INTERNET Society Tanzania Chapter (ISOC-Tanzania) has initiated a forum through which youth could earn skills and awareness over internet governance matters.
Dubbed the Tanzania Youth Internet Governance Forum (TzYIGF), it is expected to help the younger generation avoid any acts that could abuse the use of the internet.
According to Mr Nazar Kirama, president of the ISOC-Tanzania said members of the forum will be young people from all walks of life, including higher learning institutions.
Mr Kirama noted that they have facilitated the youth within the ISOC Tanzania to form their forum under which they would participate in the Tanzania Internet Governance Forum (TzIGF) to take place on Friday this week and the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2021 to be held in Poland in Katowice from 6-10 December.
The TzIGF is a multi-stakeholder platform for public policy dialogue on internet governance. It involves stakeholders from the Civil Society, government, technical community, the academia and the Private Sector on the bottom-up agenda planning and consultations to arrive at topics, presentations, themes and sessions to be presented during the forum.
TzIGF is also part of the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum ecosystem known as National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs).
The ecosystem is interdependent, where internet governance national issues are fed into sub-regional, regional and finally to the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum (UN IGF).
This is done to facilitate a healthy national, regional and global debate on key issues that shape the evolution of the Internet and how it is governed, said the organizers.
Secretary of the TzYIGF, Evelyn Rujuguru, said the forum would be helpful to the youth since the world has now gone digital whereby almost everything is done online.
“When the youth are informed about what is available online, they may properly use the internet, including using it as an employment,” said Evelyn who is also a third-year student of Computer Engineering and Information Technology at University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM).
She argued that the Covid-19 pandemic has offered a lesson over why it was important to have internet skills since several businesses shifted to online platforms.
She further said through the TzYIGF the youth would have the opportunity to contribute their views for consideration in decision making over internet uses in the country.
On his part, Albert Misilimbo, a third-year student of Telecommunication Engineering and member of TzYIGF, argued that the forum would spread awareness over positive things available on the internet.