WS #204 Closing Digital Divides by Universal Access Acceptance

Summary

This discussion focused on strategies for closing the digital divide through universal access and acceptance, exploring how to expand high-quality internet infrastructure to underserved communities while fostering linguistic diversity online. The session was moderated by Fabio Senne from CETIC.br and featured panelists from Canada, Kenya, and Pakistan discussing both technical and social barriers to digital inclusion.

The conversation emphasized that digital divides extend far beyond infrastructure coverage to encompass affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and meaningful connectivity. Fabio Senne noted that while 90% of Brazil’s population has some internet connection, only 22% have meaningful connectivity that enables them to fully benefit from digital technologies. Andrew Lewela from Kenya highlighted that universal acceptance and trust cannot exist without meaningful internet access, pointing to affordability of devices and data plans as primary barriers, along with cybersecurity concerns and limited digital literacy.

Universal acceptance emerged as a critical technical issue, with Allison O’Beirne from the Canadian government explaining that many systems still fail to support non-Latin scripts or newer domain extensions, creating barriers for linguistic minorities. Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko emphasized the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty and the need for Indigenous-owned networks, while Roonjha Qaisar from Pakistan demonstrated how AI tools in local languages can democratize access to advanced technologies.

The discussion revealed that solutions require multi-stakeholder collaboration addressing supply-side technical standards and demand-side accessibility issues. Panelists agreed that meaningful digital inclusion must incorporate language justice, community-driven initiatives, and sustainable funding models that prioritize the most marginalized populations rather than treating connectivity as merely a technical challenge.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Multi-layered nature of digital divides**: The discussion emphasized that digital divides extend far beyond infrastructure coverage to include affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, trust and safety concerns, and meaningful connectivity rather than just basic access.

– **Universal Acceptance (UA) as a technical and social justice issue**: Panelists explored how universal acceptance – ensuring all domain names and email addresses work across internet systems regardless of language or script – represents both a technical challenge and a matter of language justice and inclusion.

– **Indigenous rights and data sovereignty**: Significant focus on Indigenous peoples’ rights as inherent stakeholders (not just consultees) in digital infrastructure decisions, emphasizing free, prior and informed consent, Indigenous-owned networks, spectrum access rights, and Indigenous data sovereignty.

– **Government and institutional roles in bridging divides**: Discussion of how governments can lead by example through their own IT systems, procurement policies, funding mechanisms (like universal service funds), and partnerships with community organizations to create sustainable solutions.

– **Community-driven and localized solutions**: Emphasis on bottom-up approaches, community networks, digital navigators/champions, and the importance of developing technology in local languages and contexts rather than English-first approaches.

## Overall Purpose:

The session aimed to explore comprehensive strategies for closing digital divides through universal access and acceptance, moving beyond traditional infrastructure-focused approaches to address the intersection of technical, social, economic, and cultural barriers that prevent meaningful internet connectivity for underserved communities globally.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with panelists building on each other’s insights rather than debating. The tone was realistic about challenges while remaining optimistic about solutions. There was a notable shift from technical discussions early on to more nuanced conversations about social justice, Indigenous rights, and community empowerment as the session progressed. The atmosphere was respectful and inclusive, with speakers from different regions and backgrounds sharing complementary perspectives on similar challenges.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Fabio Senne** – General Research Coordinator at CETIC.br (department for NIC.br), Session Moderator

– **Allison O’Beirne** – Director of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of the Government of Canada

– **Andrew Mwanyota Lewela** – CEO of the Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC)

– **Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil** – Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, Member of Onii-Chikswapowin or Saddle Lake Cree Nation

– **Roonjha Qaisar** – Co-founder of Urdu AI

– **Sabrina Wilkinson** – Internet Governance Manager from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)

– **Ellen Taylor** – Policy Analyst from the Government of Canada, Virtual Moderator

– **Edmon Chong** – Representative from DotAsia (audience participant who asked questions)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Emmanuel Oroka** – DCAD Fellow (mentioned as asking a question via chat, but did not speak directly)

# Summary Report: Strategies for Closing the Digital Divide Through Universal Access and Acceptance

## Executive Summary

This hybrid session was moderated by Fabio Senne from CETIC.br, with Ellen Taylor serving as virtual moderator from the Government of Canada. The discussion brought together panelists from Canada, Kenya, and Pakistan, alongside representatives from Indigenous communities and civil society organizations, to examine strategies for bridging digital divides through universal access and acceptance.

The conversation explored how digital divides extend beyond infrastructure coverage to encompass affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and meaningful connectivity. Speakers emphasized the need for community-driven solutions, multilingual support, and the importance of trust and safety in digital inclusion efforts.

## Key Discussion Points

### The Multi-Layered Nature of Digital Divides

Fabio Senne opened the discussion by providing context about Brazil’s connectivity challenges, noting that while 90% of Brazil’s population has some internet connection, only 22% have meaningful connectivity that enables them to fully benefit from digital technologies. He emphasized that “supply side infrastructure is necessary but insufficient; barriers come from intersection of inequalities including territory, gender, ethnicity, and language.”

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela from Kenya reinforced this perspective, stating that “there can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet.” He highlighted that 30% of the global population remains offline, while those who are connected face barriers including affordability of network plans and devices, limited trust due to cybersecurity threats, infrastructure gaps, and lack of technical expertise.

Roonjha Qaisar from Pakistan added that “digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future,” highlighting how digital exclusion compounds existing inequalities.

### Universal Acceptance as Technical and Social Challenge

Allison O’Beirne from the Canadian government explained that “universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet-enabled application regardless of language, script, or length.” She shared a personal example about having an apostrophe in her name and how many systems “absolutely freak out,” illustrating the practical impact of UA issues.

However, O’Beirne acknowledged implementation challenges, noting that government systems still struggle with basic character support like apostrophes and accents, and that the Canadian government lacks a concrete roadmap for making all government systems universal acceptance ready.

Edmon Chong from DotAsia introduced the concept of “language justice,” arguing that “it is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful.” He advocated for moving away from “an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure.”

### Indigenous Rights and Data Sovereignty

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko, Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, emphasized that Indigenous communities face “structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models.”

He stressed the importance of “respecting Indigenous data sovereignty,” noting that this applies “not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet.” He positioned Indigenous peoples as “inherent right holders” rather than merely stakeholders in digital infrastructure decisions.

Steinhauer-Mozejko also highlighted how “Universal acceptance can be a tool for protecting, promoting, and revitalizing Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered,” connecting technical standards to cultural preservation.

### Community-Driven Solutions

Several speakers emphasized community-based approaches. Steinhauer-Mozejko advocated for “digital navigators and connectivity champions” who could “serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills.”

Sabrina Wilkinson from CIRA described the Communify project, which “created free community Wi-Fi network serving neighbourhoods with highest social inequity, connecting 2,000 unique devices in six months.” This initiative, developed in partnership with National Capital Freenet, Ottawa Community Housing, and Hydro Ottawa, demonstrated targeted community interventions for urban digital equity.

Qaisar described her work “training women artisans to digitise their work whilst their daughters learn AI and digital marketing,” creating “sustainable mother-daughter partnerships” that bridge generational and skills gaps. Her work bringing AI to local languages like Urdu has reached 32 million people monthly.

### Language Barriers and Cultural Inclusion

Language emerged as a significant barrier to digital inclusion. Qaisar identified “language as the biggest barrier,” noting that “AI transformation benefits urban settings and developed countries but marginalised communities are left behind.”

Andrew Lewela emphasized that “Internet language cannot and should not be only English; need to make it accessible in Zulu, Swahili, Norwegian and other languages.” This theme was reinforced by multiple speakers who stressed the need for multilingual support in digital systems.

### Government and Institutional Roles

The discussion revealed different perspectives on government roles. O’Beirne positioned governments as “conveners, educators, and enablers who can fund awareness campaigns and invest in training for IT professionals,” noting that “governments set standards for internet technologies and operate massive IT infrastructures that interact with millions of citizens daily.”

Lewela suggested that “regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks,” emphasizing market-based solutions with regulatory oversight.

However, Steinhauer-Mozejko argued that competitive funding models systematically exclude Indigenous communities, who require sustainable, non-competitive funding mechanisms instead.

### Trust and Safety

Trust was identified as foundational for meaningful digital inclusion. Lewela emphasized that the “Internet must be safe and secure, especially for children, with no harassment or exploitation as cornerstone values.”

Qaisar provided a powerful perspective, arguing that “trust is foundation of digital development; internet shutdowns during crises break this trust and tell marginalised communities they don’t matter.”

Wilkinson noted that “CIRA contributes firewall technology to community networks to protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats,” demonstrating how technical solutions can be integrated into community initiatives.

## Audience Engagement

The session included questions from both in-person and online audiences. Emmanuel Oroka asked about developing frameworks for special internet packages for persons with different abilities. Andrew responded by highlighting Kenya’s use of universal service funds as a framework solution, noting that these funds can be used to support underserved populations through competitive provider models.

## Key Themes

Several important themes emerged from the discussion:

– **Meaningful Connectivity**: Moving beyond basic access to ensure users can fully benefit from digital technologies

– **Language Justice**: The need to support multilingual approaches and move away from English-dominance in digital systems

– **Community-Driven Approaches**: Bottom-up solutions that position communities as active participants rather than passive recipients

– **Cultural Preservation**: Using technical standards like Universal Acceptance to support endangered languages and cultural sustainability

– **Trust as Foundation**: The requirement for safety and security as prerequisites for meaningful digital adoption

## Conclusion

The session demonstrated that closing digital divides requires comprehensive approaches addressing technical, social, economic, and cultural barriers simultaneously. Speakers emphasized the importance of meaningful connectivity over basic access, the need for multilingual support, and the value of community-driven solutions.

The discussion highlighted different approaches to funding and implementation, particularly regarding competitive versus sustainable funding models for underserved communities. While speakers agreed on fundamental principles like the importance of trust, safety, and community involvement, they offered different perspectives on the most effective implementation strategies.

The integration of Universal Acceptance with broader social justice concerns, particularly around language rights and Indigenous data sovereignty, emerged as an important framework for future digital inclusion efforts.

Fabio Senne: So, hello. We are going to begin the session. For those who are online and in person, please turn on your headphones on the channel one for following us. I hope you can hear well. So, it’s an honor to join this today to reflect on how to close digital divide by universal access and acceptance. This session aims to explore strategies for expanding high-quality Internet infrastructure and underserved communities through multi-stakeholder partnerships. It will also address opportunities and challenges of universal acceptance to foster linguistic diversity online, aiming at discussing actionable solutions for regional implementation. So, I’m Fabio Senni. I’m General Research Coordinator at CETIC.br, which is a department for NIC.br. And I will be moderating the session. CETIC is a think tank linked to the Brazilian multi-stakeholder Internet governance model and represented by NIC.br and CGI.br. And we are also a UNESCO Category 2 center that supports Latin American countries and Portuguese-speaking countries in better developing international and comparable indicators on access and use of the Internet. And I would like to introduce Ellen Taylor, who is Policy Analyst from the Government of Canada and will be our virtual moderator. So, I would like to remind that this session is in a hybrid format. And after a short intervention from the panel, we will open the floor for questions and comments from you here in the event or online. So, just to begin, I would like to mention that digital divides are increasingly relevant topic today. We can say for sure that it affects directly the citizenship. in the way people can participate in economy and in societies. And it also makes vulnerable population less resilient to online risks. So we can say about frauds and misinformation, disinformation. And especially in a moment where there is AI and much of the models on AI are training user data. Digital divider are key to not creating biases. And traditionally connectivity and digital divide has been discussed under the layer of infrastructure only. So what’s the coverage of broadband and how internet connections are offered to individuals and organizations. But however, we know that two decades of research in the field, we know that the supply side is necessary also to keep in mind, but it’s not sufficient. So we need to understand the barriers for digital inclusion that comes from the intersection of different inequalities, territory, gender, ethnicity, language and others. And we also know that the solution needs to take into consideration the other layers of the internet governance, including the logical layer, the transport layer and the application layer. So that’s why we are engaged in this discussion today. And just to mention that among the most relevant conceptual shifts that we have in this recent period, is the idea that we also need to take care of meaningful connectivity, not just basic connectivity, but what is a meaningful connectivity, meaning that what is the quality, the frequency of use, the conditions of use that really enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies. And in Brazil, just to mention briefly one single research that we developed in Brazil, although we know that almost 90% of the population, has some connections with the internet and use in a sense only 22% according to our estimates have a meaningful connectivity which means that we really need to push this discussion forward. So the idea is to discuss really strategies and actionable solutions to this topic and we will start by listening our speakers and then open the floor to you for the discussion. I will start with Allison O’Beirne which is a director of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of the Government of Canada.

Allison O’Beirne: So Allison, please you have the floor for your first intervention. Thank you very much. Thanks so much Fabio, much appreciated. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you all today and to get the opportunity to speak a little bit about a topic that I know has been close to our heart in Canada for a little while and which is universal acceptance and it’s an issue that I think is really fundamental to building a truly inclusive digital future of the kind that you were just speaking about. As we all know of course since we’re at the IGF the internet is the backbone of modern life and of our economic growth but despite the global reach of internet technologies access and usability are really still not universal and one of the major barriers that we’ve seen is the failure of many systems to support all valid domain names and email addresses especially those that are in non-latin scripts or newer top-level domains. So this is the issue that universal acceptance really tries to tackle. It’s the idea that all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet enabled application device platform regardless of the language, the script or the length. I know it sounds like a very simple issue and in 2025 it maybe should be but we still have quite a long way to go on now on universal acceptance. I want to start off by acknowledging that there is incredible work being done by the technical community that has been done and that continues to be done to reduce the technical barriers to access to the internet but I think what we want to talk a little bit today about is the role that governments have to play in ensuring that the internet remains open, secure, and interoperable, and particularly in leveraging their power at the international level to help ensure the wide-scale adoption of standards like universal acceptance. So what is the government’s role in universal acceptance? There are basically two sort of aspects to it. The first is that governments, of course, help set standards for internet technologies. We operate massive IT infrastructures. We’ve got websites, we’ve got portals, we’ve got e-services, and they interact with millions of citizens every day. And ensuring a linguistically diverse and inclusive online environment to ensure that the interests of our citizens are met, governments really have to work together at both the national and the international levels to help promote and advocate for the advancement of technical work like work on UA standards. Second, of course, governments are also conveners and educators and enablers. They can fund awareness campaigns, they can invest in training for IT professionals, they can participate and collaborate with wonderful international partners like the Universal Acceptance Steering Group or ICANN. And these efforts really help to ensure that there is an awareness and an understanding among developers, administrators, and decision makers about the importance of UA and how to implement it. We have a long way to go, but I think we’re pretty optimistic about it. And I know for Canada, we face particular challenges in being able to implement UA ourselves. We have a huge geographic region with a whole lot of layers of government. We could talk about whether it’s too many, but that’s for a different panel. And so getting everybody to kind of be on board with consistent technical standards can be a challenge. And of course, like many countries, we have an enormous amount of linguistic diversity. Canada has two official languages, English and French, but there are 200 other languages, including 70 more indigenous languages that are spoken in Canada. ICANN is the lead technical organization on universal acceptance, of course, and is actively doing work in this space. And we are really seeking to engage with them, trying to engage with them consistently to support the work that ICANN is doing to really advance the work around universal acceptance, including the current policy development. development process on Latin script diacritics, which when I started in my job, I had to have explained to me maybe four or five times to understand, but it’s basically the principle that you can have different languages supported in the same way, for example, that one diacritic and non-diacritic version of the same domain can still exist, like in our case for .quebec and .quebec, one of which has an accent and one of which doesn’t, and that those can both exist alongside each other. I think we recognize that there’s lots more to do in this space, that the multi-stakeholder community is really one that has this kind of adaptability and change and innovation as part of its DNA. And since we’re working together towards this common goal, I am confident that we’ll be able to make change in this space. Thanks very much, everyone. I’m looking forward to the discussion.

Fabio Senne: Thank you. Thank you very much, Allison. Very insightful introduction and how something that is apparently simple can be very changing in the way people can access to the Internet. And now I’ll give the floor to Andrew Leuela, the CEO of the Kenya Network Information Centre, KENIC. Andrew, you have five minutes for your first interventions and you have the floor.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me start at the very onset by throwing some cold water to the discussion. And I’ll do this from a Kenyan perspective, a country at the heart of East Africa, in the global south. There can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. I’ll repeat that. We cannot have trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet. This morning, Doreen from the ITU mentioned that we still have 30 percent of of our population globally, who are offline. In Kenya, this number is 1.4 million. Underserved or unserved citizens. Now, in other metrics in Kenya, we have high coverage by the providers, we have high subscription, but very low usage. And why usage is important? Because only when our citizens use the internet in a meaningful way can we then move on to domains, emails, and ensuring that that reflects our languages and our diversity. And in Kenya, and most of Africa, the local language is Swahili. So how do we bring the elderly, the youth, into this ecosystem? I’ll throw a few barriers and potential remedies that we see that together, we can truly bridge the digital divide. At the top of that list, actually, is still affordability. Affordability of network plans or internet plans, affordability of devices, and the requisite policies that come with that affordability. I think, secondly, we still have limited trust by citizens based on what they hear as part of the internet threats. So cyber security threats are still up there. And the whole issue of digital trust. Last month alone in Kenya, the regulators mentioned a 7x growth in DDoS attacks, and a lot of those are AI-generated now. So citizens are concerned about that. Secondly, I’ve mentioned the issue of infrastructure and access, but do the regulators and the policymakers, are they doing enough in terms of streamlining policy to assure citizens of affordability and infrastructure? There’s more that can be done there. And finally, on some of the barriers we see is technical expertise around governance and emerging technology. I’m happy that some of our regulators were here and legislators, we need to carry them along in terms of enabling environment. Now, in conclusion, where do we go from here to ensure UA and trust, at least from a Kenya perspective? I wish to propose that this is what a meaningful internet looks like, ladies and gentlemen. And this is a conversation I think that we have to not only capture, but to associate myself with the minister last evening. We have to be bold in terms of the actions we take as a community. One, we don’t only have to have a reliable access, but it has to be affordable. I think we agree on that. We also have to ensure that there’s sufficient speed and quality. I’m not sure how many of us have enjoyed the internet at the event. I have a bit of issues with the quality. We need to also ensure that we carry along our citizens in terms of digital literacy, because the language of the internet cannot be and should not be only English. How do you make it Zulu? How do you make it Swahili? Norwegian and so on. And it has to be relevant content and services that citizens can really participate in. Number six, it has to be safe and secure, especially for our children. At KENIC, child online safety is a cornerstone of how we take the internet to the youth. It has to be no harassment, no exploitation. These have to be front and center to ensure that the value can be sustainable. And finally, on this big question of enabling environment, it has to be regulatory, issues of data privacy, innovation, freedom of expression, and finally, the rights. The rights offline have to be the rights online. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we see from a Kenya and East African perspective in terms of potential barriers, but hopefully together we can surmount these challenges. Thank you, Chair.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Andrew. It was very insightful that you presented in the African perspective, but taking all the main categories from meaningful connectivity that we are considering also in Brazil and other parts of the world, including affordability is a key issue because it’s not sufficient to have the service available or coverage if you don’t have real affordability and people can use, of course. Language is another key issue that I think the next panelist invited to the session will take care of this topic. I’ll also call online if Phil Stenhouwer-Mojeco. Phil, are you connected? Can you hear us? I’m here. Thanks for that good pronunciation, eh? That was pretty good. I’ve studied, I’ve studied a lot to do, to try to do. Sorry if I misspell your name. But Phil is Director in External Affairs at the Indigenous Connectivity Institute and Phil, you have your five minutes for your initial thoughts. Thank you.

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: Thank you. I’m gonna try not to get distracted by seeing my face plastered on the screen here. I apologize I can’t be there with you all in person. Very grateful for the opportunity. I’m wearing my orange shirt in honour of Indigenous Peoples Day, which just happened in Canada on June 21st, on the eve of the summer solstice. And we don’t want to be relegated to a single day or month. But my name is Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko. Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko Nitsiigason. I’m a member of Onii-Chikswapowin or Saddle Lake Cree Nation and Treaty 6 Territory. So my name is Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko. I’m from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and Treaty 6 Territory. And I’m Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute. And we’re an organization that seeks to advance digital equity for First Nation, Inuit, Métis, Alaska Native, American Indian, Native Hawaiian people on Turtle Island and the Inuit Nunangat. And I’m really thankful to be here. I’m building literacy and understanding in the area of universal acceptance. And so I really want to thank the Government of Canada and I said, and my colleagues there for inviting us to participate here and to learn. I’m keen to learn and hear actually from the rest of the people on the panel. I think I have a limited slice of what I can provide here in terms of an intervention. So what does digital equity mean for First Nation, Inuit and Métis in a Canadian context? And I think a big part of it, I’ll lead off with this, given it was just Indigenous people. People’s Day in Canada. And we’re in a intergovernmental or we’re an international UN. I think familiarizing with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And we’re starting there as a kind of a framework and talking about free, prior and informed consent for Native people, not just in Turtle Island, but across the world. And that means that there is robust engagement and recognition and acknowledging that Native people are inherent right holders. We’re not just stakeholders in this matter. And we need to be not just consulted with, there’s a duty to consult from the government. But there needs to be understanding that we are inherent right holders here. And we have existed on this land forever. And we will continue to. But our organization, the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, really seeks to enhance digital equity by promoting Indigenous owned and operated networks. And that means that Indigenous nations must be kind of at the center of infrastructure decisions in Canada, the United States, with governments in the global north, colonial governments in the global north. And we need to have policies that kind of really work in lockstep with some of the priorities and initiatives that the great array and diversity of nations in Canada have. And that’s challenging. But that means a lot of kind of bilateral, intergovernmental meetings and a lot of time and effort into relationship building. I really like that idea of meaningful connectivity. And this is something that I would like to revisit. And what does that mean? Speaking for myself from a Nehiyawak or a Plains Cree and a First Nation perspective, what does meaningful connectivity mean for our people who are overwhelmingly in rural and remote areas who still have a lack of… Thank you. I think that there’s a lot of access to Internet connectivity, let alone broadband, and it’s still prohibitively expensive. And the maps that some of the governments use, although not all, are still kind of lacking quality data in terms of served or unserved areas. So there’s also needing to consider fixing of structural and kind of regulatory barriers. That’s particularly with respect to spectrum access, given that many of our communities are in rural and remote areas, and the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, we’ve really been promoting this idea around access and rights to spectrum. One minute left. And we need to ensure that there is ongoing sustainable funding for Indigenous projects in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, everywhere. And I think competitive funding models kind of leave communities behind sometimes. And so credit to the government of Canada, who has been working, I think, diligently and upping their relational approach, working with Indigenous communities in Canada, recently opening the Indigenous priority window for spectrum access and potentially having some set-asides for quality bands of spectrum. And lastly, I will say, is respecting Indigenous data sovereignty. And that’s not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet. And so thinking about Indigenous data sovereignty with respect to online presence is a key thing. Others have mentioned on it safety, security, and honouring and respecting cultural traditions online. So I’m going to leave it at that. I really appreciate the time. It’s an honor to be here. And thanks to everyone for having us. And I’ll pass it on to the next guest. Ayi, hayi, exe. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Phil. You brought very interesting points to the discussion, especially one that is very key to my work, that is having statistics and measurements on what’s happening is key, because otherwise you cannot do policy without knowing where are the gaps. And this for indigenous population is key. So I’ll now pass the floor to another online participant, which is Roonjha Qaisar, the co-founder of the Urdu AI. Qaisar, please, I hope you can hear us well. And you have the floor for five minutes.

Roonjha Qaisar: Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here on this screen. It’s wonderful to see a lot of exciting people here. Assalamu alaikum, good morning and good afternoon, wherever you are watching from. I’m Roonjha Qaisar. I’m the co-founder of Urdu AI. And I come from a place where the Internet doesn’t just buffer slowly. It often disappears when it is needed the most. I come from rural Pakistan, where the digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and sometimes governance failures. The digital divide is not just about fibre optics or smartphone penetration. It’s about who is included, who is heard and who is invisible. A rural girl without access to Internet or AI tools is not just offline, she’s being locked out of a future. A woman in a conservative village without digital literacy is a nightmare. just excluded, is denied from economic freedom. And when the internet is turned off without digital, during the digital turmoil, as it often in my country, entire communities lose connection to opportunity and hope. This is the digital divide I believe we must talk about. At Urdu AI, we bring artificial intelligence down to earth, translated into Urdu, simplified for all, like for everyone without their educational experience background, and simplifying it a very, very down to earth level, a very low level so everyone can understand. And that has been a very successful practice so far. For now, we have reached our 32 million people every month with our numbers that we see on our platforms, rural youth, housewives, micro entrepreneurs, young people in small towns who now see AI not as it typically was, as a trait, but as a personal tool. At Wang Lab of Innovation, which we built with the support of Internet Society, is Pakistan’s first rural innovation lab. We train women artisans to digitize their work using tools that we have trained on them. Their women, their younger girls, we have provided them digital tools. So women come to stitch local traditional products, and their girls, who we are training on AI and digital marketing, help them to sell the product into online world. So kind of creating a mother and daughter due to create a sustainable impact. I think with what we do at a very small level, this is what we see as a universal acceptance look like. It’s not just whether. We have a question from the audience, which is, why is it that the tech exists but whether it welcomes everyone and how we are incorporating voices into that. But how do we build trust in this digital promise when in my country, for example, and many others I know, when the Internet is switched off during every crisis, how do we tell young people in rural areas, especially girls, the technology is their future Digital access is a right, not a privilege. And when it is denied, especially to these already marginalized, it deepens the divide. It tells young people, rural communities, and women, you don’t matter in the digital age. I think trust is foundation of digital development and it shut downs, it breaks the trust. We believe it has what we must commit to do, digitalizing localization, technology in our own language shaped by our realities. We see AI is transforming a lot of things, but we don’t see much of the content coming in in other languages, as one of our fellow speakers was talking about. How do we ensure that it doesn’t just change the lives of many in urban settings or big developed countries, but how do we make sure the most marginalized are benefiting from AI, especially when language is the biggest barrier. I think we need to focus on rural centric innovation, let villages become hubs of digital creativity, not just a recipient. We see the transformation is going to a lot of places, and I think ensuring the gender focus inclusion, putting women and girls at the center of the digital policy and programming would change that. And internet infrastructure, as I said, protected from political shutdowns, accessible to all, especially during crisis. We must change that and we must enable that. I believe digital… Equity isn’t charity. It’s power waiting to be unlocked. When a young person in Pakistan speaks to the newly-emerged AI tools in their own dialect, in their own language, we don’t just close the divide. We build a new world of opportunities. I have been training hundreds of people through Urdu AI, and I see when people understand something that they could utilize. So it’s clearing out a huge barrier for people who did not have access to Ivy League universities or very high-quality schools. But AI is a shape of a highly intelligent model, a tool in their pocket could educate them on a lot of tools that they never thought they could learn. So I think there is an opportunity. And I believe we let us govern the internet as a shared language of empowerment, not as a tool of control. It’s spoken in every dialect, protected in every strong and felt in every village and community across the world by every woman and child and young person and every person who is from marginalized community. That’s my opening remarks for the session. I’m very excited to continue the conversation.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Qaisar. It was a very insightful introduction. And I think you brought AI to the discussion. I think this is something that you might want to comment later. But now, last but not least, I’ll pass the floor to Sabrina Wilkinson, which is Internet Governance Manager from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Sabrina, please, you have the floor.

Sabrina Wilkinson: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. It’s a real pleasure to be with you here today, both virtually as well as in person. And it’s been really terrific to hear a little bit more about how digital divides manifest across regions. of course have real and tangible impacts on how people live their lives. Today I’m going to be zooming in a little bit to talk about one particular initiative that CIRA has been working on for the last little while that’s looking to tackle one very local digital divide in Ottawa, Canada, where many of us at CIRA are working and living. So at CIRA, of course, we’re best known for managing the .ca domain, but our mission extends far beyond that. As a non-for-profit, we invest a portion of our revenue each year to help build a safer, more accessible, and more trusted internet for all Canadians. A big part of that is our grants program. Launched in 2014, our net good grants program provides funds annually to support projects that improve digital infrastructure, promote online safety, and advance internet policy. While much of our funding on the infrastructure side has and continues to focus on rural and remote regions, we’ve also recognized the rising need for investment in urban digital equity. In Canadian cities, the challenge is often less about infrastructure and more about affordability, access to devices, and digital literacy. These barriers can be especially acute for low-income households, even when broadband is technically available. So to mark the 10th anniversary of this program, we launched a new urban-focused initiative in Ottawa called Communify. This two-year pilot project involved a partnership between CIRA as well as several local organizations, National Capital Freenet, which is a community internet service provider, Ottawa Community Housing, as well as Hydro Ottawa. So together, we’ve created a free community Wi-Fi network serving neighborhoods in Ottawa with some of the highest levels of social inequity. The first phase of this project launched in December 2023, and it brought fixed wireless access to two community housing buildings in the city. In just six months, about 2,000 unique devices connected to the network, underscoring the need for this type of work for low-barrier, no-cost connectivity. But Communify, as we’ve learned or heard about, of course, today, it’s about a lot more than bandwidth. With this network in place, we are seeing a real impact or change in the ways in which residents of these two buildings live their lives. Folks are gathering in shared spaces where the Wi-Fi is available to stream videos, connect with friends, colleagues, access health services, e-education, tax clinics, all of the things that, of course, are readily available via an internet connection. For people with mobility or income constraints, that access, and more broadly, but that access, of course, makes a meaningful difference in day-to-day life. CIRA also contributes its firewall technology to this network, which helps protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats as well, which adds a vital layer of trust and safety, particularly for vulnerable populations. Our goal here is to demonstrate a replicable model or pilot, one that can be scaled across the city or adapted by other communities across Canada or maybe beyond. Communify embodies what this program was built to do, to support promising community-led ideas with potential for real measurable impact. Recognizing, of course, this is one small example of the You know, that against all of what we talked about today, there’s much more work to be done, but we hope that there are some learnings that can be had both in Canada and elsewhere. And of course, this project illustrates how digital divides are not just about infrastructure gaps. As Andrew and others have noted, they’re also about affordability, trust, access to devices, and the ability to meaningfully connect and use the Internet in daily life. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Sabrina, for your insightful thoughts. I think from the panel, we see that the issue is multidimensional. Of course, we still need to think about infrastructure when it comes to remote areas, and the filmation spectrum, and some issues that we still can discuss, but it’s insufficient to solve the problem. So, we have multiple layers of areas that we can make solutions happen. So, we have time now for discussions and questions. I’ll check first with Ellen if there’s someone online having any comments or questions. Please, Ellen.

Ellen Taylor: Thanks very much, Flavio, and thank you to our lovely panelists. Just to note, there’s been a great discussion online with some reactions and reflections to panelists’ comments as they’ve come in, particularly concerning really community-driven initiatives for universal acceptance and the multi-stakeholder collaboration that’s needed, particularly with governments needing to make it a priority as civil society is really championing these initiatives with the technical community. So, there is a question here in the chat, and it came up during a webinar. Andrew, during your remarks, but I think it could be if anyone on the panel would like to reflect on it. So the question is from Emmanuel Oroka, DCAD Fellow. Is there a possibility of developing a framework that offers a special internet package policy for all network operators and ISPs to adopt and implement to ensure persons with different abilities have access to the internet to close the digital divide in the global south? So that is the question there and I’ll hand it back to the panel for any reactions and thoughts. Thank you, Ellen. I don’t know if someone

Fabio Senne: from the audience in person want to add some other question or comment. If not, I can pass the floor to the panelists. I don’t know, Andrew, if you want to start because it’s what’s directed to you, but any other panelists can also comment on the issue. Thank you, Emmanuel, for the question.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: So I’ll give the framework that Kenya uses just for consideration. So it’s very hard for profit-driven entities like ISPs, telcos, to buy into this kind of framework. Unfortunately, they have different set of shareholders, but we see a role a regulator can play. So for example, in Kenya, the communications authority that regulates our space, using the universal service fund, some of the profits from the ISPs are used by the government to bridge this gap for the underserved or unserved areas. So this is one framework that I believe Emmanuel could work in your jurisdiction. So where it is not profitable for ISPs to reach, for example, the government will then use some of this money procure from competitive providers, including community networks, for example, so the smaller guys, to take this infrastructure and to keep the product price competitive or at least useful in terms of allowing usage. So this will be one framework. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Andrew. Let’s check if our colleagues online want to comment on something on this. Raise your hand if you, Phil and Qaisar. I think Phil is up to comment on that. Please, Phil,

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: you have the floor. I don’t know if this answers the question. However, having some experience working in the United States with their Digital Equity Act, pardon me to take it away from the Canadian context, but there are a lot of shared kind of experiences and it’s relevant on both sides of the border. Similar things are happening. But with the Digital Equity Act, there has been increased funding for, and I believe Canada may be doing similar things, coming down the pipe for digital navigation, which I think here at the IGF is probably very familiar with some people here. But from what I have seen working in community in Canada and the U.S., identifying and funding, well, basically identifying those connectivity champions and people who are, you could say, digitally literate or technically versed, at least at a kind of a level one or a level two kind of capability of troubleshooting using devices, computers, and accessing or using the Internet. But I’ve seen firsthand in community how these digital navigators can be really excellent guides as they are navigators who can help multi-generational citizens of the nation actually learn how to send or receive an email. or set up an email address or how to connect to Wi-Fi or the differences between cellular and Wi-Fi and these sorts of things. But even more base in terms of using a browser and getting online. So there’s an aspect of internet adoption and you have a connection formed to the internet through a human, a trusted person. This has been an ongoing theme of trust. And so governments working with communities to kind of identify people, individuals who can be your trusted kind of technology and digital stewards and guides and community as a bridge to online inclusion.

Fabio Senne: Thank you. Thank you very much, Phil. I don’t know if Allison and Sabrina want to comment, please.

Allison O’Beirne: Sure, just maybe super, super quickly to respond. Thanks, Phil. Very helpful illustrative example. I know in the government of Canada, there’s been some work and some efforts in the general direction of sort of digital literacy and ensuring digital skills development. And it’s a multi-layered approach, both from the perspective of having, you know, the federal government with responsibility for skills development and likewise provincial governments with responsibilities for education. And so working together as two different layers of government and other layers of government as well to ensure that there are programs in place. And from the federal perspective, particularly, again, there’s multiple layers to it as you have digital skills development to try and kind of advance business adoption of emerging technologies versus skills development of, as you say, trying to teach people how to use a browser so that they can get online. And all of those things have to be captured within the programs. So lots of different programs that are underway in Canada in that regard. Likewise, in the federal government level, I think a huge commitment to ensuring that our own IT meets international standards for accessibility so that the content that we provide as the government of Canada is accessible, is available to everyone in a consistent way and can be accessed by folks with different. abilities. But the idea of having kind of digital champions or digital navigators is one that’s new to me. So I kind of love this. I’m going to bring this back from IGF and start talking to people about it in our department. I think that’s a really clever way to get the community involved.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Allison. I think there is someone from the floor. Please go ahead.

Edmon Chong: Edmund Chong here from DotAsia. For those of you who know me, this is a topic that I’m very passionate about, especially working on internationalized domain names and universal access and acceptance for a very long time. I really like the way that it’s framed, that it is not just about the technicalities of universal acceptance, but also about digital inclusion. It’s also about meaningful access and multilingual Internet, because I think that is the right way to really frame this issue, because it’s not only technical. I’m also really excited to hear from Andrew and Phil that touched on one thing that I think is very important. And I call it, well, not me that call it, but I include this as part of universal acceptance, which is language justice. It is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful. And I think this is one of the things that’s important is we need to move away from an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure. And when we deploy infrastructure into places where there isn’t the Internet, then we need to go with an UA by design approach so that it’s not an English-first approach. But I did have one particular, I guess, a question for especially for Allison and maybe for Sabrina as well. We know that the challenges are difficult and we know that this issue of universal acceptance is a little bit of a long-tail issue as well. Does the Government of Canada have a roadmap to become fully, for your systems, you mentioned many systems I understand, do you have a roadmap to make all the government systems universal acceptance ready? And also, you know, I guess, are the procurements, you know, contracts and tenders and those kind of things, have they started to include universal acceptance requirements? Even not immediate requirements, but at least the providers or the system integrators that provide services to the Government of Canada have to have a roadmap in place for UA readiness. And sort of the same question to CIRA and DOTCA.

Allison O’Beirne: Yeah, perfect, perfectly reasonable question. I want so badly to say, yes, of course, we have a roadmap and I will now tell you it’s 12 points, but I can’t do that. Like many other governments, we’re still in the very early phases of trying to figure out how to integrate UA by design into the process that we have. I will say something very glib as a white lady up here, but I have an apostrophe in my name and the number of government and non-government systems that just absolutely freak out when I have an apostrophe in my name. And then I give thought to my Francophone colleagues who have accents in their name, Indigenous colleagues who have different types of letters in their names. The extent of the work that needs to be done is huge. And I think the focus that we have on the Canadian side currently is working with the international community to establish the kind of standards and to establish the roadmaps and enabling factors that will then allow us at the domestic level to implement. I think that’s really where at least my team’s focus is for the time being. But you’re right. As we’ve, I think, made leaps and bounds in the last little while in making Government of Canada content particularly compliant with international standards related to accessibility, UA is kind of the next frontier of that, of making sure that then not only are you able to access it from a screen reader, but also that you’re able to access it in the language of your preference and even in the script of your preference. So yeah, not a roadmap yet, but I promise we’ll continue to work on it.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Alice. Sabrina, do you want to comment?

Sabrina Wilkinson: Thanks, Edmund. Maybe not a roadmap specifically per se, but CIRA, of course, offers domains. For 10 years, CIRA has offered domains to French-language speakers as well. Recognize that, of course, in Canada, there are many, many other languages spoken too. At this stage, we’re a part of the dialogue within the CCNSO community. So we recently joined the Universal Acceptance Committee, where we’re glad to engage with our colleagues on this issue and stay abreast of monitor developments as well. Thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. I don’t know if anyone from the floor wants to make any other comment or any online. Yes, Ellen, please. Thanks very much. There’s actually lots of chatter online. There are three questions. So I might just ask, I might combine and ask two now and hopefully we’ll have time to get to the third, but also give the opportunity to those on the floor. So I think the first question is a great one and it could be answered by anyone on the panel. This person is asking, has the issue of acceptance been addressed? What is the meaning of it in the view of the panelists? So in terms of the definition of universal acceptance, particularly that acceptance part. And then the second question, which I will give to our panelists at the end, is just question number three. So, this question, fundamentally, it is coders and developers who underpin implementation of UA, UTF-8, and all linguistic technologies. There is not enough effort being carried out to involve these stakeholders. How to advance this question, being the involvement of stakeholders and also offering warm regards to all UA friends on the floor and remotely? Thanks.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much. Since our time is ending, I’ll suggest that we do a round with all speakers so that you can react on the questions and probably just do your final remarks. Can we start maybe in the same order? Allison, if you want to…

Allison O’Beirne: Always happy to. That sounds good. I’ll maybe focus on the first part of the question related to the kind of definition of acceptance with the caveat that I’m a year into my job of learning about the internet alone. So, universal acceptance is maybe… I’m not the expert in it, but I’m happy to speak a little bit about my sort of understanding of it and how it’s arisen in our team’s work. I think one of the frameworks in which I think about, especially the title of our panel today of universal acceptance and universal accessibility is in the kind of supply side versus demand side, which is to say that universal acceptance is really focused on the supply side. How do we ensure that different languages and that different scripts and different diacritics are able to be accepted by the technical systems as people wish to use them? And then there’s a universal access or a universal accessibility perspective that is more on the demand side, which is how do we ensure that folks from a host of different communities and from a host of different regions have the skills and the capacity and the interest and the affordable means to be able to engage with digital systems? I think when we’re talking about… you know, having the technical means to be able to accept different types of scripts if we are talking about communities then that don’t have affordable access to broadband. It’s not super helpful for them to know that if they have an email address with a non-English diacritic that it’ll be accepted. That’s not maybe the most pressing issue for them at that point. So I think that there’s two kinds of sides to it, and the acceptance piece is really on that supply side, but the accessibility piece is critical as well.

Edmon Chong: Thank you, Allison. Andrew, if you can, one minute comment so that we can close.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: So I want to associate myself fully on that question with Allison’s view, so that I don’t have to get into the technicalities based on the maturity model that Canada has been through. My parting shot, I’ll go to my opening. My opening hypothesis, and I’ll read it again. There can be no UA and digital rights without a meaningful internet. However, I want to end with some positivity and pragmatism. Based on all the opening comments we had this morning, we have made progress, ladies and gentlemen. A lot remains to be done. We have to stay vigilant to ensure we leave no one behind. As long as we stay collaborative and keep this multi-stakeholder model bottom up, we shall prevail. Why do I say this? While my parents were alive, they used the very old telephone. You had one piece here and one piece here. I can now send my mom a WhatsApp. This is progress. And they are very elderly. It can only get better. I thank you.

Fabio Senne: If you are one minute, comment Phil, can you take the floor?

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: Bottom up is right and we’re thinking about truly grassroots influences and input into the design and architecture of these systems that underpin the internet. And so in terms of UA, I have a little note I wanted to make here was just that like UA can be, or universal acceptance, it can be a tool and one piece of the puzzle in protecting, promoting, revitalizing, or reclaiming Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered, not just in Canada, but all over. And so if you’re thinking about universal acceptance, you can even go beyond that and talk about keyboards, spell checkers, and voice assistants, and many Indigenous languages promote oral tradition and still do so. And how can we think about that in having and ensuring that our voices can be used to navigate the internet and use and apply digital technology? And there was a question in the chat about the coders who kind of build this stuff. And I had, I attended a meeting not too long ago with computer, like a year ago with computer scientists who were talking about digital inclusion with First Nations in Canada. And there was this, it’s like, you guys are the builders of the internet and the architects of the internet. And it’s almost like, is there a Hippocratic oath in place to ensure that you’re building tools that really reflect and embody the values of these different heterogeneous genius communities across the world over, not just Native? people but all of us. So if we want this to be a really kind of diverse and multicultural so to speak tool, then we really need to work hard to make sure that we’re all included in making it

Fabio Senne: and making it a bottom-up tool. Thank you. Thank you very much Phil. Qaisar, over to you.

Roonjha Qaisar: Yeah, I won’t take much of your time. I believe universal access is not just the technical structural promises but how do we ensure that the language is not a barrier, gender inequalities are not there and governance failures do not stop people from accessing internet. So ensuring that it’s equal and accessible for everyone in their own language. I think AI is a wonderful opportunity if we see from that perspective that could solve a lot of problems that otherwise would have taken

Fabio Senne: years to do. Thank you. Thank you. And Sabrina, over to you. Sure, I think I’ll just refer to

Sabrina Wilkinson: a term that you used at the beginning, Fabio, which is meaningful connectivity. So I think just to tie it back, those are something that resonates. Thanks.

Fabio Senne: Okay, thank you very much. I think it was a very insightful discussion and it’s interesting to see that by your contributions that I started talking about the different layers that sometimes we discuss in the internet governance but then Alison bring the thing of supply and demand so you can think in all the complexity. And of course there are technical issues, there are social demographic issues, we talk about gender, we talk about ethnicity, age. Age is a key topic for elderly versus children, so how to deal with that. Of course the economic barriers and being from the global south is very… relevant to talk about affordability and I think it’s a key discussion for especially when we are trying to connect the most vulnerable part of the population which is now still disconnected, is for instance the debate that we face for instance in the poverty discussion, so should we provide a minimum connectivity or minimal types of device so that people can connect, so this is a discussion that society needs to face. Of course digital literacy was also mentioned, this is key, it’s impossible to talk just about devices and connectivity without this dimension of digital literacy and I would change by finally, I think lots of people mentioned trust and safety, so this is another key issue and especially when it comes to now with AI and datafication of several aspects of our lives, how trust can be built in this environment is another thing that I think is key for us. So I hope this is useful for you in the audience online and here and thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you. Hey.

Agreement points

Infrastructure alone is insufficient for digital inclusion

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Supply side infrastructure is necessary but insufficient; barriers come from intersection of inequalities including territory, gender, ethnicity, and language

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Digital divides are not just about infrastructure gaps but also about affordability, trust, access to devices, and ability to meaningfully connect

Summary

All three speakers agree that while infrastructure is necessary, it is not sufficient to address digital divides. Multiple barriers including affordability, trust, digital literacy, and social inequalities must be addressed comprehensively.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Language barriers are fundamental obstacles to digital inclusion

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil
– Edmon Chong

Arguments

Internet language cannot and should not be only English; need to make it accessible in Zulu, Swahili, Norwegian and other languages

Language is the biggest barrier; AI transformation benefits urban settings and developed countries but marginalized communities are left behind

Universal acceptance can be a tool for protecting, promoting, and revitalizing Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered

Need to move away from English-first approach to developing systems and adopt UA by design approach when deploying infrastructure

Summary

Speakers unanimously agree that English-dominance in digital systems creates significant barriers for non-English speakers and that multilingual support is essential for true digital inclusion.

Topics

Multilingualism | Sociocultural | Human rights

Trust and safety are foundational to meaningful internet access

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Internet must be safe and secure, especially for children, with no harassment or exploitation as cornerstone values

Trust is foundation of digital development; internet shutdowns during crises break this trust and tell marginalized communities they don’t matter

CIRA contributes firewall technology to community networks to protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats

Summary

All speakers emphasize that trust and safety are prerequisites for meaningful internet adoption, particularly for vulnerable populations including children and marginalized communities.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Human rights | Development

Government role is essential but must be collaborative

Speakers

– Allison O’Beirne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Ellen Taylor

Arguments

Governments are conveners, educators, and enablers who can fund awareness campaigns and invest in training for IT professionals

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is needed with governments making universal acceptance a priority while civil society champions these initiatives with the technical community

Summary

Speakers agree that governments have crucial roles in digital inclusion through policy, funding, and facilitation, but must work collaboratively with other stakeholders rather than acting unilaterally.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Digital standards

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the concept of ‘meaningful connectivity’ as going beyond basic access to include quality, effective use, and real benefit from digital technologies.

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Arguments

Meaningful connectivity requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for community-driven approaches that position local communities as active creators and innovators rather than passive recipients of technology solutions.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Capacity development

Both speakers highlight how marginalized communities face intersecting barriers including geographic isolation, systemic discrimination, and inadequate government policies that compound digital exclusion.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Technical implementation challenges in government systems

Speakers

– Allison O’Beirne
– Edmon Chong

Arguments

Government systems still struggle with basic character support like apostrophes and accents, showing the extent of work needed

Need to move away from English-first approach to developing systems and adopt UA by design approach when deploying infrastructure

Explanation

It’s unexpected that a government representative would openly acknowledge such basic technical failures in government systems, showing remarkable transparency about implementation challenges and aligning with civil society calls for systemic change.

Topics

Infrastructure | Digital standards | Legal and regulatory

Community-based solutions over top-down approaches

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Communify project created free community Wi-Fi network serving neighborhoods with highest social inequity, connecting 2,000 unique devices in six months

Explanation

There’s unexpected consensus across speakers from different sectors (government agency, civil society, indigenous rights, private sector) that community-driven, bottom-up solutions are more effective than traditional top-down technology deployment.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Infrastructure

Overall assessment

Summary

Speakers demonstrated strong consensus on fundamental principles: infrastructure alone is insufficient, language barriers are critical obstacles, trust and safety are foundational, and government collaboration is essential. There was also unexpected agreement on community-driven approaches and acknowledgment of technical implementation challenges.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for policy and practice. The agreement suggests a mature understanding of digital inclusion challenges that transcends traditional sectoral boundaries, pointing toward more holistic, community-centered approaches to bridging digital divides. This consensus could facilitate more effective multi-stakeholder collaboration and policy development.

Different viewpoints

Priority focus: Infrastructure vs. Higher-level issues

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Allison O’Beirne

Arguments

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet-enabled application regardless of language, script, or length

Summary

Andrew emphasizes that basic meaningful internet access must be established first before addressing universal acceptance, while Allison focuses on the technical standards and government role in universal acceptance implementation. Andrew argues ‘there can be no UA and digital rights without a meaningful internet’ while Allison discusses UA as a current priority for government systems.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Digital standards

Funding approach for underserved communities

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Summary

Andrew advocates for competitive funding models using universal service funds where government procures services from competitive providers, while Phil argues that competitive funding models leave communities behind and Indigenous communities need sustainable, non-competitive funding approaches.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Human rights

Unexpected differences

Role of competitive vs. sustainable funding models

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Explanation

This disagreement is unexpected because both speakers advocate for underserved communities, but they have fundamentally different views on funding mechanisms. Andrew sees competitive models as effective for reaching underserved areas, while Phil argues these same competitive models systematically exclude Indigenous communities.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement center on prioritization (basic access vs. advanced features), funding approaches (competitive vs. sustainable models), and implementation strategies. However, disagreements are relatively minor compared to areas of consensus.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Speakers largely agree on fundamental goals of digital inclusion and universal acceptance but differ on sequencing, methods, and specific approaches for different communities. The disagreements reflect different regional contexts and community needs rather than fundamental philosophical differences, suggesting complementary rather than conflicting approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the concept of ‘meaningful connectivity’ as going beyond basic access to include quality, effective use, and real benefit from digital technologies.

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Arguments

Meaningful connectivity requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for community-driven approaches that position local communities as active creators and innovators rather than passive recipients of technology solutions.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Capacity development

Both speakers highlight how marginalized communities face intersecting barriers including geographic isolation, systemic discrimination, and inadequate government policies that compound digital exclusion.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

Digital divides are multidimensional, requiring solutions beyond just infrastructure to address affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and trust issues

Meaningful connectivity is more important than basic connectivity – it requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Universal acceptance (UA) is critical for linguistic inclusion online, ensuring all domain names and email addresses work regardless of language, script, or length

Language justice is essential – systems must move away from English-first approaches to truly include marginalized communities

Government systems still struggle with basic character support (apostrophes, accents), indicating significant work remains for full UA implementation

Community-based solutions like digital navigators and local innovation hubs are effective for bridging digital divides

Indigenous communities require recognition as inherent right holders, not just stakeholders, with respect for data sovereignty and cultural traditions

AI presents opportunities to democratize access to information and tools when implemented in local languages and contexts

Trust is fundamental to digital development – internet shutdowns and security threats undermine confidence in digital systems

Multi-stakeholder collaboration with bottom-up approaches is essential for sustainable progress

Resolutions and action items

Government of Canada to explore digital navigator/champion programs based on successful examples shared

CIRA to continue engagement with Universal Acceptance Committee within CCNSO community

Continued international collaboration on establishing UA standards and roadmaps

Scaling of successful pilot projects like Communify to other communities

Integration of UA requirements into government procurement contracts and tenders

Development of frameworks for ISPs to provide special internet packages for persons with disabilities using universal service funds

Unresolved issues

Government of Canada lacks a concrete roadmap for making all government systems universal acceptance ready

How to effectively involve coders and developers in UA implementation efforts

Balancing profit-driven ISP models with universal access goals

Addressing internet shutdowns during political crises that break digital trust

Ensuring AI development doesn’t create new biases while training on user data

Protecting Indigenous data sovereignty while promoting digital inclusion

Scaling successful local initiatives to national and international levels

Addressing the gap between technical UA capabilities and actual user adoption

Suggested compromises

Using universal service funds from ISP profits to subsidize connectivity for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Implementing UA by design approach for new infrastructure deployments rather than retrofitting existing systems

Focusing on supply-side (technical UA standards) and demand-side (accessibility and affordability) solutions simultaneously

Gradual integration of UA requirements in government procurement with roadmap expectations rather than immediate compliance

Supporting both infrastructure development for rural areas and urban digital equity initiatives for different types of digital divides

Combining mother-daughter partnerships in communities where women artisans work with daughters who learn digital skills

There can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. I’ll repeat that. We cannot have trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet.

Speaker

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframed the entire discussion by challenging the assumption that technical solutions like Universal Acceptance can be implemented without first addressing basic connectivity issues. It introduced a hierarchy of needs concept to digital inclusion, suggesting that meaningful internet access is a prerequisite for more advanced solutions.

Impact

This statement served as a pivotal moment that grounded the discussion in practical realities. It shifted the conversation from purely technical considerations to a more holistic view that acknowledged infrastructure gaps. Other panelists subsequently built upon this foundation, with the moderator later referencing ‘meaningful connectivity’ as a central theme throughout the session.

Digital access is a right, not a privilege. And when it is denied, especially to these already marginalized, it deepens the divide. It tells young people, rural communities, and women, you don’t matter in the digital age.

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Reason

This comment elevated the discussion from technical and policy considerations to fundamental human rights, introducing a moral imperative to the conversation. It connected digital exclusion to broader social justice issues and highlighted how digital divides reinforce existing inequalities.

Impact

This rights-based framing added emotional weight and urgency to the discussion, moving beyond technical solutions to address systemic inequalities. It influenced subsequent speakers to consider the social justice implications of their work and helped establish that digital inclusion is not just about technology but about human dignity and empowerment.

We need to ensure that there is ongoing sustainable funding for Indigenous projects… And lastly, I will say, is respecting Indigenous data sovereignty. And that’s not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet.

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Reason

This comment introduced the critical concept of Indigenous data sovereignty, expanding the discussion beyond access to include control and governance of data. It challenged conventional approaches to digital inclusion by emphasizing that Indigenous peoples are ‘inherent right holders’ rather than just stakeholders, fundamentally shifting the power dynamic in the conversation.

Impact

This intervention broadened the scope of the discussion to include data governance and sovereignty issues. It influenced other speakers to consider not just who has access to technology, but who controls it and how cultural values are embedded in digital systems. The moderator later emphasized the importance of having statistics and measurements, directly building on Phil’s point about data sovereignty.

I have an apostrophe in my name and the number of government and non-government systems that just absolutely freak out when I have an apostrophe in my name. And then I give thought to my Francophone colleagues who have accents in their name, Indigenous colleagues who have different types of letters in their names.

Speaker

Allison O’Beirne

Reason

This personal anecdote brilliantly illustrated the practical, everyday impact of Universal Acceptance issues in a way that made abstract technical concepts immediately relatable. It demonstrated how seemingly minor technical limitations can exclude people from digital participation.

Impact

This comment served as a powerful bridge between technical discussions and human experience, making the Universal Acceptance concept accessible to the broader audience. It prompted Edmund Chong to later emphasize ‘language justice’ and the need to move away from ‘English-first approaches,’ showing how personal examples can catalyze deeper policy discussions.

It is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful… we need to move away from an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure.

Speaker

Edmon Chong

Reason

This comment introduced the powerful concept of ‘language justice’ to the discussion, reframing Universal Acceptance from a technical feature to a social justice issue. It challenged the fundamental assumptions about how digital systems are designed and deployed.

Impact

This intervention crystallized many of the themes discussed throughout the session into a coherent framework of ‘language justice.’ It influenced the final discussions about involving coders and developers, and reinforced the need for bottom-up, inclusive approaches to technology development that other speakers had advocated for.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed what could have been a technical discussion about Universal Acceptance into a comprehensive examination of digital equity, human rights, and social justice. Andrew’s opening challenge about meaningful internet access set the foundation for a more holistic approach, while subsequent speakers built upon this to address issues of rights (Qaisar), sovereignty (Phil), practical exclusion (Allison), and systemic justice (Chong). Together, these interventions created a multi-layered conversation that moved from infrastructure to human dignity, from technical standards to cultural preservation, and from access to empowerment. The discussion evolved from addressing ‘how to implement UA’ to ‘why digital inclusion matters for human flourishing,’ demonstrating how powerful individual insights can elevate and redirect entire policy conversations.

How can governments develop a roadmap to make all government systems universal acceptance ready, including procurement requirements for system integrators?

Speaker

Edmon Chong

Explanation

This addresses the practical implementation challenges governments face in transitioning from English-first approaches to UA-by-design systems, which is critical for meaningful digital inclusion

Is there a possibility of developing a framework that offers special internet package policies for network operators and ISPs to ensure persons with different abilities have access to the internet in the global south?

Speaker

Emmanuel Oroka

Explanation

This explores policy mechanisms to address affordability and accessibility barriers for vulnerable populations, particularly focusing on disability inclusion in developing regions

How can we better involve coders and developers in implementing UA, UTF-8, and linguistic technologies, given that there is not enough effort being carried out to involve these stakeholders?

Speaker

Online participant (unnamed)

Explanation

This addresses the gap between policy intentions and technical implementation, highlighting the need for better engagement with the technical community who actually build these systems

What does meaningful connectivity look like in practice, and how can we measure it effectively across different populations and regions?

Speaker

Fabio Senne

Explanation

This builds on the statistic that while 90% of Brazil’s population has internet access, only 22% have meaningful connectivity, indicating a need for better metrics and understanding of quality access

How can we develop better data and mapping systems to accurately identify served versus unserved areas, particularly for Indigenous and rural communities?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge that policy decisions cannot be made effectively without accurate data on connectivity gaps, especially for marginalized populations

How can universal acceptance serve as a tool for protecting, promoting, revitalizing, or reclaiming endangered Indigenous languages?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This explores the intersection of technical standards with cultural preservation and Indigenous rights, extending UA beyond basic functionality to cultural sustainability

Is there a need for a ‘Hippocratic oath’ for computer scientists and developers to ensure they build tools that reflect the values of diverse communities worldwide?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This raises fundamental questions about ethical responsibility in technology development and whether formal commitments are needed to ensure inclusive design practices

How can AI be leveraged to solve language barriers and accelerate digital inclusion, particularly for marginalized communities?

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Explanation

This explores the potential of AI as a tool for bridging digital divides, particularly in making technology accessible in local languages and dialects

How can digital trust be maintained and built when internet shutdowns occur during crises, particularly in developing countries?

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Explanation

This addresses the contradiction between promoting digital inclusion while simultaneously restricting access during political or social crises, which undermines trust in digital systems

What are effective models for scaling community-led digital inclusion initiatives like the Communify project to other cities and regions?

Speaker

Sabrina Wilkinson

Explanation

This seeks to understand how successful local pilots can be replicated and adapted for broader impact in addressing urban digital equity challenges