By Billy Ray
Attending the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) is my first experience in any event related to internet governance. This has given me the opportunity to interact with different stakeholders from all walks of life and I enjoyed it.
The school was generally good and constituted a very active and enthusiastic class that inspired participants and resource persons to reason things out together. I liked the diversity of the class, not only from a regional perspective but also from the different professional backgrounds.
Most participants were not new to the internet governance ecosystem: some were somehow versed in their own right and balanced the faculty in their active participation and relevant questions.
The class generally worked well as one team, and there was obedience to leadership and faculty. I also enjoyed working in teams. However, the school should work towards improving the overall planning, including the inclusion of gender issues, as well as better internet connectivity at the venue so as to enhance the working environment for better delivery.
I found it difficult to follow the debate on how internet governance relates to the Sustainable Development Goals. Being a person who works on a daily basis in the domain of accounting, I am eager to find out how I can also relate internet governance to my domain of specialty.
I would have loved to see the discussions at AfriSIG 2017 make a greater incorporation of gender issues in the discussions. This was not the case, even though we had some participants who worked on gender issues. For the next edition, it would be good if the faculty and resource persons could make sure that gender issues are more included in the discussions and presentations.