THE PROJECT
The Youth Internet Governance Forum (YIGF) Canada was created by the Young Digital Leaders of Canada (YDLC) to give young people a meaningful place in internet governance conversations as emerging leaders and contributors. The initiative began with a , bringing youth together in a central space to debate, learn from and contribute to evolving digital governance conversations.
Building on the success of the inaugural event, YDLC developed its 2025 forum to sustain momentum and create even more ways for youth to stay involved in digital policy conversations. The 2025 program brought people together in Ottawa for the Canada Youth IGF, connected them to the Canadian IGF, and included civic engagement and leadership activities on Parliament Hill.
It also gave participants opportunities to interact directly with senators, parliamentarians and other digital policy leaders before continuing on to local community projects and a virtual symposium. As Dana Cramer, founder and CEO of YDLC, reflected, “It was originally just a youth IGF, but ended up becoming a half-week leadership development seminar.”
Youth shaped the agenda through a bottom-up process that included topic calls, consultations and focus groups. Outreach also expanded beyond post-secondary networks to include youth-serving organizations, community groups and digital policy organizations, helping YDLC grow its engagement strategy from roughly 55 organizations to more than 150.
COMMUNITY IMPACT
The forum gave young people the opportunity to build knowledge, confidence and networks in internet governance by connecting them directly with policy leaders and peers from across the country. That access was intentional. Youth are deeply affected by digital policy, but often have little formal say in it. As one participant put it, “A lot of today’s youth have grown up in the age of the internet, and yet they have no political say about it.” Another added, “Oftentimes, we find ourselves discussed by politicians and think tanks and different organizations, when in reality we have a voice and we have something we want to contribute.”
Travel support and honorariums were key to the event’s success. In addition to a virtual hybrid option to allow cross-Canada engagement, the YLDC offered 10 honorariums to youth from rural, remote, Indigenous communities who might also be persons with disabilities, young women working to end technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and other emerging internet leaders.
Bringing in young people from across Canada made in-person participation possible for those who might not otherwise have had access, allowing them to take part more fully in the forum, the Canadian IGF and surrounding leadership activities. It also helped them build relationships across regions and share experiences that would have been difficult to replicate online.
As Cramer explained, these steps helped the participants “foster their learning and fine-tune their leadership skills so they can become the next generation of Canadian internet leaders.”
All this support translated into meaningful outcomes for participating youth. One attendee became a new Fellow with the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) after being introduced to the internet governance ecosystem through the forum. Another youth leader later testified as an expert at a Senate hearing on privacy. A travelling Indigenous youth made a connection through the event that led to a summer job. Others continued building relationships with mentors and pursuing new opportunities in digital policy and leadership.
One of the biggest changes between the forum’s first and second years was what happened after the event ended. Instead of losing touch with participants after they returned home, YDLC supported honorarium recipients to bring what they had learned back to their communities through local engagement projects. Those projects were later shared through a virtual symposium held a few months after the forum, extending the reach of the initiative beyond Ottawa.
YDLC also gained a clearer understanding of what it takes to make this work sustainable. Strong local relationships matter. Repeated engagement matters. And youth leadership development needs to continue beyond a single event. “A key learning from this event was that building rapport with youth takes a lot of time,” said Cramer.
The long-term impact of Youth IGF Canada extends beyond the annual forum. It is a growing network of young digital leaders who are beginning to shape their communities, their careers and Canada’s internet policy conversations.
As Cramer summarized, “[We] hope that this initiative will allow young people to become bottom-up leaders in the digital sector, that they change their lives and their communities’ lives.”
RELATED LINKS
- Youth Digital Leaders website: https://www.youngdigitalleaders.ca/canada-youth-igf
- Canada YIGF Symposium – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cY9l07_wuM
- Video: Canada’s Digital Future: Youth at the Internet Policy Table
