A few weeks ago, I stood in front of a packed room at the Fresh Media festival, mouth entirely agape (a colleague helpfully noted later that I looked like a species of prehistoric plankton-eating fish). Now, my mouth isn't normally agape. In fact, I'd say that overall, it's closed more than open – I prefer to keep my dignity intact where possible.

Why the gaping jaw, then? It's actually quite simple – I was amazed and inspired by the room's unique demographics. Electronic equipment, tweet feeds and video-streams buzzed as elderly gentlemen settled next to young bright-eyed students, politicians mingled with “old guard” anarchists, and giggling high-schoolers of varying nationalities interacted in foreign tongues. I was witnessing a hybrid conference meeting its full potential – where a diverse group of individuals are engaged in collaborative dialogue. It is because of experiences like this one – jaw-dropping seconds where a moment in time crystallizes into a greater understanding about how it all should work – that I use online communities, social media and innovative conference formats to promote civil society.

As a young person who is a member of the infamous Millennial generation (see further essays about my thoughts on Millennials at VELOCITY blog I am a part of a group of young adults who have grown up with a consciousness located simultaneously in both physical and virtual communities. Often, when one is an adept user of social and interactive media, one's virtual cyberspace communities are just as enriching and stimulating as those in the physical “real world.” As a result, my generation's conception of nationalism is increasingly marked by an awareness of a larger, internationally connected virtual community – one that transcends old ideas of state-based identity. Like many people my age, I see myself as both Canadian and global in citizenship – and I am equally interested in what's going on in each community.

Some call this type of understanding a “global village” while others dismiss it, calling it a form of anarchy. Some call my generation “apathetic” for being less engaged locally and for voting in smaller numbers than those of our parents, while others – from hacker-tricksters like the Yes Men to social change groups like the Ruckus Society and Tck Tck Tck – understand the true nature of our globally-minded policy priorities and effectively mobilize us en masse. We aren't content merely sitting on the sidelines and letting others make changes that affect us – we want to directly participate in our local and global communities.

Fresh Media was an idea conceived by me and three other young leaders, based on our hope that we could provide a space to discuss potential positive results of the current traditional-media collapse in North America. In mere months, with the help of virtual wiki-based discussion, tweets, and Facebook shout-outs, the movement had become an energetic coalition of organizers across Canada, all committed to making the event successful. And that combination of virtual and physical support delivered. On the day of Fresh Media, the venue was packed to the point of over-capacity, filled with panel discussions, town-hall style talks, art exhibits, and other interactive forms of idea-sharing, all linked to the net through a variety of technologies.

The most remarkable thing about this type of virtually-facilitated shift in our collective consciousness – from the local to the global, and from the personal to the collective – is that it is no longer a phenomenon specific to my generation alone, as the multi-generational popularity of net-minded unconferences has shown. With new advances in communicative technologies that make virtual interactions easier than ever, I predict that these previously dichotomized worlds will continue to tap into existing physical/virtual technologies to engage Canadians across old gender, age, and culture-based divisions.

Every day I see new examples of these technologies being implemented in innovative and community-minded ways. On November 30, the organization I am working for is holding a hybrid conference called ForeignPolicyCamp in Vancouver – but if you are not in Vancouver, there is now no need to feel left out because ForeignPolicyCamp is literally going to be everywhere. From satellite camps in Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton linked to the Vancouver camp with live video-chat streams, to foreign experts participating from abroad, to publicly-editable session wikis, it is evident that location no longer is a barrier to attendance. We're going to be discussing Canadian foreign policy and Canada's role in the world – and in an unprecedented move for the traditional foreign policy scene, it is going to be a dialogue that is not limited to a select few sectors of society.

I find myself feeling extremely hopeful about the future of a world whose citizens promote a type of civil society entrenched in the open-source discussion of ideas. It is important to remember that we have a lot of work to do. Even in a country as prosperous as Canada, there is still a digital divide between those who can access these publicly available technologies and tap into these dialogues, and those who cannot because they do not have the luxury of internet access. I am confident, however, that with continued advances in unconference and open-source movements we will continue to spread this sort of net-based citizen democracy until all Canadians can be included. As a recently launched global-network initiative from Idealist proclaims, “Imagine people everywhere expressing a simple idea: We (and you) are not alone; we will not be divided; together we can do so much more.”