Interdisciplinary approaches

Geneva Engage Awards spotlight digital trust in the AI era

The Geneva Engage initiative, launched in 2016 by the Geneva Internet Platform under DiploFoundation with the support of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, continues to track how International Geneva connects with audiences worldwide. Through research and annual awards, it assesses how Geneva-based actors communicate on global policy issues ranging from development and human rights to health, the environment, and digital governance.

The 11th edition of the Geneva Engage Awards was held on 3 February 2026 at the World Meteorological Organization building, and it came at a moment of significant change in how people access information. Under the theme ‘Back to basics in the AI era’, the event explored how International Geneva can remain a trusted source as users increasingly rely on AI assistants rather than traditional searches, websites, and reports.

Each year, the Geneva Engage Awards recognise excellence in digital outreach across three main categories: international organisations, non-governmental organisations, and permanent representations. The evaluation focuses on how effectively these actors use digital tools to engage global audiences, build trust, and remain visible in an evolving information ecosystem.

The methodology combines quantitative analysis across three areas, social media outreach, web relevancy, and web accessibility. Performance is measured using engagement data from social media platforms, the visibility and relevance of web content in global search results, and accessibility standards that assess how usable and inclusive websites are for diverse audiences.

In the International Organisations category, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) won first place. The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) were named runners-up for their strong digital presence and outreach.

Among non-governmental organisations, the International AIDS Society ranked first. It was followed by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), both recognised as runners-up for their effective digital engagement.

In the Permanent Representations category, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations Office and other international organisations in Geneva took first place. The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Rwanda and the Permanent Mission of France were named runners-up.

The Web Accessibility Award went to the Permanent Mission of Canada, while the Geneva AI Leadership Award was presented to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Honourable mentions were awarded to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Permanent Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations Office in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Geneva Engage Awards 2026

Together, this year’s results highlight how digital trust, accessibility, and relevance are becoming central to diplomacy in an AI-driven information landscape.

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International consensus emerges on submarine cable governance

The International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit concluded in Porto with a strong call for proactive action to protect the infrastructure that underpins global digital connectivity. Hosted by Portugal’s regulator Anacom and co-chaired by Professor Sandra Maximiano and Nigerian Minister of Communications Bosun Tijani, the summit brought together more than 350 participants from over 70 countries, spanning governments, industry, and international organisations, including the ITU and the International Cable Protection Committee.

ITU Deputy Secretary-General Thomas Lamanauskas framed the summit as a milestone in a broader global effort, noting that ITU members have designated this period as a ‘year of resilience,’ with submarine cables at its core. He described the Porto meeting as the culmination of two years of work following the first summit in Abuja, marking a shift from reacting to cable failures toward systematically strengthening resilience before disruptions occur.

Concrete progress was reported through three working groups that have been active since the Abuja summit, focusing on repair procedures and permitting, risk mitigation, and connectivity for underserved regions.

Undersea cables

John Wrottesley of the ICPC credited the close involvement of governments alongside technical experts for producing recommendations that are both realistic and implementable, saying this collaboration injected new momentum into the process.

A central theme of the closing session was the recognition that resilience starts long before cables are damaged. Lamanauskas stressed that adequate protection depends on planning, routing, monitoring, and marine awareness, rather than relying solely on faster repairs after incidents.

Wrottesley reinforced this point from an industry perspective, arguing that well-designed cables and streamlined administrative processes are just as critical as ships and technology when outages occur.

The speakers also highlighted the importance of continuous coordination between governments and operators, including round-the-clock communication frameworks to enable rapid response. Investment was another key issue, with participants stressing that resilience requires sustained funding not only for new systems, but also for existing cables, repair ships, and coverage gaps that still leave some regions highly exposed.

The session culminated in the formal endorsement of the Porto Declaration on Submarine Cable Resilience by the International Advisory Body. Minister Tijani described the declaration as a forward-looking response to the disruptions experienced in 2024, reflecting the reality that connectivity has become foundational to economic and social life. He acknowledged the contributions of working group leaders from countries and organisations, including the United Kingdom, China, the World Bank, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, North American Submarine Cable, and South Africa.

The declaration emphasises inclusion, capacity development, and long-term cooperation, particularly for small island states, least developed countries, and landlocked nations.

As the summit closed, Wrottesley underlined that the real test lies in implementation, with working groups set to continue their work through mid-2026. The Porto Declaration was adopted by acclamation, signalling broad agreement that protecting submarine cables requires sustained collaboration to keep global connectivity open, reliable, and resilient.

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How to make submarine cables work in underserved regions

A panel at the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026 in Porto examined how economic viability and resilience intersect in efforts to extend submarine cable connectivity to underserved regions. Moderated by Aliu Yusuf Aboki, the discussion brought together development banks, regulators, and international organisations to explore how financing models, policy reforms, and partnerships can turn fragile cable projects into sustainable foundations for digital growth.

Aboki opened by stressing that resilience directly affects the economics of connectivity, influencing insurance costs, repair times, service continuity, and investor confidence. Referring to the 2024 West Africa cable outages, he warned that a single failure could trigger widespread economic disruption and derail projects already financially marginal, making resilience a prerequisite for attracting long-term investment.

German Cufré of the World Bank Group outlined how traditional financing approaches often fail in challenging markets and argued for flexible risk-sharing models that combine public and private stakeholders. He described a West African project where governments, private open-access operators, and blended finance instruments each took equal stakes, supported by in-kind public assets such as landing stations and fibre networks. Cufré also emphasised the World Bank’s insistence on wholesale open access, ensuring that publicly supported cables remain non-discriminatory, even within private consortia.

Cufré cautioned that blended finance is becoming scarcer just as demand for connectivity is surging due to AI-driven data growth. In response, he said the World Bank is exploring new tools such as a Digital Access Fund to absorb first losses and a model that allows mature cable assets to be sold to institutional investors, freeing capital for new deployments.

International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026

Syed Mohammad Shaharyar Jawaid from the Islamic Development Bank announced a dedicated $250 million commitment for digital infrastructure in member states in 2026–2027, noting that many cable developers are unaware that multilateral lenders are actively seeking such projects and that digital infrastructure must be planned alongside reliable energy systems.

Lauren Bieniek of the ITU added a global perspective, citing a $1.6 trillion investment gap in digital infrastructure identified through the Digital Infrastructure Investment Catalyzer initiative. She explained that the partnership among ITU, UNCTAD, and multilateral development banks aims to move beyond diagnostics to accelerate real financing, particularly in regions where market forces alone cannot deliver resilient connectivity.

On the policy front, Rudra Narayan Palai from India’s Department of Telecommunications described reforms introduced following the adoption of the International Cable Protection Committee’s recommendations. These include faster permitting, open ownership rules, and legal recognition of cable landing stations as critical infrastructure. Palai linked these reforms to India’s rapid expansion of data centre capacity and raised questions about whether repair capabilities should rely solely on market mechanisms or require state-backed sovereign capacity, citing prolonged disruptions from Red Sea incidents.

Regional challenges were highlighted by Rodney Taylor of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, who warned that ageing cables and heavy reliance on routes terminating in Florida expose small island states to systemic risk. He argued that resilience must be addressed regionally rather than nationally and described efforts to build local expertise through a regional school of digital transformation and South–South cooperation with West Africa.

Closing the discussion, Professor Manuel Cabugueira of Portugal’s regulator, ANACOM, presented Portugal’s vision for ‘smart cables’ that combine connectivity with climate monitoring and disaster warning, urging participants to view submarine cables as integrated systems of technology, institutions, and people essential to long-term digital resilience.

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Experts call for better protection of submarine internet cables

A high-level panel at the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026 in Porto focused on a growing paradox in global connectivity. While submarine cable damage incidents have remained relatively stable for over a decade, the time needed to repair them has increased sharply.

Moderated by Nadia Krivetz, member of the International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, the discussion brought together government officials and industry experts who warned that longer repair times are creating new vulnerabilities for the global internet, even as undersea cable networks continue to expand rapidly.

Andy Palmer-Felgate of the International Cable Protection Committee highlighted that more than 80% of cable damage is caused by fishing and anchoring, mostly on continental shelves where maritime activity is densest. She noted that a small number of high-risk ‘problem cables’ consume around half of the world’s annual repair capacity, suggesting that targeted prevention in specific locations could significantly reduce global disruption.

Palmer-Felgate also pointed to a shift in fault patterns away from Europe and the Atlantic toward Asia, exposing weaknesses in a repair model that depends on shared, slow-to-move vessels.

New monitoring technologies were presented as part of the solution, though not without limitations. Sigurd Zhang described how distributed acoustic sensing can detect vessel activity in real time, even when ships switch off tracking systems, citing cases in which fishing fleets were invisible to conventional monitoring systems.

International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026

Eduardo Mateo added that newer optical monitoring tools can identify long-term stress and seabed instability affecting cables. Still, both speakers stressed that the cost, data complexity, and reliability requirements remain major barriers, especially for shorter cable systems.

Beyond monitoring, the panel explored improvements in cable design and installation, including stronger armouring, deeper burial, and more resilient network topologies. Mateo cautioned that technology alone cannot eliminate risk, as submarine cables must coexist with other seabed users.

Zhang noted that fully integrated ‘smart cables’ combining telecoms and scientific monitoring may still be a decade away, given the strict reliability standards operators demand.

Government coordination emerged as a decisive factor in reducing damage and speeding up repairs. South Africa’s Nonkqubela Thathakahle Jordan-Dyani described how fragmented regulations across African countries slow emergency responses and raise costs.

Speakers pointed to examples of more effective governance, including Australia’s notification-based repair system and successful legal cases described by Peter Jamieson, which have increased accountability among vessel operators and begun changing behaviour at sea.

Industry practices and skills were also under scrutiny. Jamieson argued that careful route planning and proper burial can prevent most cable faults. Still, Simon Hibbert warned that these standards depend on experienced workers whose skills are hard to replace. With an ageing maritime workforce and fewer recruits entering sea-based professions, the panel cautioned that declining expertise could undermine future cable resilience if training and knowledge transfer are not prioritised.

The discussion concluded by situating cable protection within broader economic and geopolitical pressures. Mateo pointed to supply chain risks for key materials driven by AI-related demand, while Jamieson cited regions like the Red Sea, where geopolitical instability forces cables into crowded corridors.

Despite these challenges, speakers agreed that prevention, cooperation, and shared responsibility offer a realistic path forward, stressing that submarine cable resilience can only be strengthened through sustained collaboration between governments, industry, and international organisations.

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MIT develops AI model to speed up materials synthesis

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a generative AI model to guide scientists through the complex process of materials synthesis, a significant bottleneck in materials discovery.

DiffSyn uses diffusion-based AI to suggest multiple synthesis routes for a material, factoring in temperature, reaction time, and precursor ratios. Unlike earlier tools tied to single recipes, DiffSyn reflects the laboratory reality in which multiple pathways can produce the same material.

The system achieved state-of-the-art accuracy on zeolites, a challenging material class used in catalysis and chemical processing. Using DiffSyn’s recommendations, the team synthesised a new zeolite with improved thermal stability, confirming the model’s practical value.

The researchers believe the approach could be extended beyond zeolites to other complex materials, eventually integrating with automated experiments to shorten the path from theoretical design to real-world application dramatically.

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Microsoft expands software security lifecycle for AI-driven platforms

AI is widening the cyber risk landscape and forcing security teams to rethink established safeguards. Microsoft has updated its Secure Development Lifecycle to address AI-specific threats across design, deployment and monitoring.

The updated approach reflects how AI can blur trust boundaries by combining data, tools, APIs and agents in one workflow. New attack paths include prompts, plugins, retrieved content and model updates, raising risks such as prompt injection and data poisoning.

Microsoft says policy alone cannot manage non-deterministic systems and fast iteration cycles. Guidance now centres on practical engineering patterns, tight feedback loops and cross-team collaboration between research, governance and development.

Its SDL for AI is organised around six pillars: threat research, adaptive policy, shared standards, workforce enablement, cross-functional collaboration and continuous improvement. Microsoft says the aim is to embed security into every stage of AI development.

The company also highlights new safeguards, including AI-specific threat modelling, observability, memory protections and stronger identity controls for agent workflows. Microsoft says more detailed guidance will follow in the coming months.

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Ofcom expands scrutiny of X over Grok deepfake concerns

The British regulator, Ofcom, has released an update on its investigation into X after reports that the Grok chatbot had generated sexual deepfakes of real people, including minors.

As such, the regulator initiated a formal inquiry to assess whether X took adequate steps to manage the spread of such material and to remove it swiftly.

X has since introduced measures to limit the distribution of manipulated images, while the ICO and regulators abroad have opened parallel investigations.

The Online Safety Act does not cover all chatbot services, as regulation depends on whether a system enables user interactions, provides search functionality, or produces pornographic material.

Many AI chatbots fall partly or entirely outside the Act’s scope, limiting regulators’ ability to act when harmful content is created during one-to-one interactions.

Ofcom cannot currently investigate the standalone Grok service for producing illegal images because the Act does not cover that form of generation.

Evidence-gathering from X continues, with legally binding information requests issued to the company. Ofcom will offer X a full opportunity to present representations before any provisional findings are published.

Enforcement actions take several months, since regulators must follow strict procedural safeguards to ensure decisions are robust and defensible.

Ofcom added that people who encounter harmful or illegal content online are encouraged to report it directly to the relevant platforms. Incidents involving intimate images can be reported to dedicated services for adults or support schemes for minors.

Material that may constitute child sexual abuse should be reported to the Internet Watch Foundation.

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AI becomes optional in Firefox 148 as Mozilla launches new control system

Mozilla has confirmed that Firefox will include a built-in ‘AI kill switch‘ from version 148, allowing users to disable all AI features across the browser. The update follows earlier commitments that AI tools would remain optional as Firefox evolves into what the company describes as an AI-enabled browser.

The new controls will appear in the desktop release scheduled to begin rolling out on 24 February. A dedicated AI Controls section will allow users to turn off every AI feature at once or manage each tool individually, reflecting Mozilla’s aim to balance innovation with user choice.

At launch, Firefox 148 will introduce AI-powered translations, automatic alt text for images in PDFs, tab grouping suggestions, link previews, and an optional sidebar chatbot supporting services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Le Chat Mistral.

All of these tools can be disabled through a single ‘Block AI enhancements’ toggle, which removes prompts and prevents new AI features from appearing. Mozilla has said preferences will remain in place across updates, with users able to adjust settings at any time.

The organisation said the approach is intended to give people full control over how AI appears in their browsing experience, while continuing development for those who choose to use it. Early access to the controls will also be available through Firefox Nightly.

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EU moves closer to decision on ChatGPT oversight

The European Commission plans to decide by early 2026 whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT should be classified as a vast online platform under the Digital Services Act.

OpenAI’s tool reported 120.4 million average monthly users in the EU back in October, a figure far above the 45-million threshold that triggers more onerous obligations instead of lighter oversight.

Officials said the designation procedure depends on both quantitative and qualitative assessments of how a service operates, together with input from national authorities.

The Commission is examining whether a standalone AI chatbot can fall within the scope of rules usually applied to platforms such as social networks, online marketplaces and significant search engines.

ChatGPT’s user data largely stems from its integrated online search feature, which prompts users to allow the chatbot to search the web. The Commission noted that OpenAI could voluntarily meet the DSA’s risk-reduction obligations while the formal assessment continues.

The EU’s latest wave of designations included Meta’s WhatsApp, though the rules applied only to public channels, not private messaging.

A decision on ChatGPT that will clarify how far the bloc intends to extend its most stringent online governance framework to emerging AI systems.

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Porto summit highlights growing risks to undersea internet cables

The Second International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit opened this week in Porto, Portugal, bringing together senior officials from governments, international organisations, and industry to address the growing risks facing the underwater cables that carry most of the world’s internet traffic. The event highlighted how submarine cables have become critical infrastructure for the global digital economy, especially as societies grow more dependent on cloud services, AI, and cross-border data flows.

Opening the summit, Ambassador João Mira Gomes, Permanent Representative of Portugal to the United Nations Office at Geneva, explained that Portugal’s infrastructure minister was absent due to ongoing storm recovery efforts, underlining the real-world pressures facing critical infrastructure today. He recalled Portugal’s long history in global connectivity, noting that one of the earliest submarine cables linking Portugal and the United Kingdom was built to support the port wine trade, a reminder that communication networks and economic exchange have long evolved together.

Professor Sandra Maximiano, co-chair of the International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, placed the discussions in a broader historical context. She pointed to the creation of the International Telecommunication Union in 1865 as the first global organisation dedicated to managing international communications, stressing that cooperation on submarine cables has always been a ‘positive-sum game’ in which all countries benefit from shared rules and coordination.

Maximiano also highlighted Portugal’s strategic role as a cable hub, citing its extensive coastline, large exclusive economic zone, and favourable landing conditions connecting Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. She outlined key projects such as the Atlantic CAM system linking mainland Portugal with Madeira and the Azores using a resilient ring design and smart cable technology that combines telecommunications with seismic and oceanographic monitoring. Existing and planned systems, she said, are not just data pipelines but foundations for innovation, scientific cooperation, and strategic autonomy.

A major outcome of the summit was the adoption of the Porto Declaration on Submarine Cable Resilience, developed with input from more than 150 experts worldwide. The declaration sets out practical guidance to improve permitting and repair processes, strengthen legal frameworks, promote route diversity and risk mitigation, and enhance capacity-building, with special attention to the needs of small island states and developing countries.

ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin framed these efforts within a rapidly changing digital landscape, announcing that 2026 will be designated the ‘year of resilience.’ She warned that the scale of global digital dependence has transformed the impact of cable disruptions, as even minor outages can ripple across AI systems, cloud platforms, and autonomous services. Resilience, she argued, now depends as much on international coordination and preparedness as on cable design itself.

From the European Union perspective, European Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen outlined upcoming EU measures, including a submarine cable security toolbox and targeted funding through the Connecting Europe Facility. She stressed the importance of regional coordination and praised Portugal’s active role in aligning EU initiatives with global efforts led by the ITU.

Closing the opening session, Ambassador Gomes linked cable resilience to broader goals of development and peace, warning that digital divides fuel inequality and instability, and reaffirming Portugal’s commitment to international cooperation and capacity-building as the summit moves the global conversation from policy to action.

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