Day 1: September 1, 2007

After tremendous measures to register for the International Youth Forum conference on ICT 4 Peace and find my accommodation to Sharm El Sheikh, the first day had finally come! Walking into the conference room and getting your name tags was surprisingly organized for Egypt. The opening ceremonies commenced at 10 am where we had the opportunity to hear the success stories of successful youth and opening remarks by the First Lady and initiator of the conference, Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak. While I initially suspected another international conference with excessive ego’s and self promotion, as the conference progressed, I started to realize how many youth actually do share a common vision for the future as myself.

The conference was divided into various sessions that one chose to attend depending on their interest or specializations. I attended the session titled ‘The Power of Youth in Promoting Peace’ which was one of my top two favourites. I particularly enjoyed the engaging nature that the moderator allowed for in this session as he went around the room and asked youth to say a word when they think of peace. We discussed such matters as to what makes youth unique in being the engines for change in the future such as their idealism and energy. We also discussed the importance of youth being involved in the decision making and continue to be informed on issues. We discussed the conventional assumption of youth not expected to make a difference and talked about breaking such barriers and youth taking the future into their hands with the cooperation of government, NGO’s and civil society. The panel also discussed the need for youth to promote peace rather than themselves and begin thinking outside the box. We also discussed the necessity of reaching out to war torn youths such as child soldiers and other insecurities other than physical violence, such as social, economic and political. We concluded the session in stating the need to bring young people back to the table and decision making process. However, before proceeding to promote global peace, every individual was first and foremost responsible for finding inner peace.

Following the lunch break, I attended the session on the ‘ICT 4 Peace,’ which was the main theme of the conference. The speakers discussed the way different means of communication such as mobile phones and the internet and the way that new technologies continue to changes peoples lives, overcome barriers, build bridges between boundaries, and essentially create a ‘global citizen.’ Jennifer Corriero, co-founder and executive director of TakingItGlobal (the organization that have sent me to Egypt on my internship) spoke about the role TakingItGlobal plays in understanding and respecting dialogue over the web and the online community TIG has been successful in creating and expanding over the years. She elaborated on such told as TIG’s discussion forums and argued that while such forums do have the possibility of promoting hatred, the TIG staff actually monitor such discussion forums to prevent this from occurring. The issue of access and the digital divide among youth was also discussed as well as the possibility of using the internet to destruct peace rather than promote it. Most of the session remained a discussion of what further steps could be taken to break such boundaries, how to make sure the internet is used in the right way and that such a message had to be relayed and encourage young people.

The opening day concluded with an amazing flamenco show and a delicious dinner and live band at the conference hotel, which gave many participants the chance make more informal connections, networks, and great friends!