Apply for the Digital Natives Youth Connect Board

The Digital Natives Youth Connect Board is an initiative by Digital Grassroots to enable young people to tackle community engagement issues for digital inclusion in underrepresented regions.

Digital Grassroots is a female and youth-led non-profit working to increase digital citizenship in local communities. We are youth leaders in the Generation Equality Action Coalition for Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality, which is led by UN Women, Mexico, and France. We have partnered with global organizations such as Mozilla Foundation, Internet Society, and Internet Freedom Festival to implement community engagement projects for youth inclusion in internet health, internet governance, and digital rights issues in local communities. In 2020, we were finalists in the Access category for ITUs Equals In Tech awards. We were also nominated by WSIS for Ethics in cyberspace.

We are registered in Nigeria and maximize the potential of the internet for our global network of digital natives, including 128 ambassadors and 15 Community Leaders in over 60 countries, 7 programs in 3 years, and a global leadership team. We apply the principles of working open and leading open.

Our distributed model of leadership allows us to create pathways for grassroots communities to interact with our work and create global networks through the application of open internet principles. We work online and are a diverse team open to contributors who uphold the values of an open, inclusive, and healthy internet.

As part of the Digital Natives Youth Connect Board, you will be one of the young people shaping the future of technology and innovation across the globe.

Whilst, being a member of this Board is a non-remunerated position, we believe that the community collaboration, leadership growth, and ability to create change in the world will be an enriching experience.

Apply for one of the five available roles as a member of this new board.

11 June 2021

– INTERNET ADVOCACY. Serve in an active advisory and implementation role on engaging young people in solving internet issues at a grassroots level by creating services that respond to the digital needs of underserved communities
– INTERNET HEALTH. Build online communities as a collective of young changemakers working towards a more open, equal, and healthy internet through youth participation in Internet Governance
– INTERNET FREEDOM. Take part in hands-on collaborative efforts with Digital Grassroots to connect grassroots communities to institutions that enhance their autonomy in digital citizenship

– Be part of a global youth organization shifting the landscape on youth participation in Internet Governance.
– Center your work and that of your community at a high level, with an opportunity to showcase it to world leaders and leading organizations.
– Contribute to bridging the gender divide in Internet Governance, Technology, and Innovation.
– Be part of the decision-making process that is positively shining light on the issues young people in underrepresented communities are facing
– Be part of a community of like-minded, ethical, and visionary young leaders who are ready to change the world.

– Board Secretariat
– Communications focal point
– Community Engagements focal point
– Projects focal point
– Resource and Partnerships focal point

The work of Digital Grassroots is sustained through intentional administrative functions and collaboration among all the team members. We set our intentions through measurable objectives, and assign ourselves meaningful work that allows us to make the most of our potential whilst embracing a healthy work-life balance. As core leaders of Digital Grassroots, we ensure that our commitment to the values of care, intention, collaboration, open leadership, and equity are centered in our practice and trickles down to our community. We can only achieve this by being organized, documenting our processes, and ensuring that our open leadership principles are embedded in all we do.
ROLE DELIVERABLES:
– Serve as the point of contact of the Digital Natives Youth Connect Board both internally and externally
– Maintain the calendar, dates, and task sheets of the board
– Offer direct support with documentation and minute keeping on behalf of the board
– Lead in writing outcome reports based on the board activities
– Lead in monitoring and evaluation of the board’s objectives and offer remedies where needed

Digital Grassroots projects center the community to ensure a bottom-up approach in responses to digital issues affecting our communities. As youth leaders in the Action Coalition for Technology and Innovation, our projects will be ambitious in solving the gender digital divide, and ensuring that our community of Ambassadors and Community Leaders have good impact on the digital story of their communities. Our projects are timely, gender-responsive, and innovative for a digital future that speaks for us.

ROLE DELIVERABLES:
– Lead on project conceptualization, administration, and evaluation
– Oversee relevant projects on behalf of Digital Grassroots and the Board
– Identify key partners to collaborate with Digital Grassroots on Projects
– Document project processes and outcomes in reports
– Report back to Digital Grassroots and the Board on key findings, connections, and outcomes of projects

Digital Grassroots pays a lot of attention to communicating the strides young people are making in the internet space with our community and partners. For us, communication is everything. To remain connected to our vibrant youth network we maintain an active and open communication channel with them through our social media pages, website, email, and newsletters. To ensure that our messages remain intentional, clear, and in line with our organizational objectives, we make use of branding and communication techniques for all of our platform updates.

ROLE DELIVERABLES:
– Curate content and post regularly on Digital Grassroots Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts
– Spotlight our community stories bi-weekly for our blog and newsletters by corresponding with board members, ambassadors, community leaders, and global activities related to our work.
– Document all related content and file them accordingly
– Create a brand strategy and communication plan for the organization and board

At the heart of Digital Grassroots is our vibrant youth community. Through the various projects that we implement, we have grown this network to consist of our 128 ambassadors and community leaders from 63 countries. We desire to further expand this network by designing and implementing more community engagement projects and supporting the present network members to carry out their individual community engagement activities.

ROLE DELIVERABLES:
– Curate and maintain communication channels for our existing community of Ambassadors and Community Leaders
– Serve as a point of contact between the board and the community
– Source and spotlight community stories and share these with the Communications lead
– Maintain a good community rapport and safety based on Digital Grassroots values by enforcing a code of conduct both internally and externally
– Collaborate with the Resource and Partnerships person to identify and connect with the new community from all stakeholders for opportunities that are beneficial to our community

At Digital Grassroots we are working to ensure that young people have the platform, capacity, and resources to address internet issues affecting their community. We do this with the generous support of our community, partners, and funders. We actively advocate to have young people as a core part of Internet Governance and its processes, and to do so we have to innovate the way we work so that our projects have an impact, are rooted in the grassroots, and remain sustainable.

ROLE DELIVERABLES:
– Lead in the process of grant writing, and partnership applications
– Document all past applications, their outcomes, and next steps
– Lead in bookkeeping on behalf of the board and Digital Grassroots
– Engage in stakeholder mapping to identify opportunities for the board
– Take part in partnership meetings and follow up until the process is complete