In July 2000, the Digital Opportunities Taskforce (DOT Force) was established at the G-8 Summit in Kyushu-Okinawa to address the widening digital divide. It began a year-long process including formal plenary meetings, informal meetings, and public consultations, to develop concrete recommendations on how the G8 could contribute to creating digital opportunities for all. The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) served as one of the primary conduits for civil society perspectives into the DOT Force process.
Based on the quality of the youth input to the GKP Action Summit, in March 2001 the GKP asked IISD to reconvene the Youth Advisory Council (YAC) to update the Youth: Building Knowledge Societies report within the framework of the DOT Force priorities:
- fostering policy, regulatory and network readiness
- improving connectivity, increasing access and lowering cost
- building human capacity
- encouraging participation in global e-commerce networks
YAC members from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America researched youth initiatives identified in the YBKS report to determine which had flourished and which had disappeared over the course of the previous year. Their regional updates and perspectives were compiled into the Youth DOT Force report (269 kb)  submitted to the GKP and DOT Force secretariats in April 2001.
Unfortunately, neither the final GKP report nor the DOT Force report to the G8 contained references to, or quotations from, the Youth DOT Force report. Nevertheless, many of the issues raised by youth have been addressed to some extent in these reports.
As the IISD report on Implications of the DOT Force and G-8 Summit in Genoa on Youth Groups (129 kb) indicates, youth organizations and networks should continue to monitor G-8 DOT Force activities and partner with other GKP members on activities seeking to bridge the digital divide. The Action Plan framework shows which G-8 nation is the convener for each Action Point. As the "Champions" (private sector, governments, international development programs, etc.) come forward to put these initiatives in action, it will be easier to monitor and know where partnership and influencing opportunities will be.
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