Rohan Speaks at United Nations

At the United Nations Office in Geneva, Rohan Daswani, Year 11, spoke in front of politicians, corporate and NGO representatives at the Internet Governance Forum, 16 – 21 Dec 2018, about the importance of freedom online for his generation.

Rohan was selected to attend the meeting after winning an ESF competition. He wrote a 25-page research paper on internet governance which the judges praised for the knowledge he demonstrated and the intelligent conclusions he drew.

Delegates at the meeting discussed public policy issues about the internet, e.g. access to the internet, cybersecurity, digital economies, gender & youth rights and new technologies in the hopes of implementing new policies to make the web a more open and safe place.

After his speech, Rohan engaged in various conversations with high-level policymakers debating different practices that could be taken forward.

Rohan said, “This was an amazing event and a surreal experience for me. Not only was I able to voice my opinion on the future of internet governance, but I also engaged in discussions with high-level policy makers. I spoke with the  President of the Swiss Confederation*, Vint Cerf (the founder of the internet), University Professors and more about what I felt was necessary to make the internet a safer place. I feel that more people my age should get involved with internet governance. After all, our generation as lived their whole lives with Facebook.”

This article was corrected on the, 14 Feb 2018