The Youth Forum
The ITU Youth Forum was launched at ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2001, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The country’s President Thabo Mbeki told participants "I would encourage all of you young people to make use of the technology available to you today, to surf the net, and to make yourselves totally computer-literate."

The Youth Forum brings together talented students from institutions of higher education to take part in a programme of talks, debates and interactive panel discussions with government and industry representatives attending ITU TELECOM events. Following the launch in South Africa, the second Youth Forum took place in 2002 in Hong Kong, alongside TELECOM ASIA. Then, in 2003, the event became global with the Youth Forum held at TELECOM WORLD in Geneva. Further regional Youth Forums took place at TELECOM AFRICA and TELECOM ASIA in 2004, while the most recent gathering was at TELECOM WORLD 2006, in December in Hong Kong.

In total, some 900 young people have so far participated in ITU Youth Forums. A gender balance is ensured by selecting one man and one woman to take part from each country.

South Africa' s President Thabo Mbeki (front row, second left) and former ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi (front row, fourth left) during the first Youth Forum in 2001 ITU/P. Letcher

The goals
The goal of each Youth Forum is to build skills in ICT and cultivate leaders of tomorrow. Young people are introduced to the work of ITU and the industry, and have the opportunity to learn about the variety of career opportunities within the sector. Through its programme and follow-up activities, the Youth Forum helps to create the next generation of dedicated professionals in ICT development.

There is an urgent need to improve such human resources in many countries, given the increasing importance of ICT in the global economy. The Youth Forum is thus in line with ITU’s long-term commitment to support capacity building in developing countries in order to equip them with the necessary skills to take full advantage of the social and economic benefits of ICT.

"Mentoring youth is a partnership of the best kind," says ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré. "It is an investment as we prepare for the future. The return on such investment is measured in opportunities and improved lives, not only of the young people who will have benefited, but also their communities and our telecommunication sector."
Selecting Youth Fellows
ITU invites each Member State to nominate young people to take part in the Youth Forum at either a regional or World event. This invitation is passed on to the country’s universities or institutions of higher education, which submit possible candidates who must be students aged between 18 and 23. They must write a short essay on a topic chosen by ITU.

Each university or institute evaluates the students’ applications and sends those it recommends to the national government, which selects two male and two female candidates to put forward to ITU. A special committee appointed by ITU makes a final selection of one man and one woman from each country. These become "Youth Fellows", whose travel, accommodation and subsistence costs are met by ITU, in cooperation with Youth Forum sponsors, ranging from large ICT companies to governments (see box).

Taking part
Youth Fellows elect their own leadership at each event and draft and present a Declaration and Action Plan conveying their global vision for expanding the benefits of ICT.

They also take part in many other TELECOM activities, such as exploring the latest technologies on the exhibition floor, and participating in workshops and discussions. In addition, Youth Fellows have opportunities to interact and develop mentor relationships with senior members of the ICT sector — government officials, industry executives, technology leaders, content providers and strategists.

Since 2001, participants in the Youth Forum have discussed topics ranging from "enabling technologies and their applications" to "policy and regulation" and "finance and business". It is a place where ideas can be developed, evaluated and disseminated.

Declarations and Action Plans
At the end of each Youth Forum, participants issue a Declaration on what they see as priorities for action on bridging the digital divide. At the most recent event, the Declaration stated:

"We, the Youth Fellows of the ITU TELECOM WORLD 2006, recognize that you can wait for change or you can initiate change. We are committed to initiating change. We will start with realizable actions that can be implemented in our home countries and regions in partnership with the ITU, governments, universities, companies and other bodies."

Typically, participants in Youth Forums find their experience to be extremely valuable in helping them to understand the global communications industry. Many are encouraged to embark upon careers as engineers, policy-makers and business people in the field of ICT. After each event, ITU works with Youth Fellows to help ensure that proposals outlined during the forum become a reality. These activities are followed up by the Special Initiatives Unit within ITU’s Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU–D).

Alumni success stories
Postal Portals combine telecommunications and microfinance
Under the banner of the Youth Forum in 2006 alongside TELECOM WORLD in Hong Kong (China), a Youth Fellow from the Netherlands gave a presentation on the project he had helped to set up in Ecuador to combat poverty in rural areas.

Tim Anten, aged 23, was studying for a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (specializing in telecommunications) from the Delft University of Technology, when in the summer of 2006 he helped to set up the Postal Portals project. He was joined in this work by Jan Middelburg, a Master of Financial Economics student at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. The project was inspired by the success of the Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone projects, launched in Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Postal Portals was carried out in Ecuador’s provinces of Chimborazo and Tungurahua, in the Andes. Mr Anten and Mr Middelburg created a wireless infrastructure to provide Internet connections to branches of a microfinance institution, Accion Rural. This meant that services could be expanded and transaction costs reduced, ensuring sustainability of operations. Also, because information could be sent via secure connections, clients could be linked to the national banking system. This made it easier, for example, for people to receive payments from relatives living abroad — an important element of many families’ incomes.

The project is financially self-sustaining, and the wireless infrastructure was shared with other parties to create a community network. Two agricultural information centres, three educational computer centres and two local community radio stations have been connected to the Internet.

Young Leaders in ICT Network
The Young Leaders in ICT Network is a follow-up project of the Youth Forum at ITU Telecom World 2003, where participants requested support to help them stay in touch with all Youth Forum alumni. They also asked to be kept updated on ITU events and ICT opportunities worldwide. The network offers details of educational opportunities, recruitment, links, and contact information of administrations, regulatory bodies and companies dealing with ICT in each country. More information is available at www.itu.int/YLinICTs.

Internet access in a local language
The aim of this follow-up project from the 2004 Youth Forum at ITU TELECOM AFRICA is to establish a Swahili language environment on the web. In their Declaration and Action Plan, Youth Fellows highlighted illiteracy and lack of access to ICT as a particular challenge in Africa, and proposed that promoting the use of local languages in e-learning and Internet access would offer a solution. The project targeted countries where Swahili is spoken, mainly in East Africa. In collaboration with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), the ITU–D Special Initiatives Unit supported the development of software to translate English into Swahili. This has been installed at all ITU telecentres in East Africa, and made freely available for the entire region.

Youth Forum in the running for an award
A committee of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry has chosen the ITU Youth Forum as a finalist for the UFI Marketing Award 2007 competition. It was selected under the category "Best Events Supporting Exhibitions". The winner will be announced at the 2007 UFI Open Seminar, to be held in Bilbao, Spain, on 18–20 June. UFI stands for Union des Foires Internationales or "Union of International Fairs", which was established in Milan, Italy, in 1925. It changed its name to the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry in 2003.

Sponsors
Since their launch in 2001, Youth Forums have been supported by financial contributions and sponsorship by governments, public organizations and companies in the telecommunication and ICT industries. Sponsors who have demonstrated commitment and appreciation of the Youth Forum over the years include:

African Development Bank
Alcatel-Lucent
People’s Republic of China
 Cisco Systems
Development Gateway (World Bank)
State of Geneva (Switzerland)
Hutchison 3G Group
InfoDev (World Bank)
Intelsat
NEC (Nigeria)
NTT DoCoMo
PCCW (Hong Kong, China)
PTT Norway
Siemens
SK Telecom
United Arab Emirates (Telecommunication Regulatory Authority)
Vodafone (UK)
Worldspace

Sourse: http://www.itu.int/itunews/manager/main.asp?lang=en&iYear=2007&iNumber=04