makes us participate, so that it is much more inclusive, not only in age issues, but also in the different stakeholders that can participate in that conversation, from institutions, to companies, to civil society. That is why I think that the value can be there. In fact, for example, on the phone, because we have not taken this very seriously, and this is exclusive, but from now on we are going to launch a digital pact written by the youth, just for that, so that they can participate in the decision making, we can boost the young talent and we are represented in those decisions that affect us both in the digital field, in sustainability, in everything that has to do with the future that today is also the present. Thank you very much for your response. Yeah, please, ma'am. Thank you very much. And maybe I'll also address the second question, because I think that's a really important one. The glass ceiling is there, and how do you break through? And I think that, you know, there's no one kind of one answer fits all. But for all the young women out there, I would encourage you to be really look for the information, make sure that you have the education, the skills, participate as much as you can. And then have courage, don't worry about, don't be afraid of what others think about you or that you might not get your views through. Keep at it, be persevere and show resilience, don't give up. I think that's an important one. And also hold your decision makers accountable. Ask them questions, make sure that if they make decisions that you think are not gender sensitive, that they can explain themselves why, and so on. So keep on doing it and don't give up, be bold. Thank you so much for the questions and responses. We have very much direct questions to Haydee Fox. The question is, what does OHRLs as doing to meaningfully include young people in the realisation of their program of action? Thank you for the question. So what does my office do in order to make sure that young people are included in the work that we do? This is really important for us and it's important not only to have young people as a token of being present, but that they are participating in a decision making role in the work that we do. And how we do it, for example, there is a very important document called the Doha program of action, which sets the development agenda for the least developed countries for the next 10 years. And when we prepared this, we wanted to make sure that we have young people's voices heard in the negotiation of the text, what are the youth's priorities and so on. So we have a completely separate youth track like this one where the youth were for two years part of the process. And when we have the conference in Doha in 2023 March, there will be a youth track with a youth declaration and opportunities for the youth also to bring their views to the plenary of the meeting. So not only separate, but in the thing. And we have sponsored 92 youth delegates to be there. So we have this funding. And another thing that we have done, we do many things, but I'll just mention one more. We looked at journalism and young journalists. How can we promote young journalists in developing world to be able to participate in important UN meetings? So we had a competition and there was a group of young journalists that we invited to participate in the UN meetings and write both about their own communities and the way that they work on the sustainable development goals, but then also be able to provide this information to their communities of how it was during their stay in New York. So thank you. Thank you so much for your intervention. I would like to highlight that we have also generation connect hubs from around the world. And we have Julia Steven, IT consultant. Julia, do you hear us? Please let us know if there are any interactions, messages coming out from the discussion out there. Hi, I'm over here. Hello. Of course, we have been following the conversation from the hubs around the world. And I think the hubs have had some very, very similar feedback and ideas that they've contributed talking about the need for education and skills training. But two ideas I think particularly stood out and were common themes that we heard from the hubs was firstly supporting young people, specifically young women, to be content creators. So how can young women really play a role, an active role in developing and creating content, which I think feeds in really nicely to the second point, which is about visibility and role models. So what can we be doing to ensure young people are able to see the really effective women that are taking up space in the technology spaces and industries so that those young women can be inspired. So I think some really interesting highlights from our conversations with the hubs around the world. I'll hand back to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I actually saw a lot of hands for questions. So I thought why don't we take one more question from the audience? Can we have the mic in the second row, please? Thank you very much for the opportunity. It's not a question, it's a contribution. My name is Nisa Watai Purcell and I'm the CEO for the Office of the Regulator in Samoa. It takes quite a long time to get here. I've listened very carefully and I believe that breaching the gender inequality and digital divide, it's very important that we also look at the enabling environment. That is very important and therefore governments have a role to play to work together with service provided and everyone including civil society, especially the young people and those young people. I'm talking about the young people from least developed countries. Thank you, Heidi. Small island developing states, landlocked countries and countries with economies in transition and I would like all the youth and young people here today and around the world to remember this and enabling environment is a precursor to true and meaningful connectivity. I thank you very much. Thank you very much for your points. I actually on this note I would like to request like actually go around all the panelists and then see if you would like to share any fine concluding comments and if there are any words of motivation and direction for the young people today. Thank you very much. In fact, you will be really surprised that at Smart Africa the majority of the ICT ministers in Africa are women and Doreen actually can testify that and if you see any progress we've made for the past three years it's because really the director general of Smart Africa has been surrounded by women and we really encourage the role model we can get you know at the ITU level we have a woman at the commissioner level at AU we have a woman at the ministerial level we have a woman but we're also encouraging you know really level of the regulators I'm very happy that you know to meet a female from a regulation because we don't have a lot of women in the regulatory bodies and that's something really we're promoting really hard our countries to be promoting women in those positions and if we have seen any success really for the past three years that Smart Africa here is because really Smart Africa in reality is driven by women. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much and hello Falava nice to see Samoa and colleagues here and I can only say that your point on enabling environment is really important for example the Samoa conference that took place a few years ago on the small island developing states during that there was a private sector forum and digitalization connectivity was very important on that and as a kind of preparation to the conference we were able to assist also Samoa having this new submarine cable that allowed the infrastructure for the conference and and so on so that is very important working together with the governments. My final comment maybe is just that the COVID-19 has really taught us that connectivity and digitalization digital inclusive inclusivity is not nice to have it's a must it has to be in the front and center of the building back better after COVID agenda and and we must make sure that the access is includes you know both women and and girls but also low-income communities and people so we have equality in the access and the affordable connectivity to all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would also like to mention one point in relation to accessibility because I come from Ethiopia and we don't actually have that much enabling environment to regarding to connecting or even using the e-commerce platform because we don't have any international banking systems so as I've mentioned earlier people were able to connect and to be able to shop worldwide in the times of the pandemic but we were not able to do that so I think it's really important for everyone to get that enabling environment and and I think my final point would be I would like to encourage everyone to always to be able to look forward to be to always stay true to yourself and to always go back see your vision and where you want to go and focus on that more and of course to be human always. Thank you very much. Okay so I would like to actually request Princess Beatrice for her concluding remarks. Thank you so much. I think and I've been firstly found this conversation incredibly inspiring so you know I think that we've started a little bit because we're actually having the conversation and I think that's just really really important but I think that when I think when I look when I look around now and I think about sort of the tools that we need to provide young people I think about this concept of asking permission to clear up a misunderstanding and I feel like there's so much that's misunderstood about this this digital divide that actually I feel like if we were all just to kind of come together and come together in a new way like you know the summit we're hosting now I think we almost need to start again in the conversation and everyone to bring forth the great ideas and then sort of let go of the sort of negative of the past to be able to make it and as inclusive and possible and not exclusive and that for me that for me kind of brings me a little bit of hope when you think about how big the conversation is if we start just doing one thing one thing at a time we can really we can really change as much as as much as we can but we have to do it together that's key thank you so much. Thank you Miss Princess Beatrice. Next concluding remark from Miss Michelle. I just want to say thank you to everybody for having us here and I I want to actually challenge you all to challenge us because one of the ways that we're working that's different is we're really trying to work with communities on the ground locally and engage youth and women and girls where they are and where they're working so we have a lot of programs in countries like India and Ethiopia where we're working with young women to open up opportunities directly to them in the communities where they're working but we don't have enough programs like that so I would just encourage you to keep doing forms like this big and small in countries globally and having governments like ours like the US government on panels and asking us questions and pushing us to do better because that's how we how progress happens so thanks to everybody on the panel and thanks to Generation Connect for having us and for pulling all these young people together. Thank you. I request Miss Esperanza for her concluding remarks. Well thank you thank you so much again for for having us here I think a lot of the conclusions has already addressed all the important points that we need to bear in mind when closing this gap. For me I would highlight the fact that don't give up in my personal experience I come from from a very small town and at that time it was very weird that young people decided to study and to go outside that small village. I remember when I decided to I mean I was I have a clear idea of what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do what I wanted to go and basically a lot of the people of my community was were pushing back saying you know why do you want to do this this is a waste of time and and I never gave up and I never gave up because there were a lot of women around me pushing me and saying don't give up and go and make your dreams come true so I think I would highlight don't give up and I would also highlight the importance of collaboration and working together to really be able to close the gap because as it was said before if we work alone we are not going to be able to make any progress so collaboration, visibility and don't give up would be my final remarks. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Raquel your message and your remarks for all the people who joined us today. Yes I totally agree with Esperanza because that is also my case I also come from a small village so I share all her thoughts. Well I would say that connectivity can be a great tool to increase the well-being of society and reduce existing gaps from access to gender divide, digital skills, accessibility and so on and we mustn't show that everyone has access to technology but also to its opportunities without leaving no one behind. The responsibilities in our hands and we are not the creators of all these changes that we are experimenting so it's up to us to choose what kind of societies we want and also it's up to us to achieve successful results if we work together and we collaborate towards that common goal. Thank you very much. I would like to you know thank all the panelists today since we have reached the end of the panel discussion please note that this discussion the deliberations and the interventions are ongoing because it's a very important topic and we also need to work towards work towards action effective action so thank you very much everyone and I'd actually like to give the floor to Roman for his concluding remarks as well. Thank you so much everyone our offline and online panelists and young people were engaging in this discussion that was really important as I have highlighted before this is the last intergeneration dialogue of the very much first generation connect global youth summit but it's actually a beginning of the whole discussion as you know we have a call to action which we are going to discuss for the next 10 days in the VTDC in Kigali and we have even more to implement and young people should be the main part of the process of implementation of the call to action which is a call actually to governments stakeholders NGOs and different part of the processes and private sectors to ensure that young people equally part of the process and everyone benefits from the digitalization thank you so much. Please join me by thanking our speakers for the amazing discussion that was beautiful thank you very much you can take back your seats and enjoy the next session well thank you all for following thank you for the questions thank you for the amazing inputs now we have rich and diverse dialogues that are going to go on I would love to encourage you to please share the experience any platform that you use Instagram Twitter TikTok anywhere Facebook remember to use our hashtag generation connect that is the hashtag. Now let me invite the session coordinators of the next sessions to come on the podium because they are going to be pitching and I'm going to start with one by one I thank you for attending them all actually starting from 10 30 we have 10 minutes behind schedule so I'm going to try and use my time well on the second floor in room Karisimbi will have a session Daring to Shift I love this rooted in digital it's organized by Digital Opportunity Trust if we have someone from Digital Opportunity Trust I think I'm going to be going with you first you have a few seconds to interest us on why we should come in. Hi everyone I'm from Digital Opportunity Trust so upstairs in the Karisimbi room we're hosting a session called Daring to Shift rooted in digital powered by youth and we're asking the question how might we invest in the future of young people towards digital inclusive futures and co-creators that's it I hope to see you all there I know it's during coffee break so grab your coffees and come on up thank you well the sessions I'm talking about are between 10 30 to 11 30 also in the second floor in room I'm sure you've navigated yourself through these rooms you know where we are going now this is decent jobs in Africa's digital economy organized by ILO please use your time and tell us why should we come in thank you very much and a very happy good morning from the ILO we are very pleased to host the session on decent jobs for young people in Africa's digital economy we have spoken a lot about the potential of young people to contribute to digital economy but we want to know from you what are your solutions to create jobs for youth and more importantly how can we as the UN ILO ITU help you to scale up your ideas how can we support you it's a co-hosted session also the Nigerian SDG youth network that will share experiences and we will brainstorm together how we can scale up your work and bring it to the next level it's in Room Ubumba second floor right after the session so just you know grab a coffee and come discuss with us see you all there great amazing now um going on to sessions that are going to be happening starting from 11 to 12 30 p.m on the first floor in Room Gasabo we are going to be having a masterclass digital skills for the digital jobs preparing for the future work space this is beautiful if we have someone oh yes thank you very much please give us a reason 30 seconds why should we come in there thank you okay guys yeah the future of work I think we all need to be upskilling and learning what skills we need to apply going forward so in this masterclass we're going to be hearing from experts from Meta, Netflix, Microsoft uh we're going to talk about content so if you have an idea a brand a movement how can you leverage social media to accelerate that um and then of course equipping you with the skills needed to enable the future of work so I hope to see you all right on the second floor again in the room called Amahoro uh we will have a second mentoring session for young professionals second mentoring session for young professionals if we have someone that is going to be taking us through that please join us if we don't remember to go it's going to be in room Amahoro between 11 to 12 30 you may have wondered I'm sure you've seen the difference in colors some of us are in blue others are in red but you've seen people in yellow t-shirts running up and down when you go especially those that are going on the second floor now those are in the hackathon or I'll be telling you more about it because uh they will come under at 11 they will come here to the auditorium and tell us more pitch their solutions please join them the hackathon they're amazing so you should come in here at 11 sessions at 12 30 we will meet for lunch at the pavilion and uh what I will tell you is that the afternoon we are going to after lunch we are going to have the technology and gaming hub we reopen at 13 30 that's 130 and this is because some of us enjoyed it so much so we thought hey we could have it again so don't miss it out at 130 right after lunch you could go so don't miss this opportunity to see technology in action and explore robots now we'll have additional sessions that will introduce over lunchtime I think that I will let you know and don't forget that closing ceremony will take place from 230 to 330 it's going to be here yes you also have something before I move on a perfect yes the call to action the second session will happen at 11 30 so we had an amazing first session yesterday where we received a lot of comments we had a really great breakouts a lot of very interesting discussions that we're incorporating into the call to action document we have received many many many great comments and we're trying to include them all so we hope to get some more people to get some additional comments from 11 30 to 12 30 thank you all right between 130 and 230 also we have the missing links in of innovation for youth in room gossip I think I have someone here you can you can please come and tell us in a few seconds what do what do we expect hi uh good morning actually for all the problems that we were discussing so far for the past two days we think innovation is the solution so we are going to discuss on the missing links for young entrepreneurs and technocrats to bridge the gaps that they have so it's going to be an important session for innovators and entrepreneurs and also we are going to have some important delegates from tech companies to ministries like companies from intel who are we are going to be represented academia and it's going to be a good session for you so welcome to the gasaba at first floor at 130 thank you great now before you leave I have important announcements to to give you because we might not meet again until the closing ceremony um after the closing ceremony the host country which means ronda here is inviting you they they have a surprise for you it's a tour of the fantastic city of kigali now buses will be ready at the end of the closing ceremony and will take us to different spots in the city if you're interested please remember to go at the what we can say the registration desk and please confirm that you will be part of it uh we will also uh conclude at uh one sorry at uh 7 pm with a cocktail reception and closing party at canal olympia now canal olympia is not here it's in revero it's a beautiful place you will love it on top of the mountains get to see a beautiful view of kigali if you are interested please you should clear it out go to the registration desk and tell them you are interested now the host country being ronda is also asking all participants to confirm uh those who require support today or tomorrow to have them transported to your hotels or to the airports now for those of you who are going back and you need support please go to the registration desk and give that information because they could they could actually help you on that it's outside the uh this room the uterium room you will see them they are ready for you finally let me say that are those staying on sunday do we have people that are here on sunday on sunday all right on sunday we also have another tour for you you could get a chance of visiting the genocide memorial uh in jisuzi get to know the history of the country get to learn more about the genocide again the tutsi in 1994 and you get to actually learn more about it so please if you want to be part of it remember to go to the front desk and register yourself now let me encourage you to keep checking the program online as as they're giving it to you on screens also the screens keep updating you and i'm going to say one more thing please make sure that you do not put distance between you and a good time during this summit all right thank you very much and i hope to see you at the closing ceremony enjoy