Change Makers I'm not saying that all the companies are sitting in Silicon Valley, they do have African representatives. But how much of these African representatives have actually, a word in the global strategy of their companies? How are these African teams being listened to, and are their perspectives factored into the strategies developed by those tech companies? These are very important issues to address. These are very humble perspectives that we should make sure to have, and we do not have that now. ISF always advocates for having all these stakeholders take the first necessary step of sitting around the table together and discussing our vulnerabilities, with our humility, all these very complex issues from our different perspectives. So that is one thing that I would like to see more. We've tried to do that in Cameroon. For instance, in 2018 we were able to create a safe space and this round table for multi stakeholder engagement on issues related to shutdowns and content moderation.2 We were able to avert an Internet shutdown in the country despite the fact that the country was having a very contentious presidential election. How can we ensure that marginalized communities, such as women, youth, people with disabilities, and marginalised groups, are included in efforts to promote Internet freedom in Africa? Everyone should sit around the table. I’m tired of seeing the same usual suspects at our conferences. I want to see more of the public side that we're talking about here. I know CIPESA is one of the organizations doing a lot to make sure that Internet governance and the digital rights conversations are as inclusive as possible. We need to continue and to do even more. We need to make sure that organizations of street sellers or blind Internet users, for instance, are part of the conferences that we're organizing and the conversations that we are having. I'm not sure such organizations exist, but I'm just saying that we should go the extra mile to reach out beyond the digital rights community because the Internet is for all. it's not just for digital rights advocates and organizations. I think young people have mastered the understanding of how to advocate using the Internet. They have a clue or two to teach us. And so I would like to see more exchanges of knowledge. We can bring in the history part but also the more technical aspects with regard to what are digital rights and what are human rights online. I think this knowledge is probably not very broadly shared among our youth. In exchange, I think we would need more of the knowledge of younger African citizens on making good use of the different platforms we have, to build strong advocacy that raises awareness beyond the borders of their countries, the continent and beyond. We have a lot to learn from young people. They also have to learn a lot about their rights and their duties as users and citizens of the Internet. We need to have more conversations about their safety online. Whate type of content do they see and when there's something wrong, do they have channels or can we provide them with channels to make sure that their safety issues are being addressed properly? I think these could be great avenues for collaboration. Thanks, CIPESA for this incredible and important initiative. Thanks for the opportunity. 2 Cameroon: dangerous speech online, fake news and digital rights symposium - internet sans frontières https://internetwithoutborders.org/cameroon-dangerous-speech-online-fake-news-and-digital-rights-symposium/ A CIPESA Series 31