The special session “Building trust and confidence to feel empowered online" was organized by the ITU Office for Europe and was held on 29 June from 17:30 to 18:30 in Sorrento, Italy, within the framework of the Global Youth Tourism Summit (GYTS) convened by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
Digital development is being embraced across all sectors and circulate into all facets of our life. Now more than ever, the digital world provides tremendous opportunities to better the education, support inclusion, and widen the learning, social and leisure opportunities of the Youth. The current generation of youth is also the first one of digital natives and the future of our digital societies and economies. Acknowledging this, Generation Connect is the overarching initiative of the ITU Youth Strategy to ensure the aspirations of the youth are being met by engaging them in policy and decision-making processes. To this end, the three pillars of the Youth Strategy are: Empower, Engage and Participate. The ITU has recently held the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit [2-4 June 2022], which addressed the digital divide and related topics, including digital skills, gender, climate change, online safety, the future of work, entrepreneurship, digital dependencies, and more.
This resonates greatly with the GYTS [27 June – 3 July 2022], a platform developed by the UNWTO that aims to empower youth to take an active part in decision-making processes in the tourism sector.
The session “Building trust and confidence to feel empowered online" aimed to be an interactive session to explore current digital challenges and opportunities from youth perspectives. In particular, it addressed the issue of online risks and harms such as cyberbullying, fake news, and Internet exploitation; and how to manage them to ensure that the Youth is feeling empowered online and can fully harness the benefits of the digital world.
It also was an opportunity for the delegates to learn broadly about the ITU, its Europe Office, and hopefully, inspired to contribute to the international digital development dialogue!
