Turns out “youth leader” is just code for endless Google Docs and hoping nobody notices how new you actually are to all of this. What people don’t know is that a couple of years ago, the mention of the word “presentation” was enough to make my legs shake under the table. Somewhere between moderating my first session in NetMission Academy to the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) in Busan, the shaking kind of stopped. And I realized, that’s how you become a facilitator.
It all started in March 2026, when I joined the APIGA Facilitators Group and we went around introducing ourselves. From there till July, it was InfoKit reviews, poring over every stakeholder role until it made sense, and mock Model ICANN sessions among ourselves before we ever faced participants. I was Chair for GAC in one of our earlier mock conferences, but eventually moved to GNSO, the Generic Names Supporting Organization, the role I ended up facilitating. I had no idea how to facilitate it at first, but somehow I still pulled it off.
I had the fortune of co-leading GNSO with Seungjun Chu, an APIGA alumni from 2025 who was part of the GNSO group himself. As a complete newbie to the role, having him there made all the difference, he always knew which component would go how, and what we could do to make it easier for both the participants and us as youth leaders.
Onsite, APIGA turned into a blur of firsts. I facilitated the icebreaker, moderated some aspects of the Model ICANN Conference, and presented my Asia Pacific Policy Observatory (APPO) Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) research findings at our Grievance Redressal booth, where participants shared their own experiences with digital transactions failure and we all learned from mentors how payment infrastructure actually works behind the scenes. I also took part in the APNIC PDP roleplay, and spent all the Model ICANN plenaries as note-taker alongside my amazing co-note-taker, Sunghyuk Ko. During the cybersecurity roleplay, I facilitated the legal team, made extra fun by the fact that we had an actual lawyer in our group. And honestly, one of the best parts was hearing from participants that the sessions led by the NetMission team felt genuinely engaging, because they were designed by youth, for youth.
Every ambiguity I caught in a review round, every session I helped shape, was really about making sure someone new wouldn’t feel lost the way I once did. That shift, from learning the material to being trusted to teach it, is where I felt myself grow the most.
But if there’s one thing APIGA drove home for me, it’s that no amount of prep survives a team that doesn’t click. None of it works, the sessions, the InfoKit, five days of simulation, if the people behind it aren’t pulling in the same direction. I was lucky. Our Program Manager, Sherry, Nawal, Manas, Seungjun, and Sunghyuk made this the best team I’ve worked with. Huge shoutout to Manas especially, who stepped up last minute to lead the “What’s Next After APIGA?” session, I can’t thank him enough for that. Watching each of them show up, covering gaps, catching errors, staying calm, taught me a team is not a backdrop to the work. It is the work. We pulled off APIGA as best we could because we pulled it off together.
NetMission is the place that first handed me the mic, quite literally. Facilitating and moderating sessions online gave me a confidence I didn’t know I needed, and by the time I was doing it onsite in Busan, it didn’t feel like a leap, it felt like something I had already grown into.
And beyond the sessions, this was also my first ever trip abroad, and I have the local Korean participants to thank for making it one I’ll never forget, from helping me find food to late-night quiz games that turned strangers into friends.
I carry one motto through all of this: give back to the community that gave you room to grow. NetMission and DotAsia gave me that room, again and again, and I hope to keep showing up for it, session by session, draft by draft, country by country.
Thank you for believing that youth voices deserve more than a seat at the table. You gave us the tools, the training, and the trust to lead, and I don’t take that lightly.
Blog Post – Aug 11, 2026
Written by Khushbakht
You must be logged in to post a comment.