 to my colleague Diego. Diego, could you please do a presentation about yourself? Hello, my name is Diego Munoz. I'm also an intern for Generation Connect and it's very nice meeting you all. Thank you, Diego. So today's side event will begin with a welcome address from Mr. Jaroslo Ponder, who is our regional director of the ITU Euro office. And then we'll have a brief polling session. Please feel free to participate also through the chat. Following the polling session, we'll have three intergenerational dialogues in the form of mini interviews with five decision makers who will share their interesting and unique points of view with us. Finally, my colleague Diego will do a closing address and invite you to register for Generation Connect Global Youth Summit 2022. Now let's start with the welcome remarks from Mr. Jaroslo Ponder. Welcome. Thank you very much. And on behalf of the ITU, it's my great pleasure to welcome you all at this Generation Connect side event of the ECOSOC. This is an important milestone towards meaningful engagement of the youth in the policymaking at the UN level. The fact that we are all of us at this meeting confirms that we are all patient of the development agenda, that by 2030 it should provide significant progress in achieving 17 digital sustainable development goals. So this cannot happen without the voice and more importantly, action of the youth, as we all know, being the digital natives, being well positioned to co-create digital future. As we all know as well, there is no ICT goal as the ICT is not a challenge for the world, but a unique opportunity to accelerate achievement of each of the SDGs. But all this can only be done if we are acting together. This is the reason why we are so much pleased to welcome all of you at this special event and we need to act together in order to address several challenges for those who are still to be included in the digital community. There are several challenges which prevent several young people from being part of the digital community. Connectivity, skills, security, being only some of them. As we know in 2021, still 2.9 billion people remained offline and 96% of them were living in the developing countries. Of course, the COVID pandemic has shown us that such a happening, such a hazards help us to catch up and the numbers of the Internet users only in 2020 grew by the 10%. This is an amazing achievement and a lot of new users join us in order to make progress altogether. But also the gaps exist among the young people. The good news is that at the global level in 2020, 71% of the world's youth were using the Internet comparing to 57% of other groups. These numbers were very much different in Africa. Only 40% of the African youth were able to benefit from the Internet. This is not right and this is something what we have to change. This is the reason why for all of us it should be top priority to support each other and to act together. I'm privileged to come from the Europe where 97% of youth are using the Internet but only this feeling that in the other parts of the world is not the case it makes us think and makes us also act. This action is also translated by the strong engagement by the regional groups. Each region at the ITU level has been created and brought together the youth envoys in order to think what are the top priorities for each region. Also this happened in Europe. We have almost 45 young ambassadors acting together on the future how to shape it and how to co-create it with the adults. This is the reason why the inter-generation dialogues like this one today is so of great importance for all of us. We need to know what we want to achieve and we need to be convergent. We need to respect each other and involve each other and this is the reason why ITU already two years ago agreed with the all-member states on the ITU strategy for youth. Generation Connect is the product the initiative which unites all youth together and to be engaged to participate to be empowered and to act together and I hope that just in 50 days at the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit in Kigali we'll be able again to get together and to shape the plan of action which will influence the decision makers at the WTDC. If you will not be able to join us in person don't miss this opportunity. Each engagement counts also yours when you will be joining us through the national hubs. Take initiatives in your hands. Don't complain but be part of the change and join us. Of course all this what we will collect will be also watched by the policymakers who will be designing the four years of the implementation of the ITU and also of the digital coalition which under the brand of the partner to connect will get together to connect to pledge to make the real change. Within the spectrum of the change youth should not be missing and this is the reason why we are calling upon all the friends of the youths. Join us, support youth engagement and be with us in order to make sure the digital future belongs to the digital youth ambassadors. Thank you very much for this and I'm looking forward passionately to your great discussions today. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Ponder. Next up we will continue with the polls. If you have any comments or questions please don't hesitate to do them in the chat. The first question is how many hours do you use internet in a day? Please write them in the chat. Okay so we see that the majority of people have chosen four to six hours or seven to nine hours and they are actually a lot. So let's move on to the next question. So what is the percentage of the world's population that was regularly using the internet in 2021? I see very different results. A lot of people have chosen 63% which is the right answer and actually this represents an increase of almost 17% since 2019 with almost 800 million people estimated to have come online during that period and among the 2.9 billion people offline 96% live in developing countries and these numbers are really impressive. The next question is what is the percentage of internet users among young people? As I saw most people chose the 71% which is the right answer. This is a very important fact since young people are using a lot of internet and this is very important for digitalization. This is also a very important thing for this intergenerational meeting since we will talk with five decision makers which will then see the perspective of young people and talk to us about different topics which will then help to create a better future for us. Thank you. Thank you Diego for the introduction to our intergenerational dialogues. So our first meeting interview will focus on quality education so STG4 and the guest for this dialogue will be Ali Altoblani who is a young leader and also a generation connect Arab states youth envoy. Welcome Ali to today's EcoZog Youth Forum side event. Hi everyone thank you for the introduction. Hi Ali so my first question will be what does education mean to you? Okay that's a very good question. So for me education is an opportunity. It helps us develop our understanding of the world and teaches us how to be independent but for me specifically education was a way to connect to connect with the world. As through it I made friends I met educators and got further opportunities to engage and participate which connected me to many brilliant minds where I was able to share knowledge and grow and that's how I look at it. In simple words to me it's the gateway to success the gateway to people and the gateway to the rest of the world. It's more than just learning knowledge it's a way to get connected. Great answer and the next question will be how does technology impact your education? Right now I honestly rely completely on technology to get me through my education. Since the pandemic started it's been quite difficult but with the introduction of the dual modality where we're able to take classes online it has completely transformed the way we learn and I believe that is now the new normal. I'm a person who studies a lot so taking classes online helps me get through my day and helps me carry on my other interests as well so it is probably the new normal now studying online so it has completely transformed education. And what was the hardest part of the pandemic for you? I mean has the pandemic changed your goals or your vision for a connected future? For me the hardest part of the pandemic was being isolated away from my loved ones and my friends. I'm a people's person so it's very hard to kind of be away from them for so long and not meet, not connect, not talk together. We do that online but it's still different it doesn't feel the same so that is probably the hardest part of the pandemic however I do believe it did give me time to kind of find myself you know get to know myself a bit more. You know being alone really does do a lot for you so it made me realize what finds me, what goals I have, what I want to do with my future and I do believe that the pandemic not only changed me but it did change many of us and it has left an impact that will probably last for the rest of our lives. Yeah I completely agree. Thank you very much Ali for joining us and for the insightful views that you let us see. Thank you very much. Now maybe let's move on to the second question, second intergenerational dialogue. Next up I'm gonna ask Alexa a couple of questions. I think Valerie unfortunately couldn't join us today. So what is the, is there an equal number of men and women in your path of study and career industry? Your silence. Hello Alexa we think you're muted. Yes can you hear me now? Yes thank you. Okay great well we'll just start again then. So I work as disruptive technologies lead at international finance corporation with a focus on gender equality and that means I work at the intersection of very different fields so kind of social development which is very female dominated but then also technology and finance which is very male dominated so the world I'm working in can look very different from one group of conversations to the next but it certainly does make a difference in how I'm heard and the level of conversations we can participate in and really working seeing all of those sectors come together really makes me hone in on a regular basis exactly how important it is for women and girls to be you know the leaders of the industries of the future. Thank you very much. The next question would be do you believe that technology can overcome traditional barriers and work towards gender equality? I do believe it's possible to close the gender digital abide because this isn't at the end of the day a technological challenge it's a challenge about people and we know that when women and girls do get access to the internet to mobile phones it can boost their incomes and their businesses so that means technology can go a long way towards closing gender gaps but we need to start by getting them access to the really fundamental tools of the digital economy and making sure that they're in the hands of women and girls. Thank you very much and just to mention if you have any questions for the speaker please write them in the chat and one last question for Alexa and what do you hope to connect the future will look like for the girls of tomorrow? I hope a connected future looks like a future where we're designing technological solutions and business models for everyone and for me that really means three things first getting women into the tech sector and other parts of the STEM world that are really likely to burden moving forward but second funding tech entrepreneurs particularly women so that they're in a position to actually create the type of businesses that are going to drive technological change moving forward and last but not least we need to start designing services for everyone from the get-go and not think just about adding women in retroactively. Thank you very much and well let's move on to the next minute Sergio. Thank you very much I see there are some questions in the chat so maybe let's ask to Emilia there is Umar Adamou who asked is the meaning of education employment the meaning of the education is it for employment? Hello Emilia. Hello Elisa thank you for having me here sorry I didn't understand do you want me to answer the question from the chat? Yes exactly there is a question from the chat so maybe can you answer it please? I think for me personally the meaning of education is not only for employment because first of all it's for the for your personal growth because if you want to be educated you usually you choose something that you want to study of course there are situations unfortunately in which people cannot choose and just have to go with the options that exist but I think that nowadays of course employment is a very important part but I also think that sometimes even without education you can be employed because you can do different types of jobs and in my opinion education is first of all of course for you and then what can you do with your education in order to change the world and to make it a better place? Thank you very much so there is also a question to Mr Jarosloh has the ITU done any studies to investigate some of the specific roadblocks in feeding internet utilization among African youth is it more a skill gap or infrastructure gap? Is Mr Bonder there? Yeah Lisa I think Mr Ponder left the meeting. Okay so unfortunately we are not able to answer this question maybe let's go back to our third mini interview. Our final intergenerational dialogue will focus on SDG17 partnerships for the goals and we'll have Emilia Volkova and Loli Gaetan with us. Emilia is a Generation Connect CIS Youth Envoy and Loli is our digital inclusion programmer officer at ITU. Welcome to both of you. My first question will be addressed to Loli. Hello Loli. Hello hi everyone. So the question will be did you feel listened to and valued as a young person? Yes thank you so much I think it was a long time ago when I was young but yeah absolutely I think everything started with the inner circle with the family with the friends that you have and then of course you expand and you are listened so in my particular case when I was young I did have the opportunity and the chance to be heard in different scenarios at my school my university as well in some kind of voluntary groups I was part of. However I can see the difference with today's I think today the youth has more much more scenarios where to be heard where to be seated at the table and I think that this is one of the examples that we have to be now here all with you with the future the digital natives as our director of the regional office from Europe Jaroslav mentioned it before so these are opportunities that perhaps a couple of years or even a decade ago were not possible so yeah thanks. Thank you very much Loli I would like to ask the same question to Emilia. Emilia do you feel listened to and valued as a young person? Thank you so much Lisa for the question and of course as a representative of youth I base the fact that I wasn't hurt and wasn't involved in the decision making process sometimes for example during my studies I wasn't involved in the educational policy making process as much as I would like to because sometimes unfortunately youth's opinions are not taken seriously. Today we have the latest generation of youth in history 1.8 billion people who are future unique future leaders that have different ways of thinking and can bring innovative ideas and drive social progress and want to have a seat at the table and being one of them today I'm happy to say that I feel increasingly listened to and valued as a young person as we have more and more opportunities to contribute to society achieving SDGs and bringing the digital gap by joining youth empowerment organizations participating in conferences and youth summits as we are doing it right now here today working for various companies that have youth programs creating youth networks and youth led groups and I'm delighted to be a part of one of them ITU Generation Connect CIS youth group that allows young people as me and as all of us here to share their views identify challenges and participate as equal partners and initially eventually to be heard and in my opinion we should ensure meaningful participation and empowerment of youth as agents of change even more by building partnerships and creating more networks that support young people by offering opportunities to share effective practice providing training and are the taking projects and I truly believe that the meaningful work of young people and youth led groups is going to take us forward to the implementation of the SOTI agenda successfully. Thank you very much Emilia let's move on to the next question addressed to you both how do you see partnerships specifically intergenerational cooperation in ICT is contributing to the 2030 agenda maybe let's start with Loli. Thank you yes I will definitely think that partnerships are key partnerships are the tool of any program to advance the agenda in particular for youth and to accelerate of course the access and the use of ICTs if we come back a little bit on what happened with the COVID so other UN sister agencies such as UNICEF estimated for example that 1.5 billion children and youth around the world have had their digital education and their education the normal education interrupted because of the school closures and we know that even though there are like wealthy countries in where youth and children could connect and could move into the virtual education there are also many other countries in the world that were digitally disadvantaged so many kids and many young people were really excluded from learning because of lack of access to digital devices and services and here maybe I would like to jump in very quickly on the on the question that was asked in the chat to say that it's not there is not only one solution it's like a mix it's like a formula in where we all need to work together to provide these access to ICTs but also the skills that specifically young people they need to navigate these the internet and the new technologies and the ICTs so I think it's it's it's you have heard already that you and the young people are the future of the communities and with the young people it comes the innovation know so you are the innovators that will drive social progress and that's why we need to harness the power of digital technologies with you with the youth to change the world and when it comes to discuss partnerships and intergenerational cooperation again for me that's the key to keep sustainable interventions because we are matching experience and resources with creativity and innovation that comes from youth so the experience and resources for example that comes with traditional organizations say that can transfer knowledge and also know how of what did work in the past and what didn't we can learn from there from them and of course the creative thinking and the innovation is coming with the new generation is coming with the young voices that are again the native digital citizens so we should definitely design the platforms and the spaces for this convergence of the experience with the innovation and I would say that one of the the visible case or of platform that is today is very young but has been very impactful is the generation connect initiative established by by ITU which is the the flagship initiative for youth and the generation connect has these visionaries board with different members different expertise and from a wide range of organizations and they promote this exchange this intergenerational cooperation as well including the job the voice of youth as as equals partners of the discussions so I think I will stop here thank you thank you very much Loli and I would like also to ask the same question to Emilia what do you think how do you see partnerships contributing to the 2030 agenda thank you so much Elisa for the question I think that there is no doubt that partnerships play crucial role in contributing to the 2030 agenda and of course the need for use of information tools ICTs and technology is becoming more urgent today than ever to achieve the SDGs and this should contribute to the education of poverty and hunger the provision of education the empowerment of women and contribute for the basic climate change I think that all of us especially felt the need to develop the digital space when we face the pandemic was by COVID-19 and the first to carry out many activities online and ICTs are already empowering billions of people around the world but still we have around 2.9 billion people who never used internet and are staying offline and of course in order to bridge this digital divide I think that we will have to build partnerships and networks as Loli mentioned some specific how do you say projects to net and networks between governments private sector civil society young people and many different stakeholders to integrate ICTs into academic into their approaches and different academic communities to move towards a more sustainable path and I believe that key partnerships have the potential to achieve a more integrated approach to digital transformation and overall I think that effective collaboration can boost shared expertise and the generation of innovative ideas as Loli said to address many challenges the world is facing today and you know many young people are ready to be a catalyst of change today and are waiting to be meaningfully engaged to contribute to global discussions about their future and to also participate in the partnerships building process thank you both very much for the interesting and insightful observations and remarks if you have any further comment or question please let us know in the chat now maybe let's move on to the closing remarks Diego sure before I do the closing remarks and if any of the questions hasn't been answered because the speaker left or because of any other reasons and we kindly invite you to send an email to Generation Connect and we will send this to the speaker that you were asking the question and now to the closing remarks the intergenerational dialogues are very important since we just saw the importance of education importance of quality the importance of young people being heard and young people's voices being part of the discussion this is why we encourage you to take part of the Generation Connect use summit that will take part in June of this year the registration is open and the and it will be written in the chat so that you can register and join us in June and we hope to see you again thank you very much please if you are interested in this discussion don't hesitate to register to the Generation Connect Global View Summit I've attached the link in the chat thank you very much for joining today and I hope you have a great rest of the day if you have any further questions please let us know in the chat thank you very much thank you so much Nada please kindly stop the live stream and thank you also much for attending if you have any questions once the live stream has ended about Generation Connect that you would like to ask please feel free to stay back and ask us but for everyone else please have a great day and enjoy the rest of your day thank you to all the speakers and to our amazing moderators Lisa and Diego thank you thank you very much thank you bye bye bye everyone thank you bye thank you so much Amelia will this stop recording as well please thank you yeah please if anyone who's still staying behind has any questions about Generation Connect or getting involved in any way please feel free to you know put your hand up on you type in the chat because we have the rest of the hour I'm here just in case anyone joins and has any questions so feel free to ask us if you'd like to yes please go ahead Henrietta hello I want to find out for Generation Connect do you guys have like an activity climb table that we can do you have like a list of activities that we can join or participate in yes absolutely so in the link that Melissa shared in the chat so by the way my name is Diana and I work in the Generation Connect team but yeah in the link that was shared in the chat which I can actually share again is a Generation Connect website and in the website when you scroll down there's a spotlight section that has all our upcoming events upcoming ways you can get involved and if you're really interested in kind of immediately joining something cool that's going on right now we have our call to action process happening so as was shared earlier and we have the Generation Connect to Youth Summit which is happening in June and the call to action document is currently being put together so actually we can just share with you right now in the chat how you can join right now on something called Spark Blue which is which is UNDP's kind of co-designing and collaboration platform I don't know if Alisa can help get the link really quickly if not I can just get it let me remember the link and share it here yes sure yes thank you so much it's on all the Generation Connect kind of actually that's another thing you can join our Facebook group our LinkedIn group and follow us on Instagram literally whenever anything comes up we are sharing it like almost immediately in these groups so if you are on any of the social media please join us and continue to follow and also as was shared we have yes so if you join that Spark Blue link right now you can actually join the conversation immediately and make your voice heard and everything going on digital development that we're working on for young people and so I just share the Facebook group link but I'll share a more I'll share the links to all our social media in a moment so anyone interested can just immediately join these these groups and just be in touch with us in that way but if you have any other specific ideas or any other ways you would like to get involved then let us know and as Alisa was saying you can register right now for Youth Summit that will be happening in June it's going to be hybrid so of course you can join remotely as well let me get the Instagram link as well and then hopefully you can see in the chat Henrietta does that answer your question or is there anything else more specific? Yes it does thank you very much and also I want to find out if we can connect on LinkedIn if you don't mind. Yeah of course so that's the LinkedIn group I just shared for Generation Connect when you join the group you can see like a few of the admin so I and my colleague Federica who's also here we post on the group a lot so you can feel free to add us and ask us any more questions or ask that directly in the group. Thank you Henrietta. Anyone else have any other questions or any comments? Yes and just to um to confirm I can't remember who asked the question I think okay I think the person's gone. Prins, Kate, Tacharama, sorry we were not able to take your question but if you just let us have your email address we'll make sure that you ask them the question answers it and we'll send you the answers. Okay all right any other questions for anyone or any comments about the session or anything else? Okay if not then perhaps we can close the session and give everyone some some time back. Again thank you so much for joining. Alfred I see you unmuted do you have any comments or any questions? Okay we'll take that as a no and maybe we can maybe yeah maybe we can just call it a day and if I'm not nodded you can please end the meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much I will end the meeting now. All right thank you so much. Thank you so much.