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Summary

This panel discussion focused on building parliamentary capacity to effectively shape the digital realm, particularly in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and data governance. Experts from various organizations, including ICANN, GIZ, Google, and UNESCO, shared insights on how parliamentarians can engage with digital policymaking and capacity building initiatives.

The discussion highlighted the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in addressing the challenges of regulating AI and managing data in the digital age. Panelists emphasized the need for parliamentarians to receive specialized training and resources to understand complex technological issues. They also stressed the importance of balancing innovation with responsible regulation, particularly in emerging markets and the Global South.

Key topics included the harmonization of digital policies across countries, the role of international organizations in providing capacity building, and the challenges of data colonialism. The panelists discussed various approaches to AI regulation, from risk-based frameworks to more flexible, principles-based guidelines. They also addressed the tension between the need for regulation and the risk of stifling innovation.

Participants raised concerns about the lack of technical knowledge among many parliamentarians and the need for more targeted capacity building efforts. The discussion touched on the importance of considering cultural and regional contexts in digital policymaking, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Overall, the panel concluded that effective digital governance requires a collaborative approach involving governments, international organizations, the private sector, and civil society. The experts agreed that while AI regulation is necessary, it must be done thoughtfully and with a deep understanding of the technology’s potential benefits and risks.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The need for capacity building and education for parliamentarians on digital/AI issues

– Balancing regulation of AI with fostering innovation

– Data governance, data sharing, and concerns about “data colonialism”

– The role of international organizations and private companies in shaping digital policies

– Approaches to AI regulation, including risk-based and principles-based frameworks

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how parliamentarians and parliaments can build capacity to effectively shape digital policies and navigate the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation.

The tone of the discussion was collaborative and solution-oriented. Panelists acknowledged the complexity of the issues but focused on practical ways to increase parliamentary engagement and knowledge. There was a sense of urgency about the need for parliamentarians to become more involved in digital policymaking, balanced with caution about over-regulating too quickly. The tone became more action-oriented towards the end as panelists offered specific resources and opportunities for parliamentarians to engage further on these topics.

Speakers

– Rima Al-Yahya: Moderator, Member of the Shura Council

– Franz von Weizsäcker: Head of Program Citizens’ Engagement and Innovation Data Use for Africa’s Development, GIZ

– Beckwith Burr: ICANN board member, Partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Granus LLP

– Olga Skorokhodova: Government Affairs and Public Policy Emerging Markets, Head of CACASIS, Central Asia, and Russia, Google

– Cedric Wachholz: Chief Section for Digital Policy and Digital Transformation in UNESCO

– Audience: Various parliamentarians and attendees who asked questions

Additional speakers:

– Maha Abdel Nasser: Egyptian parliamentarian

– Catherine Mumma: Senator from Kenya

– Al-Hajji: Member of Parliament from Gambia and the Pan-African Parliament

– Jamal Fakhro: From Bahrain

– Dr. Abadi: Unspecified role/country

– Dr. Saleh: Unspecified role, likely from Saudi Arabia

Parliamentary Capacity Building for Digital Governance: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach

This panel discussion, moderated by Rima Al-Yahya of the Shura Council, explored the critical issue of building parliamentary capacity to effectively shape the digital realm, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and data governance. Experts from various organisations, including ICANN, GIZ, Google, and UNESCO, shared insights on how parliamentarians can engage with digital policymaking and capacity building initiatives.

Key Themes and Discussions

1. ICANN’s Role in Internet Governance

Beckwith Burr, ICANN board member, outlined ICANN’s crucial role in coordinating the global Internet’s unique identifier systems, including domain names and IP addresses. She emphasized ICANN’s multi-stakeholder model, which brings together governments, civil society, and industry to develop policies. Burr highlighted ICANN’s capacity building programs, stating, “We have training programs, we have a lot of resources available for parliamentarians who want to understand how the Internet works.”

2. Capacity Building for Parliamentarians

A central theme was the urgent need for capacity building among parliamentarians to address the knowledge gap in digital technologies and AI. Honourable Al-Hajji, a Member of Parliament from Gambia and the Pan-African Parliament, highlighted this issue: “We have very, very, very few members of parliament that actually understand technology. I am an exception because I’m a software developer and I’ve been in the field for 25 years now, but I’m one in maybe hundreds or 200 members of parliament.”

To address this gap, panelists offered various solutions:

– Cedric Wachholz of UNESCO highlighted their capacity building workshops and online courses for parliamentarians, including a comprehensive AI curriculum.

– Olga Skorokhodova from Google discussed AI academies and online courses for policymakers in emerging markets, emphasizing the importance of “getting AI right requires a team effort across stakeholders.”

– Franz von Weizsäcker of GIZ mentioned their support for regional parliamentary networks and capacity building initiatives.

3. Approaches to AI Regulation

The discussion on AI regulation revealed a nuanced debate about balancing innovation with risk management. Von Weizsäcker advocated for a risk-based and tiered regulatory approach, citing the European model: “The European approach on AI is putting things into different risk categories. And when you’re dealing with biometric data of the entire population and very private information and so on, that’s a high-risk environment.”

Skorokhodova emphasized Google’s commitment to responsible AI development, stating, “AI is too important not to regulate, but it’s also too important not to regulate well.” She outlined Google’s AI principles and their practical application in product development.

Wachholz discussed UNESCO’s work on AI ethics and governance, including the development of a global standard-setting instrument on AI ethics. He stressed the importance of using existing laws to limit AI risks while developing more comprehensive frameworks.

4. Data Governance and Economic Development

The discussion touched on the crucial role of data governance in economic development, particularly in emerging markets. Von Weizsäcker emphasized the importance of data sharing across borders for economic development in Africa, while Skorokhodova highlighted the necessity of local data availability for developing AI applications.

The concept of “data colonialism” was raised, with concerns about fair benefits from data for countries in the Global South. Von Weizsäcker suggested, “We need to harmonize our data policies in order to be able to negotiate with global tech companies.” This led to discussions about regional approaches to data governance, such as the African Union’s efforts to develop a unified framework.

5. Saudi Arabian Approach to AI and Data Governance

Dr. Saleh shared insights on Saudi Arabia’s approach to AI and data governance, highlighting the country’s efforts to balance innovation with ethical considerations. He mentioned the establishment of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and the development of a national data strategy.

6. Multi-stakeholder Collaboration

A recurring theme was the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in digital policymaking. Burr highlighted ICANN’s role in facilitating collaboration between governments, civil society, and industry. Wachholz emphasized UNESCO’s position as a neutral broker bringing a multi-stakeholder approach to digital governance issues.

Audience Engagement

The audience, comprising various parliamentarians and attendees, raised questions about specific challenges in their countries and regions. Concerns were expressed about the digital divide, the need for localized AI solutions, and the challenges of regulating global tech companies at a national level.

Conclusion

The moderator, Rima Al-Yahya, concluded by emphasizing the critical importance of building parliamentary capacity to shape the digital realm. She stressed that informed decision-making by parliamentarians is crucial for developing effective and balanced digital policies that serve the interests of all stakeholders.

As von Weizsäcker aptly noted, “The internet is global and legislation is national. That creates an inherent tension in all of our efforts and it creates the need to put efforts into harmonisation.” This observation encapsulates the ongoing challenge in digital governance: balancing national interests with the global nature of technology and data flows.

The discussion pointed towards a need for continued dialogue, targeted capacity building initiatives, and collaborative efforts to develop flexible, effective frameworks for governing the digital realm. The engagement of parliamentarians in this process was deemed crucial for ensuring that digital policies are shaped by informed, democratically elected representatives who understand both the potential and the risks of emerging technologies.

Rima Al-Yahya: Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to welcome you all once again to Saudi Arabia. It is a country where visions become concrete and dreams become reality. My name is Dr. Reema Al Yahya, and I am a member of the Shura Council, and I will be moderating today’s session on building parliamentary capacity to effectively shape the digital realm. So, wow, what an amazing two days it has been so far, and there’s still so much to come. But what I noticed while attending the previous sessions, whether the discussion was on navigating an era of digital transformation or global digital cooperation and priorities or developing large-scale AI systems and digital innovations, is that the ultimate core of the talk will always stress the importance of building capacity. Yesterday, Senator Shuaib, and I’m going to quote you, Salisa stated, what you don’t know you can’t give. And that is totally true. This session will discuss what parliaments and parliamentarians need in order to play a full role in shaping digital policies and how to build capacity in parliaments, as well as navigating the challenges and the opportunities of the digital transformation era. I would like to introduce my experts today. On my left, I have Mr. Franz von Weizsaecker, Head of Program Citizens’ Engagement and Innovation Data Use for Africa’s Development, GIZ. Mr. Wesiker is heading the Digital and Economic Portfolio of GIZ Office to the African Union based in Addis Ababa. This includes the data governance in Africa and initiative, a multi-donor action funded by the European Union and five European Member States. On my right, Ms. Beckwith Burr, ICAN board member. Ms. Burr is a partner of Harris, Wiltshire & Granus LLP. Her practice focuses on data protection, data governance, and cybersecurity. Prior to joining the firm, Burr was Nostar’s Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer and has been involved in internet governance issues for more than 25 years. She was also the Director of the Office of the International Affairs of ITIA during the creation of ICAN. Also on my left is Ms. Olga Skorokhodova, Government Affairs and Public Policy Emerging Markets, Head of CACASIS, Central Asia, and Russia, Google. Ms. Olga is responsible for government affairs and public policy in a number of countries of Central Asia and the CACASIS. She also leads strategic AI policy engagement projects within the Emerging Markets team covering 100 plus countries at Google. Also on my right, Mr. Cedric Wachholz, Chief Section for Digital Policy and Digital Transformation in UNESCO, which includes multiple artificial intelligence workstreams and the use of frontier technologies for attaining the UN Sustainability Development Goals through advocacy, capacity, and public policy developments, as well as other workstreams. So, with that said, let’s start with Ms. Burr. Ms. Burr, what is exactly ICANN’s role in the internet ecosystem and how can members of Parliament collaborate with this global organization?

Beckwith Burr: Thank you for the question and thank you for asking me. participate. It’s a great honor to be here and to be in Saudi Arabia for my first time. ICANN has a limited but very critical role in the internet ecosystem. Its fundamental mission is to ensure the secure and stable operation of the internet’s unique identifier systems, the building blocks of DNS, including names, numbers, and protocols. If names, numbers, and protocols don’t work, your internet content messages will not get where they need to be. So the security and stability and operational resilience of the DNS is critical. ICANN accomplishes its mission in several ways. First, it coordinates the allocation and assignment of top-level domains, both the so-called generic TLDs like com, net, and org, as well as the two-digit country code TLDs such as .sa, .jp, or .fr. Second, ICANN coordinates the development of policies concerning the registration of second-level domains, so the beckyburr.com, but in this case, only in the generic, not in the country code domain namespace because country code domain namespace policy is established in-country. Third, ICANN facilitates the coordination of the DNS root name server system. Fourth, working with regional address registries such as RIPE, NCC, and LACNIC, ICANN coordinates the allocation and assignment of internet protocol numbers and autonomous system numbers used to route internet traffic. And finally, in coordination with the Internet Engineering Task Force, ICANN provides registries for the authoritative record of many of the codes and numbers contained in a variety of internet protocols, also often referred to as ICANN. to as RFCs. ICANN does not have regulatory authority. Rather, its role involves convening, coordinating, and facilitating the collaborative work of stakeholders, including the technical community, civil society, business, users, and governments. National governments, distinct economies, and international intergovernmental organizations participate in ICANN’s multi-stakeholder policy development processes and provide advice on public policy matters, primarily through the Government Advisory Committee, or the GAC. The GAC has 183 governments as members and 39 intergovernmental organizations as observers. GAC delegations may include lawmakers, and ICANN welcomes this, and we have often seen parliamentarians participating in the GAC delegations. There are many other ways that parliamentarians can participate in ICANN’s multi-stakeholder process. Parliamentarians are always welcome at ICANN meetings, which occur three times per year and rotate through ICANN’s five regions. Meetings are accessible. Everything is translated into the six UN languages plus Portuguese. ICANN also operates a robust capacity building program designed to lower barriers to participation while increasing diversity and effective participation of GAC members, including from underserved regions. Capacity building events have been held online, as well as in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Nandi, Kathmandu, Abu Dhabi, Manama, San Juan, Panama City, Cancun, and many other places. Parliamentarians are welcome to participate in programming sponsored by ICANN and its partners, such as our annual Universal Acceptance Day, where we promote acceptance of non-ASCII scripts, so internationalized domain names, and other initiatives such as the Coalition for Digital Africa. While ICANN is headquartered in Los Angeles, it has a global presence with offices in Brussels, Montevideo, Singapore, and Istanbul, and smaller engagement centers in Beijing, Nairobi, and Geneva. The ICANN’s global engagement team welcome outreach from parliamentarians and would be very pleased to assist you in answering questions, connecting you with resources, and helping you participate. In addition to resources and engagement opportunities offered by ICANN and its programming partners, parliamentarians may want to engage directly with local ICANN stakeholders who are very knowledgeable about the ICANN process, who are very anxious to work with their government representatives and their legislators. And these include country code domain name operators, regional associations of country code operators, and regional at-large organizations and regional address registries. I’m happy to answer any questions you have or provide further information on how you can collaborate with ICANN in furtherance of a secure, resilient, and globally interoperable Internet. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. That’s amazing. So, your job is really full because participating in meetings and attending ICANN events will expose parliamentarians to the best practices, as well as networking with others, so they will definitely benefit wherever they attend. All right. Thank you so much. All right. So, the second question is directed to Mr. Weizsäcker. Sir, the GIZ… is a strong partner of the African Union and supporting capacity building activities of members of parliaments. How can parliamentarians effectively contribute to a harmonized digital landscape? And it would be great if you could give us some tangible concrete examples.

Franz von Weizsaecker: Thank you so much, Rima. And thanks also for welcoming me in Saudi Arabia. Coming back after 15 years being abroad and coming back to Saudi, I came back to a different, very different country. It’s really a much more modern place. Much appreciated. And I’m very excited to be here. Thank you. So I work for the GIZ office to the African Union. And GIZ is a part of the German government for international development. And so, yes, we do support the parliamentarian track of IGF and parliamentarian capacity development as part of the Data Governance in Africa initiative. And that is the EU project that has been funded by EU and five different European member states. And I do believe that Germany, since you might remember the IGF in Berlin, Germany was actively promoting the participation of parliamentarians in IGFs to be part of the dialogue, because in the end, it is the lawmakers that have to bring the governmental role and have to have to promote a well-informed governmental role into digital policymaking. And our support to the African Union and its 55 member states and the regional economic communities is around harmonizing the digital policies, in particular, the data policies, as well as supporting a number of other initiatives such as the African Digital Compact, and the African Union AI strategy, I believe Olga also was part of that. So the African Union Data Policy Framework is the effort to harmonize how data can be shared by government, by private sector, how it can be transferred across the border. And that is very important in Africa’s ambition to form a digital single market to allow also companies to work across borders and this is to encourage the investments in the startup ecosystem because in many cases these businesses need the opportunity to scale across borders as well in order to really reap the value of the data economy and the AI economy built on that of course. We do face a lot of the debates, and that might be an interesting discussion with Google, of data colonialism and of extractive business models taking data from African citizens and maybe generating profits elsewhere in the world. And we do take that very seriously so it is these national debates on economic policies that are going on of how can the value of the data economy be maximized, the value that is created locally and that the local economy and the tax collection and so on are benefiting from. So that is a very important debate to have and the right answer to that is in many cases to not limit the cross-border data transfer but rather to encourage it because more economic value can be generated by connecting and by sharing data across borders. So that is the policy of the African Union Data Policy Framework and we have now reached a stage where we have received from the 55 countries of the African Union, we have received 22 requests by 22 members. States that want to adopt the African Union Data Policy Framework at national level, as well as the regional economic communities of EAC, East Africa, SADEC for Southern Africa, and ECOWAS for Eastern Africa, who all want to be part of this harmonization effort. And I believe that’s a very important initiative to really reap the benefits of the data economy at national level and at regional level in Africa. And that’s what the German government, with its European partners, is happy to support. Along with that policy support, there is an infrastructure investment facility on data centers and investments in data centers, as well as a promotion facility for data use cases in various sectors. So agricultural data, climate data, financial systems data. And this is all about sharing models that work across the border and between different stakeholders, private sector, public sector, and so on. So this is what we are doing, and I believe it’s very important that parliamentarians be part of this debate in order to really fully support the role of the government, of lawmakers, to pass the necessary harmonization efforts at national level. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Amazing. Amazing. Can I ask, how far have you gone in harmonizing the digital landscape? I mean, from your experience, 55 African countries of the African Union is a large-scale project. So I know you mentioned 22 countries being interested in the policy framework, but have you seen any tangible harmonization so far?

Franz von Weizsaecker: Of course, the passing of legislation is nothing that happens from one day to another. So for example, there is policy drafting going on in Nagula for the new data protection law, in Zambia, and the Gambia. So those are one of the most advanced countries in those efforts currently of adopting the AU framework, as well as efforts on… region of ECOWAS in Western Africa, the regional framework is being updated to comply with the principles of the African Union framework. And there is from those 22 countries that have requested, it’s a long list, too long to read here, but nine of those countries have done an assessment to see how far advanced are they in the various aspects of data governance. And we have done several capacity development measures in the Gambia, in Nigeria and Zambia, as well as on regional level. So it is advancing very fast, but you’re right, it’s very ambitious. 55 countries, I think we will not get there to implement in all 55, but we follow the first come, first serve approach to provide support where it’s requested.

Rima Al-Yahya: Amazing. I raise my hat to you. All right. So moving on to Mr. Waschholz. Mr. Cedric, UNESCO is actively contributing to digital policymaking, capacities and inclusion, and has worked with members of parliaments on AI regulations and emerging approaches across the world. What regulatory approaches to AI can you recommend, especially to parliaments with less capabilities?

Cedric Wachholz: Thank you, Madam Chair. And the answer to your question is, there is no one-fits-it-all approach. But let me first thank you for giving us the floor and thanking Saudi Arabia for its hospitality, for hosting the IGF, but also for the parliamentary track to invite UNESCO to join. This is a really much appreciated cooperation. So we are talking about a very hot topic, which is rapidly evolving over the last years. There are more than 30 countries which have adopted AI regulation by parliaments. And just if you look at the Stanford AI Index from 2024, they saw that the the number of citations and proceedings across the globe where AI was mentioned in legislative proceedings doubled just in one year from 2022 to 2023. So it is really something which is gaining in importance. And we have worked together with the IGF, Parliamentary Track, but also the IPU on different capacity development activities for parliamentarians. But also we have looked at existing regulation and looked them at different approaches because that was your question. And so there are a number one can distinguish. There’s a paper we developed and we had actually inputs from more than a hundred parliamentarians from legal experts, but also from AI experts on that. And it is online available. And there we distinguish actually nine different approaches. And of course one needs to, I will rapidly map them, but of course it is all a question of context and to see what are really the best regulatory approaches. So one we would distinguish is, and probably all, there is not one approach most countries will adopt, but they will mix different approaches. So there’s that dimension. So the principle-based approach focuses really on the broad ethical principles to guide AI development. And some of you might be aware that UNESCO, UNESCO’s member states, but through a long multi-stakeholder process over three years has developed an ethics recommendation adopted by all member states. And that was a long process, but these ethical principles are for us the foundation and guiding principles. They’re also human rights-based, but this would be a principle-based approach as well. Then, there is of course a standards-based approach, which involves really creating specific technical standards for AI systems to ensure a certain safety and compliance. One can certainly also mention agile and experimentalist approaches, encouraging some flexibility and

Rima Al-Yahya: experimentation in AI regulation, also to adopt and be ready for a number of technological

Cedric Wachholz: rapid technological changes. The AI recommendation of UNESCO, for example, was launched, actually the process in 2017-18, it took three years, was adopted in 2021 before CETCPT. So you need to actually also have some flexibility in adopting. It is absolutely relevant also in CETCPT-H, it hasn’t changed, but we had some foresight in doing this work. But another approach would be the one of adapting existing laws and modifying actually already existing current legal frameworks. Then comes the one which we would call the access to information and transparency mandates approach, which ensures that AI systems really operate transparently and that information is really accessible to all stakeholders, which isn’t an easy exercise, but some of the regulations aim that. The risk-based approach is one, I mean, many of you are familiar with, because the European AI Act is very much based on that approach. Some might have heard about that. And it is about assessing and mitigating the risks associated to AI applications. Now, the rights-based approach is prioritised with really the human rights in the deployment of AI technologies, and the liability approach is the one. assessing or assigning responsibilities and also sanctions to problematic users of AI. Now, as I mentioned, these nine approaches represent different pieces of a puzzle, and I don’t know if I have a little bit more time to say why, when, and how to regulate, or if we should keep that for a later discussion. Yes? Okay. So, of course, there are more or less three reasons I would name to regulate, so the why. One is, of course, to address a public problem, and secondly is to really promote, respect, protect fundamental and also collective rights. And then the third one is really to create an enabling environment, but also shape a digital future which is safe and which corresponds to the desired, you know, also digital future. So, when you regulate, you need to, and this is a process probably some of you have gone through in different other contexts, but of course you need to have one of these justifications or several ones to go forward. But then also ask if there are any irregularities. Also, is it feasible from a legal and political and administrative point of view? And if you answer all these questions, you can say yes, then you probably should regulate. And then there’s, of course, the how-to, keeping human rights at the forefront and as a basis, and the core of it all is an important foundation. But then also considering agile methodologies as sandboxes and testbeds. There are some examples for that too. And then for us, it has very clearly shown that multi-stakeholder approaches are key in this domain. So, to consider multiple perspective, so that it is representative, but also inclusive and also realistic. So we have partnered, well, I will not go too much more now into details, I think, but just to say that we were very happy to have a few also capacity development workshops with the IPU and the IGF parliamentary track, just to recognize that.

Rima Al-Yahya: Great, remarkable. You were just saying that one hat does not fit all. So do you customize your regulatory approaches to AI, depending on the parliaments and those with less capabilities? Do you engage non-profit organizations or companies with corporate responsibility to help you out with the capacity building training for parliamentarians, I mean, especially with those with the countries with less capabilities?

Cedric Wachholz: Yes, we do. And I like this multi-stakeholder approach of this panel, too. I think it is very helpful. Now, there are different approaches. And for example, I mentioned the AI ethics recommendation and we have different tools developed, for example, to do first and country assessment, to have some facts as a background. And this has been rolled out in more than 60 countries to really assess the AI landscape, which is a helpful tool to then have some evidence to guide the way forward. We have a comparable tool also for companies where some companies have bought into adapting the AI ethics recommendation. So assessing first the country situation, the needs, the landscape, and then adapting different tools makes the most sense to me. Thank you so much.

Rima Al-Yahya: All right. So now, last but not least, Ms. Skorokhodova, how can members of parliament engage with Google?

Olga Skorokhodova: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be part of this panel. This has been an enormous. enriching and insightful conversation. So thank you so much, co-panelists. I actually quite like being the last one at the panel because you can enrich yourself with all that knowledge that has been shared before. And then it’s just really inspiring to hear all your perspectives. I wanted to start by expressing my gratitude on behalf of Google to the organizers of IGF and to Saudi Arabia as a host country for the hospitality and for having us at this parliamentary track. This is very special, and it’s a big privilege for our company. At Google, we believe that collaboration is the key to address today’s complex challenges from climate change to health care delivery. And we also believe, of course, it’s no secret that digital technologies and AI can play a crucial role in addressing these challenges. And in doing so, we are also deeply committed to working with the governments and parliamentarians around the world in two, I would say, roughly two very important areas. One is really shape the policies that will define digital age. And more and more, we are talking about AI policies. The African Union AI framework has been just mentioned as one of the examples. And I love citing this example in some other regions when I visit because I think that is remarkable what the African Union achieved. And this is something where we as a company are involved in really discussing the frameworks, national strategies, and regulation that shapes digital realm. And secondly, in terms of our work with parliamentarians and public. officials, we are committed to deliver impactful upskilling and capacity building programs for public officials. And we have to be honest, I would say, this AI ascent that happened very rapidly, it was a surprise, and it is still a surprise to many public officials. And they must not have all the capacity that you need to have to address these issues, to regulate them in a smart way. That’s why capacity building, specifically targeting public officials and parliamentarians, policymakers, regulators, is a very, very important aspect. And if we talk about AI, we now have already some figures of what is the price in hand. And one of those figures is McKinsey estimates. It’s $26 trillion. That’s an upside of full AI adoption in terms of potential economic impact. That’s higher, actually, this figure is higher than current GDP of the United States. And so to really leverage this potential and convert this potential into economic reality, especially in the emerging markets, we really believe that strategic approach is important. And to help governments of emerging markets, specifically, to charter the path forward, this spring we came up with a roadmap or policy recommendation set that we called AI Sprinters. We use this term to nickname countries that lead or leapfrog in terms of AI, in terms of economic opportunity by using AI and digital tools. And so our recommendation is that governments and specifically parliamentarians, as they think about how do we use AI for economic development. development, they should consider focusing on four main pillars. One is really infrastructure, and it’s about securing access to reliable internet and to cloud computing, because there is no AI without cloud computing. Second, it’s about innovation. And we talked briefly mentioned data colonialism, and what we think is important while we should be thinking and talking about how do we extrapolate the value of data to the local economies. What is also crucially important, and we really see it with our products, is that there is enough data locally available to power locally developed tools and AI applications, or adopting the global tools that already exist, but to the local reality. I will give you just one simple example. We have a special AI model that can actually help you predict flooding nine days in advance before it occurs. And the flooding is a big deal, and a big economic factor in Africa, in Central Asia, et cetera. But we were not able to launch this model and scale it in some countries of my region that I cover, Central Asia, just because there was not enough data publicly available for it, because the government sits on that data. They do have historical data of how rivers behave, but it’s not disclosed. So we can’t offer our model that can help you mitigate potential risks, potential human impact, economic impact, but you can’t do it without data. So really making sure the data is available for development locally is very important. And then policies and skills. And I want to touch upon what we are doing in terms of public official subscaling. Really three initiatives that I want to mention, because we do recognize and realize the responsibility as a global player to prepare public officials and parliamentarians to the AI-driven age. So what we are doing is that through google.org, it’s our company philanthropy branch, we gave a grant of more than 5 million US dollars to a political government AI campus. That’s a special program created to bring AI education specifically to public officials. Beyond global programming, the government AI campus has engaged with leaders across the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, our host countries, South Africa and other countries to bring tailor-made education to the civil servants at scale. We also recognize that to ensure that these upscaling programs are truly inclusive, you need to have proper language coverage. So all the curriculum of AI campus is translated into 10 languages including Arabic, Spanish and others to make sure that actually countries that need this capacity building support have access in terms of language offering to our programs. We also recognize that policymakers and parliamentarians in emerging markets may need more tailored approach and we run as a company our internal bespoke AI academies, we call them, which is basically a crash course on AI applications but also on AI regulation that we offer internally to the policymakers across the world. In this year only we ran seven AI academies in practically in all of the emerging markets, Latin America, Brazil, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and Turkey. Again, recognizing the need for more robust support specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa, we launched an AI Sprinters online course which is developed based on our recommendation and roadmap that we offer for emerging markets on how to drive AI adoption. This online course we launched at the UN General Assembly just this September and we already trained more than 300 African officials at the UN General Assembly but also with the support of UN Economic Commission for Africa and the World Trade Organization. So I think my… time is up already, but I just wanted to conclude by saying that we at Google also look at capacity building for public officials and also at really policy making once it comes to AI as a collective multi-stakeholder project, I would say. And here, definitely companies like ours have also a role to play and we are happy to be part of that ecosystem. Thank you so much.

Rima Al-Yahya: Amazing. That’s amazing. What you’re saying just reminded me of something that’s really similar that’s being implemented in Saudi Arabia. It’s not with parliamentarians, but it’s with our graduates. We have exceptional graduates who graduate and then when they apply for their jobs, they don’t get accepted because they don’t have the proper capacity building skills that they needed. So we felt that we needed to bridge the gap between academia and the industry sector. And so a collaboration of different academies, such as the Saudi Digital Academy by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and we have like the Wake Academy and the Academy of Cybersecurity by the National Commission for Cybersecurity, as well as Sadae Academy, MISC Academy, and it’s a lot what Google is also doing. And they started boot camps for graduates between the age of 22 to 28, and this enabled them to be equipped with the proper skills required by employers when they lack hands-on experience. So certified degrees by Google, by Red Hat, by IBM are procured easily for these graduates and these graduates will become parliamentarians with time, some of them will. And so that’s really amazing what you’re doing. All right, so let’s open the floor to a discussion. We’ll start by four questions. And if we have time, we can have another round of four questions. So we’ll We can start. Ms. Maryam? Maryam?

Audience: Hi, thank you very much for this session. My name is Maha Abdel Nasser. I’m Egyptian parliamentarian. Actually, I know a lot of programs you are all running, but with the government. I’ve never heard about anything with the parliament or for parliamentarians. So I would love to have all what you’ve said. I don’t know if we can ask the IGF secretariat to write all these initiatives that can be used for parliamentarians and gather them in a document and send it to us, so we can actually benefit from it. I am from the ICT industry, so maybe I don’t need that very much. We all need to learn, of course. But the other parliamentarians, they know nothing about what we are talking about. And at the end of the day, they will be the people who will vote for any legislation regarding AI or any act regarding anything related to technology. So we need badly to have capacity building from them. I’m very happy that you raised the data colonization subject, but I don’t think that we still have an answer. We need to work together to, I don’t know, have some ethics regarding the data flow, regarding the data colonization, regarding not to benefit from our data because we have more people than the West. Again, the global South and the global North. And we need more for global South. Please, we actually need this.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Any other questions? Yes.

Audience: Thank you very much. My name is Catherine Muma, I’m a senator from Kenya. And just to overemphasize that government is not just the executive. And parliaments play a critical role in shaping policy. And my colleague is right that over 95% of us do not understand this is a technical sector and we need deliberate greater investment in getting the competencies of parliamentarians across board, not just a few, to be able to contribute from an informed position when we are doing regulation on digital technology issues. And this is going to be cross board. It will be in the financial sector, it will be in the health sector, it will be in the water sector. So we can’t just say the ICT committees of parliament are the only ones which need competence. If we are going to do telemedicine and I’m sitting on the committee on health, exactly how should I shape that law in order to make it facilitative, not obstructive? So I think those working on this need to deliberately invest in this because there is a potential of parliament actually harming rather than assisting in the entire process. Coming to AI, don’t you think it’s too, it might be too early to say that we can define a particular law in a particular way? Might we want to focus on the possible harms that would come with AI and focus on strengthening legislation against those harms, whether it is a criminal activity, how do we bring, how do we improve child protection law, for instance, to deal with pedophile behavior, criminal behavior? Might we? be doing better strengthening the laws on offenses and criminals rather than coming up with a law we call an AI legislation that is not seriously informed that may very well stifle innovation. I don’t know what you think about that.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you, thank you. Very good question. Yes. Sorry.

Audience: Yes, good afternoon and thank you very much for the wonderful presentations across. First, I just want to thank. Can I have your name? My name is Honorable Al-Hajji, more from the Gambia and the Pan-African Parliament, which is an AU Parliament. I just want to thank you generally for this wonderful, wonderful information that we are hearing from across the presenters. Particularly ICANN, I must be grateful because they provided some training to about almost 30 members of Parliament in Rwanda this past July. And it was great, great initiative by the ICANN. We are really very thankful. Now, I agree with my colleagues because oftentimes when you deal with government, you are only dealing with the executive. The Parliament is actually exempted. And the book ends with us. At the end of the day, with laws, with regulations, Parliament has a big role to play in it. And that’s the reason why sometimes you bring a bill in Parliament and it takes ages. Why? Because Parliament do not understand. They need to make a lot of consultations and in and out of the country. And because of the fact that there is a gap, a knowledge gap, and that would make that bill stay there for a very long time. So this capacity building, particularly in the era of technology, I think is important if we can partner with various institutions to help bridge that gap. Because the government, the executive, they will not do that because of, again, we have our own budget. But again, at the end of the day, it’s the same country. So anything that we can do, we can collaborate to ensure that we bridge this gap. which is the knowledge gap in most members of parliament. We have very, very, very few members of parliament that actually understand technology. I am an exception because I’m a software developer and I’ve been in the field for 25 years now, but I’m one in maybe hundreds or 200 members of parliament, like my colleague from Egypt actually has said. So if we are able to do needs-based assessment, you will see some very interesting data on technology and anything we can do together to help close that gap in terms of capacity development, I think it’s gonna help a lot. In the long run, to ensure that at least we are all on the same terrain in this digital ecosystem. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you, thank you.

Audience: Thank you, Jamal Fakhr Al-Bahrain. Today, this morning, we started with a session with the representative of the private sector. And those were focusing a lot on saying that we don’t need to have any regulations at this stage. This afternoon, we are listening to UNESCO representative who have kindly been so kind to share with us what UNESCO have been doing over the years and putting regulations. So the question is really, is there a timeframe for us to start to think of putting regulations to regulate the AI? Are we on hurry if we say we are going to regulate? Are we supposed to really go back to say, okay, we will, since we have got the data protection law, since we have got the privacy law, since we have got the consumer protection law, then we don’t need to have an AI law. But again, as the other says, AI is something new. Many of all the members of parliament are not aware of. Unfortunately, none of them attend all the sessions organized by IPU from time to time to learn out of that. So really, I’m in a bit of a dilemma today. this morning. I have a different idea when I’m closing my day today. I have a different idea. It would be nice to hear from the four speakers there. How do they see? Are we ready to put a regulation, a law, exactly as something like what the EU did a few months back? Or we are saying, no, leave everything as it is today and focus on the various laws you have? Data protection, privacy law, and consumer law.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Thank you. All right. So let’s start with the first question by Dr. Meha. That has to do with what capacity building initiatives are directed to parliamentarians specifically and also discussing the data colonization issue and concerning the focus on maybe more focusing on the global south. So we can start with Ms. Olga.

Olga Skorokhodova: Thank you so much for your question. In terms of specific trainings that are available or not available to parliamentarians, all the initiatives that I listed, what we are doing at Google, they are open to parliamentarians. But definitely for me, the key takeaway, my colleagues and my company would be to really start thinking more strategically around how we engage parliamentarians. And here, definitely our colleague from Kenya also made an intervention on this topic. And we are happy to share with the IJF Secretariat all the information about the programs that we are running. And definitely, I’m not sure about Egypt, but we definitely had some parliamentarians from the African continent that took part in some of our initiatives and programs that we ran this year. Also, in terms of data colonialism and how we should approach this issue, I think there are two aspects that I wanted to highlight. First of all, when we think about specific… there could be some specific ways we can approach the taxation issue. And here, my colleague also brought this up. And I think that from the Google perspective, and I believe that’s also shared by the industry players, for us, it’s important that the approach towards the taxation would be synchronised or would be, you know, the one that would be universally applicable. And we definitely work very closely with OECD on digital taxation matters. What is difficult for us is to have 198 approaches to really taxing, you know, companies like Google. So we are definitely supporting the international, you know, internationally synchronised approach. And in terms of making, in terms of really making sure that Global South benefits from AI solutions, I think that at Google, we specifically focus a lot on making sure that our AI solutions, they are for social good. And I’m happy to see that many, many solutions that we actually develop, they are coming from the countries in the Global South. We have, for example, an AI office, an AI centre of excellence in Ghana. And from that centre, many solutions that we then apply, you know, in many different countries around the world, they are coming from that centre where we employ people locally, where we also leverage data locally. One of the solutions that I mentioned, our flood prediction solution is actually coming from the Global South in terms of where we developed it. And we have a bunch of solutions like that. So I think that’s also an important question of how big companies, big players approach that aspect, AI for social good. And I think that we may have so many use cases. that could drive real-life impact in the global South. And that’s something that we should definitely prioritize.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rezeker.

Franz von Weizsaecker: Okay, I will try. I mean, if four people answer four questions, we will have 16 answers. So I’ll try to summarize a little bit, if you allow me. Combining the questions related to data colonization, as well as AI laws. I mean, one of the key questions is, so who reaps the benefits? And usually, data is a resource that is very different from oil. In the sense that when you cannot burn it and it’s gone, but rather it develops its value by sharing and by transferring and by adopting, by updating and so on, by connecting the data. And that’s why it is a different type of good. Also to see in the context of the post-colonial debates is that a resource that shall be kept in one place. For a physical resource, that makes a lot of sense. And for this virtual resource, it makes less sense because it creates less value. And for that purpose, I have something in the pipeline. I hope to soon be able to launch a call for papers for, in this case, African researchers, economic researchers, to guide policymakers as to which policies are best to maximize the value creation happening in Africa, in the country. The value creation, as well as the related tax collection. Because I believe in many cases, the answer is not to shut down the borders for data transfers, but rather to enable local innovation, to enable ecosystems that harvest and generate value that can create benefit locally. So that is part of the answer. And what I’ve seen in many of the national debates in Africa, and the Kenyan debate is very advanced in that regard, is shall we put a focus on risks, like the… Europeans do, or is the focus more on economic growth and innovation? And I do see that the bias is in Africa much more towards innovation, whereas in Europe the focus of the legislation, the AI Act, is much a risk management system. And that is part of the answer to the colleague from Bahrain, is do we need the law at this stage? The European approach on AI is putting things into different risk categories. And when you’re dealing with biometric data of the entire population and very private information and so on, that’s a high-risk environment. So yes, you might want to regulate that, but you don’t want to regulate all the innovators and start-ups to death, essentially. So having a tiered approach makes a lot of sense in that way, and that’s maybe part of the answer. Maybe the Europeans are focusing a lot of attention on the risks, and I see that is not so much the priority. In another context, I don’t say it’s not important to look at the risk, but having also an agile way of regulating, because as you mentioned, there’s a lot of new developments happening all the time, and the legal, the lawmaking cycle is in many cases much slower than the innovation cycle of start-ups and entrepreneurs. So that’s why a flexible approach focusing on economic benefits that are happening locally with tiered risk management is maybe my recommendation.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you, thank you. Then let’s go on to Dr. Catherine’s question. She was asking about harmonizing capacity-building throughout the countries through different sectors, whether it’s health or economy. We as parliamentarians usually have these specialized committees, and we would need to need this expertise. So do you think you can answer that, Ms. Burr?

Beckwith Burr: Yes, and thank you for the question. I feel keenly the pain that you describe in the sort of tension between executive branch decision-making and legislation. I have been in an executive branch agency and worked in the legislature in the United States. And let me just say, at ICANN, we don’t advocate sort of particular policies or laws or legislation, but we care very much that when legislatures act, they understand what they’re doing and how the internet works and whether what they’re proposing to do will break the internet or how it will impact it. So ICANN is very actively engaged whenever it hears about legislation. If it can be helpful in providing information and providing training, you know, sort of non-partisan, not advocating one way or another, but educating, ICANN is there to do it. If your government agencies won’t include you in a delegation to ICANN, ICANN has a fellows program. You can apply. They will provide funding to bring you to an ICANN meeting, financial support, train you, introduce you to people so then you know who to reach out to. So I’m not sure exactly who put on the capacity building in Rwanda, but I know they care very much about doing that. You have some wonderful women in both of your countries who are very much involved in ICANN, and I’ll give you their names afterwards, but I bet you know them. And so I do think it’s absolutely important. Some parliamentarians have technical backgrounds and understand. Other parliamentarians see problems and concerns and they want to respond to it, but they need the tools and information. and to do that in a way that does no harm and that actually solves the problem. And that, if I can just respond to your question because this is, this feels like a deja vu moment. You may all recall in the mid 90s when privacy on the internet became a big thing and this debate about, do we regulate now? Do we wait until we understand it? It was a very big deal. And some countries took the, don’t regulate, let’s see what it does, let’s focus on the invasion. Some countries took the focus, took the, let’s focus on harms. I think there’s a balance that you need to apply, which is, if you can identify the risk there, can you identify principles that will guide your thinking and your regulation and your governance and the way that you enforce laws that are on the books? So I think it’s critical for every legislature to be thinking about the principles that affect AI. I’m not sure that it’s, there’s a very big risk that you develop technology specific legislation that locks you into a particular way of thinking about technology, which changes so rapidly so that you pass a law and it is outdated the moment it’s signed into law. There’s a lot of risk about that, but having sound grounding and principles and the work that UNESCO is doing on principles for AI, for example, is very important work. So I do think that in some of the most risky areas, doing something like a serious principles-based review makes sense. sense. But in other areas, you might want to let a thousand flowers bloom. So, but this tension, the tension of sort of when do you act, when is it too early to act, and when is it too late to act? If we study what’s happened in data protection, I think it gives us a very important lesson in how complicated it is to get that exactly right.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Thank you. So, I guess when you speak about ICANN having that facilitating role as facilitators, that would probably answer Dr. Hadji’s question about how capacity building should be a collaborative effort between different entities.

Beckwith Burr: Yeah, and I am happy to provide information on our fellows program because, you know, get one parliamentarian to come and that provides a way for us to get to know you, you to get to know us, and we can provide the resources. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Mr. Cedric, could you also elaborate on Dr. Jamal’s question about regulations of AI, as well as Dr. Catherine when she spoke about how can we deal with harms, how can we strengthen the laws?

Cedric Wachholz: Thank you so much. So, I’m astonished to hear that the private sector in the morning said that there’s no need for regulation, because I think what we hear also from the private sector is really a strong need for clarity. It is not always lost necessarily, but there are many, many examples, and just an easy one from the UNESCO perspective. We work on education. We have an example of a European country which was working on educational management and information systems in the education system and invited companies to provide solutions. We used AI, which then became challenging. in terms of privacy, in terms of their modalities of return on investment, and so on. And then they wanted to regulate, and then the private sector said, well, you can’t change the rules of the game during the game. So sometimes the challenges arise, and one fully understands really only why things are evolving, and this is not about lawmaking here, but just to point out some of the concrete challenges. So I think what the private sector would like, if I may say that, but which you have sometimes stated also from the highest level, is just clarity for them to be able to move forward. Now, in terms of the judiciary also, and it responds also partly to the question or to the points from Kenya, but not only. UNESCO has developed a network of 36,000 judicial operators, meaning judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and so on, who we are training. And 8,500 we trained on AI and digital transformation, and I think the last workshop was actually about two weeks ago in Kenya with 35 judges, and so there are existing laws which can be used to also limit some of the risks and the harms, and we have many toolkits. We have MOOCs, so online learning platforms, but also many webinars and so on for judges, and face-to-face training and regional trainings to see, for example, how with human rights law you can actually already make decisions, and there are a lot of case studies which have been published in the global toolkit. So this is on the judiciary, because you asked that question too. But in terms of capacity development, also for Kenya, again, we are having a big project with other UN agencies too, which will, where we will… We have also a MOOC for parliamentarians in the mid of 2025. This is the aim. So this is an online training. It will just be 12 hours. So it’s not too comprehensive, but six modules which give a good base, I think, on also the legislation.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you very much for your answer. I think, Miss Olga, you want to just add something?

Olga Skorokhodova: Yeah, I just wanted to also kind of provide the private industry perspective on the regulation, whether this is the time or not the time to regulate. And again, I’m speaking on behalf of a public private sector, right? But it’s really the Google’s position. And it’s very short. AI is too important not to regulate, but it’s also too important not to regulate well. That’s our motto, the motto of Google. And then also the approach towards regulation that we suggest to consider is really responsible, bold and together. That’s basically responsible means putting responsibility really at the front and center and then bold meaning really thinking strategically about where we can use AI for economic development as well. And then together meaning the dialogue. And in terms of whether this is the right time to go after hard regulation or not, I think this is really eventually down to the countries to decide. We were very actively involved in the discussion around European AI Act that has been just adopted and we generally support the risk based approach. However, we also see that many countries and I just had today in the morning a meeting with the SADAR, which is a Saudi data and AI authority. They definitely don’t want to go after hard regulation. But rather, that’s very interesting, by the way, approach. They are very, very involved in discussions around standards and several. representatives of the authority of actually chairing the groups that are developing standards for AI certification that are really just coming up, you know, being released now. That’s also an approach. So we as a company definitely want to share our expertise. We see different models across the world, but really striking this balance between responsible, bold, you know, and together. This is difficult, but it’s something that we really need to, I guess, you know, do together. Yeah. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. All right. I think we have time to wrap up with just two more questions and then we can have our final. Yeah. Your name, please.

Audience: I would like to thank the Kingdom for the leadership and the people for the program. Sorry, just a minute. We’ll just give you a minute to… I swear to God, your problem is that you left it in English. No, we don’t… All languages are available. With all respect. Anyhow, of course, I’m putting the subject in points, and it’s not a problem. As some of the other parliaments have said, the parliaments don’t have that much backing. So, I mean, if there is cooperation between the parliaments and the EU, for example, and UNESCO, whatever, all the interested parties. That’s the first thing. Second, We are not only talking about the security in terms of preserving private information, but we as the Middle East region, and especially in the Gulf, we have a heritage, and we are preserving this heritage, and not only preserving data, preserving data is a part of it. But we belong to other things that may not mean that much to some organizations, but we even belong to the owners of other religions, like the Jews are preserved, and in Christianity there are people who are preserved, and we also have something that we belong to and preserve. This is one of the points that should be taken into account in studies and projects, especially in the private sector. The private sector, as they said in the last session, META. META was a scandal, there were many things, no one talked about it, it was a scandal in the past. Telegram has problems in France, and it was put in prison by an order from the French authorities. These points should be put, not only on the preservation of privacy, but I suggest that there should be cooperation between the parliaments of the Gulf countries, by the way, all the parliaments of the Gulf countries, without exception, have put a lot of effort in preserving AR and security, but not only for this, we do not refuse to enter technology. and the people’s culture, so that it doesn’t become an economy. It’s okay. But there, the private sector always has other goals. I don’t want to get into their goals. So the private sector should be aware of these points, and the proposed situation should be between the EU and the UNESCO, or the United Nations, with the Arab parliaments, especially the Gulf parliaments, because they, with respect to the other parliaments, are taking very fast and strong steps in this area. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you, Dr. Abadi. Please, Dr. Saleh, and then we’ll just answer the questions and wrap up.

Audience: Inshallah. Thank you very much. Since we are in Saudi Arabia again, welcome again to Saudi Arabia, since we are almost finishing. I just want to let you know, since we are in Saudi again, we have the agency that’s called SADAIA, which is Saudi Data and AI, or Artificial Intelligence Authority, and we have many laws already in place. One is data classification policy and regulations regarding AI, personal data protection law, and the implementation regulation. It was already last year approved in our parliament, all of these. Rules of procedures on commitments for reviewing violations of the provisions of personal data protection laws and implementing regulations. Also, we have rules for appointing personal data protection officer, data sharing policy and regulations, and so on and on. So my point, we have almost all the infrastructure, and maybe you know in SADAIA, they have what’s so-called readiness report, and they are working with UNESCO or with UN. So we already have some drafts with AI, but in the same time, we have a lot of discussions regarding to approve or not to approve. You know, there are two schools in the whole world, and we are trying to work together. to be in the middle for now to see what will happen but we have almost all these regulations and policies we have ethical you know policies and instructions and so on so just want to show you know to show you what what we have in Saudi Arabia and also again the problem not only the data as you know we mentioned this before it’s the processing of data which is the brain which is the algorithms so in Google or Meta or Twitter or X or whatever this is the most important that maybe next we will see what these joint companies or big companies will do to read to be more transparent with the parliaments of different you know countries and also with the governments and with the people first of all thank you very much thank you thank you very much

Rima Al-Yahya: so if I think I will direct the the question for Dr. Baddy to Mr. Cedric because he spoke about how parliaments need more capacity building skills and he wants more collaborations with the the European Union or the United Nations or UNESCO and between parliaments themselves and he specified having more collaborations between the GCC parliaments as because their their objectives are usually very similar and their needs are so could you answer that Mr. Cedric?

Cedric Wachholz: We are of course delighted to work with Qatar and and I think we do have a comparative advantage as a neutral broker we have no vested interest that we are civil servants and try to bring a multi-stakeholder approach to the table but in the end we we have no vested interest in that for Qatar we had already four trainings of judges of 60-70 people of judges so we’re very popular it’s a different domain but just to say we are involved in in some capacity development and we’ll be happy to extend to broader parliamentarian group and work, and we really are delighted about this cooperation and to strengthen that further, including with Qatar.

Rima Al-Yahya: Yes. We’ll do that. All right. So, and the last question from Dr. Saleh is the problem of the processing of data and whether these companies can do more to be more transparent. Ms. Olga?

Olga Skorokhodova: Thank you so much for this question and for really describing that well, the Saudi Arabia approach so far towards regulation. In terms of transparency and algorithmic transparency, right, I think that’s the question is around it. I think there are two aspects that are important. Algorithms at the end of the day is also commercial information, right? And this is a very competitive space, right? Google and other companies, we are competing with each other. And so, yes, of course, there is this aspect that needs to be taken into account that full disclosure of algorithm is a commercial secrecy. That’s one question. That’s one aspect. On the other side, we do see that there is more requirements. And I think we are moving towards really disclosing more information about how we are working and what goes into the algorithm. But also, and I think this is really underappreciated, how much users who use our products can actually be part of it. Can you raise your hand if you checked your, if you use YouTube, if you checked your YouTube settings recently, last quarter? Oh, we have at least one person. But actually, actually, inside the products such as YouTube, you have a lot of, as a user, a lot of tools. how you can minimize algorithm, let’s say, interference in your user experience. And in fact, if you don’t want to see any algorithm recommendations on YouTube, you can now just turn it off. And I think this is something that sometimes is not maybe on the spotlight. But actually, users are also part of that story. But definitely, as an industry, we hear and we see there is more push towards the transparency. And I think that we are making good progress towards disclosing more as much as we can while staying still competitive in this very much competitive space.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. So I hope our experts gave the proper answers that everybody was looking for. We have a couple of minutes. And I would, if it is possible for each panelist, to give any final messages in two minutes or less. We’ll start with Cedric.

Cedric Wachholz: There are many ways forward. And I would just like to warmly invite you to join us in Paris on 4th and 5th June, where we have a capacity development event on AI and digital transformation in the public sector, including parliamentarians. And also, the end of June, last week of June in Thailand, our global forum on the ethics of AI for those who want to continue building their capacities. And I just wanted to thank all of you on behalf of UNESCO for this great panel, but also for all the interest. And we are very happy to work with all of you closely.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Becky?

Beckwith Burr: Yeah, there are enormous amounts of resources out there. It can be very difficult to find them. But I think if you identify trusted sources, UNESCO has done some, as I said, some wonderful work in this area. You know, AI is the hot topic, the flavor of the month, but it’s very closely connected to all of the other kinds of regulatory concerns that we have. So I think looking at it simply in a vacuum could lead us into trouble, and it’s important to look at it in context, understand what laws you have on the books right now. So Saudi Arabia does have a new data protection law that has benefited from years of development of data protection law and reflects best practices up to the moment. It’s very new. And so you can learn also from the work of other parliaments what’s worked, what hasn’t worked. And I think I just want to say, to the extent that I’m here representing ICANN, with respect to the DNS and internet technology work, he’ll appear to help, but also there are lots of resources out there. And I know how important it is to get those resources in a digestible way so that you are not wading through oceans. So I think it behooves all of us to provide some information on where to look and be responsive when you need it.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Thank you, Franz.

Franz von Weizsaecker: So the internet is global and legislation is national. That creates an inherent tension in all of our efforts and it creates the need to put efforts into harmonization. It will never be a 100% harmonized world, for sure, legislatively, but a certain degree of harmonization, a rough consensus, a dialogue between different stakeholder groups, informed policymaking, coordinated policymaking. has a huge benefit to economic development, to the development of the Internet, to the Internet not falling apart, as our colleagues from ICANN know very well. And so that is why we very much support the international coordination efforts at the level of the African Union and its regional economic communities and member states. And we do believe that only when there is a coordinated effort, also the negotiating power of individual countries, vice versa, global companies, global platforms is improving. If one small company makes a difficult regulation, the big tech titans might just switch off the service in that country and end of story, and nobody is benefiting from it. But if there is a coordinated approach, roughly aligned regulatory frameworks for platforms, for data, for AI, that is hugely beneficial to the overall economic benefit as well as to the negotiating power that individual countries have, vice versa, the tech industry.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you, thank you. Olga, last but not least.

Olga Skorokhodova: Thank you so much. I think I would vote for, you know, team sports. Innovation has always been a team sport and AI is a team sport too. So getting AI right will take a team effort. And I think we are on the right track, well, at least within this, you know, panel. And definitely just to kind of piggyback on the comment of my honourable co-panellist, for us, the more harmonised approaches are out there, the easier it is to deploy our solutions. And this is something that we really want you parliamentarians to ask us, you know, to support with. Thank you.

Rima Al-Yahya: Thank you. Thank you very much. So in conclusion, what we have dealt from this session is that building parliamentary capacity. to effectively shape the digital realm involves equipping lawmakers and parliamentary institutions, as well as the private sector with the proper knowledge, the tools and frameworks necessary to govern and oversee the rapidly evolving digital space. This will ultimately ensure that digital policies promote inclusivity, innovation, privacy, security and accountability, and by this the desired outcomes will surely be a more enhanced digital sovereignty and informed decision-making by lawmakers, as well as inclusive growth that benefits all sectors of society, while protecting everyone against misuse and harm. That said, I would like to thank all my panellists on their extremely informative contributions, so please join me in giving a round of applause to our speakers. Thank you. Thank you for attending.

Agreement Points

Importance of capacity building for parliamentarians

Beckwith Burr

Cedric Wachholz

Olga Skorokhodova

ICANN offers training programs and resources for parliamentarians

UNESCO provides capacity building workshops and online courses for parliamentarians

Google runs AI academies and online courses for policymakers in emerging markets

All speakers emphasized the need for and importance of capacity building initiatives for parliamentarians to enhance their understanding of digital policies and AI.

Need for balanced AI regulation

Beckwith Burr

Olga Skorokhodova

Franz von Weizsäcker

Principle-based review is important for high-risk AI areas

AI is too important not to regulate, but regulation must be done well

Risk-based and tiered regulatory approaches can balance innovation and risk management

Speakers agreed on the need for AI regulation, but emphasized the importance of a balanced approach that considers both innovation and risk management.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of data availability and sharing for economic development and the effective deployment of AI solutions.

Franz von Weizsäcker

Olga Skorokhodova

Data sharing across borders is important for economic development in Africa

Local data availability is crucial for developing AI applications

Unexpected Consensus

Multi-stakeholder collaboration in digital policymaking

Olga Skorokhodova

Audience

Getting AI right requires a team effort across stakeholders

Collaboration between parliaments, international organizations, and industry is needed

Despite representing different perspectives (industry and civil society), both speakers emphasized the importance of collaboration between various stakeholders in shaping digital policies.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the importance of capacity building for parliamentarians, the need for balanced AI regulation, and the significance of data availability and sharing for economic development.

Consensus level

There was a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on key issues. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in digital policymaking, which could facilitate more effective collaboration and policy development in this area.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to AI regulation

Olga Skorokhodova

Franz von Weizsäcker

Cedric Wachholz

AI is too important not to regulate, but regulation must be done well

Risk-based and tiered regulatory approaches can balance innovation and risk management

Existing laws can be used to limit AI risks and harms

Speakers had different perspectives on how to approach AI regulation. Skorokhodova emphasized the need for balanced regulation, von Weizsaecker advocated for a risk-based tiered approach, while Wachholz suggested using existing laws to address AI risks.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement centered around approaches to AI regulation and the balance between innovation and risk management in the digital realm.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers was relatively low. Most speakers agreed on the importance of capacity building for parliamentarians and the need for some form of AI regulation. The differences were mainly in the specific approaches and emphases, rather than fundamental disagreements. This suggests a general consensus on the importance of addressing digital policy issues, with room for collaborative efforts in developing effective strategies.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agreed on the importance of data availability and sharing for economic development and AI applications. However, they differed in their focus, with Skorokhodova emphasizing local data availability and von Weizsäcker stressing cross-border data sharing in the African context.

Olga Skorokhodova

Franz von Weizsäcker

Local data availability is crucial for developing AI applications

Data sharing across borders is important for economic development in Africa

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of data availability and sharing for economic development and the effective deployment of AI solutions.

Franz von Weizsäcker

Olga Skorokhodova

Data sharing across borders is important for economic development in Africa

Local data availability is crucial for developing AI applications

Key Takeaways

There is a significant need for capacity building and technical knowledge among parliamentarians to effectively shape digital policies.

A balanced approach to AI regulation is needed, considering both innovation and risk management.

Data governance and cross-border data sharing are crucial for economic development, especially in emerging markets.

Multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments, industry, civil society, and international organizations is essential for effective digital policymaking.

Existing laws and principles-based approaches can be used to address some AI risks and harms while more comprehensive regulations are developed.

Resolutions and Action Items

ICANN, UNESCO, and Google offered to share information about their training programs and resources for parliamentarians with the IGF Secretariat.

UNESCO invited participants to join capacity development events on AI and digital transformation in June in Paris and Thailand.

Unresolved Issues

How to balance the need for algorithmic transparency with protection of commercial secrets in AI systems

Specific approaches for preserving cultural heritage in data governance frameworks

The appropriate timing and scope of AI-specific legislation across different countries and regions

Suggested Compromises

Adopting a tiered or risk-based approach to AI regulation that focuses on high-risk applications while allowing more flexibility for low-risk innovations

Pursuing harmonized data policies and AI frameworks at regional levels (e.g. African Union) to increase negotiating power with global tech companies while still enabling cross-border data flows

Leveraging existing laws and regulatory frameworks to address AI risks in the short-term while developing more comprehensive AI-specific legislation

AI is too important not to regulate, but it’s also too important not to regulate well.

speaker

Olga Skorokhodova

reason

This concise statement captures the delicate balance needed in AI regulation, acknowledging both the necessity and the challenges of effective regulation.

impact

It shifted the discussion from whether to regulate AI to how to regulate it effectively, encouraging a more nuanced approach to the topic.

The European approach on AI is putting things into different risk categories. And when you’re dealing with biometric data of the entire population and very private information and so on, that’s a high-risk environment. So yes, you might want to regulate that, but you don’t want to regulate all the innovators and start-ups to death, essentially.

speaker

Franz von Weizsäcker

reason

This comment introduces the concept of risk-based regulation, offering a practical approach to balancing innovation and protection.

impact

It deepened the conversation by providing a concrete example of how regulation can be tailored to different levels of risk, influencing subsequent discussions on regulatory approaches.

Parliament do not understand. They need to make a lot of consultations and in and out of the country. And because of the fact that there is a gap, a knowledge gap, and that would make that bill stay there for a very long time.

speaker

Honorable Al-Hajji

reason

This comment highlights the critical issue of knowledge gaps among parliamentarians when it comes to technology and AI.

impact

It shifted the focus of the discussion towards the importance of capacity building for parliamentarians, leading to further exploration of how to address this gap.

We have very, very, very few members of parliament that actually understand technology. I am an exception because I’m a software developer and I’ve been in the field for 25 years now, but I’m one in maybe hundreds or 200 members of parliament.

speaker

Honorable Al-Hajji

reason

This personal insight provides a stark illustration of the technological knowledge gap in parliaments.

impact

It reinforced the urgency of addressing the knowledge gap and led to discussions about specific capacity-building initiatives for parliamentarians.

The internet is global and legislation is national. That creates an inherent tension in all of our efforts and it creates the need to put efforts into harmonization.

speaker

Franz von Weizsäcker

reason

This comment succinctly captures a fundamental challenge in regulating the digital realm.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider the need for international cooperation and harmonization in digital regulation, influencing subsequent comments about coordinated approaches.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by highlighting the complexities of AI regulation, the importance of risk-based approaches, the critical need for capacity building among parliamentarians, and the necessity of international harmonization in digital regulation. They moved the conversation from general concerns about AI to more specific, actionable discussions about how to effectively govern the digital realm while balancing innovation, protection, and global cooperation. The comments also underscored the urgent need for parliamentarians to gain technological expertise to effectively shape digital policies.

How can capacity building initiatives for parliamentarians be improved and made more accessible?

speaker

Maha Abdel Nasser (Egyptian parliamentarian)

explanation

Many parliamentarians lack knowledge about digital technologies and AI, yet they are responsible for voting on related legislation. Improved capacity building is crucial for informed decision-making.

How can we address data colonization and ensure fair benefits from data for countries in the Global South?

speaker

Maha Abdel Nasser (Egyptian parliamentarian)

explanation

There are concerns about data from Global South countries being exploited without fair compensation or local benefit. This issue requires further exploration to ensure equitable data practices.

How can we ensure capacity building reaches parliamentarians across all relevant sectors, not just ICT committees?

speaker

Catherine Mumma (Senator from Kenya)

explanation

AI and digital technologies impact various sectors. Comprehensive capacity building across parliamentary committees is necessary for effective governance.

Should the focus be on strengthening existing laws to address potential AI harms rather than creating new AI-specific legislation?

speaker

Catherine Mumma (Senator from Kenya)

explanation

This approach may be more flexible and avoid prematurely constraining AI development while still addressing potential risks.

Is there an optimal timeframe for implementing AI regulations, and how can we balance innovation with risk management?

speaker

Jamal Fakhr (Bahrain)

explanation

There is tension between regulating early to prevent harms and waiting to avoid stifling innovation. Finding the right balance and timing is crucial.

How can collaboration between parliaments, especially in the Gulf region, be strengthened to address shared digital governance challenges?

speaker

Dr. Abadi (unspecified country)

explanation

Regional collaboration could lead to more effective and harmonized approaches to digital governance, particularly given shared cultural contexts.

How can large tech companies increase transparency about their algorithms while protecting commercial interests?

speaker

Dr. Saleh (Saudi Arabia)

explanation

Balancing algorithmic transparency with business competitiveness is a key challenge in AI governance that requires further exploration.

Summary

This discussion focused on the role and future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) within the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review and the Global Digital Compact (GDC) implementation. Participants emphasized the IGF’s unique position as a multistakeholder platform for inclusive dialogue on internet governance issues. They highlighted its contributions over the past 19 years, including fostering global awareness of critical digital issues, developing intersessional work, and nurturing national and regional IGFs.

Key points of discussion included the need for the IGF to evolve and adapt to new challenges, produce more tangible outcomes, and enhance its inclusivity, particularly for underrepresented regions and communities. Participants stressed the importance of strengthening partnerships with UN agencies, the private sector, and other stakeholders. The role of national and regional IGFs in localizing internet governance discussions and driving grassroots engagement was emphasized.

Many speakers advocated for making the IGF a permanent institution within the UN system, with adequate funding and resources. They also called for improving the IGF’s ability to communicate its outcomes to relevant policymaking spaces and interfacing more effectively with governments and intergovernmental processes.

The discussion highlighted the need for the IGF to balance innovation with inclusivity and privacy concerns, address the digital divide, and focus on emerging technologies like AI. Participants agreed that the IGF should play a crucial role in implementing the GDC and contributing to the WSIS Plus 20 review process. The overall consensus was that the IGF remains a vital platform for shaping the future of internet governance, but it must continue to evolve to meet new challenges and increase its impact.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The role of the IGF within the WSIS framework and how to enhance it

– Institutional improvements needed for the IGF, including making it permanent

– The importance of the multi-stakeholder model and inclusivity in internet governance

– The need for more tangible outcomes and actionable recommendations from the IGF

– The critical role of national and regional IGF initiatives (NRIs)

The overall purpose of this discussion was to reflect on the IGF’s contributions over the past 19 years and explore ways to strengthen its role and impact as it approaches its 20th anniversary and the WSIS+20 review. Participants aimed to identify priorities for improving the IGF’s institutional structure and its place within the broader internet governance ecosystem.

The tone of the discussion was largely constructive and forward-looking. There was a sense of pride in the IGF’s accomplishments, but also recognition of the need for evolution and improvement. The conversation became more urgent and action-oriented as it progressed, with many participants emphasizing the need for concrete steps to enhance the IGF’s relevance and effectiveness. Overall, the tone reflected a shared commitment to the IGF’s mission and a desire to see it adapt and thrive in the face of new challenges.

Speakers

– Carol Roach: MAG Chair for IGF 2024

– Gbenga Sesan: Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, co-moderator

– Vint Cerf: Internet pioneer

– Christine Arida: Board Member of the Strategic Advisory to the Executive President, National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt

– Timea Suto: Global Digital Policy Lead for the International Chamber of Commerce

– Valeria Betancourt: Internet Governance Lead, Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

– Kurtis Lindquist: President and CEO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

– Jorge Cancio: Representative from Swiss government

– Nigel Hickson: Works for the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology on Internet Governance issues

– Bertrand de La Chapelle: Executive director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

– Juan Alfonso Fernández González: From the Ministry of Communications of Cuba Juan Alfonso Fernández González

Additional speakers:

– Nthati Moorosi: Minister of ICT Science and Innovation from Lesotho

– Manal Abdel Samad: Public policy advisor from Lebanon

– Khaled Fattah: Expert in cyber security

– Israel Rosas: From the Internet Society

– Annaliese Williams: Part of the technical community, involved in Australia’s national IGF

– Nnenna Nwakanma: From “the internet”

– Christine Amesson: From the Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Discussion: Reflecting on the Past and Shaping the Future

This discussion focused on the role and future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) within the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review and the Global Digital Compact (GDC) implementation. Participants from various sectors and regions reflected on the IGF’s contributions over its 19-year history and explored ways to strengthen its impact and relevance moving forward.

1. The Role and Contributions of the IGF

Speakers unanimously recognised the IGF’s unique position as a multistakeholder platform for inclusive dialogue on internet governance issues. Timea Suto, representing the International Chamber of Commerce, highlighted the IGF’s role in fostering global awareness of critical digital issues and developing a vibrant intersessional work ecosystem. Valeria Betancourt from the Association for Progressive Communications emphasised the IGF’s function as a platform for debate on public policy issues across WSIS action lines, allowing different stakeholders to share challenges and solutions.

Göran Marby, President and CEO of ICANN, underscored the IGF’s centrality to the WSIS framework and internet governance, noting its role in shaping narratives and informing policymaking through open discussions. The IGF was praised for its ability to bring together diverse stakeholders, including governments, civil society, and the private sector, to address complex internet governance challenges.

Juan Alfonso Fernández González played a crucial role in motivating the audience, raising important questions about stakeholder representation and IGF attendance frequency. This highlighted the ongoing need to ensure diverse and consistent participation in the forum.

2. The Future of the IGF and WSIS+20 Review

As the IGF approaches its 20th anniversary, participants discussed its future role and potential improvements. There was broad agreement that the IGF should play a crucial part in implementing the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and contributing to the WSIS Plus 20 review process.

Timea Suto argued that the IGF should serve as a foundational resource for GDC implementation and maintain momentum for the WSIS+20 review. Valeria Betancourt echoed this sentiment, calling for the integration of the WSIS framework and GDC within the IGF’s work. She also stressed the need to operationalise the IGF’s vision for more impactful outcomes.

Several speakers, including Vint Cerf and Bertrand de La Chapelle, advocated for making the IGF a permanent institution within the UN system. They suggested that this would require revising the IGF’s mandate and improving its institutional structure to ensure adequate funding and resources. This proposal aimed to enhance the IGF’s stability and long-term impact.

Göran Marby emphasised the need for the IGF to adapt to remain relevant in a changing world, calling for strengthened partnerships with other UN agencies and processes. This sentiment was shared by Christine Arida, who suggested that the IGF should move to its next phase with more tangible outcomes and stronger linkages to governments.

3. Improving IGF Outcomes and Impact

A recurring theme throughout the discussion was the need for the IGF to produce more tangible outcomes and actionable recommendations. This was seen as crucial for enhancing the forum’s relevance and impact on global internet governance.

Valeria Betancourt highlighted the need to strengthen the IGF’s ability to communicate its messages to relevant policymaking spaces. Göran Marby agreed, stating that the IGF should focus on outputs that translate to actions. An audience member suggested that the IGF should generate more concrete recommendations and outcomes.

Nthati Moorosi, Minister of ICT Science and Innovation from Lesotho, proposed that the IGF should have a special forum with the private sector to address connectivity challenges. She also suggested that the IGF could track country progress on inclusivity goals, providing a more systematic approach to monitoring and evaluating the impact of IGF initiatives.

However, Vint Cerf offered a nuanced perspective, arguing that while the IGF can make strong, evidence-based recommendations, its primary strength lies in formulating problems or questions and suggesting where they should be addressed. This view highlights the ongoing debate about the IGF’s role in problem-solving versus problem identification and direction.

4. Enhancing IGF Inclusivity and Representation

Improving the IGF’s inclusivity, particularly for underrepresented regions and communities, was a key point of discussion. Göran Marby stressed the need to enhance inclusivity, especially for voices from the Global South, and to bring in more youth and marginalised communities. Carol Roach, the MAG Chair for IGF 2024, echoed this sentiment, calling for improved engagement with underserved communities.

The role of national and regional IGFs (NRIs) in localising internet governance discussions and driving grassroots engagement was emphasised. Christine Arida suggested leveraging the NRI network to shape the IGF’s renewed mandate. Israel Rosas from the Internet Society called for increasing the visibility of partnerships promoted by NRIs at national and regional levels to demonstrate the IGF’s tangible impact.

Valeria Betancourt highlighted the IGF’s unique ability to facilitate difficult conversations between stakeholders and governments. Audience members noted the IGF’s contribution to education and capacity-building through Internet Governance schools and its reach to grassroots levels and marginalised societies.

5. Balancing Innovation and Inclusivity

Participants stressed the need for the IGF to balance innovation with inclusivity and privacy concerns. The discussion touched on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and their implications for internet governance. Speakers agreed that the IGF should play a crucial role in addressing these new challenges while ensuring that the benefits of digital innovation are accessible to all.

An interesting analogy was shared, suggesting that multistakeholder and multilateral processes need to “hold hands and dance together” rather than just shaking hands, emphasizing the need for deeper collaboration and integration.

Conclusion

The discussion revealed a strong consensus on the IGF’s importance and the need for its evolution. Participants agreed that the IGF remains a vital platform for shaping the future of internet governance, but it must continue to adapt to meet new challenges and increase its impact. Key areas for improvement include producing more tangible outcomes, enhancing inclusivity, strengthening partnerships with other stakeholders, and better integrating with other UN processes.

As the IGF approaches its 20th anniversary, the discussion highlighted the need for a clear vision and action plan for its future role. This includes working towards making the IGF a permanent operation within the UN context, developing strategies to improve engagement with underserved communities, and enhancing the IGF’s ability to produce and communicate actionable recommendations to policymaking spaces.

The creation of a compendium of the IGF’s achievements over the past 19 years was suggested as a way to showcase its impact and inform future directions. While there was broad agreement on these key issues, some questions remain unresolved, such as the specific mechanisms for improving the IGF’s tangible outcomes and impact, and how to effectively balance its role as an open forum for discussion with the need for more concrete outputs. These challenges will likely form the basis for ongoing discussions as the IGF continues to evolve and adapt to the changing landscape of global internet governance.

Carol Roach: Internet Governance. I am Carol Roach, the MAG Chair for IGF 2024. So this Looking Back and Moving Forward is under the theme Improving Digital Cooperation for the Internet that we want. Over the past 20 years, the IGF has played a significant role in the Internet and the digital ecosystem. It has evolved to meet the exponential growth of the Internet and the digital technologies, leveraging a multi-stakeholder model to bring together experts, communities, and users to address innovations, opportunities, and risks. With this in mind, the session today will focus on the IGF’s role in the Global Digital Compact implementation in the context of the WSIS plus 20 review as well as enhancing the IGF presence in the WSIS architecture and IGF institutional improvements ahead of the WSIS plus 20 review process. So joining me on stage and online, we have Timea Suto, who is the Global Digital Policy Lead for the International Chamber of Commerce. We have Valeria Betancourt, Internet Governance Lead, Association for Progressive Communications, or APC. Christine Arida, Board Member of the Strategic Advisory to the Executive President, National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt. And we have Kurtis Lindquist, President and CEO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN. And my co-moderator is Benga Sessan, Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative. Welcome, everybody. So we’re going to jump straight into it and my first question goes to Timea. How did the IGF contribute to the 20-year implementation of the WSIS Action Lines, and what are the substantive contributions the IGF, mainly its reports, intersessional work, can bring to the GDC as we move into its implementation and look towards the WSIS Plus 20 review and beyond? It’s a big question, but I know you can handle that.

Timea Suto: Thank you very much, Carol. Good morning, everyone. It’s nice to see many of you here still on the last day of the IGF and with us in this session, and thank you to everyone for inviting me and ICC to share a few words. For those of you who don’t know us, the International Chamber of Commerce is a global business organization. We represent a network of companies of all sizes and sectors of over 45 million in number in more than 170 countries around the world, so we aim to bring their voice into their conversations here today. About the IGF, ICC was also very much involved in the WSIS process. We were the interlocutor for WSIS back in Geneva and Tunis phases 20 years ago almost, and since then we have an initiative that’s called Business Action to support the information society that looks at the outcomes of the WSIS process and tries to bring the business voices into this conversation. So it’s not unusual that we are always at the IGF and we’re trying to bring businesses into the IGF to support, of course, these meetings at the annual level, but also the work that happens intersessionally. So what has the IGF done in the past 20 years that is relevant to WSIS and the GDC? First of all, it has been instrumental in fostering inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue on internet governance, of course, bringing together governments, businesses, civil society, academia, and the technical community, but also on a number of issues that are related to the internet. I like to say the technologies that either enable or are enabled by the internet. So the IGF has had the conversations in this multi-stakeholder setting in all these areas, and it has established itself as the premier global platform for open and constructive discourse on these issues. So for me, that is one element, the multi-stakeholder conversation and convening power. Another one of the IGF’s major contributions is that it really builds global awareness of the critical digital issues, whether that’s we’re talking about access to digital technologies or inclusion or cybersecurity or emerging technologies. And I think that’s really important. Thank you. encourages dialogue, shared understanding, and collaboration, which I think is a great contribution of the IGF. Over the years, the IGF has developed, as you said, vibrant intersessional work and an ecosystem through initiatives like best practice forums, the dynamic coalitions, the policy networks that have allowed these stakeholders from all around the world to coalesce and collaborate on specific issues on a year-round basis. And they have produced a lot of interesting reports and outputs on issues like cybersecurity, meaningful connectivity, AI, internet fragmentation, and many others. So while these outputs, yes, they are not binding, they provide valuable insights and practical guidance sometimes for policymakers and practitioners, and that is one more element that I think that we need to highlight from the past 20 years’ contributions of the IGF. And then, last but not least, it has fostered a network and the growth of the multi-stakeholder idea through the national and regional IGFs in local and regional communities. And this really helps localize the internet governance discussions that we have at this international level and really bring diverse stakeholders into the conversation to ensure that the regional priorities and voices are fed into the global debates, while also driving grassroots engagement on the digital issues that are pressing for a particular time and place. So these developments all together have been instrumental in identifying some actionable solutions and fostering alignment across sectors and regions, and therefore enabling a more cohesive approach to implementing the WSIS action lines, and I think should be leveraged to channel the voice of the multi-stakeholder community in the review process of the WSIS. But, of course, also very relevant for the GDC. As we consider the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, the IGF can really serve as a foundational resource, in my opinion, that capitalizes on this unique convening power that the IGF has to share insights and expertise that reflect the realities and aspirations of the multi-stakeholder community and to exchange best practices and forge partnerships. to foster and further the GDC implementation. It really is that unique forum that brings us all together where we can discuss, okay, what have you done on GDC, what am I doing, how do we move that forward and make sure that that voice of the community is really part of the discussions around how to implement the GDC as well. And last but not least, I think the IGF’s convening power can also help maintain momentum for these, both the WSIS Plus 20 review and the GDC. We tend to think of them as a moment in time, but I think the IGF has the power to carry that momentum further for the years to come and offer space for dialogue and monitoring and accountability on what we’ve committed ourselves to, whether that’s the WSIS Action Lines, whether that’s the GDC, or perhaps bringing the two together. So I’ll leave it at that, and turn it back to you, Carol.

Carol Roach: Thank you, Timea. I agree with you that we have such a community here, and we’ve already been in the space of discussions, and adding another discussion with regards to the GDC is something we’re able to handle. You’re quite right, thank you. So I’m now going to hand the same question over to Valeria. Thank you.

Valeria Betancourt: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Carol. Good morning, everyone. Very happy to see you all here, and also thank you for the opportunity to share the perspective of the Association for Progressive Communications, a global network of civil society groups working with the internet and other information and communication technologies to improve people’s lives. The Internet Governance Forum has been for years a platform for debate and for dialogue of public policy issues. that cut across multiple action lines, action lines of the WSIS. It complements both the WSIS forum’s role in monitoring progress regarding the WSIS action lines and also the CSTD, which serves as a forum for intergovernmental discussions. The Internet is at the heart of the WSIS vision of a people-centered, inclusive information society. Its development, its availability, how the Internet is used, how affordable and meaningful accessing it is, what languages one can use or read on the Internet, its potential for good but also its potential for harm. All of these Internet governance issues also relate to the WSIS action lines. And for the past 19 years, the IGF has given people from different parts of the world, with different perspectives and from different sectors and groups, the opportunity to share challenges and solutions. The IGF Best Practice Forum on Gender and Access, for instance, became the first global multi-stakeholder space for exploring gender-based online violence. The recommendations that emerged from this Best Practice Forum continues to inform efforts to make the Internet a space that is safe and is secure for women and gender minorities. Another example, the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity. It marked the first steps to recognition of the need to diversify solutions, models, markets and partnerships for empowering the unconnected to connect themselves. It has been mentioned already by Timea, but the regional and national IGFs are spaces for different stakeholders and for civil society to sit alongside governments and have difficult conversations about media freedom, human rights, accountability and digital justice. In the case of the LAC IGF, it has allowed us to build synergies with the e-LAC process, the regional digital agenda that resulted from the WSIS. So by addressing emerging issues and the way in which they are addressed, all aspects of society permeated by digitalisation have evolved, and, obviously, the global digital compact updates the framework for shaping our digital future and processes and proposes a set of shared principles and commitments for a more collaborative digital future. In that sense, it complements well the WSIS framework, and both should be integrated. The IGF is a central space to discuss ways to respond to gaps in the implementation in the WSIS goals, and tackle new issues addressed by the GDC, and in that way to contribute to reduce the fragmentation that permeates the global governance ecosystem of digital technologies. As the IGF vision beyond 2025 document that the Internet Strategy Working Group has put together, as it states, there is no dichotomy between the internet governance and digital governance, and the IGF, within its existing mandate, is a suitable platform for addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by the new and emerging digital technologies that shape our information society, and the related digital policy processes, and, at the same time, Also, continue analyzing and proposing solutions for the never-ending goals of the WSIS. I would like to call on the MAG and the IGF community to implement the actions proposed by the IGF Strategy Working Group in order to operationalize the vision for a more impactful IGF towards a people-centered and planet-centric digital policy, and also for democratic, inclusive, accountable and transparent governance of digital technologies. Last but not least, the IGF, we should recall, it also facilitated the IANA transition and also the NetMundial process emerged from the IGF. So there is a lot to build on the IGF, and the IGF is still playing a critical role to shape the digital future that will serve people’s lives in the best possible way.

Carol Roach: Thank you, Valeria. I do believe and agree with you that the IGF is well-positioned to look at the opportunities and the innovations as well as the threats and the risks, and we’re good at finding gaps and addressing them. So thank you very much. We are poised and ready to be impactful for the GDC as well as our communities. So we’re now going to move and end this session with the audience. We want to make it very interactive. I just want to remind the audience that you have a two-minute limit for your intervention. Please, this is not the time for advertising. Let’s just try to stick with the topics. I’m going to ask Jorge Cancio from Ofcom to start us off with his thoughts. Jorge, you want to take the mic?

Jorge Cancio: Oh, you’re on this side. Welcome. So, hello, do you hear me okay? Good. I don’t see you very well, but I hope you hear me. I’m hearing myself, so it must be working. So thanks for giving me this opportunity. I’m Jorge Cancio from the Swiss government. I was, I have to confess, I was in Tunis almost 20 years ago. When we agreed on the WSIS second phase, the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. So I was part of that process. And if we look back, it’s not only 20 year old documents that we agreed on. We agreed on a vision of a people-centered, development-focused, human-based, human rights-based information society, what is a digital society. And we also agreed on means to make that happen with the so-called action lines, where the different agencies from the UN and also many other stakeholders would work towards that vision. We also agreed on some governance structures, the WSIS action lines would be discussed every year in what became the WSIS Forum. Member states would look into the progress in the Commission for Science and Technology for Development. And we would have the most creative kid on the block, the IGF, to look into emerging topics and have digital governance discussions. So as everything that becomes reality, it hasn’t been perfect. Many things have been imperfect, but we have achieved a lot. Many hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars have been spent in implementing those action lines. Many thousands of hours have been spent in discussing, in exchanging, in networking. So there’s something that became reality from the ideas that were discussed in 2003 and 2005. Now we have the challenge of a newer kid on the block, the global digital compact, which brings some important impulses on data governance, AI governance, on human rights online, on also what connectivity means today. And we have to look how do we implement those new goals. And we think that if we look at the wider WSIS family, so the architecture I mentioned before, where the IGF is a part of it, we have good means to do that, but we need a serious discussion amongst all of ourselves, being able to find a positive sum game in these discussions during the so-called WSIS plus 20 review, to see how this architecture, including the IGF, can deliver on a more fairer digital present and future that addresses the needs of everybody, be it on the global north or the global south. So I think we have a good basis. We have to try to strive for consensus, for common grounds, not being too much attached to flags or to words with many connotations, but really work towards an inclusive multi-stakeholder. So I hope this discussion helps in this, as seven years ago, the IGF helped in bringing about the beginning of the global digital compact process by recommending that the Secretary General should start discussion at the highest international level on the future of digital cooperation. Thank you.

Carol Roach: Thank you, Jorge. The floor is open for questions. You can just make your way down. Introduce yourself, please. Go ahead.

Audience: I’m Kim from the Telecommunication Directorate of Cambodia. Just a quick question. Connect from the previous panel to this panel. My question to all the panelists is how can we connect from the Internet fragmentation to the Internet governance? That’s my short question. Thank you.

Carol Roach: Any of the panelists want to take that? Okay. Sorry. Can you repeat the question again, please? Just give us a brief introduction of what the previous panel was, so we can make the connection.

Audience: Okay. In the previous panels, we heard a lot about the Internet fragmentation, the cause and effects, and we did not really hear much about how to fix it. So in this panel, it’s about the Internet fragmentation. Internet Governance. So what I want to hear is how can the panellists in this discussion connect from the Internet fragmentation to the Internet Governance? So it seems like how can we fix the Internet fragmentation by using the Internet Governance? That’s how I can emphasize to my question. I hope that all panellists are clear with what I want to ask. Is it okay with that or not really?

Timea Suto: Thank you, sir. Yes, the question is clear.

Audience: Excellent.

Timea Suto: Thank you very much for repeating that and connecting us to the previous panel. And this is what IGF should be about, by the way, having conversations across panels as well, not just in sessions that we are sitting in. So Internet fragmentation, the way I see it, how it connects to Internet Governance, Internet Governance discussions here and generally policy discussions on digital issues should be the way through which we actually make sure that we collaborate to avoid fragmented Internet. We are all here talking about an open, interconnected, interoperable, resilient Internet. If we approach these issues, the issues of the Internet or the issues on the Internet in silos or we try to fix them in our own bubbles, in our national context or regional context or in our own stakeholder groups, we are already creating fragmentation. The Internet is something that transcends borders and that is its beauty and I think the greatest challenge. We cannot address what we want the Internet to look like or how the Internet should work without being the same idea of working like the Internet in the Governance conversations. My friend Bertrand says that it was a quote from Kofi Annan, we need to be as innovative as the people. who invented the Internet, if we want to have the conversations about the Internet. So we need to be able, in the Internet governance conversation, the digital policy conversations, to bring ideas, laws, regulations, whatever might be necessary, that connect, rather than break up the various parts that we want to fix.

Valeria Betancourt: Yes, in addition, I think from the governance point of view, it is very important to avoid the proliferation of processes, and to facilitate the integration of processes, so they can work together in a synergetic way, cross-fertilizing not only policy dialogue, but also policy development towards common ends. I think the challenges that we have to face really demand all the stakeholders to work around common goals, and the proliferation of processes, siloing of issues, does not contribute to precisely providing all the necessary solutions and responses that have to be consistent in terms of the different levels that we have to address. In that sense, I think the IGF is a very unique space to precisely consolidate the conversation, the analysis to bring together, and to also identify specific key messages and recommendations that could go to the different decision-making spaces, including at national level. So in that sense, I think fragmentation could be avoided also by integrating the different processes that are relevant for the governance and the policies of the Internet and digital technologies.

Carol Roach: Yes, I think also it’s one of the reasons why the IGF found it necessary to bring, to add the parliamentary and the judiciary track so that we can take that from discussion into policy, bringing the policymakers, the decision-makers into the conversation so that it’s just not talk, that we could move it forward in this collaborative space. Thank you. Vint?

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Carol. So far, this discussion has been extremely helpful. I just wanted to make a couple of observations that drive my conclusions. The first thing is that we’ve all seen the Internet evolve over time, and today it does things that we weren’t doing 30 years ago or 20 years ago. The important point is that the IGF needs to evolve as well, and it needs a permanent presence, because the Internet is not a static thing. IGF has to adapt to the Internet’s evolution, and so we need an IGF there at all times. It should become a permanent part of the DESA operation. It should have mainline funding at roughly $3 million a year, and we need to activate our ability to assess the state of the Internet collectively. There are examples of metrics of the condition of the Internet. UNESCO has its Internet universality indicators, for example. We might want to work together to assemble a picture of the Internet on an annual basis in order to present policymakers with a sense for where the Internet is going and where there is need for additional governance activities. I would love to see us harness even more the NRIs and the annual IGF meetings and the intersessional activity in order to assess the implementation of the GDC. So we have a big opportunity, I think, as IGF to contribute to the Internet’s evolution and continued utility, and as many of the speakers have pointed out, the Internet’s fragmentation is in some ways the antithesis of its original design, which was to connect everything together. And so we have to be continually concerned about that. fragmentation and abuse of the Internet. We need policies and implementations that will create a safer environment and one which is more productive for everyone. So thanks so much for letting me intervene, Carol. I’m eager to hear what others have to say.

Carol Roach: Somebody online needs a mic open.

Audience: Hello, everybody. My name is Muriel Alapini, and I’m from Benin. Please allow me to speak French because I knew I would be a little emotional during my speech, so I will be go with my native language. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Muriel Ami from Benin. I am intervening as a user of Internet, and I would like to thank each and every person present here physically and remotely, allowing us actually to have Internet and to do whatever we are doing today. In Africa, the Internet is improving, and today, thanks to the IGF, you have no idea how many people are actually learning every day to use Internet. This is allowing them to change their lives and to have a new perspective on the world. The number of people who are participating in associations related to governance, Internet governance, et cetera, is huge. So we reach a point today, a culminated point, where I would like to ask you, everyone, decision makers and representatives from different stakeholders in IGF, to really look at the human side, the human beings who, through Internet, are only thinking about the role of associations. What are these associations doing? What is the IGF doing? The government in Africa is interested in Internet. This was not the case years ago. You have students, you have children. And today, everyone is involved in this collaborative work. Therefore, I would like to call upon you, beside discussions and diplomacy and words, please take into consideration that the humanity today depends on this, actually, tool and on the work that was done by the associations in the field that are bringing a new layer to the population. And this new layer of population is interested in these issues. And the fragmentation and division should not be existent. Despite all of this, actually, we have people who are interested in Internet and all relevant issues. Of course, nothing is perfect, and we need action. We need tangible actions to continue to work with you. And we hope to improve, actually. And we hope that you will be proud of us, because there will be new people contributing in your work. So thank you so much for your attention.

Carol Roach: Thank you. Tamir or Valeria, you’d want to add to the comments? No? Thank you very much for your observations. And the national and regional IGFs are doing tremendous work on the ground. And that is why we can see a lot of movement and improvements as well as the DCs, the dynamic coalitions. We have a question on the floor.

Audience: I’m going to speak in Arabic. In Arabic, the ambassador of goodwill and peace in Yemen, we are suffering from the worst humanitarian crisis, and the Internet blocked the rule of women. So what is the right procedures that we can use the Internet to free and set free the detained women? And why not the international organization enhance the Internet connectivity in Yemen, which suffer from the lack of information and the Internet governance? And how can we protect our data and our service on the Internet space?

Carol Roach: Very good question. Valerio, Tamir? Vint, any input?

Vint Cerf: I think the question, if I’ve understood the question correctly, how do we deal with the inequities that appear, especially in the Internet environment for various groups, women for example, children and others? As you all know, our purpose in the Internet is to be an inclusive and supporting environment where everyone has useful access. The only thing that we can do as we see these inequities happening is to make recommendations for more inclusive capacity, more inclusive practices. Perhaps the best way we can do that is to give examples where these problems have been addressed successfully and to explain what went into those solutions. Some of these problems are not technical. They’re social, they’re economic, they’re cultural. And this is where we have to understand that not all of the solutions are going to admit of a technical response, which makes it harder to address. But recognizing that these solutions require a variety of different responses across social, technical, and economic spheres, I think is an important first step.

Carol Roach: Thanks, Vint. A question from the floor.

Audience: Thank you very much. My name is Martina Legal Malakova. I’m from Slovakia. I’m a MAG member and I represent private sector. We always see the same countries active in also digital or green transition. My question is, what is the action plan that also another countries will be active in IGF and also in implementation GDC that we will achieve our digital future human and planet centric? Thank you.

Carol Roach: Okay. Sorry, Martina, can we have the question again? Sorry.

Audience: Sorry. So my question is, what is our action plan that also another countries will be active in IGF much more and also we will ensure that they will be active in implementation GDC that we will reach our human and planet centric digital future?

Valeria Betancourt: Just a brief response to that. As I was saying, I think the vision that the IGF is crafting for the future of the IGF also includes a set of suggested actions for the IGF community to be able to precisely shed some light in relation to how to refresh the role of the different stakeholders towards precisely that type of digital future. So I think I could call on also again to the IGF community and the MAG to put in action some of those recommendations that I think will put us in the right track towards integrating processes and tackling the challenges that we have.

Kurtis Lindquist: And I think also we need to work closer with the community that the IGF has built through the national and regional networks, but also just to all of us individuals, try and connect the conversations that we have here at the IGF on the international level to the realities that matter to those countries and the stakeholders in those countries, so it’s not just becomes an ivory tower of IGF conversations, but that they actually are connected to the realities. Not everything will be relevant or relevant in the same way to everybody, but I think we need to do a better job in translating what our work here means to those who are working on the ground. We cannot see the podium from up the stage here from the right, but I understand there’s people on the right side, so if I can maybe ask people, I don’t know, if you use the left side, I know it’s a bit of a track, but the moderator can see you, otherwise we can’t see you because of this podium right on the side of the stage. So I’m sorry, I just realized that somebody was there. So Bruna and Bertone are on that side. Maybe use the left side, please, because then we can see you. I’m sorry.

Carol Roach: I just want to interject. I think from the previous speaker and Martina, I think what they’re asking us is to improve our outreach, and as Timea say, to come up with an action plan to make sure that the outcomes that we have here get some kind of traction within the countries that need it. So I think outreach. a better outreach program is required. I don’t know who got to the stage first. Okay, everybody’s moved to this side. So go ahead, speaker on the floor. Go ahead on the floor. Mic on the floor, please.

Audience: Thank you very much, the chair, for giving me the floor. My name is Mary Uduba. I’m from Nigeria. I coordinate the West Africa Internet Governance Forum. I’m part of the Africa Internet Governance Forum and have been part of the WSIS from 2005 in Tunis. The IGF has progressed. We have seen participants from government and business, I mean private sector, and now we are including the parliamentarians and the judiciary. My question is when and where will the multi-stakeholder process and the multilateral process have a handshake? Will it be the implementation of the GDC? We need that handshake. We need it to be smooth enough for us to speak from the same angle and read from the same perspective. The same pitch. Vince, you can answer this question. Thank you.

Vint Cerf: I’m sorry that I was distracted taking notes and I’m not sure that I have the, if I was being asked to answer the question, I think I need a little summary of what the question was.

Audience: Can I say it again?

Carol Roach: Yes, go ahead.

Audience: I’m asking when and where will the multi-stakeholder process process, which the IGF is, and the multilateral process, which the government, okay, where and when will it shake hands, have a handshake when it’s smoothing out, and is the GDC implementation will it help to do this? That’s what I’m asking.

Vint Cerf: Yeah, that’s a wonderful formulation. Thank you for the summary and for the question. You know, I think part of the answer is right here. This is where the multilateral and the multistakeholder process should come together. Remember, multistakeholder includes government. And as Carol has pointed out, we’ve created tracks that include jurists and legislators and regulators to participate in the conversations. And I think you’ll also notice that some of the other parts of the internet infrastructure, think about ICANN and its governmental advisory committee. We have places where these kinds of connections can be made. Even in the technical community, the Internet Engineering Task Force has government representatives showing up to consider technical matters. So your point, which I’d like to emphasize, is that we should be looking for places where the governments and the rest of the multiple stakeholders can work together. And IGF is certainly one of them, which is why I think this should become a permanent part of the UN landscape.

Carol Roach: Thank you, Vint. I’d also like to point out that the IGF works closely with the inter-parliamentary group, and so we are handshaking in that way as well. From the floor, question? Question on the floor, mic, please. Oh, now it’s working.

Audience: Thank you. Thank you, Carol. Now, I just wanted to bring us back to the previous session, because during the Policy Network for Internet Fragmentation session, we discussed specifically Article 29C from the GDC, and asked everyone really a question as to how other stakeholder groups besides governments would think we could act and work together in order to implement, and not just implement, but also analyze, and maybe even establish KPIs for analyzing the implementation of the GDC. And I think, to be honest, this is the main question in the room, right? right, and we still have a lot of questions in the open as to how the GDC communicates with the WSIS Plus 20 process, what’s the role of the IGF, and how can we help steer this process, and maybe looking into next year, it would be really important for us to come to Norway, or come to the Norway preparation, living here as well, with a very clear picture as to how the IGF should help in these discussions, and perhaps develop our own sort of KPIs, together with the Sao Paulo Motor Stakeholder Guidelines to analyze how both processes will go, and how can we improve this space as well. That’s all. Thanks.

Carol Roach: Thank you. Very good input there. Anybody online? I see Nigel Hickson, so we will take one from the online. Go ahead, Nigel.

Nigel Hickson: Yes, good morning. I hope you can hear me. Clearly. Thank you. I wish I was there with you. I’m Nigel Hickson. I work for the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology on Internet Governance issues, and I think this has been a really inspiring discussion. I think that the questions we had earlier on what the IGF can do for marginalized constituencies and marginalized people is just so important, because if the Internet Governance Forum and other bodies cannot work to, if you like, improve processes and to capacity-build in different countries, then I really do think we’ve lost an opportunity, and I think my good friend Mary from Nigeria put a finger on it earlier, in that we have to, if you like, work together as governments in these processes. Often, the multi-stakeholder approach, and I think it’s really important that we and multilateral words are conflated. And what really matters is not the terminology, it’s the ability of people to work together and to cooperate and to coordinate. And in that spirit, just two remarks on what the IJF can perhaps do better. I think what it can do better is not just, if you like, having topics to discuss, which is important, of course. It’s important that we discuss AI. It’s important that we discuss new and emerging technologies. But it’s also critical that we help communities in their capacity building. And there, I think the IJF could do a lot more. We could respond to the comments and the needs and the messages we get through the NRI network, and we could respond at the IJFs to a certain amount of capacity building, case studies where people have, in other countries, solved problems that countries still have with connection, with competition, competition policy, and many other issues where we could perhaps do more to enable people to get online in an affordable way. So I do think there’s more we can do, and we look forward, of course, to the mandate being renewed of the IJF, which will give it new spirit, which will give it new dynamic to work on these critical issues. So thanks for this panel, it’s really great. Carol, you’re an inspiration, as always.

Carol Roach: Thank you very much, Nigel. We’ll just take one more question in this segment, and, oh, sorry, I wanna make it equal, so we’ll do Nima and then one more from the floor. Nima? Oh, sorry, I think I pronounced your name wrong. Yes, I can’t see that well from this side. Nima, go ahead. Remember, two minutes, please. So, I’m going to turn it over to Mary, who is going to talk about the fragmentation of the internet. Mary, do you want to go first? Can everyone hear me? Yes, Nana, go ahead.

Audience: Thank you very much. This has been a very interesting one. I had to wake up early to follow. So, I’m going to talk about the importance of Internet Governance schools. The IG schools are very critical in building capacity on one end, but also inducting people into the multi-stakeholder model of governance, not just on Internet governance, and that’s why I’m very happy that we have the judiciary joining us after the parliamentarians. I believe that for those of us who are faculty, we have seen that those stakeholders, individuals from whatever stakeholder group they’ve come from, who have gone through the Internet Governance schools, are more holistic in their approach. I think the IG schools have been around for 12, 15 years, and I believe that there is a generation from the Internet Governance schools that have been around for a long time, and that’s why I’m very happy that we have the judiciary joining us today. I would like to thank all of the graduates who are now the decision-makers, and I would like to put it on our table that as we renew the mandate, and, by the way, I applaud the support of the UK Government to have this mandate, because this is where the national and regional initiatives actually come together. The schools are born by NRIs. The schools help induct people into the multi-stakeholder framework. The schools help us to raise holistic stakeholders into this, and they are more engaged because they’re coming through the right way. So I just want to lay this on our tables, pay homage to all of those who’ve been from the WSIS era, but encourage the newer generation like Muriel and the younger ones who come after us. So there is the Vincent’s generation, there is the Nena generation, there’s the Muriel generation. And I believe that as we work together to build more, the schools are critical. And like Mandela says, education is still the strongest weapon we have for development. And it implies in the IG section that educating IG schools may be our greatest weapon to ensure a multi-stakeholder and a united global digital community. My name is Nena. I come from the internet, and it’s been an honor following every step of the way from here in Abidjan. Merci beaucoup.

Carol Roach: Thank you very much, Nena. We have one last question from the floor. We do have another segment to get into, another exciting one. So last question from the floor. Thank you.

Bertrand de La Chapelle: Thank you. And thank you for making this a real interactive session. And apologies for my Martini voice, which is a strange thing to have in Saudi Arabia. My name is Bertrand de La Chapelle. I’m the executive director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network. Like Jorge, I was in the WSIS when people who were extremely innovative, including Nitin Desai, and Marcus Kummer, created the innovation that is the IGF on which we continue to run. The IGF has developed, added innovations as well, and one of the most important is the creation of the national and regional IGFs, which came up, bottom up the way they should be. The key problem we have today is that the IGF is caught in a catch-22 situation. It doesn’t have the resources to fulfill all its potential, and it cannot get the resources unless it charts a vision of what it wants to achieve and what is the potential it wants to accomplish. We have the WSIS Plus 20 review process, and what I’m going to say is not the only thing that we should discuss at the WSIS Plus 20 review. There are many other topics, and Jorge mentioned them among others. But there’s one thing that we should definitely put on the agenda as quickly as possible, is beyond the prolongation or the permanent nature of the mandate or the existence of the IGF, we need to seriously discuss the revision of its mandate and the improvement of its institutional structure. I do not know how to do it. I may have ideas. Other may have ideas. We will have to discuss this during that period. The suggestion I’m making is that we ask, and we collectively launch a consultation to all the national and regional IGFs in the perspective of the IGF in Norway in June next year and beyond, to ask at least to all of them this question, maybe others, but this question, how do you see the improvements, the new mandate for the IGF, how to improve its institutional structure, and most importantly, how should we discuss this? Should we have a new WGIG? Should we have another group? Should we have something more than all the reviews that have already been made? But this question of the new mandate is more important than just the question of reconduction. Thank you

Carol Roach: Thank you. I this is a very good opportunity to invite persons to go onto the IGF website and to review the vision document that the working group on strategy produced and the The MAG has given a nod to and it gives an outline to much of what was said just now with regards to a Way forward and with that I’m gonna hand over to Gbenga

Gbenga Sesan: It’s all yours, sir, thank you. Thank you Carol and thank you Timia. Thank you Valeria I I think that was a that was a good one Now we of course, I will say thank you to Christian. Christian is with us online Thank you for being patient, but this the first conversation then feeds into the second and thanks Curtis for Being patient now, we will move to have a conversation on two specific areas One is how do we enhance the IGF within the WSIS architecture? And the other which a few people had actually, you know entered on as we were getting comments and questions Is on the institutional improvement of the IGF we’re talking about a renewal of the mandate making it permanent But what would that look like? Institutionally, and so I have two questions for both Christian and and and caught Curtis and These two questions you could decide to answer just one or you know Take one of the questions or both And the first is how does the IGF Currently fit into the structure of implementing the WSIS outcomes and what role should the IGF play as we approach WSIS plus 20 review and beyond? That’s the first question. And the second is, taking into account all the contributions of the IGF over the last 19 years from all stakeholders, and the role of the IGF within the UN ecosystem, what do you consider the key priorities that we should focus on on strengthening the IGF in terms of institutional and other areas? I guess we can start with Christine, whose mic is already ready to go.

Christine Arida: Thank you very much, can you hear me well?

Gbenga Sesan: Yes.

Christine Arida: Okay, great. Maybe I should start my intervention by congratulating the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for such a successful and great IGF, even if I’m participating online, it’s obvious and clear, and I’m really proud that the IGF is again in the Arab region. Also, let me say that I very much appreciate the opportunity to join this session, and I really thank the MAG for organizing this timely discussion on the future of the IGF and how to continue to empower its role in the digital governance space. I think I need to begin like all the other people who talked in the session before me to acknowledge the longstanding contribution that the IGF has had to the internet governance space. It has evolved into this unique platform that we all cherish because it is providing open dialogue for everyone on equal footing. But not only that, it’s also this space where emerging policy challenges have arised in a bottom-up manner and are being analyzed, discussed in a multi-stakeholder setup, and where in-depth policy options are developed and put forward to the wider community. I think we all appreciate that very much and have been long enough in there to see that as well. So it’s the time now to look at the future and address the gaps in order to advance the IGS mandate within the upcoming WSIS Plus 20 review. And I really like the interventions that were made by all the different participants from the floor, how we have to look at that. I particularly like Bertrand’s intervention that we really should look at the how, not just at the renewal, but what should we be doing to continue to build on this unique role. So I would like in my intervention to focus on three main points, which I believe, in my view, are critical to the empowerment of the IJF moving forward. And they are, in my view, all equally important, no particular order. So number one, and this was mentioned also by others, is the extended network of national, regional, and youth IJFs. I think this grassroots network of NRIs, which has grown organically over the years, reflects the specific diversions of the IJF community. NRIs reach to their communities, to their multi-stakeholder communities, and they’re so well-positioned to reach out to policy-making bodies. And I say not only policy-maker, but also policy-making bodies within their respective territories and regions. And therefore, I think they can, they are really well-aligned with the WSIS, they have put the IJF well-aligned with the WSIS vision to be people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented. And they provide a source of innovation. We’ve seen so many different modalities, emerging policy topics, and different output shapes come out innovatively from NRIs and being injected into the global IJF. So I think we would be losing a lot if we do not leverage the NRIs’ extended network ahead of the WSIS Plus 20 review to shape up the renewed mandate of the IJF. I think this is where we should look, this is where we should have the discussions, and then we should have a coordinated work that would come through the NRIs to identify the gaps and put in directions for evolution and development, possibly at the upcoming IJF in Norway. The second point I want to tackle is the importance of creating linkages and building channels beyond the IJF community. The IJF has 20 years. of policy dialogue wisdom, and it is a cornerstone of the digital governance landscape, with no doubt. But it is also one component of the bigger WSIS family, Jorge talked about that. It has its unique role, which complements the action line facilitators, the program is monitoring for us, or even intergovernmental discussion venues. But with that holistic view in mind, I think we should really look at that there is no dichotomy between Internet governance and digital governance. The mandate of the IGF has been so broad that it has really put forward all the rapidly evolving challenges of digital policies, and this is clearly visible in the agenda over the past years, in its intersessional work, and also in the wealth of output it produces. I think what we’re missing, or what we need to do more, and this has been said, is how to communicate this more effectively and efficiently beyond the IGF’s own community. And in order to do that, linkages need to be made, more institutional coordination needs to be made, and to do that we need adequate and efficient resourcing and institutionalization of the IGF, which is also imperative if the IGF would play the role we want it to play in the implementation and the follow-up of the GTC. My third and last point is about the role of the IGF in inspiring multilateral processes and helping them evolve in the spirit of multistakeholder principles. The Net Manjar Plus 10 multistakeholder statement talks about the importance of including stakeholder voices in multilateral and decision-making processes, and that is important. Why? Because without that we wouldn’t have effective solutions to challenges that we face, and solutions wouldn’t be implementable without that. So the IGF has the beauty of both worlds. It is the innovative kid on the block, the innovative multistakeholder process within the multilateral UN system, and so best fitted to address the gap between discussion and action, between dialogue and recommendations. Therefore, I think the IGF should dedicate a track, not only at the annual event, but also intersessionally, also within NRIs, to pull, analyze, and help evolve the different flavors of multistakeholder approaches that are out there, and then echo them to inspire multilateral processes, and obviously the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines would serve well in that respect. To that end, I think we should formalize the IGF evolution in order to give room for ongoing and continuous innovation and experimentation within the IGF framework. We should be bold enough to harness its potential to deliver actionable and tangible outcomes, such as evidence-based policy recommendations or policy testbeds, for example. And finally, I think we should be really mindful of the growing, increasingly fragmented digital governance ecosystem, and make sure the IGF plays the role we want it to play in the coordination of this space by providing cohesion and inclusive and diverse participation. of stakeholders, especially from developing countries and the global south. With that, I go back to you, and thank you very much for listening to me.

Kurtis Lindquist: Thank you. I’d also like to start by thanking the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a very successful hosted IGF. You asked the question, what does the IGF fit into the current institutional structure of the VISIS outcomes? The IGF is really the central to the VISIS framework and to the VISIS internal governance. VISIS recognized that the multistakeholder collaborative effort and collaboration is a requirement of necessity for successfully implementing the goals from the VISIS process. In that spirit, the UN and the UN Secretary General established the IGF as the platform to facilitate interrelated public policy discussions. In this space, the multistakeholder approach, which is very core to the VISIS outcomes, actually is brought to life and becomes concrete. For the last 19 years, the IGF has provided this platform for government, civil society, business, academia, and the technical community to engage with each other in these open discussions that we’re having here and have had for the last 19 years. And internet governance and the future of the internet. And the real value in this is fostering this dialogue and building consensus on these topics that then shapes the narratives and inform policymaking at national and international levels as we go forward. And as we come to the VISIS plus 20, and I think IGF is going to have, in order to remain relevant, I mean the world around us is changing as well, it’s not a static world, we’re not in the same world as we were 19 years ago, and IGF really needs to change to facilitate the new discussions and amplify to the decision makers and there’s a real outcome that the discussions here is taken away. IGF should continue to strengthen partnerships with other UN agencies and topical and specialist agencies and their processes. And there is really a need for the coordinated global governance more than ever before. As again the world has evolved on from the 19 years ago when we came together in Tunis. And the IGF really already was recognized in the GDC as the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussion of internet governance issues. And we really should make sure that we don’t undermine that role and the importance as expressed in the GDC. Your second question was about the substantive contribution by the IGF in 19 years. And I think there’s three key areas to focus on is to strengthen the outputs. The IGF has been exceptionally effective in generating rich and meaningful discussions on a wide range of topics relating to internet governance. But we need those discussions to translate into tangible and actionable outcomes that as I said we can take with us and bring back into policy-setting discussions. And this should also help to bring impact in bridging the digital divide as we heard in some of the questions in the previous session. And make sure it helps also to connecting the unconnected people. The second key area is to enhance inclusivity. It was also a topic of the previous session or the previous part. And we really need to bring in more voices especially from the global south into the discussions. The youth and marginalized communities. I mean this was I think two or three of the questions or points made earlier. I completely agree with that. There is a diversity of perspectives here that makes the IGF quite unique. Again it’s one of the outcomes of the multi-stakeholder process, right? That’s why we’re here. And it’s really important that those unique perspectives are shared with these underrepresented regions. That they are heard in this and brought into these discussions. So make sure we have really have the broad stakeholder base that we can have in the multi-stakeholder process. And I think it’s also important to say that representation matters because the governance framework we have and it was driving to really must reflect realities of needs of all the Internet users all around the world in order to make this is also have confidence in the process. And the last area is to adapt to new challenges. IGF has evolved. over the years. It’s not the same IGF as 18 years ago, so there has been an evolution. There are new challenges, new topics, and this has really been the platform for this multi-stakeholder process and participation to discuss around these emerging technologies and emerging challenges and policy challenges. We need to make sure that we continue to bring that in and to adopt it. And if we don’t address these priorities, I think the IGF has a risk of losing a bit of, maybe credibility, but also relevance, right? There is a risk that that’s undermined. And last, of course, there is also geopolitical issues that could deepen the global divides, and we had to be very careful to also address that and provide a platform for that to ensure that we have, as Vint talked about, the continued unified and open Internet that’s globally reachable. That’s a very important part, as we heard in the previous session as well.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you, Curtis. And the interesting thing is you’ve both emphasized the role of multi-stakeholder, the multi-stakeholder nature of the IGF and the lessons we’ve learned and how that helps with a lot of diversity. We will come to the room now. This room is full of experts, and I’m sure that, you know, we will benefit from the contributions and conversation. I will invite, to get us started on this, I am sure we have Joan in the room to get us started on this this twin questions. First of all, what is the role of the IGF within the, you know, WSIS framework? And secondly, how do we work on improving this in terms of improving the institutionalization of the IGF as we go into the next phase of the work?

Juan Fernandez: Good morning. I’ve been asked to motivate the audience for this second and round of interactions and questions and ideas. So, but in order to motivate the audience, I need to know the audience. I will introduce myself and if you allow me, I will ask just a couple of questions to try to feel the audience. My name is Juan Fernandez. I’m from the Ministry of Communications of Cuba. That means that I represent government. And you know, here, there are different stakeholders. So my first question, I’d rather, with that light in my face, I don’t see, I will move over there. Well, maybe I will take the microphone so I can move freely. I will ask, can you please raise your hand, those in the audience that represent government, government stakeholders? As usual, a minority here. And please, can you raise your hand, the members that represent civil society? More or less the same. And private sector companies? Well, and the fourth is the technical community. More or less the same. It’s more or less an equal distribution. So thank you very much. And my second question. For whom of you, this is the first IGF? Who repeats, who is the second? And more than two? Oh, the majority. So we have a very faithful community, Carl, that keeps on coming. And so to pass the floor to you to ask the questions, I just want to elaborate on that. In my view, you know, I said I was government. I was in Tunis when… and the IGF was agreed, you know, the proposal to have an IGF, and I’m going to be very honest to you. In that moment, I really did not understand why we needed a new forum that, you know, we have a very tight schedule all the year. So I really was a little bit skeptical about the IGF. But you know what? After the years has passed and the IGF has evolved to what is now, that is not only a yearly meeting, but we have all these national and regionals, IGF, we have a lot of intersessional things that are going on, dynamic coalitions, best practice forum, that are going and working all the year around, and voluntarily by people that are really interested in this thing. So it really, you know, I fell in love with the IGF, and that’s why I’m here now. So I think that the IGF has this unique characteristic that among all the fora in the UN system and maybe beyond, that the program and the issues discussed are proposed by you, by the community that comes to the IGF. The topics of the workshops, even the main things in every year is selected by consultation from a bottom-up consultation. So I think this is the beauty of the IGF. And now that we have reached the 20th anniversary next year, and there’s a big question to the international community, whether the IGF should continue or not, I would like to ask you a very concrete question. What would you say to the officials that are considering whether to recommend if the IGF should continue? or not? What would you say to them? And with that, I open the floor to answer this one question. Thank you.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you so much. Yes, I think that was a good opener for this second segment of questions, and I’m sure you gave some work to the cameraman there. All right, I see we have a queue already. Please be reminded, we’ve got two minutes for each speaker, preferably answering the question of how do we internalize the IGF within the framework of WSIS plus 20, and we’ll focus on the second segment. Thank you.

Audience: Hello everyone, this is Manal Abdussamad from Lebanon. I’m a public policy advisor based here in Riyadh. This is my first IGF. I have two viewpoints that focus on two key ideas. First of all, I believe that IGF should focus on balancing innovation with inclusivity, with privacy, with equitable access to all, especially and particularly for the underserved communities and vulnerable people. And secondly, the major question and the major viewpoint is IGF after 19 years, why it isn’t generating outcomes and recommendations? We know very well that having this open-ended, this continuous dialogue without tangible recommendations can lead to nothing and can risk impact. Thank you.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you so much. Let’s have the, if there’s anyone to my right, I can’t see you. Okay, there’s no one. Okay, so thank you so much. Everyone is using the left. Please go ahead. The next comment.

Audience: My name is Khaled Fattah. First of all, hello Vint. I’m sure we’re keeping you up late. This is Khaled speaking, and hello Christine. These are colleagues from the days when I refer to the days of when dinosaurs roamed. before the IGF, so I also, I can’t remember, I don’t know who the person who was speaking earlier was, so I was also there when IGF was created. One of the things I want to point out, and taking away the question of what do we do next, IGF is, by next IGF, we no longer are a teenager, so we won’t have the excuse of still experimenting. With the advent of technology, the advent of the ability of AI to crack so much of the democratize, the risks, through cyber, through the internet, to society all over the world, it is imperative, and I think I will draw on the question from the last intervention, we must find a way, and I’ve been saying this for many years, Vint, if you recall, we must a way of making conclusions so that we serve society, both of us, you and I, we have had this journey for a long time to try and make the internet a better place, not the OK Corral that it is today. So I think we need to really get out of our comfort zone. Without getting out of comfort zone, we will continue to be, we will continue, unfortunately, to remain a talking shop, and that in itself isn’t sufficient to come up with answers. Because today, just by doing this, and the leveraging of AI, a 15-year-old could shut down a city and a country, and I’m speaking now as an expert in the space of cyber. So I think we need to get out of comfort zone and find a way forward, and perhaps be more creative in what we need to do moving forward. Otherwise, as, where’s the ICANN CEO? He made a comment earlier on in his presentation that was very, very vital. We risk losing value and losing our raison d’etre. and I want to see this succeed because this is also my baby just like it’s yours, Vint.

Carol Roach: Thank you. So I’ll go online. I see two hands. I see Nena from the internet and Vint. So I’ll take Nena and then we’ll have Vint and then I’ll come back offline or on-site. If Nena is not ready we can take Vint and when she’s ready I’m sure I’ll see that on the screen. Vint, please.

Vint Cerf: I just wanted to respond to Khaled’s question. Of course the IGF can’t possibly solve all problems and so my recommendation and response to what should we do is to focus not only on the problems which we talked a lot about but also where they could be addressed. So IGF should not necessarily in itself try to solve problems, all of them. Some of it surely can make strong and evidence-based recommendations for but one of the strongest things we can do is to formulate the problem or the question and then suggest where that question should be addressed.

Carol Roach: Okay, thank you, Vint. Nena, are you ready or should I go?

Audience: Yes, I am. I needed to be unmuted. Thank you, Gbenga. I want to speak to the questions that were asked. What am I going to tell someone are the reasons we should make the IGF permanent or renew its mandate. I have seven reasons. The first is that this is one true global So I think that is one reason to preserve the multi-stakeholder model. The second is that we have global instances. We have the global, we have the regional, we have the national, we have sub-regional, and I don’t know of any other instance so far that we have all of those instances. So I think that is one reason to keep the IGF. The IGF is an instance that does not heavily depend on the UN for its financing. I mean, it’s very cheap, by the way, to have these conversations, to have these convenings. So it does not heavily depend on the UN and its finances. I earlier talked about the Internet Governance Schools. The IGF allows us to have education that is capacity-building packaged into it. So I believe it’s a holistic governance capacity-building package that is built into the IGF. There is also the cost of changing what we have now. We don’t have any other thing, it is true. But what is the cost of abandoning it to seek for something else? I think that cost is way more. And finally, I think that the IGF, because of the instances that we have, because of its nature, because of what it already gives us, is a great place to serve the GDC, which is what we are working on now. So I believe that as a vehicle, as an implementation vehicle, as a broad way, and as a leeway, as an avenue for the GDC, GDC, the IGF, it’s a great place. And please, one thing, emerging technologies. 10 years ago, we used the word emerging technologies generally, but now I think that in the past few days, past few years, the AI has come into force. There will be more in the future. And I think that the IGF space is a good place for us to have conversations on emerging technologies. My name is Nnena. I come from the internet, and I think this will be my last intervention for the day. Thank you very much.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you, Nnena.

Audience: I will speak in French. Can I proceed, please?

Gbenga Sesan: Go ahead.

Audience: My name is Christine Amesson. I come from Benin, from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. We had a great session, but I would like to ask about the repercussions. We, in 2003 and 2005, put with the Society of Information and Technology new measures. Why don’t we change the paradigm to become an entity of observation and allow each stakeholder from this private sector to actually take part? Each can actually participate and bring his expertise, progress, and say whether this is doable or not. Why do we? How about internet belonging to everyone? And what do you think about this new idea that I brought?

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you so much.

Audience: Hi, I am Israel Rosas from the Internet Society. First of all, I also want to thank you for organizing this session in this format. I think it’s part of the value of the IEF. One of the contentious topics is whether the IEF provides tangible outcomes. And I think that we, this community, should think about how to increase the visibility of the partnerships that the NRIs are promoting and using at the national and regional level, because that’s where the multi-stakeholder model translates into tangible, concrete outcomes that benefit people, where all stakeholders can participate and create concrete solutions in benefit of people. Thank you.

Gbenga Sesan: Okay. We’ll take, let’s have, we have two comments online and I see, we’ll close the queue now because of time and we have four people. So let’s have two more comments in the room. We’ll take two comments online and we’ll come back to the two last comments in the room. And at this point, if you could help me spend a minute, I’ll get to everyone, I promise. If you spend a minute, I’ll get to everyone.

Audience: Thank you. I’ll be very brief. My name is Annalise Williams. I’m part of the technical community and I’m very involved in Australia’s national IGF. I moderated a session yesterday on evolving the IGF that generated many ideas that will maybe be put forward in the session report, but just briefly, they included closer engagement with the NRIs and incorporating national and regional discussions into the program of the global IGF in a more coordinated way. And perhaps looking back, some sort of compendium over the 19 years of the IGF and its achievements and outcomes and the things that have been discussed here. In response to the question about what we would say to decision makers, the DNS Research Federation report on the IGF’s achievements said if the IGF… didn’t exist we’d have to create it, but the IGF does exist, it’s very valuable, I think it should continue and its mandate should be permanent and I think we can perhaps think about how the IGF works in accordance with its Tunis, the mandate in its Tunis agenda in relation to identifying emergent issues and bringing them to the attention of relevant bodies and the general public and where appropriate making recommendations. Thank you.

Carol Roach: Thank you so much. The next comment from the room.

Nthati Moorosi: Thank you very much. I will try to spend a minute. My name is Nthati Moorosi. I am the Minister of ICT Science and Innovation from Lesotho. I’ve been sitting here, this is the first time I attend IGF and I must say it’s a very good forum because it brings everyone to the table, but I’ve been really bugged by the objective of IGF regarding leaving no one behind, regarding inclusivity and looking at the challenges that I shared when I was at the panel about some of the challenges that we have in Africa regarding inclusivity, especially the price of the gadgets, the price of the data. As governments we’ve done a lot to connect people with the infrastructure, but a lot of people are not connected to internet because of the gadgets. I think it’s about time we ask IGF to have a special forum with the private sector to come up with solutions for us regarding some of these special challenges and maybe the IGF to track all the countries to see how we are doing from time to time in the objective of bringing everyone and inclusivity and leaving no one behind. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Audience: We have Anup and one other, and online, can we take those two comments? Thank you for the opportunity to let me speak. So I would just like to stand with my views, that I stand in solidarity with IGF to continue from a personal perspective, for the room should be made for the innovations and inclusions and widely reaching to rightist societies, even like the social societies and civil societies and people of the world for better governance, forum and interaction. So I believe that IGF has the whole potential to reach to the grassroots levels. Even I was attending the cyber security meeting today, and there also we spoke about that how IGF can reach up to the marginalized society and help the unlearned people to learn about the perspective of internet governance forums. And thus, I would also like to say, governance and system rethinking is crucial with evolving nature of technology. And thus, I also discovered the digital peace day, which I would like to celebrate with IGF further. Thank you.

Gbenga Sesan: I’m sure if we did a world map of this session, one huge one would be NRIs, and I think that is really critical. Let me give our panellists the chance in two minutes each to give us what would be your last word and ask a recommendation or a best practice that you see in these conversations that we’ve had. Let me start with you, Timea, if you don’t mind.

Timea Suto: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gbenga. I’ll try to be brief in how to respond to a very large question and to the very rich discussion that we’ve had today. I want to go to the comment that Mary raised from Nigeria about how multistakeholder and multilateral need to shake hands. I don’t think they only need to shake hands, they need to hold hands and go along the road together. It’s an either-or, and I think it’s about time that we’ve realised that. We don’t need to be married to words. It’s not something that we say this word or the other, and we’ve solved the issue. We do need to think about implementation, and I think the implementation is bringing the these two ideas into one governance conversation where we truly have everybody at the table and make recommendations together that resonate with the local realities. And that can only happen if we have governments, businesses, civil society, the technical community, academics, all around the table that bring their own perspectives. It’s not about everybody having a vote or everybody negotiating an outcome, but everybody having a voice and for that voice to actually be heard and having a dialogue. And that is what I mean by multi-stakeholder, multilateral needing to hold hands as we move along the business road together.

Gbenga Sesan: I like the picture I’m seeing there. They shouldn’t just shake hands. We need to hold hands and maybe take a walk. Valeria.

Valeria Betancourt: Yes, I cannot agree more with Temea. And I could say that the IGF has to also strengthen its capacity to not only produce messages, but to communicate those messages to the relevant policymaking spaces. I think that’s essential. Having the messages obviously is necessary, but the IGF has to strategically identify the different spaces and processes and forums where to take those messages and shape and help shaping the decisions. For instance, around what is being decided at the moment around artificial intelligence governance or data governance. And this should also include the national level processes. So in that sense, I think the ability to also communicate and connect with governments is something that has to be strengthened. In other words, interfacing with the governments, interfacing with decision-making spaces, intergovernmental processes is key. And the IGF should continue to evolve in that direction.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you so much.

Kurtis Lindquist: With the risk of taking the analogy slightly too far, but I don’t think you just need to hold hands. I think you need to dance together because they are very much linked and intertwined. Because the IGF is uniquely positioned within the business framework and the UN ecosystem. I don’t think there’s a going back on that, right? Even if the format. And I think it’s one of the few spaces, again, where all the stakeholders can really come together and they can tackle complexities of internet governance. But as I said in my intervention, to fulfill this potential, it also needs to adapt, right? We need to evolve it. It needs to, as we heard from the speakers, really focus on outputs that we can translate into actions. And it has to be a platform that’s truly inclusive. We need to expand on this. And the process has to be flexible enough to address the challenges that’s coming. Again, the space is static. We’re not back to 19 years ago.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you so much. Christine.

Christine Arida: Thank you. I think I want to echo what the Minister of Liswato said. Because I know we’ve had at the IGF for years and years so many discussions about meaningful access, about connecting the next billions. And the points that were raised by Her Excellency the Minister are points that were really mentioned in all those discussions, in that dialogue. So to echo what every second person in the session has been saying, it’s about having more actions, having more recommendations, having linkages to governments. I think we just need to move with the IGF to the next phase. We need to figure out how we can use the potential that the IGF has, and actually in its current trend date, even to deliver on tangible outcomes. And we need to innovate to do that. Innovate in terms of frameworks, in terms of modalities. And again, the second point that I want to say is about the NRIs. I think there’s so much that’s been said about the NRIs in this session. We need to capture that and move towards implementing it. And I will bring an example from my region, the Arab region. We just had a collaborative session of different national and regional and subregional IGFs just a few weeks ago. And one of the recommendations that came out of that session was that our collective NRI should inspire decision-making and multilateral and intergovernmental processes within the region. I think we should encourage that in various regions as well and move on the global level to that.

Carol Roach: Thank you. Thank you. Vint, you’re literally next to Christine on the big screen in this main room. So your closing thoughts.

Vint Cerf: Oh my. Well, let me just be very brief and say that in this session and in the other sessions that I’ve attended, I reached the conclusion that IGF should become a permanent operation within the UN context and that we should work towards that outcome as we prepare for the IGF meeting in Norway and the subsequent WSIS plus 20. I think Bertrand makes the good point that we should consider moving in that direction by laying out what issues we should be addressing and how we should address them. Keep in mind that the IGF and the NRIs are not the only place where solutions might be found. So let’s be expansive as we think about problem formulation. Let’s think about where those problems could best be addressed. This has been a very stimulating session. I took a lot of notes and I’m looking forward to the closing question coming up later today.

Gbenga Sesan: Thank you, Vint. Thank you, Christine. Thank you, Kurtis. Thank you, Valeria. And, of course, thank you, Carol. I guess this literally brings us to the end of this session, but I see your mic, so something is coming.

Carol Roach: Sorry. So I’m going to take 15 seconds. I think, as Mike shared, this is my takeaway and something that we will bring to the Secretariat, the strengthening of partnerships with other UN agencies, strengthening of partnerships with private sector and business community, and the handshakes and the hand-holding, we need more of that. We’ve started with the inter-parliamentary union. I think there’s also something similar with the diplomatic corps or state missions, so I think we probably could extend that, and we must, must improve engagement and outreach with the underserved. Thank you. Thank you to the organizers for this fantastic session.

Agreement Points

IGF should produce more tangible outcomes and recommendations

Valeria Betancourt

Kurtis Lindquist

Unknown speaker

Christine Arida

IGF needs to strengthen ability to communicate messages to policymaking spaces

IGF should focus on outputs that translate to actions

IGF needs to generate tangible recommendations and outcomes

IGF should move to next phase with more tangible outcomes and government linkages

Multiple speakers emphasized the need for the IGF to produce more concrete, actionable outcomes and effectively communicate these to relevant policymaking bodies.

IGF should enhance inclusivity and representation

Kurtis Lindquist

Unknown speaker

Carol Roach

IGF should enhance inclusivity, especially voices from Global South

IGF should bring in more youth and marginalized communities

IGF reaches grassroots levels and marginalized societies

IGF should improve engagement with underserved communities

Several speakers agreed on the importance of making the IGF more inclusive, particularly by involving underrepresented groups such as those from the Global South, youth, and marginalized communities.

IGF should become a permanent part of the UN system

Vint Cerf

Bertrand de La Chapelle

IGF should become permanent part of UN landscape

IGF mandate should be revised and institutional structure improved

Both speakers advocated for the IGF to become a permanent fixture within the UN system, with suggestions for revising its mandate and improving its institutional structure.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of the IGF in implementing and integrating the Global Digital Compact (GDC) with existing frameworks like WSIS.

Timea Suto

Valeria Betancourt

IGF should serve as foundational resource for GDC implementation

IGF should integrate WSIS framework and GDC

These speakers highlighted the importance of the IGF’s ecosystem, including its intersessional work and National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs), in shaping discussions and informing policy.

Timea Suto

Kurtis Lindquist

Christine Arida

IGF has developed vibrant intersessional work and ecosystem

IGF provides platform for open discussions shaping narratives and informing policymaking

IGF should leverage NRI network to shape renewed mandate

Unexpected Consensus

Need for IGF to adapt and evolve

Kurtis Lindquist

Christine Arida

Bertrand de La Chapelle

IGF needs to adapt to remain relevant in changing world

IGF should move to next phase with more tangible outcomes and government linkages

IGF mandate should be revised and institutional structure improved

There was an unexpected consensus among speakers from different backgrounds on the need for the IGF to evolve and adapt its structure and processes to remain relevant and effective in the changing digital landscape.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement centered around the need for the IGF to produce more tangible outcomes, enhance inclusivity, strengthen its role in implementing the GDC, and evolve its structure and processes to remain relevant.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among speakers on these key issues, suggesting a shared vision for the future of the IGF. This consensus implies a strong foundation for potential reforms and improvements to the IGF’s structure and processes, which could lead to more effective internet governance discussions and outcomes in the future.

Different Viewpoints

IGF’s role in producing tangible outcomes

Unknown speaker

Vint Cerf

IGF needs to generate tangible recommendations and outcomes

IGF should not necessarily in itself try to solve problems, all of them. Some of it surely can make strong and evidence-based recommendations for but one of the strongest things we can do is to formulate the problem or the question and then suggest where that question should be addressed.

While one speaker argues for the IGF to produce concrete recommendations and outcomes, Vint Cerf suggests that the IGF’s role should be more focused on problem formulation and directing issues to appropriate bodies for resolution.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the extent of the IGF’s role in producing concrete outcomes versus facilitating discussions, and the specific ways in which the IGF should evolve to meet current challenges.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the fundamental importance of the IGF and the need for its evolution, with differences mainly in the nuances of how this should be achieved. This suggests a generally unified vision for the future of the IGF, which could facilitate productive discussions on its development and role in internet governance.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree that the IGF needs to evolve and adapt to new challenges, particularly in relation to the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and WSIS framework. However, they differ slightly in their emphasis: Timea Suto focuses on the IGF as a resource for GDC implementation, Valeria Betancourt emphasizes integration of WSIS and GDC, while Kurtis Lindquist stresses the need for overall adaptation to remain relevant.

Timea Suto

Valeria Betancourt

Kurtis Lindquist

IGF should serve as foundational resource for GDC implementation

IGF should integrate WSIS framework and GDC

IGF needs to adapt to remain relevant in changing world

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of the IGF in implementing and integrating the Global Digital Compact (GDC) with existing frameworks like WSIS.

Timea Suto

Valeria Betancourt

IGF should serve as foundational resource for GDC implementation

IGF should integrate WSIS framework and GDC

These speakers highlighted the importance of the IGF’s ecosystem, including its intersessional work and National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs), in shaping discussions and informing policy.

Timea Suto

Kurtis Lindquist

Christine Arida

IGF has developed vibrant intersessional work and ecosystem

IGF provides platform for open discussions shaping narratives and informing policymaking

IGF should leverage NRI network to shape renewed mandate

Key Takeaways

The IGF plays a crucial role in fostering inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue on internet governance issues

The IGF has contributed significantly to building global awareness of critical digital issues over the past 20 years

There is broad agreement that the IGF’s mandate should be renewed and made permanent within the UN system

The IGF needs to evolve to remain relevant, focusing on producing more tangible outcomes and recommendations

Enhancing inclusivity, especially for voices from the Global South and marginalized communities, is seen as critical for the IGF’s future

The national and regional IGF initiatives (NRIs) are viewed as a key strength to be further leveraged

There is a need to better integrate the IGF with other UN processes and improve communication of IGF outcomes to policymakers

Resolutions and Action Items

Work towards making the IGF a permanent operation within the UN context

Develop a vision and action plan for the IGF’s future role ahead of the WSIS+20 review

Strengthen partnerships between the IGF and other UN agencies, private sector, and civil society

Improve engagement and outreach with underserved communities

Enhance the IGF’s ability to produce and communicate actionable recommendations to policymaking spaces

Unresolved Issues

Specific mechanisms for improving the tangible outcomes and impact of the IGF

How to effectively balance the IGF’s role as an open forum for discussion with the need for more concrete outputs

Detailed plans for enhancing inclusivity and representation, particularly from the Global South

The exact nature of potential revisions to the IGF’s mandate and institutional structure

Suggested Compromises

Balancing the need for more tangible outcomes with maintaining the IGF’s open, non-binding nature

Integrating multistakeholder and multilateral approaches in internet governance, described as needing to ‘hold hands and dance together’

Finding ways to make IGF discussions more relevant to local realities while maintaining a global perspective

The IGF has the beauty of both worlds. It is the innovative kid on the block, the innovative multistakeholder process within the multilateral UN system, and so best fitted to address the gap between discussion and action, between dialogue and recommendations.

speaker

Christine Arida

reason

This comment insightfully positions the IGF as a unique bridge between multilateral and multistakeholder approaches, highlighting its potential to drive concrete outcomes.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards how to leverage the IGF’s unique position to produce more tangible results and recommendations.

IGF should continue to strengthen partnerships with other UN agencies and topical and specialist agencies and their processes. And there is really a need for the coordinated global governance more than ever before.

speaker

Kurtis Lindquist

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for greater coordination and collaboration in global internet governance, recognizing the evolving complexity of the digital landscape.

impact

It prompted further discussion on how the IGF can better integrate with other governance processes and agencies to increase its impact.

We must find a way of making conclusions so that we serve society… Without getting out of comfort zone, we will continue to be, we will continue, unfortunately, to remain a talking shop, and that in itself isn’t sufficient to come up with answers.

speaker

Khaled Fattah

reason

This comment challenges the status quo and pushes for more concrete outcomes from the IGF, highlighting the urgency of addressing emerging digital challenges.

impact

It sparked a debate about the need for the IGF to evolve beyond discussion to produce more actionable results.

IGF should not necessarily in itself try to solve problems, all of them. Some of it surely can make strong and evidence-based recommendations for but one of the strongest things we can do is to formulate the problem or the question and then suggest where that question should be addressed.

speaker

Vint Cerf

reason

This comment provides a nuanced perspective on the IGF’s role, suggesting it should focus on problem formulation and directing issues to appropriate bodies rather than trying to solve everything itself.

impact

It reframed the discussion about the IGF’s purpose and potential impact, leading to more focused ideas about its future role.

I think it’s about time we ask IGF to have a special forum with the private sector to come up with solutions for us regarding some of these special challenges and maybe the IGF to track all the countries to see how we are doing from time to time in the objective of bringing everyone and inclusivity and leaving no one behind.

speaker

Nthati Moorosi

reason

This comment from a government minister highlights the need for more concrete action on digital inclusion, particularly in developing countries, and suggests a new role for the IGF in tracking progress.

impact

It brought attention to the practical challenges of digital inclusion and prompted discussion on how the IGF can facilitate more targeted solutions and accountability.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by pushing it beyond general praise for the IGF towards a more critical examination of its future role and potential for impact. They highlighted the need for the IGF to evolve, produce more tangible outcomes, and better integrate with other governance processes while maintaining its unique multistakeholder character. The discussion moved from celebrating the IGF’s past achievements to envisioning how it can adapt to meet current and future challenges in global internet governance, with a particular emphasis on inclusivity, concrete problem-solving, and bridging the gap between dialogue and action.

How can we connect from Internet fragmentation to Internet governance?

speaker

Kim from the Telecommunication Directorate of Cambodia

explanation

This question aims to understand how Internet governance can address the issue of Internet fragmentation, which was discussed in a previous panel.

How can we ensure the IGF generates tangible outcomes and recommendations?

speaker

Manal Abdel Samad

explanation

This question addresses the concern that after 19 years, the IGF may not be producing concrete results, which could risk its impact and relevance.

How can the IGF get out of its comfort zone and find more creative ways to address current challenges?

speaker

Khaled Fattah

explanation

This question suggests the need for the IGF to evolve and become more action-oriented in the face of rapidly advancing technologies and their associated risks.

How can the IGF increase the visibility of partnerships promoted by NRIs at national and regional levels?

speaker

Israel Rosas from the Internet Society

explanation

This question aims to highlight the concrete outcomes of the multi-stakeholder model at local levels and demonstrate the IGF’s tangible impact.

How can the IGF incorporate national and regional discussions into the program of the global IGF in a more coordinated way?

speaker

Annalise Williams

explanation

This question suggests a need for better integration of local and regional perspectives into the global IGF agenda.

Can the IGF create a special forum with the private sector to address challenges related to device affordability and data costs?

speaker

Nthati Moorosi, Minister of ICT Science and Innovation from Lesotho

explanation

This question addresses specific barriers to internet inclusivity in Africa and suggests a more targeted approach to problem-solving within the IGF framework.

How can the IGF track countries’ progress on inclusivity and leaving no one behind?

speaker

Nthati Moorosi, Minister of ICT Science and Innovation from Lesotho

explanation

This question proposes a more systematic approach to monitoring and evaluating the impact of IGF initiatives on global internet inclusivity.

How can the IGF strengthen its capacity to communicate its messages to relevant policymaking spaces?

speaker

Valeria Betancourt

explanation

This question addresses the need for the IGF to more effectively influence decision-making processes, particularly in areas like AI and data governance.

Summary

This discussion focused on applying human rights standards to online spaces and emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). Experts from various Council of Europe bodies discussed how existing conventions and recommendations address online safety, violence against women and children, and discrimination risks in AI.

The panelists emphasized that human rights apply equally online and offline, but acknowledged challenges in implementation. They highlighted the importance of both legal and non-legal measures, including education, awareness-raising, and multi-stakeholder cooperation. The Lanzarote Convention on protecting children from sexual exploitation and the Istanbul Convention on violence against women were cited as key frameworks that have been adapted to address online dimensions.

Regarding AI, the discussion explored both risks and opportunities. Concerns were raised about AI potentially amplifying existing biases and creating new forms of discrimination. However, panelists also noted AI’s potential to identify patterns of discrimination and improve safeguards. The need for transparent, auditable AI systems and updated non-discrimination laws was stressed.

The experts called for greater collaboration between governments, civil society, and tech companies to ensure online platforms uphold rights. They emphasized the importance of political prioritization and moving from rhetoric to action in addressing online harms. The discussion concluded that innovation and human rights protection are not mutually exclusive, but require clear standards, commitment, and cooperation across sectors.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Applying human rights standards to the online/digital space

– Challenges and opportunities of AI for human rights, especially regarding discrimination and vulnerable groups

– Need for comprehensive legal and non-legal approaches to protect rights online

– Importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments, civil society, and tech companies

– Balancing innovation with human rights protections in developing new technologies

Overall purpose:

The goal was to explore how established human rights standards can be understood and applied in the online space and with new digital technologies, with a focus on protecting vulnerable groups like women and children.

Tone:

The tone was primarily informative and analytical, with speakers providing overviews of relevant conventions, recommendations, and challenges. There was an underlying sense of urgency about the need to take action, but the tone remained measured and solution-oriented throughout. Towards the end, some speakers emphasized the need to move from rhetoric to concrete action in a slightly more forceful tone.

Speakers

– Menno Ettema: Moderator, Council of Europe, Hate Speech, Hate Crime and Artificial Intelligence

– Octavian Sofransky, Council of Europe, Digital Governance Advisor Camille Gangloff, Council of Europe, Gender Equality policies

– Naomi Trewinnard: Council of Europe, Sexual violence against children (Lanzarote Convention)

– Clare McGlynn: Professor at Durham Law School, Expert on violence against women & girls 

– Ivana Bartoletti: Member of the Committee of Experts on AI, Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Council of Europe, Vice President and Global Chief Privacy and AI Governance Officer at Wipro

– Charlotte Gilmartin: Council of Europe, Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI)

Additional speakers:

– Clara McLaren: Professor at the Dunham Law School, an expert on violence against women and girls

Expanded Summary of Discussion on Human Rights in the Digital Age

Introduction

This discussion, moderated by Menno Ettema of the Council of Europe’s Anti-Discrimination Department, explored the application of human rights standards to online spaces and emerging technologies, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Experts from various Council of Europe bodies examined how existing conventions and recommendations address online safety, violence against women and children, and discrimination risks in AI.

Key Themes and Arguments

1. Applying Human Rights Standards Online

The panellists unanimously agreed that human rights apply equally online and offline. Menno Ettema framed the central question of the discussion: “How can well-established human rights standards be understood for the online space and in new digital technology?” This set the agenda for exploring specific ways in which existing frameworks are being adapted to digital contexts.

Octavian Sofransky presented the Council of Europe’s digital agenda, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to protecting human rights in the digital environment. A Mentimeter poll conducted during the discussion showed that participants felt some or all human rights are more difficult to apply online, underscoring the complexity of the issue.

Naomi Trewinnard emphasised the importance of the Lanzarote Convention in setting standards to protect children from sexual exploitation online. She also mentioned a background paper prepared for the Lanzarote Committee on emerging technologies. Similarly, Clare McGlynn discussed how the Istanbul Convention, adopted in 2011, addresses the digital dimension of violence against women, with a General Recommendation on this topic adopted in 2021. These examples illustrated how existing legal frameworks are being adapted to address online harms.

2. Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

The discussion explored both the risks and opportunities presented by AI in relation to human rights. Ivana Bartoletti provided a critical perspective, stating, “AI does threaten human rights, especially for the most vulnerable in our society. And it does for a variety of reasons. It does because it perpetuates and can amplify the existing stereotypes that we’ve got in society.” She also raised concerns about new forms of algorithmic discrimination created by AI that may not be covered by existing laws.

Naomi Trewinnard noted that AI is being used to facilitate sexual abuse of children online, highlighting the urgent need for updated protections. However, Bartoletti also emphasised AI’s potential for positive impact, stating, “We can leverage AI and algorithmic decision-making for the good if we have the political and social will to do so.” This balanced view led to a discussion of specific ways AI could be used to promote equality and human rights, given proper guidance and political commitment.

Octavian Sofransky highlighted the Council of Europe’s work on the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, demonstrating the organization’s proactive approach to addressing AI-related challenges.

3. Collaboration to Protect Rights Online

A recurring theme throughout the discussion was the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration to effectively address online human rights issues. Naomi Trewinnard highlighted the importance of cooperation with the private sector to obtain electronic evidence in cases of online child exploitation. She also emphasised the critical need for global collaboration and mentioned the annual Awareness Raising Day about sexual abuse of children on November 18th.

Ivana Bartoletti suggested the use of regulatory sandboxes to allow governments, companies, and civil society to work together on AI governance. She also discussed the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) as an example of regulatory efforts in this space. Clare McGlynn called for greater political prioritisation and action from tech platforms to address online harms.

4. Balancing Innovation and Human Rights Protection

The experts grappled with the challenge of balancing technological innovation with human rights protections. While recognising the potential benefits of AI and other emerging technologies, they stressed the need for transparent, auditable systems and updated non-discrimination laws.

Clare McGlynn emphasised the societal and cultural dimensions of online violence, stating, “If we’re ever going to prevent and reduce violence against women and girls, including online and technology facilitated violence against women and girls, we need to change attitudes across all of society and including amongst men and boys.” This comment broadened the scope of the discussion to include education and awareness-raising as key strategies alongside legal and technological approaches.

5. Defamation Laws and Human Rights Defenders

In response to a question from audience member Jaica Charles, Menno Ettema addressed the issue of defamation laws being misused against human rights defenders online. He highlighted the Council of Europe’s work on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and emphasized the need to protect freedom of expression while combating online hate speech, referencing CM Recommendation 2022-16 on combating hate speech.

Conclusions and Unresolved Issues

The discussion concluded that innovation and human rights protection are not mutually exclusive but require clear standards, commitment, and cooperation across sectors. The experts called for a move from rhetoric to concrete action in addressing online harms and protecting human rights in digital spaces.

Several unresolved issues emerged, including:

1. How to effectively balance innovation with human rights protection in AI development

2. Addressing new forms of algorithmic discrimination not covered by existing laws

3. Ensuring transparency and auditability of AI systems used by private companies

4. Protecting human rights defenders from misuse of defamation laws to silence them online

The discussion highlighted the need for ongoing dialogue, research, and collaboration to address these complex challenges at the intersection of human rights, technology, and governance. The use of Mentimeter questions throughout the session encouraged active participation and provided valuable insights into audience perspectives on these critical issues.

Menno Ettema: Hi Imano, she’s just joining now. Perfect, good. Then I will slowly kick off. You should be hearing on channel one. Can you hear me now Imano? No? Yes, great. Okay, good. Good morning everyone. Good afternoon for those in other parts of the world or good evening. Good night. We are here at an open forum for one hour, a short timeline to discuss quite a challenging topic, which is to advance online safety and human rights standards in that space. I will shortly introduce myself first. I’m Imano Etema. I work for the Council of Europe in the Anti-Discrimination Department, working on hate speech, hate crime and artificial intelligence. And I’m joined by quite an extended list of speakers and guests. I’m joined here by Clara McLaren. And I’m sure that the technician is precisely Clara McLaren. She is a professor at the Dunham Law School, expert on violence against women and girls online. We are also joined here in the room by Ivana Bartoletti, member of the Committee of Experts on AI, Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Council of Europe, and also Vice President and Global Chief Privacy and AI Governance Officer at Wipro. Also with us is Naomi Trevannert, Council of Europe, as well as working on sexual violence against children, the Lanzarote Convention. As online moderator, we have with us Charlotte Gilmartin, who works also in the anti-discrimination department and is secretary to the expert committee on AI, non-discrimination, and equality. And Octavian Sofdrasky, digital governance advisor, also at the Council of Europe. The session is about human rights standards and if they also apply online, question mark. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that the UN and regional institutions like the Council of Europe, but also the African Union and others have developed robust human rights standards for all its member states. And that also includes other key stakeholders, including business and civil society. The UN and the Council of Europe has clearly stated human rights apply equally online as it does offline. But how can well-established human rights standards be understood for the online space and in new digital technology? So that’s the question of today. I would like to give the floor first to Octavian, who will provide us a little bit of information about the Council of Europe’s digital agenda. So just to set the frame for our institution, and then we will broaden the discussion from there or actually narrow it into really working on the anti-discrimination field. Octavian, the floor is yours.

Octavian Sofransky: Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, I’m greeting you from Strasbourg. The Council of Europe, the organizer of this session, remains unwavering in its commitment to protecting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the digital environment. This dedication was reaffirmed by the Council of Europe’s Secretary General during the European Dialogue on Internet Governance in Vilnius last June. The Secretary General emphasized that the digital dimension of freedom is a priority for the Council of Europe. Europe. Our organization has always recognized the importance of balancing innovation and regulation in the realm of new technologies. In reality, these elements should not be viewed as opposing forces but as complementary partners ensuring that technological advancements genuinely benefit our societies. A Council of Europe Committee of Ministers declaration on the WSIS plus 20 review was issued this September advocating for a people-centered approach to internet development and the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance and supporting the extension of the IGF mandate for the next decade. Moreover, we are proud to announce the adoption of the pioneering Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Protecting Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law last May. This landmark convention, which was opened for signature at the Conference of Ministers of Justice in Vilnius on 5 September very recently, is the first legally binding international instrument in this field and has been already signed by 11 states around the world. Sectoral instruments will complement this convention, including possibly on online safety, our today’s section topic. As a long-time supporter of the IGF process, the Council of Europe has prepared several sessions for this real edition of the IGF, including on privacy, artificial intelligence and indeed the current session on online safety, a topic that remains a top priority for all European states and their citizens. Thank you.

Menno Ettema: Over to you, Menno. Thank you, Octavian, for elaborating the Council of Europe’s work and the reason for this session and a few others. Can I ask all the speakers that are joining us online to switch on their cameras, because it makes it a little bit more lively for us here in the room, but also online that are joining. Thank you very much. I would like to thank you for this, Octavian, and I would like I would like to go over to Naomi, because the Lanzarote Convention on sexual violence against children has a long-term experience with the topic, it’s a very strong standard, but recently published a new document on the digital dimension of sexual violence against children. Naomi, I give the floor to you to introduce the convention and the work that it does.

Naomi Trewinnard: Thank you, Meno. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. I’m very pleased to be joining with you today. I’m a legal advisor at the Lanzarote Committee Secretariat, and that’s the committee of the parties to the Convention for the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. So, as Meno mentioned, this is a really comprehensive international treaty that is open to states worldwide, and it aims to prevent and protect children against sexual abuse and to prosecute those who offend. So I wanted to just briefly present some of the standards that are set out in this convention. So firstly, to do with prevention, it requires states to screen and train professionals, ensure that children receive education about the risks of sexual abuse and how they can access support if they’re a victim, as well as general awareness raising for all members of the community and also preventive intervention programmes. When it comes to protection, really, we’re trying to encourage professionals and the general public to report cases of suspected sexual abuse and also to provide assistance and support to victims. And this is including through setting up helplines for children. When it comes to prosecution, it’s really essential to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. And this comes through criminalising all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, including those that are committed online, for example, solicitation or grooming. child, offences related to child sexual abuse materials, so also called child pornography, and also witnessing or participating in sexual acts over a webcam. The Convention also sets out standards to ensure that investigations and criminal proceedings are child-friendly, so there the aim is really to avoid re-victimising or re-traumatising the child victim, and also to obtain best evidence and uphold the rights of the defence. So in this respect the Lanzarote Committee has recognised the Children’s House or Barnahus model as a promising practice to ensure that we obtain good evidence, perpetrators are brought to justice and we avoid victimising children. So these standards and safeguards apply equally to abuse that is committed online and also contact abuse that is committed offline. The Treaty really emphasises the importance of multi-stakeholder coordination in the context of combating online violence, and this Convention really specifically makes a reference to the information and communication technology sector, and also tourism and travel and banking and finance sectors, really trying to encourage states to coordinate with all of these private actors in order to better protect children. The Lanzarote Committee has adopted a number of different opinions, declarations and recommendations to clarify the ways in which this Convention can contribute to better protect children in the online environment. For example by confirming that states should criminalise the solicitation of children for sexual offences even without an in-person meeting, so when this is in order to obtain sexual offences online, and also given the dematerialised nature of these offences multiple jurisdictions will often be involved in a specific case. We might have the victim situated in one country, electronic evidence being stored on a server in a different country, and the perpetrator sitting in another country. committing this abuse over the internet. Therefore, the committee really recognises and emphasises the importance of international cooperation, including through international bodies and international meetings such as this one. The convention is also really clear that children shouldn’t be prosecuted for generating images or videos themselves. We know that many children are tricked or coerced or blackmailed into this or, you know, generate an image and thinking it’s going to be used for a specific purpose within a conceptual relationship. And then it gets out of hand. So the committee’s really emphasised that we should be protecting our children, not criminalising or prosecuting them. In terms of education and awareness raising, the committee really emphasises that we need to ensure that children of all ages receive information about children’s rights. And also that states are establishing helplines and hotlines, like reporting portals, so that children have a place, a safe place to go to get help if they’re becoming a victim. And in that context, it’s also really essential to train persons working with children about these issues so that they can recognise signs of abuse and know how to help children if they’re a victim. So I’ve put some links to our materials on the slides and I’ll hand back to Menno now. Thank you for your attention.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Naomi. It is quite elaborate work to be done. But what I think the convention really outlines is that it’s legal and non-legal measures. And it’s the comprehensive approach and the multistakeholder approach that’s really important in addressing sexual exploitation of children or violence against children. In that line of thought, I want to also give the floor to Claire, who can speak on the work of the Istanbul Convention, around the Istanbul Convention, and particularly because it published a relatively new policy recommendation, number one, on the digital dimension of violence against women, which I think is a very important document to share here today.

Clare McGlynn: Yes, good morning, everybody. And thank you very much. So I’m Claire McGlynn. I’m a professor of law at Durham University in the UK. And I’m also a member of the Council of Europe’s expert committee on technology facilitated violence against women and girls. So I’m going to briefly talk today about the Istanbul Convention that’s just been referred to, which was adopted first in 2011. And there’s four key pillars to make this a comprehensive piece of law. It talks about prevention, protection, prosecution, and integrated policies. Now, the key theme of the Istanbul Convention is that violence against women and girls must be understood as gendered. Violence against women and girls is perpetrated mainly by men. It’s also experienced because women and girls are women and girls. Now the monitoring of that convention is done by the body called GRIVIO. That’s the independent expert body which undertakes evaluations of state compliance, as well as preparing various thematic reports. And as already mentioned, in 2021, GRIVIO adopted our general recommendation on the digital dimension of violence against women and girls. So this general recommendation offers an interpretation of the Istanbul Convention, in light of the prevalence and growing concern and harms around online and technology facilitated violence against women and girls. It provides many detailed explanations as to how the convention can be interpreted and adopted in light of the prevalence of online abuse, including things like reviewing relevant legislation in accordance with whether the digital dimension of violence against women and girls is particularly acute. We see this particularly in the area of domestic violence, where some legislation does not account for the fact that in reality today, most forms of domestic abuse involve some element of technology and online elements. It also talks about incentivizing internet intermediaries to ensure content moderation. The point here is about how women’s human rights are being inhibited and affected by online abuse. And regulation, such as content moderation, is necessary to protect those rights. In other words, regulation frees women’s speech online by ensuring we are more free and able to talk and speak online rather than self-censoring in the light of online abuse. It also talks, for example, about the importance of undertaking initiatives to eradicate gender stereotypes and discrimination, especially amongst men and boys. If we’re ever going to prevent and reduce violence against women and girls, including online and technology facilitated violence against women and girls, we need to change attitudes across all of society and including amongst men and boys. Thank you very much.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much, Claire. I really like the general recommendation because of how it portrays the offline forms of violence against women and harassment and all the different ways and shapes it forms and how that is actually also mirrored in the online space. So it’s really a very clear explanation of how one and the other are the same, the online and the offline, even though we call it maybe different or it might be slightly differently presented because of the online context. But the dynamics are very similar. Thank you. Content moderation is an important part here as well. And working again with stereotypes and attitudes is a challenge. So it’s, again, legal, but also the non-legal approaches are very important. Thank you very much. Ivana, can I give the floor to you? Because one new area is, of course, AI. Octavian already mentioned it, the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, just adopted. From, can you just give two short words and how these human rights standards apply in the AI field? And then we’ll give the floor to the rest of the audience. And then we’ll come back a little bit more on the discrimination risks when it comes to AI, including gender equality.

Ivana Bartoletti: Thank you so much. So AI, of course, is one of the most talked things at the moment at the IJF here. We’ve been talking about AI a lot. And what is the impact is on AI on existing human rights and civil liberties? So obviously, artificial intelligence has been capable of doing so many excellent and good things over recent years. Can you hear me? There’s been a big push over recent, especially with the right gender. And talking about this, which is the idea we’re used to, which is that, oh, it’s breaking up. Can you hear me? Is that OK? OK. So I’m talking about generative AI, which is the idea we’ve seen that can generate images, that can generate, that is another area of discussion. Now, AI does threaten human rights, especially for the most vulnerable in our society. And it does for a variety of reasons. It does because it perpetuates and can amplify the existing stereotypes that we’ve got in society. That’s crystallizing them into either representation. So what you were mentioning earlier, you were saying, how do we change these stereotypes beyond the legal side? Well, there is an issue here, because the use of big data and machine learning, it can amplify the existing stereotypes. crystallizing, crystallize them. And on the other hand, it does provide, for example, with very easy and lower the bar to access to tools, such as, for example, generative AI tools that can generate deep fake images. And whether this is in the space of fake information, whether this is in the space of assigning civil women to depict pornography, what we are seeing is, again, the lowering the bar of access to these tools can have a detrimental impact on on on women, especially. But if you think about privacy, for example, I mean, privacy, and and the what Claire was saying, which was saying, you know, a lot of the domestic abuse is enabled by technology, AI plays a big part in it. Because of the enablement of tools like that, they can turn into monitoring tools. And these monitoring tools can turn into real tools of suppression. So we are very firm that, and the convention is wonderful, in the sense that it’s the first in really international convention, yes, you have the European Act, which is limited to Europe, the convention is international, alongside many other things that have happened. So for example, the digital compact at the UN, that thinks of reframing, framing human rights into the digital space, there’s been declaration happening. So there is definitely a discussion that is happening globally on how we protect safeguarded enhance human rights in the age of AI, but it’s not an easy task. Also, and and is one that needs to see all actors involved in.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much. This is only just a small start on the discussion on AI. So we’ll come back to that in a second round. But I think what I what we’re trying to do here is to explain the various conventions that exist in a few of the various conventions that are exist related to discrimination and protection of groups that are particularly targeted, Istanbul Convention, the Lanzarote Convention. But I think I also wanted to engage with the audience here in the room and, and also online. We we launched a little Mentimeter because for us, it’s a and I’ll ask Octavian to put the mentor Mentimeter on online. Because for us, it’s very evident that human rights apply equally online as offline. But maybe we’re wrong. I was wondering what others think about this. So I have a little Mentimeter for for a little quiz to just put the finger on the polls. Octavian, are you there? Can you put the Mentimeter on please?

Octavian Sofransky: The Mentimeter is on.

Menno Ettema: We can’t see it. You have to change screens. Okay. I can assure you we tested this yesterday and it worked perfectly. But when the pressure is on, there’s always a challenge. Okay, well, Octavian is dealing with the technical challenge. And maybe I can give this floor first to Charlotte. Maybe there are already some questions from the audience online. And then I’ll go to the here’s the Mentimeter. Sorry, Charlotte. So you can scan the QR code or go to menti.com and then use the code. that is mentioned there, 29900183. So if you scan it or type it in, yes, I see people going online. Great. Then we can go to the next slide, Octavian, for the new first quiz. So are there specific human rights that are more difficult to apply online? There are four options, so please answer. Meanwhile, Charlotte, maybe I can give you the floor while people cast their votes. From online, were there any questions or comments that we should take in here in the room?

Charlotte Gilmartin: For now, there’s one comment from Peter King Quay from Liberia IGF. Their question is, what are some of the key interventions that can be suggested to increase or improve this topical problem in West Africa, especially in West Africa and the MRU region of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, vis-a-vis these conventions and norms against women and girls, especially the Istanbul Convention? Thank you very much.

Clare McGlynn: Can I give the floor to Claire on this question? Yes, what I would add is that, as the colleague is possibly aware, the African Commission a couple of years ago did adopt a specific resolution on the protection of women against digital violence in Africa. And the work of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa has done a lot of work around this regarding the online dimension. So both that specific resolution and the work of the Special Rapporteur are likely to… perhaps provide some further help and guidance on the particular issues and problems and challenges and opportunities arising in Africa. Thank

Menno Ettema: you very much Claire and I would also say that the recommendation number one of the Istanbul Convention of the Grevio, I mean it gives very practical suggestions on what can be addressed and I think this can be adjusted to, adapted to local context of course, always, that’s everywhere including the European continent but I think there are many guidelines there or suggestions that would be equally applicable in other parts of the globe. I see that the overall people, there’s a tendency to say yes all human rights or some human rights are more difficult to apply online. It’s an interesting result so yes all human rights apply online but it’s sometimes more difficult so maybe some people want to respond to that. I would like to go to the second question of the Mentimeter. What should be done more to ensure human rights online? So if some human rights are more difficult to apply online what could be done? What do you think could be done? And meanwhile I want to check the audience here if there are any questions or statements that they would like to share. Yes in the back of the room. Could you please state who you are just for the audience? Should be. It should work. Can you hear? Yes. Very well.

Audience: My name is Jaica Charles. I work with the Kenyan section for the International Commission of Jurists Nairobi. So thank you. First of all thank you for these wonderful presentations from various stakeholders. We appreciate you a lot. It’s actually something that we are very much interested in as digital rights expertise and human rights activists, sorry human rights defenders and especially on digital rights based on AI. So my question is there has been especially in African context there has been a lot of fight by the authorities towards the human rights defenders in the name of defamation. I hope we all understand defamation. So defamation has been used against human rights defenders online whenever they try to I mean to pinpoint issues regarding human rights online. They are mostly being charged under defamation and you’ll see aspects of abductions and such like things and especially it has happened recently in African context. For example in Kenya there was a Gen Z movement which was well known all over. So how can we approach that or how can we cap that especially in the context of AI to prevent such like things from happening? Like how can we I mean protect the human rights defenders online from being charged under defamation or rather being used on grounds of defamation as a tool to prevent them from doing the human rights work? Thank you.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much. Just looking at my speakers who would like to pick up this question. And maybe I give it a go first myself and then the other colleagues can contribute. I mean, it’s a very pressing question. I think within the European scope, maybe if I may translate to that area where I’m more knowledgeable. So within the European scope, the Council of Europe and national authorities are moving away from defamation laws and legislation. I think also in the UN, this is echoed that defamation laws are not particularly helpful. And because of the way it’s often formulated and applied, that’s a problem. There are questions about now hate speech legislation, for example. And the Council of Europe has adopted a recommendation in 2022, CM Recommendation 2022-16, if you want to check it out, on combating hate speech. And it specifically explains and argues why defamation laws are not up to the task to actually deal with hate speech. And hate speech is a real problem for societies. It undermines the rights of persons targeted or groups that are targeted and undermines cohesion in communities. And I think well-crafted hate speech laws may function quite well. But well-crafted also means that we need to acknowledge the severity of hate speech. So you have hate speech that’s clearly criminal, falls under criminal responsibility. And this should be a very restrictive understanding, so we should be very clearly defined, explained what we understand, which grounds are protected under this hate speech under criminal law. Then you have other forms of hate speech that could be addressed through administrative law and civil law. For example, self-regulatory mechanisms with the media or political parties that have administrative law in place. And that is a less severe intervention when it comes to freedom of expression, Article 10 of the European Convention, for example. And it’s this balancing act. And then we have other forms of hate speech that cannot be restricted through legislation but still is harmful, so we need to address it. So I would really argue that taking inspiration from the recommendation, for example, to really engage in a national dialogue on reforming legislative situations and to really abide by a very narrow understanding of hate speech that falls under criminal law. And in the recommendation, we also refer to international UN standards and conventions that specify what falls under that. And then other forms of reactions you could do, including non-legal measures, education, awareness raising, counter speech, etc. And this would be a much better response. And defamation laws should not be used in such a way. It can be very easily misused. Well-construed hate speech laws should help. There’s also the work on SLAPs, strategic litigation, that might also give some guidance on what could be done to address misuse of legislation for silencing a group. So SLAPs, there’s a recommendation on SLAPs, and that’s quite an interesting document that could guide you in your work in that sense. Thank you. Naomi, please.

Naomi Trewinnard: Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to perhaps share some insights of something parallel that we’ve dealt with at the level of protecting children from sexual abuse. So the convention is quite clear that professionals and all those that have a reasonable suspicion of sexual abuse in good faith should report it to the appropriate authorities, to like child protection authorities or police or whatever, but also that people who report in good faith should be protected from criminal or civil liability, so also be protected against claims of defamation. And so actually the Lansworthy Committee is looking at this question at the moment, looking how to reinforce protections for professionals so that they can respect their duties of confidentiality, their obligations to keep information safe, but also their duties to protect children. And I think it’s a really fine balancing act, but certainly I think clear guidance from states and policymakers setting out the ways in which people can be, when they’re denouncing something or reporting something, the ways that they should be protected from consequences can be very helpful as well.

Menno Ettema: Thank you Naomi for that addition. Just going to the Mentimeter, I see a few suggestions, several suggestions, thank you for that. Education, more education, content moderation, more research and data privacy laws, working on safety at all levels, physical and the online space and strengthen frameworks and their interpretation. So it’s quite an array, but I see very much also education as mentioned by a few people. Thank you. I would like to open a second section of the discussion and going back to AI because it’s the new, it’s the big elephant in the room. So I mean it’s the elephant in the room and the question is if human rights standards are in the area, for example, of gender equality, non-discriminations and the right of the child, are delicate porcelain that will soon encounter an elephant stampede or are there actually opportunities by the use of AI and should we not be so worried about the rights, human rights of these groups when it comes to the deployment of AI. Ivana, you already mentioned some aspects that, yeah, AI and human rights, they slowly come together, we need to be cautious, there are risks, but maybe there’s some more to add specifically in the area of non-discrimination and equality, also from your work in the expert committee.

Ivana Bartoletti: Octave, next slide, yes, thank you. Yeah, so I think in, I mean AI enables a lot of this, not the question that we just had, for example, about human rights, the same with journalists, no, there is a lot, there is also gender dimension of it because what happens often is that it is women who are the ones that are targeted the most and the elephant in the room is AI because AI has made a lot of this very much available, okay. So in the area of, if you think about artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision making, first we have to distinguish, it’s very important, one is what is so-called discriminative AI, which is the machine learning, what we use more traditionally, although it’s not really traditional, but in essence. So what is happening in that space, especially around algorithmic decision making, is that we are seeing women being, and especially the intersection between gender, race and other dimensions, we have seen often women being locked out of services, been discriminated against, it happened a lot, for example, with facial recognition, it happened a lot with banking services, education, now this is because AI needs data, data is central, data is scarce, often data comes the western world, therefore when this data then is the, it doesn’t work, no? It goes on and off, we can’t hear you, but it goes. When the, and therefore this bias is, exists, because it exists in society, so there is, to an extent, there is little technological solution to a problem which is a societal problem. So we have seen this bias with generative AI, we have seen another set of issues, which is, which, in the sense that, it doesn’t work. In the sense that these products are also the product of the scraping of the web, which means taking language as it is, bringing a whole set of new issues, like the language that we are all taught. talking about and learning from these tools, is it inclusive or not? So, I think there is an understanding that has become more mainstream around all of this, around the fact that discriminative AI and generative AI, in a combination of the two, can perpetuate and softwareise existing inequalities into systems that make decisions and predictions about tomorrow. However, there is also a positive use of these tools that can be where we can leverage AI to try and address some of these systems. For example, leveraging big data to understand the root causes of these inequalities. For example, understanding that there are links between discrimination or sectors and areas of discrimination, looking at big data that we wouldn’t be able to look at through human eyes. Using artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems to set a higher bar on, for example, how many women we want to work in a business, by manipulating the data. By manipulating the data, using synthetic data, by creating data sheets that enable us to improve the outputs. What I’m trying to say is that we can leverage AI and algorithmic decision-making for the good if we have the political and social will to do so. Because if we leave it to the data alone, it’s not going to happen because data is simply representative of the world. And I think there is an understanding in the study on the challenges and opportunities that we’ve done. And I encourage everyone to read it. It’s important because we provide an understanding of where bias comes from. The fact that this bias that is detrimental to women’s human rights, to discrimination, that is dangerous. We provide a set of recommendations for states to say, how can we challenge this? How can we look at existing non-discrimination laws and see if they’re fit for the age of AI? For example, if a woman is discriminated and is not getting access to a service because she is a woman and also a black woman, how are we going to ensure that this intersectional source of discrimination is addressed by existing non-discrimination law? And furthermore, who is going to have the burden of the proof? Because if the individual who is already vulnerable in the big problem that we have, which is the unspoken figure, which is the asymmetry between us as individuals and the data and the extractivism and the complexity of what some call surveillance capitalism, in this big asymmetry, it can’t be left to the most vulnerable to say, I am going to challenge this. So this also means that there has to be strong regulation in place to make sure that the onus is on the company to provide the level of transparency, challengeability and clarity and auditability of the systems that they’re using, so that the onus is not just left on the individual to challenge, but these systems can be open to question by civic society, government and institutions. Business can play a big part in it. So what I’m trying to say here is that AI can be used, and especially if I think about automated bots, responsibly automated bots, can be great in supporting public sector, private sector to develop and create AI, which is inclusive. We can use AI, big data strategies to really understand where the bias may come from. We can look at big data analytics and really say, identify patterns of discrimination. There is a lot that can be done in this space, but there has to be that willingness to do so. So I’m really hoping that in a space like this, we can… I mean, a document like that one that brings together can be leveraged beyond Council of Europe, because it’s really important… important that we understand that existing legislation around discrimination law, privacy laws, may need to be looked at in order to be able to cater for the harms that come from algorithmic decision-making or generative AI.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much, Ivana. That’s quite an elaborate and detailed analysis of the challenges that lie ahead, but also the opportunities. There are opportunities and possibilities. Can I give the floor to Naomi, maybe from the perspective of the risk for children’s safety and the use of AI?

Naomi Trewinnard: Sure, and thank you. Thank you for the floor. In terms of AI, the Lanzarote Committee has been paying particular attention to emerging technologies, especially over the last year or so. The committee has actually recognised that artificial intelligence is being used to facilitate sexual abuse of children. Ivana mentioned generative AI models. We know that generative AI is being used to make images of sexual abuse of children, and also that large language models are being used to facilitate grooming of children online and identification of potential victims by perpetrators. Generative AI is also being used to alter existing materials of victims. I know of cases where a child has been identified and rescued, but the images of the abuse are still circulating online, and now AI is being used to alter the images of the abuse of this child that’s been rescued to create new images of that child being abused in different ways. Then we also know that this is being used to generate completely fake images of a child, and that in some cases those fake images of a child naked or being sexually abused are being used to coerce and blackmail the child, either into making images and videos of themselves. Sometimes it’s being used to blackmail children in order to get contact details of their friends, so that the perpetrator can have a wider group of victims. And in other cases, we know of fake images being used to blackmail children for financial gain. And so all of these different forms of blackmail and abuse of children have been recognised as a form of sexual extortion against children by the Lanzarote Committee. And many mentioned at the beginning of our session, the Lanzarote Committee held a thematic discussion on this issue actually in November. So just a few weeks ago in Vienna and has adopted a declaration which sets out really some steps that states particularly can take to better protect children against these risks of emerging technologies, such as criminalising all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse facilitated by emerging technologies. So looking at legislation, making sure regulation is in place, including AI generated sexual abuse material, and also ensuring that sanctions are effective and proportionate to the harm caused to victims. So historically, we’ve seen sanctions and criminal codes being much lighter for, for example, for a child sexual abuse material offence where there’s no contact with the victim. So perhaps really looking at those codes to see if that’s still effective and proportionate, given the harm that we know is being caused to children today by these technologies. On the screen there, you have a link to a background paper that was prepared for the committee, which really explores in detail, setting out the risks and the opportunities of these emerging technologies. And just to close, I wanted to mention that criminalising these behaviours is not enough. So the committee is also called on states to make use of these technologies. So as Ivana mentioned, there’s also a great opportunity here to leverage these technologies to help us better identify and safeguard victims and also to detect and investigate perpetrators. So this really requires cooperation. with the private sector, especially as regards preserving and producing electronic evidence that can be then used in court across jurisdictions, and the Cybercrime Convention, the Second Option Protocol, also provides really useful tools that states can use to better obtain evidence. So I just wanted to close by saying we’re really grateful to have this opportunity to share this with you, and we’re really interested in exchanging further with those in the room about how to cooperate to better protect children. And perhaps just lastly, to mention that the 18th of November is the annual Awareness Raising Day about sexual abuse of children, and it’s really an invitation to all of you to add that date to your calendars and to do something on the 18th of November each year to raise awareness about sexual abuse so that we can better promote and protect children’s rights. Thank you.

Menno Ettema: Thank you, Naomi, and also for mentioning the International Day, because it is awareness raising in education is a key part of resilience, but also being aware also for parents and others to support children that are in a possible target. I’ll soon give the floor again to the audience, but I just want to also give the floor to Claire on violence against women and AI. Ivana already addressed some of these points, but I’m sure Claire has some contributions to also from the graveyard’s perspective.

Clare McGlynn: So yes, I don’t know if the slide is going to come up that I’d prepared, but it’s actually just need to be very brief, because what I wanted to say follows on from Ivana, and in fact, refers to and provide the link to the report that she and Raffaele Zenedes wrote about, in fact, the opportunities of AI as well as the challenges and particularly drawing out what states could be doing and particularly things like reinforcing the rights and obligations. around taking positive action in terms of using AI to eliminate inequalities and discrimination. But the one point I’ll just add there is as well that Ivana’s report refers to the possibility that into the future, there will be other vulnerable groups that are not necessarily covered by existing anti-discrimination laws. And so we have to be very open to how experiences of inequality and discrimination might shift in the advent and the world of AI and be alive to that and be ready to take steps to help protect those individuals. Thank you.

Menno Ettema: Thank you. Octavian, this next slide didn’t come up. Maybe you could work on that. Because I think, yes, exactly. Because it’s very important to encourage people to take a quick picture. Because I think the report that Claire refers to is in particular, and Ivana also worked on and referred to as particularly useful to understand the risks of AI when it comes to discrimination, but also particularly also to gender equality or violence against women and the steps that can be taken. I think the point here is that there are new groups or new, we sometimes talk about grounds or characteristics that are particularly coming up because of the AI, intersection of data or data points create new, how do you call it, references.

Ivana Bartoletti: Algorithmic vulnerability, yeah. The point here is that you can have a, so when you think about non-discrimination laws, you think about specific grounds, right? You say you can’t be discriminated because of this ground, religion or whatever. The problem with AI is that the algorithmic discrimination, which is created by the AI itself, because it can identify, for example, can discriminate against somebody because they go on a particular website, or because at the intersection between going on a website and doing something else, this is big data, right? The algorithmic discrimination may not overlap with the traditional sources of discrimination, the grounds of discrimination. So there is a lack of overlap. So somebody may be discriminated for an algorithmic discrimination, which may not overlap with the traditional grounds that we were protected people for. So this lack of overlap is what Claire is referring to. And this is something that we need to think because we may need to look beyond the way that we’ve looked into discrimination law until now.

Menno Ettema: Yeah, thank you very much. I want to go back for a last round to the audience and also launch another little quiz with the Mentimeter. So I’ll ask Octavian to change the screen to the Mentimeter. Octavian, can you manage? Well, Octavian is trying that out. Maybe Charlotte, can I give you the floor first if there are any further comments or questions that came from the online audience?

Charlotte Gilmartin: Not just at the moment, no, no further questions. But I have put the links to the documents that all the speakers have discussed in the chat. So if any participants want to want to find the links, they should all be there.

Menno Ettema: That’s great. I take this opportunity to also mention everybody that’s in the room. The recordings will be online later on on the YouTube channel of the IGF. And there you can then also find all the links because the chat will be also visible in the recordings. Octavian, are you with us? Do you manage with the Mentimeter? Octavian? Yes, there you go. So it’s the same quiz, but in case you lost connection, you can scan against the QR code and use the numbers. I see people registering again. First question. So as I stated, the beginning AI is the elephant stampede trampling over gender equality, non-discrimination, the rights of the child. Yes, no holding them back. The AI, of course. No, elephants are skillful animals and human rights are not fragile. Or maybe, but let’s not blame the elephants. Meanwhile, are there any questions in the audience in the room? Just checking quickly. There you go. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes.

Audience: Ivana and Naomi all mentioned collaboration. So how can governments, civil society, tech companies more effectively collaborate to ensure that the online platforms are protecting and upholding rights? Can I ask who you are? Sorry, yes. I’m Mia McAllister. I’m from the US.

Menno Ettema: Great. Thank you. The question was to Claire and Ivana. Claire, would you like to start?

Clare McGlynn: No, I’m happy. Ivana has probably got more expertise in this particular aspect.

Ivana Bartoletti: So, thank you for the question. So, there are several aspects here. First of all, there are a lot of, so, there is responsibility coming from platforms and private sector, okay, which are very important. So, for example, I mean, if I think about the European Union, the DSA, which goes in that direction, content moderation, having, so, there is an issue, there is something about transparency, requiring transparency, requiring openness, requiring auditability. So, for example, one of the provisions of the DSA is that data can be accessed, and there’ll be brushing over things, but for researchers to then be able to understand what are the, what could be some of the sources of online hate or, so, and, so, there is an onus that must be placed onto companies that is important. There is AI literacy that needs to happen within education, in education settings. I always say we need people to develop a distrust by design as a way to grow with these technologies, but challenge them. You know, we need to tell people that they have to challenge all of this. It’s really important also to look at new regulation, but it’s also very, in my view, important that we create safe environments for companies and governments together to experiment. So, for example, the sandboxes are very good. There are different kinds of sandboxes, regulatory, technical, but it’s really important that companies, because there are some things that are very hard to tackle in this field, especially with generative AI. They are difficult, okay, because some of the things can be odd with the very nature of generative AI. So, having these sandboxes where you can have government, civic society to work together, to look into this product, influence this product, I think this is really, really important. So, I would push towards this kind of collaboration.

Menno Ettema: Thank you very much. Davian, could you just launch the last question, just to gather some further thoughts on what can be done more to ensure human rights in the use of AI? I just wanted to ask if there’s any other questions from the audience or online? No? Then while people answer this question, maybe a last word, a recommendation for us to take forward. We have two minutes, a minute left, so maybe Naomi, just a last final word of wisdom.

Naomi Trewinnard: Well, thank you. Yeah, I think just to reiterate again, I think the key is really collaboration and dialogue, so I think this is an excellent opportunity at the IGF to have this dialogue. For those that are interested in collaborating with the Lanzarote Committee, please do get in touch, our details are on there, and we also regularly at the Council of Europe have stakeholder consultations in the context of developing our standards and recommendations, so please tech companies do engage with us and let’s have a constructive dialogue together to better protect human rights online. Thank you, Naomi. Claire,

Clare McGlynn: last word of wisdom? Yes, I think what we need to see is greater political prioritisation and the need to move basically from the rhetoric to action, and that for me means demanding that the largest tech platforms actually act to ensure that we proactively reduce the harms online. There is a lot of very positive rhetoric, but we’ve yet to see an awful lot of action and actual change.

Ivana Bartoletti: Thank you. Ifeana? Yeah, to me it’s very much breaking that innovation versus human rights versus privacy versus security versus safety argument sometimes we hear, you know, it’s like the one hand there is the argument that we’ve got to innovate, we have to do it fast and quickly, and to do so we may have to sacrifice. Well, that is an argument that doesn’t stand, that this is Claire’s right, you know, this is where we need more action. Yeah, we need to do all,

Menno Ettema: and it’s possible to do all, through cooperation, clear standards, and clear commitment. Legal and non-legal measures, I think those are the key takeaways and the key words that I want to take forward. I thank my panellists, also my colleagues Charlotte and Octavian for the support. Thank you everyone for attending this session, and if there are any other questions, please be in touch with us through the forums on the Council of Europe website, or directly you have our details in the IGF web. Okay, thank you very much, and thank you technical team for all the support. Yes, I do. Thank you.

Audience: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Agreement Points

Human rights apply equally online and offline

Menno Ettema

Octavian Sofransky

Human rights apply equally online and offline

Council of Europe has developed robust human rights standards for member states

Both speakers emphasize that human rights standards should be applied consistently in both digital and physical spaces, with the Council of Europe playing a key role in developing these standards.

Need for collaboration to protect rights online

Menno Ettema

Naomi Trewinnard

Ivana Bartoletti

Multi-stakeholder collaboration and dialogue is key

Cooperation with private sector needed to obtain electronic evidence

Regulatory sandboxes allow government, companies and civil society to work together

These speakers agree on the importance of collaboration between various stakeholders, including governments, private sector, and civil society, to effectively address online human rights issues and challenges in AI governance.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the importance of specific conventions addressing digital dimensions of violence and exploitation, particularly for vulnerable groups like children and women.

Naomi Trewinnard

Clare McGlynn

Lanzarote Convention sets standards to protect children from sexual exploitation online

Istanbul Convention addresses digital dimension of violence against women

Both speakers point out that AI systems can reinforce and create new forms of discrimination, potentially affecting groups not typically protected by existing legislation.

Ivana Bartoletti

Clare McGlynn

AI can perpetuate and amplify existing stereotypes and biases

AI creates new forms of algorithmic discrimination not covered by existing laws

Unexpected Consensus

Positive potential of AI in addressing inequalities

Ivana Bartoletti

AI can be leveraged to address inequalities if there is political will

Despite the discussion largely focusing on the risks and challenges of AI, Ivana Bartoletti unexpectedly highlights the potential for AI to be used positively in addressing societal inequalities, given the right political commitment.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the application of human rights standards online, the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration, the importance of specific conventions addressing digital violence, and the recognition of AI’s potential risks and opportunities.

Consensus level

There is a high level of consensus among the speakers on the importance of protecting human rights online and the need for collaboration. This consensus implies a strong foundation for developing and implementing effective strategies to address online human rights issues and AI governance challenges. However, there are nuanced differences in approaches and emphasis, particularly regarding the potential of AI to address inequalities.

Different Viewpoints

Effectiveness of existing laws in addressing AI-related discrimination

Clare McGlynn

Ivana Bartoletti

AI creates new forms of algorithmic discrimination not covered by existing laws

AI can perpetuate and amplify existing stereotypes and biases

While both speakers acknowledge AI’s potential for discrimination, Clare McGlynn emphasizes the inadequacy of existing laws to address new forms of algorithmic discrimination, whereas Ivana Bartoletti focuses on how AI amplifies existing biases without explicitly stating that current laws are insufficient.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the effectiveness of existing legal frameworks in addressing AI-related discrimination and the specific approaches to leveraging political will and tech platform action.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the fundamental issues but have slightly different emphases or approaches. This suggests a general consensus on the importance of addressing human rights in the digital space and the challenges posed by AI, but with some variation in proposed solutions or areas of focus. These minor differences do not significantly impede the overall discussion on enhancing online safety and human rights standards.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for political action to address AI-related challenges, but Ivana Bartoletti emphasizes leveraging AI positively to address inequalities, while Clare McGlynn focuses on demanding action from tech platforms to reduce online harms.

Ivana Bartoletti

Clare McGlynn

AI can be leveraged to address inequalities if there is political will

Greater political prioritization and action from tech platforms needed

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the importance of specific conventions addressing digital dimensions of violence and exploitation, particularly for vulnerable groups like children and women.

Naomi Trewinnard

Clare McGlynn

Lanzarote Convention sets standards to protect children from sexual exploitation online

Istanbul Convention addresses digital dimension of violence against women

Both speakers point out that AI systems can reinforce and create new forms of discrimination, potentially affecting groups not typically protected by existing legislation.

Ivana Bartoletti

Clare McGlynn

AI can perpetuate and amplify existing stereotypes and biases

AI creates new forms of algorithmic discrimination not covered by existing laws

Key Takeaways

Human rights apply equally online and offline, but some are more difficult to enforce in the digital space

Existing human rights conventions like Lanzarote and Istanbul need to be adapted for the online context

AI poses both risks (amplifying biases, facilitating abuse) and opportunities (addressing inequalities) for human rights online

Multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments, tech companies, and civil society is crucial for protecting rights online

There is a need to move from rhetoric to concrete action in enforcing human rights standards online

Resolutions and Action Items

States should criminalize all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse facilitated by emerging technologies

Governments and companies should create regulatory sandboxes to experiment with AI governance

Tech platforms need to take more proactive measures to reduce online harms

Stakeholders should engage in dialogue and consultations to develop better online protection standards

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively balance innovation with human rights protection in AI development

How to address new forms of algorithmic discrimination not covered by existing laws

How to ensure transparency and auditability of AI systems used by private companies

How to protect human rights defenders from misuse of defamation laws to silence them online

Suggested Compromises

Using AI and big data analytics to identify patterns of discrimination while ensuring privacy protections

Developing narrowly-defined hate speech laws instead of broad defamation laws to protect freedom of expression

Balancing content moderation to protect vulnerable groups while preserving free speech online

The UN and the Council of Europe has clearly stated human rights apply equally online as it does offline. But how can well-established human rights standards be understood for the online space and in new digital technology?

speaker

Menno Ettema

reason

This framed the key question for the entire discussion, setting up an exploration of how existing human rights frameworks can be applied to rapidly evolving digital spaces.

impact

It set the agenda for the session and prompted speakers to address specific ways human rights standards are being adapted for online contexts.

The committee really recognises and emphasises the importance of international cooperation, including through international bodies and international meetings such as this one.

speaker

Naomi Trewinnard

reason

This highlighted the critical need for global collaboration in addressing online safety and rights issues that transcend national borders.

impact

It shifted the conversation to focus on international cooperation and multi-stakeholder approaches throughout the rest of the discussion.

If we’re ever going to prevent and reduce violence against women and girls, including online and technology facilitated violence against women and girls, we need to change attitudes across all of society and including amongst men and boys.

speaker

Clare McGlynn

reason

This comment emphasized the societal and cultural dimensions of online violence, moving beyond just technical or legal solutions.

impact

It broadened the scope of the discussion to include education and awareness-raising as key strategies alongside legal and technological approaches.

AI does threaten human rights, especially for the most vulnerable in our society. And it does for a variety of reasons. It does because it perpetuates and can amplify the existing stereotypes that we’ve got in society.

speaker

Ivana Bartoletti

reason

This introduced a critical perspective on AI, highlighting its potential to exacerbate existing inequalities and human rights issues.

impact

It sparked a more nuanced discussion about both the risks and potential benefits of AI in relation to human rights and online safety.

We can leverage AI and algorithmic decision-making for the good if we have the political and social will to do so. Because if we leave it to the data alone, it’s not going to happen because data is simply representative of the world.

speaker

Ivana Bartoletti

reason

This comment provided a balanced view on AI, acknowledging its potential for positive impact while emphasizing the need for intentional human guidance.

impact

It led to a discussion of specific ways AI could be leveraged to promote equality and human rights, shifting the tone from purely cautionary to also considering opportunities.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by framing it within the context of applying existing human rights frameworks to digital spaces, emphasizing the need for international cooperation, highlighting societal dimensions beyond technical solutions, critically examining the impact of AI on human rights, and exploring the potential for AI to be leveraged positively with proper guidance. The discussion evolved from a general overview of online human rights issues to a nuanced exploration of specific challenges and opportunities, particularly in relation to AI and international collaboration.

How can we protect human rights defenders online from being charged under defamation laws?

speaker

Jaica Charles

explanation

This is important because defamation laws are being misused to silence human rights defenders, particularly in the African context.

How can existing non-discrimination laws be adapted to address algorithmic discrimination that may not align with traditional protected grounds?

speaker

Ivana Bartoletti

explanation

This is crucial as AI systems can create new forms of discrimination that current laws may not adequately cover.

How can we leverage AI and big data to understand and address root causes of inequalities?

speaker

Ivana Bartoletti

explanation

This represents an opportunity to use AI for positive social impact and to combat discrimination.

How can governments, civil society, and tech companies more effectively collaborate to ensure online platforms are protecting and upholding rights?

speaker

Mia McAllister

explanation

Effective collaboration between these stakeholders is crucial for addressing online safety and human rights issues.

What are some key interventions to improve online safety for women and girls in West Africa, particularly in relation to the Istanbul Convention?

speaker

Peter King Quay

explanation

This highlights the need for region-specific strategies to implement global human rights standards in the digital space.

How can AI literacy be improved through education to help people critically engage with these technologies?

speaker

Ivana Bartoletti

explanation

Developing ‘distrust by design’ and critical thinking skills is important for navigating the challenges posed by AI technologies.

Summary

This session focused on digital innovation in the United Nations system, featuring presentations from representatives of UNHCR, UNICEF, the UN Pension Fund, and UNICC. The speakers discussed various digital transformation initiatives aimed at improving services and operations within their respective organizations.

UNHCR’s presentation highlighted their digital strategy, which includes efforts to empower refugees through digital skills and access, as well as initiatives to improve internal operations. Key focus areas included digital inclusion, protection, and innovation, with examples such as a refugee services mobile app and efforts to combat misinformation.

UNICEF shared their approach to digital resilience for children, emphasizing the importance of protecting children’s data rights and digital security. They outlined a framework encompassing data protection, information security, and responsible data use for children.

The UN Pension Fund presented their innovative digital identity solution for proof of life verification, utilizing blockchain, biometrics, and AI technologies. This system aims to streamline the process of confirming beneficiaries’ status while ensuring security and privacy.

UNICC, as the UN’s shared IT services provider, showcased various digital projects supporting multiple UN agencies. These included AI-powered chatbots, the UN digital ID platform, and cybersecurity initiatives, demonstrating UNICC’s role in facilitating digital transformation across the UN system.

The discussion highlighted common themes of collaboration, efficiency, and the responsible use of technology to support UN mandates. Speakers also addressed questions about accessibility, education for refugees, and the potential for sharing UN-developed solutions with external entities.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Digital innovation and transformation efforts across UN agencies (UNHCR, UNICEF, UN Pension Fund)

– Use of emerging technologies like blockchain, biometrics, and AI to improve services and operations

– Importance of data protection, privacy, and ethical use of technology

– Collaboration and shared solutions across the UN system

– Accessibility and inclusion considerations in digital initiatives

The overall purpose of the discussion was to showcase how different UN agencies are leveraging digital innovation and emerging technologies to improve their operations and better serve their constituents, whether refugees, children, or retirees. The speakers aimed to highlight both agency-specific initiatives as well as collaborative efforts across the UN system.

The tone of the discussion was largely informative and positive, with speakers enthusiastically sharing their agencies’ digital transformation journeys and achievements. There was an underlying tone of collaboration, with multiple speakers emphasizing the importance of working together and sharing solutions across UN agencies. The Q&A portion at the end introduced a slightly more critical tone, with audience members raising questions about monitoring fund recipients and ensuring accessibility for all users.

Speakers

– Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio – Chief Information Officer of the United Nations Pension Fund

– Michael Walton – Head of Digital Services at UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency)

– Fui Meng Liew – Chief of Digital Center of Excellence at UNICEF

– Sameer Chauhan – Director of the United Nations International Computing Center (UNICC)

– Sary Qasim – Representative of the Government Blockchain Association in the Middle East

Additional speakers:

– Nancy Marango – Chairman of an organization in Kenya

– Audience member – From University of Ghana and Internet Society Ghana chapter

Digital Innovation in the United Nations System: A Collaborative Approach

This session, held in the context of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), showcased digital innovation initiatives across various United Nations organizations. Representatives from UNHCR, UNICEF, the UN Pension Fund, and UNICC presented their agencies’ efforts in leveraging technology to enhance services and operations.

Key Themes and Initiatives

1. UNHCR’s Digital Strategy

Michael Walton, Head of Digital Services at UNHCR, outlined the agency’s digital strategy focusing on:

a) Digital Inclusion: Ensuring refugees have access to digital tools and skills

b) Digital Protection: Safeguarding refugees’ digital rights and privacy

c) Digital Innovation: Leveraging technology to improve service delivery

Walton highlighted initiatives such as a refugee services mobile app and efforts to combat misinformation, emphasizing the importance of digital inclusion across age and gender divides.

2. UNICEF’s Digital Resilience and Public Goods

Fui Meng Liew, Chief of Digital Center of Excellence at UNICEF, presented the organization’s approach to digital resilience for children and its digital public goods initiatives. Key aspects included:

a) Digital public infrastructure development

b) A database of digital interventions for children

c) Efforts to protect children’s data rights and digital security

Liew emphasized UNICEF’s work on creating digital public goods and identifying digital solutions for children with disabilities.

3. UN Pension Fund’s Digital Identity Solution

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio, Chief Information Officer of the UN Pension Fund, introduced an innovative digital identity solution for proof of life verification, utilizing blockchain, biometrics, and AI. The system’s four-proof framework includes:

a) Proof of identity at enrollment

b) Proof of authentication for subsequent interactions

c) Proof of liveness to prevent fraud

d) Proof of life to confirm beneficiary status

Dell’Accio highlighted the use of permissioned blockchain to balance security with organizational control.

4. UNICC’s Shared Digital Solutions

Sameer Chauhan, Director of UNICC, showcased various digital projects supporting multiple UN agencies, including:

a) AI-powered chatbots for enhanced user interactions

b) Cybersecurity initiatives coordinating threat intelligence across the UN system

c) Support for the UN digital ID platform

Chauhan emphasized UNICC’s role in facilitating digital transformation and collaboration across UN agencies.

5. UN Digital ID Project

Multiple speakers highlighted the UN Digital ID project as a significant cross-agency initiative, demonstrating the collaborative nature of digital innovation within the UN system.

Common Themes

Throughout the presentations and subsequent Q&A session, several common themes emerged:

1. Collaboration and knowledge sharing across UN agencies

2. Emphasis on data protection, privacy, and responsible use of technology

3. Focus on digital inclusion and accessibility, particularly for vulnerable populations

4. Adoption of emerging technologies like blockchain, AI, and biometrics

5. Development of scalable and cost-effective solutions

Audience Engagement

The session included a Q&A period where audience members raised questions about accessibility efforts for people with disabilities and the potential for sharing UN-developed systems with external entities. Speakers addressed these questions, highlighting ongoing initiatives and challenges in these areas.

Conclusion

The session provided a comprehensive overview of digital innovation efforts across the UN system, demonstrating a unified approach to leveraging technology for improved service delivery and operational efficiency. While each organization has its unique focus areas, the discussion revealed a strong foundation for collaboration and knowledge sharing in digital transformation efforts. As UN agencies continue to navigate the complexities of digital innovation, their collective efforts promise to enhance the impact and reach of their vital work worldwide, while addressing shared challenges such as digital inclusion, data protection, and the ethical use of emerging technologies.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Welcome to Session 50 on Digital Innovation in the United Nations System. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you are located. Welcome to our audience here in Riyadh and welcome to our audience online. My name is Dino Di Lattro. I’m the Chief Information Officer of the United Nations Pension Fund. And here today with my colleagues and friends from UNHCR, UNICEF, and UNICC, we are going to present the digital innovation in our respective organizations. Here in Riyadh, I’m with Mike Walton, the Head of Digital Services in UNHCR. And online, we are joined by Fuyi Meng, the Chief of Digital Center of Excellence of UNICEF, and Samir Shahwan, Director of the United Nations International Computing Center. The sequence of presentation will be as follows. Mike will present the experience and the strategy in UNHCR. We’ll then go online with Fuyi Meng. She will be presenting the UNICEF experience. And then I will make a presentation on the experience of the UN Pension Fund. And last but not least, we are going to have Samir, as Director of UNICC, is going to present how UNICC is actually supporting us and the entire UN system in our efforts to implement digital innovation and transformation in the UN system. So without further ado, I’ll give the floor to Mike. And I will be monitoring also the chat for any questions or comments that you may have. Thank you. Mike?

Michael Walton: Thank you, Dino. And good morning, everybody. I was told that I spoke a little bit too fast when I did another session. So please wave at me if I’m speaking too fast and I’ll slow down. So I’m Mike, I head up the digital service at the UN Refugee Agency, and good to see you all today. Really glad that we can share the experiences. We’ve been through a bit of a journey since lockdown where we started defining our digital strategy. So we were working on our digital strategy all through the pandemic. And when we decided to do it, one of the things the high commissioner said to us was this has to be designed from the ground up, has to be designed by the regions, and it has to be a framework. It can’t be a very restrictive strategy because every region is different. So we had a fantastic response from all of the regions. They ran workshops locally, and we really feel that at the end of it, we got something that was very locally relevant to people. So. I won’t play the video. But just just to remind people about really the last 10 years in terms of the number of forcibly displaced, just to kind of state UNHCR’s mandate here, since I started in 2011, we’ve seen lots of many different conflicts around the world. And this is everywhere from from America’s over to the Asia region. And you can see there the number of forcibly displaced is just grown really hugely. And I know we’re all aware of that because it touches on on all of our countries and all of our lives. So there’s a huge need out there, a huge need to meet the needs of these people and to work with them to help them rebuild their lives. This is Jessie, she’s from DRC. I met her in Kakuma Refugee Camp. This was about five or six years ago. She’s now moved on, but she was she was she was running a coding center in Kakuma with very little resources. She had a generator. She had a team. She had some. laptops, and they were developing Android coding apps for the local community in Kakuma Refugee Camp. And it was really amazing just to see what they’ve been able to do with such little resource. It’s actually grown much bigger now, and now there are big coding centers. And there is an initiative called I Am Code, which focuses on female coding skills. And it’s growing from strength to strength. But this is in its minority. So we need to see many more examples of local skills and investment. So don’t worry about reading this slide. It’s our digital strategy on a page. But I’ll talk you through it, just to say. But what we tried to do was a cross-cutting digital strategy for every part of the organization. And really, again, although we talk to regions, we also talk to all of the divisions at HQ to make sure that their needs were met. So I’ll walk you through this just very briefly. The first part of the strategy is around refugee empowerment and making sure that refugees have the digital skills and the agency and tools to engage in the digital world. Many of us take the digital access for granted, and we can do many things. But for many, the gap still exists. So how can we address that gap? Really, to rebuild lives. And rebuilding lives is something that’s so important. Refugees spend many of their years, many of their youthful years, in refugee camps. And things like education are so important to help them build the skills further. We also had two pillars of the strategy which were looking internally, which are how do we work better and how can we be more effective as an organization? And I’ll go into those two pillars. But it was important for us to match what we were saying externally with what we were doing internally, too. At the end, maybe we have some discussion time about the commonality, because there’s so much common need across all of the conversations I’ve heard. I’ll focus on a couple in a minute. But just to say, I’ve heard so much about capacity building over the last few weeks. How do we work together, multi-stakeholder, to deliver the best possible outcomes? And how do we work together to make sure that we’re deliver a capacity-building approach across all of our users? How can we be efficient in our digital tools that we produce? How can we be more effective and make sure that we reuse, we share and we don’t waste valuable resources? And how can we make sure that we don’t, with one hand, provide good, but with the other hand, inadvertently cause harm, perhaps by using climate-heavy, carbon-heavy approaches? So how can we really be good at making sure that we do no harm? And ethics is going to be a really important part of our focus next year. And if anyone here is interested in being involved in that with us, we’re really looking at how we can have an ethical approach to the use of tech in the humanitarian sector, working with other stakeholders. With accessibility, we’ve worked a bit with Microsoft and Google, and we’ve met with a group of refugees in London at Google headquarters. So thanks to them for helping facilitate that meeting. But as well as Google and Microsoft, there are so many other applications being developed. How can we make sure that the disabled users, whether it’s those with visual impairment, those with hearing impairments or other forms of disability can be properly catered for in the digital world? So we’re really focusing on that. And we’ve done a big piece of work on accessibility. It’s a common need. It’s come up again and again. How can we share? How can we have a joint approach and a joint center of excellence to something like digital accessibility so we can be more effective and not reinvent the wheel? My team’s mantra is engage, engage, engage, engage with the communities, make sure that we’re delivering something that is relevant to them. Two of my team members have just been to Iraq and to Rwanda and have sat with our new refugee gateway to make sure that actually the prototype is meeting their needs and meeting their expectations. So really important that we design for user feedback. Digital inclusion is a critical first pillar of the strategy. I won’t go on too much about digital inclusion because it’s been such a key focus of this week. You know, I’ve heard almost every session about digital inclusion. It starts with connectivity and we have a big refugee connectivity for refugees initiative. But it also goes on to when you get that connectivity, what can you do with it? How can you learn? How can you train? How can you get work? How can you be financially included? So for us, that inclusion is very all encompassing. Connectivity is always talked about. But what about all of the other things that come? I’ve heard one or two, one conversation actually on age. And I sat with my 94 year old father in law before I came here trying to get him to use his mobile phone so he could access. some of the services and call for safety if something happened to him, he wouldn’t have been able to do that without support. So I think when we’re talking about inclusion, we’re also talking about inclusion of elderly people who may not have the skills, or people who don’t have the access, and also make sure that that’s completely equal across the gender divide as well. So the second piece is digital services. So what we said was, okay, so when people get connectivity, the ability for us to provide services to individuals is going to be much more effective and much more efficient. So we’re now building a digital gateway, which is a one-stop shop for refugees to register, access appointments, find work, and find essential services. So that’s very much in its first stage of development. However, and we’ve heard a lot about risks, I think, in this week, with connectivity comes the risks and the threats of being online. So we have a huge program of work on digital protection, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that, but that really covers everything from hateful content. Imagine if you’re a refugee coming to a new community, whether that’s in the UK or anywhere else, and you’re met online with hateful comments or with misinformation, and it’s a real issue for us. So we want to make sure that we find a way of addressing that. Communicating, how we communicate with each other, how we communicate with our partners is another pillar. I won’t go into too much detail on that today, but that’s very much about how do we use all of the new communication tools to be more effective, and how do we work digitally? This may not look like a digital picture, but we were using Internet of Things monitoring for our water deliveries to make sure that we knew what the water levels were, we knew when deliveries needed to be made, and we’re using Internet of Things technology to help us inform and send data back for that. So really, really useful, interesting examples. Dino, please tell me if I need to speed up. know we talked about innovation, what we have is we have a fantastic innovation team in UNHCR. They have a digital innovation fund and actually there’s a refugee-led fund as well which goes into it and a data fund too but let’s talk about the digital fund. We have a certain amount of money allocated to the innovation fund and refugee-led organizations can apply too and it’s really about if you have a good idea and you want to test it, how can they get funding for it and how can they do a pilot and a prototype. It’s a really good mechanism and we find that we have maybe 50 or so, 100 or so different applications across the funds every year and some of them will fail, that’s the nature of innovation and some of them will succeed and that can help us move forward. This is a just a picture of our refugee services mobile app that I mentioned that’s being tested in Rwanda and Iraq. So you can see it’s online services, you’ll be able to arrange appointments, refugees will be able to access documents, they’ll be able to register. Imagine the huge queues that happens when there is a sudden onset of an emergency and the sudden need to be registered as a refugee. With a mobile app we can help relieve that. We’re not trying to take away face-to-face contact, that will always be our number one priority but we are looking at how can we actually speed up registration so people can access essential services and information as quickly as possible. This is our help website. When I arrived we didn’t have a help website, now we have 14 million forcibly displaced visiting our help website for critical information every year and it’s really important, it’s a lifeline for people. They can find out how to access, how to go through the asylum process, how to access essential services that in the country they’re in and it’s becoming, we now have pretty much all country operations covered by this and when things suddenly change, for example in the Syria situation or in Ukraine situation, it’s really important to be able to provide information quickly to people, quickly to refugees and as well as this we have a WhatsApp service which is about engaging refugees who are using WhatsApp but when Ukraine happened, we realized that WhatsApp wasn’t really the primary tool of communication in Ukraine, it was it was Viber and we hadn’t really explored Viber before so we really needed to kind of look at what are all of the different messaging platforms that we should be working on and how can we be more effective. We work really closely with partners, some of whom have been here this week so with Meta, with Google, with the EU, how can we really work with them and also how can we work to adapt business practice as well. so that actually business practice changes for some of these companies so that they also do no harm when they’re operating. Just a little thing around hate speech really, you know, it’s we’ve done a two-year project that’s been funded by the European Union and it’s about now we’re really talking about information integrity and trusted information. How can we be sure that trusted information is is accessible at all times and how can we make sure that that access to information is not restricted? So we’ve been working a lot with UNESCO, with ICRC and with the Norwegian government, with the Swiss government on really looking at ways that we can make sure that there is a safe and trusted information world out there. I don’t think I can play this video but if it’s circulated, is it possible to play that video on the You don’t necessarily need the sound, that’s fine. But just as an example, this is a AI-generated video. Don’t worry about the sound. An AI-generated video that was playing out in the Rohingya crisis and it was, if you can tell, it was by AI because actually AI is quite bad at creating the letters and the acronyms of UNHCR, so it’s quite wrong. But it’s basically showing UNHCR, bearing arms and holding content, which actually is never the case. We only act in peace and it’s completely fabricated content. So how do we really work against AI to make sure, work with AI and restrict AI to make sure that we don’t get false content out there? This was also, you know, a quite heavy issue for us in terms of impact on our operations and impact on refugee safety in Indonesia. So we had to be really careful at the time, too. Okay, so and then survey results, we actually looked at some of, we asked a survey of some of the questions that we wanted to ask refugees. And actually, you know, the many many, Many refugees have faced hate speech, have seen it on their own channels and have been disturbed and affected by that. So how can we really make sure that we’re really addressing that hate speech and it really isn’t causing harm? And you can see there, psychological harm, social harm, financial harm. We all reported this when we went out and we did a survey. Coming to a close now, but just some of the things that we’re seeing is borders are increasingly becoming digitized. And if you’re a refugee seeking safety, how do we make sure that actually safety is really there and that the technology that can be used for good at borders is also not used in the wrong way at borders? So we’re really looking and keeping an eye on the technology. Looking at what might happen here, biometric travel documents, apps and websites that are being used. So bots. It’s only being tested. Data is really essential. I went to a great presentation on data and movements and how can we really ensure that we can do good predictive analysis there. Again, I won’t play this video, but again, if you have the deck afterwards, you can see that. And finally, just to say, as I said at the beginning, how can we work in the spirit of the digital compact on common areas? Ethics, a common approach to ethical, ethical approaches. Gender, how can we really make sure that we are including both gender, but also age, as I mentioned at the beginning. Accessibility, let’s not reinvent the wheel and create many different training courses. On accessibility, there only needs to be one that we can share or maybe several that we can share. These things can be adapted. And then policy, again, lots of discussion on policy today and standards. So that’s it for me, Dino, over to you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you very much, Mike, for the very insightful, comprehensive presentation. Very impressive, the amount of technologies and the scope of your purview. Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. So, we are now going to pass the floor to our colleagues, Kim Yang, Chief of the Digital Center of Excellence at UNICEF. She’s based in New York. Kim Yang, if you can please turn on the video, as you already did. Thank you so much. And also share your screen for the presentation. Kim Yang is going to make a presentation on digital resilience for impact for children. The floor is yours, Kim Yang. Thank you.

Fui Meng Liew: Thank you, Dino. First of all, can you hear me loud and clear?

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Yes, we can hear you very well. But if you can please share your screen for the presentation. It’s not shown on the main screen.

Fui Meng Liew: Let me do that now, because I have to replace Mike’s sharing right now. And please let me know if you can see it.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Not yet.

Fui Meng Liew: What about now? Okay. Let me see. Yeah. Okay, perfect. It’s clear now. Yeah, it’s clear?

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Yes, it is. Thank you.

Fui Meng Liew: Thank you, Dino. Dino, because we are hearing online from the room a bit choppy, the voice, so please feel free to stop me if in the room you don’t hear me very clearly. First of all, I want to thank Mike for doing such a good presentation about digital transformation and innovation in the impact for refugees. And today, or now, I’m going to take us to another turn in terms of how do we see digital innovation and transformation for refugees. the impact for children. As an introduction, my name is Hui-Ming Liu. I am the Chief of Digital Center of Excellence of UNICEF, and I’m based in Nairobi. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone today. So as some of you might have known, UNICEF is a child rights organization. From our perspective, we look at the holistic view of how UNICEF as a UN agency can actually propel and deliver impact for children around the world. And today, in this conversations that I’m having with you all, we’re going to focus on the digital resilience framework that UNICEF put together to really look at in the digital age, how do we make sure that the rights for children in terms of assessing data and their digital rights are being protected along the way. So it is go without saying that digital is intertwined in UNICEF’s DNA. In UNICEF, we are actually guided every four years by our strategic plan. Digital transformation is in our current strategic plan of four years from 2022 to 2025. What does that really mean? That really means that the entire organization look at digital as a very important change strategy for us to change our way of delivering services and impact for children. And it’s not only that. In the UN organization, most recently in September, we also see that the approval and launch on the pack of the future that actually trigger a lot of conversations. Most importantly, the global digital compact actually also bind us with the member states of our ambition on digital. So this is not digital is not only really happening in. UNICEF and it is really happening around the world and we are living in a digital world. What we are also seeing most importantly is that our stakeholders, over 190 governments and territories, countries and territories that UNICEF work very closely with, we’re seeing a sea change of them coming out and telling us the fact that they need us to be also stepping up on how to do digital delivery for services and any of the results that we deliver for children. Just a little bit of data. Over the last two years, UNICEF around the world, we actually successfully got a sneak peek about what are the digital interventions that we are hearing from our country offices. As I mentioned, we have a global footprint. We have country offices in over 160 countries and we’re in seven regions. What we’re seeing is that through our knowledge management platform, we’re looking at over 1,600 digital interventions and this can be digital innovations, digital ideas and this can also be digital interventions that scale massively in the country with the government. This is not a small number in all ways and means and this really strengthens our belief that digital is intertwined in UNICEF. How do we see digital is important for child rights, being a child rights organization? The way that we look at it is that it’s the whole journey of a child. In UNICEF, our mandate is covering from health, education, sanitation and so forth. Really, that reflects into a journey of a child from birth to a child getting registered with a legal ID. a child being vaccinated, they receive social protection, and they receive the right education, and they receive the protection all the way from zero age, all the way to when they become a young adult. And there are some disturbing numbers that we’re seeing so far is that, let’s say, let’s take the example from legal identity perspective. A child is born, and we know that from our interventions and data collection from all the government agencies is that in sub-Saharan Africa, just for an example, over 90 million children are actually not registered. If a child is not registered legally, that means that will truncate the potential of the child because he or she will not be able to successfully get vaccinated, may not, most likely not get the proper education, and it might get into a lot of social protection gray zone that we cannot protect the child. So the fact that the child is being registered and the child getting the right services to us is really, really important. And what does it mean with digital? With the notion of governments as getting more and more digital, and we’re seeing a proliferation of digital solutions or digital public goods in the market, we do see that there is a strong need for UNICEF to come out working with the lights of this digital solutions providers, such as DHIS2, the Digital Health Information System 2, that, sorry, the District Health Information System 2 that is managed by University of Oslo, OpenSPP, that’s about social protection that is championed by some of the big member states such as the Germany, Primero, which is a case management system, Learning Passport, Giga. Giga is actually a very interesting one because the way that we see digital is. It’s also the importance of having connectivity in every school, in every primary healthcare center that we provide the services directly or indirectly to children and family. Giga is a flagship partnership with ITU, of UNICEF with ITU to really connect every school. So that’s a very, very ambitious goal, but it just goes to show that digital is important for child rights. And we do see that for us, we have to come out and really support this cause. I just want to spend a little bit of time about not only digital is important for child rights, how UNICEF walked the talk about enabling the digital public goods in the digital ecosystem to deliver results for children. A little bit of background of digital public goods. There is an alliance called Digital Public Goods Alliance, which UNICEF is a co-founder of the alliance that established three years ago. And we have been very strong in really working with different key partners from the Norwegian to UNDP and so forth to really realize the key principles of DPG from making sure that the solutions give countries greater control on how they build and enhance the digital public infrastructure, being able to give them the control of being able to optimize and offer cheaper and faster implementation. I hope the room can hear me because I see. Okay, so I continue. So also offer cheaper and faster implementation than the proprietary solution so that governments do not get into vendor lock-in situations. Last but not least, catalyze the local tech. ecosystem. So, you know, locally, there can be a vibrant ecosystem to sustain the work on digital public goods. And on the right hand side, you’ll see some of the UNICEF, how we walk the talk on investing in not only the key principles, but investing in some of this digital public goods, ranging from RapidPro, a real-time messaging platform that used by more than 100 countries. And last year, we sent more than 1.2 billion messages yearly to globally, all the way from Primero, Oki, Bebo and Yoma, they covered different sectoral needs of UNICEF in delivery impact for children. So switching gear a little bit, we live in a digital world and by design, we are vulnerable. So from the way that we see it, not only cyber attacks is everywhere, cyber attacks impact UN agencies as much as it impacts private sector or government agencies. So we take it very seriously that it is our accountability and responsibility to make sure that we have a way to ensure children’s data and the rights are fully respected. And in that notion, we started the framework of digital resilience, which the core objective of it is to be able to protect the data rights and keep personal data secure and be able to use it ethically. And in this realm, we’re talking about data of children as well, which in most of the time, they could be the most vulnerable group. They could be the most vulnerable group because they are not the attempt to make decision. I’m still hearing some sound from IGF7 here. So I just want to make sure everyone can hear me. So how does data resilience work? It actually has three key pillars or three key elements. One is about data protection. Second is about information security. Third is about responsible data for children. In data protection, we care about how to ensure the rights to know why personal data is being collected and to give consent for its use. I know in a lot of the countries, there’s clear data protection laws and so forth. From UNICEF perspective, we want to also keep the standard to make sure that we walk the talk on making sure data protection is clearly and adhered by in UNICEF and with the work that we do on the ground. Information security is to really make sure that we introduce a technical controls on who can access the data and when and really protect the data that is in our custody. The third pillar about responsible data for children is really about ensuring the adoption of the highest ethical standards. And we’re talking about data for children and of children. And this can be really sensitive data if we’re not actually do this right. So- The IGF-7, it’s unmuted, it creates a background noise. The fact that- It needs to be unmuted. The fact that we need to reduce the misuse of data and make sure there’s no misuse of data and use the data to its maximum potential is in the pillar of the responsible data for children. And how do we put the framework at use? There are multiple channels that we’re putting it at use. First is that we are integrating the resilience into the technology playbook. Technology playbook is a UNICEF way of providing a comprehensive guide for- our program and our technology for development colleagues on the ground to implement digital programming solutions. We make a very, very strong effort in integrating the digital resilience framework as an assessment into the playbook, so that we make sure that it is actually being fully utilized at all initiatives at the country level. So that’s one part of how we put it in use. The second part of how we put it in use is to also really amplify the need of it by strengthening the digital resilience framework through global partnership. And we have been concertedly working with different partners outside of UNICEF, and we will open for more feedback from this group as well. We really seek the collaboration with governments and donor agencies for implementing the capacity building for the information security, data protection, and also responsible use of data of the digital resilience framework as well. With that, I’m gonna pause, and thank you all for letting me have the stage to share with you what UNICEF is doing in digital transformation, digital innovation, more importantly, our digital resilience work. And I wanna hand it over back to the room. Dino, over back to you. Dino, I cannot hear you. I’m not sure. I think workshop seven is muted.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Can you hear me now?

Fui Meng Liew: Yes, I was able to hear you, but hand it over back to you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you very much, Fu-Ming. I really like your presentation, and actually, I really. like the fact that you gave some concrete example the digital public goods because there is a lot of talk about DPI but it’s not always clear for for many in the audience how this is translated into concrete application so thank you very much for sharing the example of UNICEF. So with that said we are now switching to my organization the UN Pension Fund where I would be walking you through the innovation that we implemented in the digital identity for proof of life or proof of existence. So I’m going to share my screen and make the presentation. So in the case of the UN Pension Fund we are focused on a particular demographics basically what we refer to as the aging population. The UN Pension Fund has 86,000 retirees and beneficiaries. They lived across the globe in more than 192 countries and one of the problem historically the UN Pension Fund had to address was how to confirm and determine that this individual that received periodic benefits from the UN Pension Fund are indeed still alive. So I will share with you how we address this problem using emerging technologies. So very briefly some data some indicators about the UN Pension Fund. We are striving to meet all the benchmark that have been defined for our operation and making sure that we pay 100% of the benefit. The market value of our asset as of today is actually around $100 billion. This in 2023 was evaluated at 84.4. It’s basically one of the biggest financial asset of the United Nations globally, an asset of $100 billion. And we are fully funded. So we are one of the few pension fund in the world, which is a defined benefit fund, pension fund, and we are completely funded. Actually in 2023, we are 117% funded. We serve 25 member organization. The 83,000 priority benefit a year you see in this slide actually increased to 86,000 and the 143,000 participant now increased to 150,000. These are some of the emblems and logos that you probably you’ll be able to recognize vis-a-vis the member organization that we are serving. One of our most important partner is actually going to present shortly after me is the United Nations International Computing Center, which actually develop technologically speaking, all our innovative, most innovative application and solution, which I’m going to speak about today vis-a-vis my organization. But then Samir, the director of the United Nations International Computing Center will be able to articulate a much wider presentation vis-a-vis what UNICC does, not only for the UN Pension Fund, but also for UNHCR, UNICEF, the entire ecosystem of the UN system. So here is the problem that I was alluding to before. For more than 70 year, the UN Pension Fund had this issue of serving… this 86,000 individual 190-feet country and determine whether and confirm whether they were alive. And how this was done was done by mailing through 195 postal services a form, a paper-based form, asking them to sign it and return it back through the same 195 postal services. So as you can appreciate, this process was highly prone to at least delays. And indeed, we had to perform this process twice a year, but in some cases also to loss of paper, which unfortunately, in extreme cases, because of the rules of the regulation of the pension fund, we were forced to suspend payments. And that, of course, as you can appreciate, have very serious and negative impact on the household. So how did we address this problem? We transformed, we digitalized, hence digital innovation slash transformation, a paper-based and mail-based process into a solution that uses emerging technology with a mobile application, blockchain, but also biometrics, artificial intelligence, and global positioning system. And this is indeed the real screenshot of our internet posting in 2021 when we went live with the application and we announced to all our stakeholders and clients the deployment of the solution itself. So on the right side, you see the screenshot of the web application, sorry, of the mobile application that each one of our client and user. can download on their device. And on the left side, you see the screenshot of our internet posting. So when I was given, when we were given this problem, we had to articulate and basically translate the problem into its main logical components. And the way we did this is that we identify the need to provide four proofs. One is the proof of identity at the very beginning of the process when we enroll our user, our client into the solution. And then proof of authentication every after, every time the application is utilized. As I alluded to before, this is not just a digital identity solution, but it’s a digital identity solution for proof of life, proof of existence, demonstrating and confirming that indeed the intended recipient is still alive. And therefore we had to provide a proof of existence. And then a proof of transaction in order to make sure that we were going to create an independently auditable and traceable record that could be verified and validated by external parties. And ultimately a proof of location because in some cases, our beneficiary receive or can receive, if they want, payment in local currency, hence the need to determine that indeed they reside in the country for which they elected to receive the benefit. So of course they were implicit, but also explicit benefit expectations such as security, reliability, transparency, accountability, and ultimately of course, attribution for the transaction. So in doing so, we were inspired by the 2018 UN Secretary General Strategy on New Technologies, as well as to the… Sustainable Development Goals, and most recently, by the UN 2.0 initiative of the UN Secretary General. So how did we address, as I alluded to before, we use and adopt and adopted emerging technology, blockchain, biometrics, specifically facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and geolocation. So blockchain served us as the technology that allowed us to create an immutable and independentable, auditable, traceable, triple entry general ledger, where each of the transaction that occurs is recorded in an immutable manner. Why blockchain? I added this slide because oftentimes, especially at the beginning 2021, when we were live, I was asked, why did you use blockchain? Is it because it’s now a trendy things to do? Well, no, indeed, as a first and foremost chief information officer, I wanted to make sure that we were going to use a technology that would also prevent any potential form of collusion, primarily with my own stuff, because of course, technologically speaking, the solution can also be implemented using distributed encrypted databases. By a database, by definition, hazard requires a database administrator that by default has a super user access to potentially manipulate the database. And therefore, I wanted to make sure that in order to protect my staff and myself, and of course, the organization, I was going to adopt a technology that will prevent and detect any potential cases of collusion. Therefore, by adopting blockchain, I adopted technology that did not have any type of central control. That however, in our case. utilizing a permission-based blockchain, we could determine who could participate. In our case, the scope of the application is very defined and limited to the 86,000 beneficiary of the UN Pension Fund. And of course, support privacy with the use of specific technology, such as zero-knowledge proof, and create, maintain, and audit an immutable ledger. There are documents also issued by the World Economic Forum, for example, that help organizations to determine when and if indeed blockchain is the suitable technology. Having used a technology based on biometrics and facial recognition, very soon, we realized that we were going to be exposed to new vulnerabilities, such as the vulnerability presented and the threats presented by artificial intelligence with deep fakes. And therefore, we decided to fight AI with AI by embedding into the solution an AI module that verifies and tests whether indeed the person on the other side of the phone, of the camera, is a real person and not a synthetic or artificially generated image. Therefore, facial recognition, which is stored only on the device of the user, so we do not transmit, we do not store at any given time the biometric profile, the biometric data of the user, which should remain on their phone in order to authenticate them, and in order to provide an input at a specific event, such as authentication has occurred and is recorded on the blockchain. And finally, the GPS capture the location when and if needed. So I’ve been working for the Indonesia for 25 years, and most of my career was spent in IT auditing. So one of the immediate second questions. that I wanted to address after designing and implementing this application with the subjective expertise of our colleagues in the UNICC was, how can I go now in front of my governing bodies and confirm that indeed a solution that makes use of emerging technology is secure, it’s credible, it’s trustworthy, it’s sustainable. And I started my quest to try to free criteria standards, best practices, especially international best practices most effectively the application was credible and reliable. So one of the first thing that I did in absence of specific standards of blockchain was to adopt the ISO for those who are familiar with cybersecurity standard, the ISO 27001, which is a set of best practices and international best practices on information security management system. And of course, the scope of the certification was focused on the application itself. And we got certified since then since 2021, we were subject to surveillance audit on a yearly basis. The second thing, dealing with biometrics and dealing with potential bias of technology, I also subjected a solution without direct assessment to confirm and demonstrate that there was no bias in the authentication identification. I also follow, of course, technical specification issue by my colleagues in the ITU, International Telecommunication Union, as well as additional documents standard best practices issued by the ISO organization. And finally, I also submitted the application to the specific cybersecurity assessment. As in data privacy. So the UN is not subject. for example the GDPR, but the United Nations adopted the same principle and issued its own data privacy principle that has a specific align for example the GDPR and similar regulation and therefore we conduct an assessment of the data privacy. Right now I’m in the process to have the application also be tested to a very recent ISO criteria for presentation attack protection. Talking about the things ISO organization came up with this 30107 standard that it’s a set of tests that can be conducted and confirm whether an application that uses biometrics is indeed resistant potential attack created generated using artificial intelligence that is in progress I hope to have it completed by the first quarter of 2025. Our solution the UN as a whole at the highest level by a body called the chief executive board decided to adopt the same solution to create now a digital identity for all staff members of the United Nations and indeed this is the document which is publicly available where the CEB the chief executive board of the United Nations launched the UN digital ID project defined the terms of reference of the product and appointed again UNICC the United Nations International Computing Centre has the technical support a subject matter expert for the implementation of this solution not only with the UN pension fund as in my case but now with the entire. UN system. And these are some screenshots of the application itself that our colleagues and myself included will be able now to download on our phone and use specific services related to us as staff members. Some mention about acknowledgement and recognition. In 2021, when we went live, we received an award from the UN Secretary General on innovation and sustainability. Shortly after, the Governing Blockchain Association, which is present here in Riyadh under the banner of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Blockchain Assurance and Standardization, gave us an award on social impact. We also became a case study by Gartner. Gartner is a world leader in IT advisory services and market research. So they actually documented and issued a case study on our solution. And there was also a trade journal specific on investment and pension that recognized our efforts. And here we are, as I alluded to, we are here in Riyadh in the Village booth. I created a specific dynamic coalition and I brought to the attention of all our stakeholders the importance of assurance of blockchain, but more broadly of the emerging technologies. Thank you very much for your attention. I will now pass the floor to Samir Shawan, the Director of UNICC, which led the technical implementation of this sophisticated solution and can speak more broadly about his support to all the UN system. Thank you very much. Samir, the floor is yours.

Sameer Chauhan: Thank you, Dino. I will turn my camera on. Hopefully, you can see me. Yes, we can see you. Great. And I will try and share this presentation. Please let me know if you can see it. Yes, if you can put it in slideshow mode. Perfect. Thank you. Great. So, thank you and honor to come after all the other colleagues from UNHCR, UNICEF and yourself Dino, and thank you for having me join this IGF forum. As I mentioned earlier in your presentation, we are designed to support all of you, our partners in your digital transformation journey. So I’ll walk us through a few slides to tell you about what we do, and there are some really good connections to what you shared Dino earlier so I think it’ll be useful to present that from our point of view of what we did. Just a bit of background, we are designed through a general assembly resolution to provide technology support to the rest of the UN system. And at this point we are the largest technology partner strategic partner for anything digital as well as cyber for the UN system. We have over 100 clients and partner organizations so essentially the entire UN system works with us in some way, shape or form for cyber and digital efforts that they have underway. And we have been around for 54 years now. I think it was 54 years as of yesterday. So we celebrated our 54th birthday, and a whole diversity of different digital services and solutions and we operate out of five locations currently. I think Dino you shared a version of this map also. So we support everybody across the UN in their digital journeys, and the work we do we try to look at it from a perspective of which SDGs do we support. And since we work with the entire UN system what we realized when we started doing a mapping is that our work and our projects support all 17 SDGs. One more point to mention here is our board which the entire UN system, just approved recently, a few months ago, a new corporate strategy for UNICC. It essentially is a strategic framework that allows us to build digital foundations that all the UN partners can then use for their journeys, for their digital transformation journeys, for developing their digital solutions in order to achieve their organizational outcomes. So, there are five pillars of the strategy, everything from where the solutions are built, i.e. the infrastructure, where it’s running, to the actual digital tools and solutions that we can help our partners with, to securing those solutions, to using data and AI services to derive insights from all of the solutions that have been built by the partners, and finally, providing expertise and insights. So, provide experts who can provide support and guidance to our partners as they go on their digital transformation journeys. And I’ll just spend a few minutes sharing some examples of the kinds of work we do. It spans a very wide spectrum. On average, we do about 150 to 200 new digital projects a year for our partners, and we manage more than nine petabytes of data in our data centers, as well as support partners in the cloud, on the public cloud. So, it’s a very vast portfolio of technology services, but these are just some snapshots, some examples to give you an idea of the kind of work we do. So, the big buzzword today is Gen AI. So, lots of UN partners are implementing Gen AI solutions for their specific business needs, for their mandates, for the work that they do, out in the field, out on the ground, whether it’s for refugees, for children, for women, for health, and so on and so forth. What we are doing is behind the scenes building common solutions that multiple partner organizations can use, and this is a great example of that. UNHCR built a solution which was to centralize HR policies. and to provide a Gen AI chatbot. For example, you can ask, can you explain to me how much uncertified sick leave do I have, or how do I get parental leave? Can I request to work 90% of the time? So those kinds of policies and guidelines, what we’ve done is we took the solution that UNHCR had built, and we expanded it to make it work for 13 different organizations. So we sift through all of the HR policies from these organizations, train the AI on it, and make sure that we can make this chatbot available to all of the employees of these organizations. And this is being scaled up, so more and more partner organizations are continuing to join this platform. Another one which Dino spoke about earlier is we built the core technology that was used by the pension fund to build a certificate of entitlement that Dino shared. What we did then is, since this was championed by the CEB, the Chief Executive Boards of the UN system, they asked us to build on top of that pension fund solution, a platform or a solution that will be the UN digital ID. So today it’s six organizations, UN Secretariat, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, the pension fund, and WFP, who have launched this. The first phase of the system is live. And the goal is multiple capabilities and features will be built onto this platform using that same blockchain biometric solution that Dino spoke about earlier. And this will allow all UN organizations eventually to use this one common platform to facilitate all of the data exchange, interoperabilities about staff data. And the data will be controlled by the staff members themselves. They will get to choose which information they share with which stakeholder when, and be able to revoke that access once they’ve shared that information. So this is just another example of a shared common collective solution that we have built. And when it comes to digital innovation, the solutions could be big or small, could be very, very complex, it could be fairly simple, but as we work with each one of our partners, our goal is to make sure that it is serving their needs and it is actually impactful. So this is a great example of what we built for PAHO, which is a Pan-American health organization. It’s the WHO regional office in the Americas. They asked us to build RPA solutions, which they call MAX and MIA. To start to handle all of their manual processes, which handle procurement. So MAX and MIA are now live. They are bots that are running at PAHO that automate all of the purchase orders for health supplies. So during COVID, it was a huge blessing for them because they were handling massive volumes of vaccine and supplies that were being shipped all over the Americas. And then MAX uses AI and machine learning. So it’s a much more advanced bot, if you will, than MIA. To automatically create advanced shipping notifications. So there’s much more complexity there. It’s typically something that human would do, but with the constant training, it is able to then generate this shipping notification and saves thousands of hours of human time every week. Another example I’d like to share is work we’ve done with UNDP through a partnership UNDP has with the EU to monitor elections assistance. And they created a joint task force, the EU and the UNDP, and asked us to build an early warning and early response system, which has now been called the iReports platform. So what this iReport platform does is gathers real-time information on the ground and provides all the relevant national authorities and independent monitoring authorities. Risk reports flags any incidents around electoral violence or gender violence, and it allows for coordinated nationwide responses. to these elections. And this platform, again, the value UNICC brings is it’s being built and enhanced election after election. So there’s more and more functionality and more and more capability that is being built to make sure that this platform is meaningful and can ensure that elections are handled seamlessly without any violence, without any interruptions. We have a large cybersecurity practice. And what we do here, what I’m demonstrating here is again, that collective collaboration across the UN system where we have brought the entire UN system together to make sure we look at and analyze all the threat intelligence so that we can all make collective decisions of how best to defend ourselves from cyber risks or cyber attacks. So what we do is we gather information from all of our partner agencies, the entire UN system, as well as we enrich it with additional information from commercial security firms, service providers, different member state government agencies, law enforcement, and other trusted sources. And those insights are then refined. And up-to-date timely information is presented to the entire UN community to say, how do you identify potential anomalies which could be risks or attacks? How do you respond to those? What kind of mitigating actions do you take? So that’s an example of, again, a shared collective responsibility in action. And this might be the last example I think I have, but what I wanted to highlight here is, we also take solutions that have been built by other partners. So in this instance, this was a solution that was jointly built by UNICEF, UNHCR, and the World Food Programme. And they asked us to take this on board. The idea was to have one common platform through which all the civil society organizations, these are third-party organizations out at the country level that these three organizations used to work with, to build one common interface. a partner portal through which they can all come in and interact with these UN organizations. So that platform was handed over to us by UNICEF and others, and we took it and we’ve scaled it, enhanced it, built more capabilities into it. And in the meantime, more and more organizations have joined. So at this point, I believe there are 12 or 13 UN organizations that use it. And this becomes one common way through which I think it’s 40,000 civil society organizations now can interact, partner, and do work with the entire UN system. As you can see, there’s massive functionality that’s in there, including some chatbots and some PSCA modules to make sure that any civil society organization the UN system works with has gone through some level of screening and background checks, if you will. So these are examples of the kinds of work we do at UNICC. Each one of these projects is designed for scale. It’s designed for use by multiple organizations. And as always, we have to be cost effective and respect all the principles of the UN family, which is to make sure we’re neutral and we are unbiased in the work we do. With that, I’ll stop, Dino, and hand the floor back to you. And thank you again from my side for giving us a chance to speak about what we do. Thank you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you very much, Samir, for joining us and for sharing this very meaningful application that you have built for the benefit of the UN. I actually really like that quote that you use, built by the UN for the UN. So I think that is very indicative of the spirit that we all follow collaboratively in sharing our problem and finding common solutions. So thank you very much. I think it was very insightful, very meaningful. So with that said, I think we are perfectly on time. with our schedule. We now have approximately 10-15 minutes for any question or answer that you may have. So I see three hands raised and if I can ask to pass the mic. So first and it’s over here, please.

Sary Qasim: Hello, hi, good morning everyone and it’s really an incredible efforts that the UN is doing in digital transformation and the application that you have applied with the system. My question is, such application, is it unapplicable to offer it for cities and governments over the world for them to use it as something from the UN with a very good like, you know, public-private partnership because, you know, such systems is very important for the community but it’s expensive as well. Such governments just avoiding implementing these systems because of its cost, you know. Is that something you may think about in the future? Thank you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Can you please just mention your name and which organization you represent?

Sary Qasim: My name is Sari Qasim. I’m from the Government Blockchain Association and I represent the GBA in the Middle East.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you. Maybe this is a question for Samir that can elaborate a little bit more about the mandate and the mission of UNICC vis-a-vis potential interaction beyond the UN and with other entities.

Sameer Chauhan: Thank you, Dino. So thank you for your question and two things to mention here. One is, yes, we ourselves UNICC was designed to work with the UN system and beyond. So we can work with other non-profit organizations worldwide. And since our whole premise of creating UNICC was efficiencies of scale and reuse, anything we’ve built for our partners, like we did for DINO or for UNHCR or UNICEF or others, we can, under certain guidelines, make available to others, member states. So we have initiatives that we’re working with, for example, with CITES, where we are working with our partners like ITU. So it’s typically with a UN partner, but we do collaborate with CITES and any knowledge we have, any expertise we have, we want to make sure we make it available to the broader community besides outside of the UN. And the second part I’ll make is our partners themselves. As you saw in examples from Mike, from UNICEF, from DINO, what we try and do across the entire UN ecosystem is make sure what we’re building is relevant and applicable in the greater world outside. So many, many solutions, digital solutions that are being built by our partners with ICC or without are designed for use at a country level. So the examples you heard about DPIs, DPGs, those are designed by UNICEF, UNHCR and others so that they can be made available to countries. So I hope that answers your question.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you very much, Sameer. Thank you for the question from the audience. Please, if you can say also your name and your organization.

Audience: Thank you very much for this interesting presentation and the good things we are doing in the form of exciting innovation. My name is Youssef Amadou from University of Ghana. I’m also part of Internet Society Ghana chapter. I want to know, this question goes to you, about your fund. The first question is who qualifies for the fund? That’s my first question. The second question is how do you do due diligence to find out if the grantees are the right people who are applying for the fund? And finally, how do you monitor the grantees? I have an experience. I’m part of a World Bank project. We give funds to organizations, individuals for capacity building and job creation. We went for observation just last week and we found that one grantee has closed down his organization. He has changed his number and we cannot find him. Although we have fund management system, which is on an application, we have monitors who go to see what they are doing. But still, this person has vanished. Yours is a remote one. How do you monitor to find out that the grantees are real people and they exist and they are locations that you can easily find them, apart from using the technology? And the last one goes to the police organization. I’m a structural designer. online content for my university. I want to know your, what does that mean? What do you support? The refugees here. Refugee. I really care about formal education that you provide them. You have a common platform where the refugees can take course formal courses for other basic level, high school level, or university level, as well as professional courses for every refugee across the globe. We have something like that. We have intention to do that. Thank you very much.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you for your question. I’ll try to be very brief because there are many details in the process. However, so first and foremost, answer to the first question, who qualifies? As I alluded to, the UN Pension Fund serves 25 organizations. The majority of them are UN entities. So all the UN entities in the system, plus an additional international organization that, although are not part of the UN system, do have certain, do meet certain requirements and parameters. And therefore, they submit a request to be accepted into the UN Pension Fund. We have a board that meets regularly every year, and they go through this process and then ultimately decide whether or not they can be included. Second question, how do we vouch? How do we validate? How do we monitor? So someone, in order to become a retiree, had to be a former staff member, which means we have a history that the member organization has to provide to us through data interfaces. So we have two main data interfaces. One is called the financial data interface. The other one is called the human resources data interfaces, through which we collect the entire history on a regular basis of each staff member so that before they reach the normal retirement age, we get in touch with them, and we ask them certain documentation that proves and validates who they are and where they are going to live. The process of the digital identification for proof of life and proof of existence starts with an onboarding process, where I made that distinction before, identification versus authentication. So the first step is to identify can be admitted into the digital identity solution of the UN Pension Fund. In the onboarding process, we verify. Originally, we wanted to do in person, but that happened exactly through the pandemic. So we had to convert a process to a digital process with a video onboarding process that’s conducted by our call center, where we require the person decide to be onboarded with their national ID. We match their national ID with a document on file, on record, and we confirm, again, we are using the AI also in that instance, that indeed the person on the other side of the camera matches what we have on file. And once we have done that, then we authenticate the person. There is an additional question that usually you did not ask, but it’s commonly asked. How do we take into account the aging process? Because unfortunately, we get older. So how do we make sure that the biomarker provides? So every time, at least once a year, every time the user utilizes the application, their biometric profile is updated. So we take into account the aging process. I hope I addressed your question. If not, we can take it offline. Thank you. Mike?

Michael Walton: Great. Thank you. And on education, we have quite a vast connected education program with lots of partners. So we don’t develop courses ourselves, but we do have lots of partnerships with different universities across the world and online courses like Coursera and LinkedIn, et cetera. So we’re about to go into the process now of creating a new application, a new site called Opportunities. And we work really closely with, again, universities where we’re funding scholarships via the German government and other partners as well. So we don’t do the development courses ourselves, but we do try and gather together in every country and every opportunity the places they can go to both do tertiary education, but also other educational opportunities for training. So I’m happy to speak to you more about that, but yeah, it’s really a core part of our program, this connected education piece, and how you can provide remote learning. Thanks.

Nancy Marango: And the last question. Thank you very much for the floor. My name is Nancy Marango. I serve as chairman for an organization in Kenya. My question and concern is about accessibility. We have like a standardized system integrating the middle age and the elderly in terms of information access and opportunity access within the system. Thank you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Is that question directed to pension fund, UNHCR, UNICEF, all of us?

Nancy Marango: I love you because disability does not choose and everyone is a candidate.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you. Thank you. Very briefly, maybe I’ll respond for the pension fund. Our demographics, by definition, is a very peculiar type of demographic, as I alluded to in my title. We are dealing with the aging population, so definitely issues with accessibility are taken into account both on our website, in the instruction, and also in allowing those who have limitations to be assisted by legal guardians. So we are allowed also for that. Thank you.

Michael Walton: I’ve done a lot of work on disability over the last years, really looking at all of our applications, because what we want to ensure is that when somebody wants to work for you in HCR, they have the trust and the belief that they can come to a workplace where those applications can be used. From a refugee perspective, 100%, we are working with refugees, with disabilities to make sure. But I think your question is wider, which is how can we make sure this happens across the UN? And I think that there is a real potential here for a joint centre of excellence approach on accessibility so that everybody can take the benefit of that. I 100% agree with that priority. Thank you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you, Mike. I don’t know whether Sui Meng, would you like to also provide a perspective on UNICEF?

Fui Meng Liew: Yeah, sounds great. So internal to UNICEF, we take accessibility very, very seriously. Just most recently, all our websites is actually proven to be accessible. And accessibility is not only just by age. There’s also disabilities and things like that. For people that have colourblind, can they actually access the information on our internal system? So that’s one angle. The other angle is about children. A lot of children that are having disability and needed better digital accessibility functions in… the tools that we provide, a lot of them are not identified. So we are also working on how to make sure that we identify that age group, like children, very more intentionally so that we can provide interventions digitally to give them, to let them, to help them actually learn, to help them being able to get through the journey better. So two different angles that we’re looking at accessibility and they’re both very, very important for our work as well. Thank you for the question.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you, Fui Meng. And Samir, would you like to also provide a little bit of analysis in?

Sameer Chauhan: Yes, please. Thank you. So absolutely. I think as you heard from the other speakers, this is front and center in the work we all do. Overall across the UN ecosystem, there is a whole group called the DTN, which is the chief technology officers of the entire UN system. They meet on a regular basis and accessibility guidelines and standardization is a key topic that they discuss at that level. So we want to make sure that everybody is using the same approach. And I can speak for UNICC, all the systems we build, we make sure that we adhere to those UN system-wide guidelines for accessibility. But there are additional guidelines that come into play. For example, human rights guidelines that have been issued by the secretary general. So we want to make sure that in all of the digital work we do, those human rights guidelines are also taken into consideration as well as any other gender considerations, et cetera. And as Dino alluded to in the solution that has been built by the pension fund, which we worked with the pension fund on, we also had to make sure that there is no bias from a regional perspective or a geographical perspective in the solutions we’ve built. So there are many, many factors to take into consideration here, but absolutely it’s something we’re all very conscious of and working on addressing every day. Thank you.

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio: Thank you very much, Samir. So we are perfect on time. Thank you very much. for your participation. I don’t see any question on the chat, so I think that we can thank the active participation of the audience, both in person as well as online, and thanks all my colleagues and friends, speakers, Mike Walton, Xiuying Meng, and Samir Shawan for participating. Thank you. The recording will be available on the website along with the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Agreement Points

Importance of digital inclusion and accessibility

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Sameer Chauhan

Need to address digital inclusion and accessibility

Digital solutions supporting child rights and protection

Security and privacy concerns in digital identity systems

Ensuring solutions are scalable and cost-effective

All speakers emphasized the importance of making digital solutions accessible and inclusive for various user groups, including refugees, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

Collaboration and shared digital solutions across UN agencies

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Sameer Chauhan

Multi-stakeholder partnerships for capacity building

Shared digital public goods across UN agencies

Shared digital solutions and platforms for UN agencies

Speakers agreed on the importance of collaboration and sharing digital solutions across UN agencies to increase efficiency and maximize impact.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of data protection and security in digital systems, particularly for vulnerable groups like children and pensioners.

Fui Meng Liew

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Digital resilience framework to protect children’s data rights

Security and privacy concerns in digital identity systems

Both speakers highlighted how digital solutions can improve service delivery and support the rights of vulnerable populations like refugees and children.

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Digital services improving refugee assistance

Digital solutions supporting child rights and protection

Unexpected Consensus

Adoption of emerging technologies across different UN agencies

Michael Walton

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Sameer Chauhan

Digital strategy focused on refugee empowerment and internal effectiveness

Blockchain-based digital identity solution for UN pensioners

Shared digital solutions and platforms for UN agencies

Despite their different focus areas, all three speakers showed a strong commitment to adopting emerging technologies like blockchain, AI, and biometrics in their respective agencies, indicating a broader trend of technological innovation across the UN system.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement among speakers included the importance of digital inclusion and accessibility, collaboration across UN agencies, data protection and security, and the adoption of emerging technologies to improve service delivery.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among the speakers, suggesting a unified approach to digital innovation across different UN agencies. This consensus implies a strong foundation for future collaboration and knowledge sharing in digital transformation efforts within the UN system.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to digital innovation

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Digital strategy focused on refugee empowerment and internal effectiveness

Digital resilience framework to protect children’s data rights

Blockchain-based digital identity solution for UN pensioners

While all speakers focused on digital innovation, they had different primary focuses based on their organizations’ mandates. UNHCR emphasized refugee empowerment, UNICEF prioritized children’s data rights, and the UN Pension Fund focused on digital identity for pensioners.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were in the specific focus and approach to digital innovation, based on each organization’s mandate and target population.

difference_level

The level of disagreement was relatively low, with speakers mostly presenting complementary rather than conflicting approaches. This suggests a cohesive overall strategy for digital innovation across UN organizations, with each entity adapting to its specific needs and challenges.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agreed on the importance of collaboration and shared resources, but had different approaches. UNHCR focused on multi-stakeholder partnerships, UNICEF on digital public goods, UN Pension Fund on international standards, and UNICC on shared platforms across UN agencies.

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Sameer Chauhan

Multi-stakeholder partnerships for capacity building

Shared digital public goods across UN agencies

Adoption of international standards and best practices

Shared digital solutions and platforms for UN agencies

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of data protection and security in digital systems, particularly for vulnerable groups like children and pensioners.

Fui Meng Liew

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

Digital resilience framework to protect children’s data rights

Security and privacy concerns in digital identity systems

Both speakers highlighted how digital solutions can improve service delivery and support the rights of vulnerable populations like refugees and children.

Michael Walton

Fui Meng Liew

Digital services improving refugee assistance

Digital solutions supporting child rights and protection

Key Takeaways

UN organizations are implementing various digital innovation initiatives to improve their operations and services

Digital strategies focus on empowering beneficiaries (e.g. refugees, children) as well as improving internal effectiveness

Data protection, privacy, and responsible use of technology are key priorities across UN digital initiatives

There is a strong emphasis on collaboration and shared digital solutions across UN agencies

Digital inclusion and accessibility remain important challenges to address

Resolutions and Action Items

UNICC to continue developing shared digital platforms and solutions for use across UN agencies

UN organizations to adhere to common accessibility guidelines and standards in digital solutions

Explore creation of a joint center of excellence on digital accessibility across UN system

Unresolved Issues

How to make UN digital solutions more widely available to cities and governments

Addressing challenges of monitoring and verifying grantees/beneficiaries in remote settings

Fully integrating elderly and disabled populations into digital systems

Suggested Compromises

Balancing need for in-person verification with digital onboarding processes during pandemic

Using AI and regular biometric updates to account for aging in digital identity systems

We had to articulate and basically translate the problem into its main logical components. And the way we did this is that we identify the need to provide four proofs. One is the proof of identity at the very beginning of the process when we enroll our user, our client into the solution. And then proof of authentication every after, every time the application is utilized.

speaker

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

reason

This comment provides a clear framework for approaching the complex problem of digital identity verification, breaking it down into distinct components. It demonstrates a systematic and logical approach to solving a technical challenge.

impact

This comment set the stage for a deeper discussion on the technical aspects of digital identity solutions. It led to further explanations about blockchain, biometrics, and AI, showing how these technologies address each ‘proof’ in the framework.

By adopting blockchain, I adopted technology that did not have any type of central control. That however, in our case utilizing a permission-based blockchain, we could determine who could participate.

speaker

Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio

reason

This comment highlights a key benefit of blockchain technology in ensuring security and preventing collusion, while also explaining how it can be adapted for specific organizational needs. It shows a nuanced understanding of the technology’s capabilities.

impact

This insight sparked further discussion on the use of emerging technologies in UN systems, leading to explanations of how AI and biometrics are integrated into the solution.

We have a large cybersecurity practice. And what we do here, what I’m demonstrating here is again, that collective collaboration across the UN system where we have brought the entire UN system together to make sure we look at and analyze all the threat intelligence so that we can all make collective decisions of how best to defend ourselves from cyber risks or cyber attacks.

speaker

Sameer Chauhan

reason

This comment emphasizes the importance of collaboration and shared resources in cybersecurity, highlighting a unified approach across the UN system. It demonstrates how individual organizational efforts can be amplified through collective action.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion towards the broader implications of digital transformation across the UN system, emphasizing the importance of shared solutions and collaborative efforts.

I think when we’re talking about inclusion, we’re also talking about inclusion of elderly people who may not have the skills, or people who don’t have the access, and also make sure that that’s completely equal across the gender divide as well.

speaker

Michael Walton

reason

This comment broadens the discussion on digital inclusion beyond just connectivity, highlighting the importance of considering age, skills, and gender in digital access. It brings attention to often overlooked aspects of the digital divide.

impact

This comment led to a more comprehensive discussion on accessibility and inclusion, with other speakers addressing how their organizations consider these factors in their digital solutions.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from a general overview of digital transformation in UN agencies to a more nuanced exploration of specific challenges and solutions. They highlighted the complexity of implementing digital solutions in a global context, emphasizing the need for security, accessibility, and collaboration. The discussion evolved from technical aspects of digital identity to broader considerations of inclusion and shared resources across the UN system, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of digital innovation in international organizations.

How can we have an ethical approach to the use of tech in the humanitarian sector?

speaker

Michael Walton

explanation

This was mentioned as an important focus area for the coming year, with interest in involving other stakeholders.

How can we create a joint center of excellence for digital accessibility across the UN system?

speaker

Michael Walton

explanation

This was suggested as a way to share resources and avoid reinventing the wheel on accessibility issues across UN organizations.

How can we address the digital inclusion gap for elderly people and ensure equal access across the gender divide?

speaker

Michael Walton

explanation

This was highlighted as an important consideration in digital inclusion efforts beyond just connectivity.

How can UN digital solutions be made available to cities and governments worldwide through public-private partnerships?

speaker

Sary Qasim

explanation

This was raised as a potential way to make UN-developed systems more widely accessible and affordable for governments.

How can we create a common platform for refugees to access formal education courses at various levels across the globe?

speaker

Audience member (name not provided)

explanation

This was suggested as a way to provide more comprehensive educational opportunities for refugees.

How can we better identify and provide digital interventions for children with disabilities?

speaker

Fui Meng Liew

explanation

This was mentioned as an important area of focus for UNICEF to improve digital accessibility for children with disabilities.

Summary

This open forum focused on how digital technology can empower green and low-carbon development. Experts from various fields discussed the intersection of digitalization and environmental sustainability. The speakers emphasized that digital transformation should be people-centered and aimed at achieving sustainable development goals. They highlighted the need for coordinated efforts between digital and green transformations to address climate change and other environmental challenges.

Several key points emerged from the discussion. First, while digital technologies offer immense potential for sustainable development, they also have their own environmental footprint that needs to be managed. The lifecycle approach to assessing the environmental impact of digitalization was emphasized, covering production, use, and end-of-life stages. Second, the importance of capacity building, especially in developing countries, was stressed to ensure they can benefit from digital technologies while managing associated environmental costs.

Speakers also highlighted the role of education in promoting digital literacy and environmental awareness. Examples were shared of how AI and other digital technologies are being used in schools to foster understanding of low-carbon practices. The potential of AI in modeling clean energy transitions and improving climate models was also discussed.

The forum concluded with insights from industry representatives on practical applications of digital technologies in reducing energy consumption and promoting circular economy principles. Overall, the discussion underscored the need for collaborative efforts across sectors and countries to harness digital technologies for sustainable development while mitigating their environmental impacts.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of coordinating digital technology development with green/low-carbon goals

– The need for capacity building, education, and talent cultivation to support digital and green transformations

– The environmental impacts and footprint of digital technologies themselves

– The potential for AI and digital tech to model and support clean energy transitions

– Practical examples of using digital tech for sustainability in areas like education and data centers

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this forum was to explore how digital technologies, especially AI, can be leveraged to support green and low-carbon development goals. Speakers discussed both the opportunities and challenges of aligning digital and environmental agendas.

Tone:

The overall tone was optimistic and forward-looking, with speakers highlighting the potential for digital tech to drive sustainability. There was also a sense of urgency about addressing environmental challenges. The tone remained consistent throughout, with all speakers adopting a similar professional and solution-oriented approach to the topic.

Speakers

– Xue Lan: Senior Professor, Tsinghua University; Dean, Schwarzman College; Member of the Leadership Group, UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

– Long Kai: Deputy Director, Cyber Information Development Bureau, Cyberspace Administration of China

– Peng Gang: Vice President and Provost of Tsinghua University

– Gong Ke: Former President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations; Executive Director of Chinese Institute for New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Strategies

– Torbjorn Fredriksson: Director of the Office of ICT Policy at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); Head of UNCTAD’s work on performance and digital economy

– Su Jun: Dean of the Intelligent Society Governance from Tsinghua University

– Dou Guimei: Principal of Tsinghua University Primary School; Co-director of the National Experiment Base of the Intelligent Society Governance

– Eduardo Araral: Former Vice Dean and Director at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore

– Zhou Chaonan: Chairperson of Range IDC; Vice-chairman of Henggang

Additional speakers:

– Fabio Fred Dixon

– Professor Salva

– Professor D’Souza

Digital Technology Empowering Green and Low-Carbon Development: A Comprehensive Forum Summary

This open forum brought together experts from academia, government, and international organisations to explore the intersection of digital technology and sustainable development. The discussion centred on how digital innovations, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and 5G, can be leveraged to support green and low-carbon initiatives while addressing the environmental challenges posed by digitalisation itself.

Key Themes and Agreements

1. Digital Technologies as Enablers of Sustainable Development

There was broad consensus among speakers that digital technologies have significant potential to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals. Torbjorn Fredriksson, Director at UNCTAD, emphasised this point, which was echoed by other participants including Gong Ke, Long Kai, and Eduardo Araral. They agreed that when properly implemented and coordinated with green initiatives, digital technologies can improve environmental outcomes.

Fredriksson highlighted the potential to accelerate sustainable development goals and introduced the Global Digital Compact, a UN initiative aimed at outlining shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. Gong Ke stressed the importance of a people-centred approach to digital technology, underscoring the complexity of balancing technological advancement with human and environmental needs.

2. Environmental Impacts of Digitalisation

Speakers acknowledged the significant environmental challenges posed by the digital sector. Fredriksson pointed out that the ICT sector generates substantial greenhouse gas emissions, with the production of digital devices requiring large amounts of raw materials. He emphasised the need for a lifecycle approach to understand the full environmental impact of digitalisation, highlighting the growing energy and water consumption of data centres, as well as the increasing problem of e-waste, particularly in developing countries.

Zhou Chaonan, representing the industry perspective, discussed innovative solutions to mitigate these impacts, particularly focusing on improving the energy efficiency of data centres through advanced cooling systems and reducing Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). This partial agreement between Fredriksson and Zhou Chaonan illustrates the industry’s recognition of the problem and efforts to address it.

3. Strategies for Green Digital Development

Several strategies were proposed to align digital development with environmental sustainability:

a) Circular Digital Economy: Fredriksson emphasised the need to move towards a circular digital economy to reduce the environmental footprint of digital technologies. This approach involves designing products for longevity, reuse, and recycling, as well as implementing effective e-waste management systems.

b) Interdisciplinary Research and Education: Peng Gang, Vice President of Tsinghua University, stressed the importance of interdisciplinary research and education on AI and sustainability. This view was shared by Su Jun, who highlighted the need to study the social impacts of AI through large-scale experiments, introducing the AIC (Artificial Intelligence Social Impact Implementation) initiative.

c) AI in Education: Dou Guimei provided insights on using AI to create smart, low-carbon campuses and enhance environmental education. She discussed initiatives such as AI-powered energy management systems and personalised learning platforms that reduce resource consumption while improving educational outcomes.

d) Energy-Efficient Infrastructure: Zhou Chaonan discussed improving the energy efficiency of data centres, highlighting the industry’s role in sustainable digital development through innovations in cooling technologies and renewable energy integration.

e) AI for Clean Energy Transition: Eduardo Araral presented on the potential of AI for complex modelling of clean energy transitions, emphasising the need for advanced computational tools to optimise renewable energy systems and grid management.

4. Policy and Governance for Digital Sustainability

The discussion also touched upon the policy and governance aspects of aligning digital and green agendas:

a) National Initiatives: Long Kai highlighted China’s efforts to promote coordination between digitalisation and green transformation, including policy frameworks that encourage the integration of digital technologies in environmental protection and resource management.

b) International Cooperation: Speakers emphasised the need for global collaboration on technology, standards, and policy to address the challenges of sustainable digital development. This includes initiatives like the Global Digital Compact and efforts to align digital standards across countries.

c) Industry Support: Zhou Chaonan discussed the importance of establishing mechanisms to support the green upgrading of industries through digital technologies, emphasising the role of public-private partnerships in driving innovation.

Thought-Provoking Insights

Several comments stood out for their ability to frame the discussion in broader terms:

1. Gong Ke posed the fundamental question: “What is the overarched goal of the digitalisation?” This prompted participants to consider the purpose of digital transformation beyond technical implementation.

2. Fredriksson highlighted the complex challenge of balancing digitalisation’s environmental costs with its potential benefits, especially for developing countries. He stated, “We need to both help countries to deal with the costs of digitalisation in terms of the environment but we also need to continue to support countries that are far behind in order for them to be able to use digital technologies to address the environmental concerns.”

3. Su Jun cautioned against becoming “slavers of technology,” emphasising the need for human-centred AI development and the importance of large-scale social experiments to understand AI’s impacts.

4. Du Guimei brought the discussion to a practical level by considering AI’s impact on elementary education, broadening the scope to include everyday applications of digital technologies in creating sustainable learning environments.

Areas for Further Exploration

The forum identified several key areas requiring further investigation:

1. Utilising AI for complex modelling of clean energy transitions and optimising renewable energy systems

2. Further reducing the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of data centres and exploring innovative cooling technologies

3. Improving integration of digital transformation and green development policies at national and international levels

4. Addressing the ‘double bind’ faced by developing countries regarding digitalisation and environmental costs

5. Transitioning towards a more circular digital economy, including improved e-waste management and product design for longevity

6. Strengthening interdisciplinary education in AI, digital technologies, and societal governance

7. Enhancing collaboration among stakeholders in digital and green development, including academia, industry, and government

8. Promoting global cooperation in technology communications, standards alignment, and financial integration for digital and green development

9. Expanding research on the social impacts of AI through initiatives like the AIC (Artificial Intelligence Social Impact Implementation)

10. Developing and implementing AI-powered solutions for smart, low-carbon campuses and educational institutions

Conclusion

The forum demonstrated a high level of consensus on the potential of digital technologies to support sustainable development and the need for coordinated approaches to digital and green transformations. While specific strategies and implementations varied among speakers, there was agreement on the general direction towards integrating digital and environmental agendas. The discussion underscored the growing recognition of the interconnectedness of digital and environmental issues, suggesting potential for more integrated policy approaches and research initiatives in the future. The emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, global cooperation, and human-centred technology development provides a roadmap for future efforts in harnessing digital technologies for sustainable development.

Xue Lan: Yes, could you help me? Channel two, right? Can you help me? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to this open forum, Digital Technology Empowering Green and Low Carbon Development. My name is Fang Zhang. I’m an associate professor from the Institute of Intelligent Society Governance, Tsinghua University. It’s my honor to serve as a moderate for this forum today. First, on behalf of the organizers, I would like to extend warm welcome to our distinguished experts and the audience here or online. This forum focus on the critical intersection between the digital technology and green low carbon development. We are very honored to have nine speakers with us today. Seven of them will join on the site and two will join remotely. As you can see from the agenda, we have a very packed but exciting program ahead. To kick off the forum, please let me to invite Mr. Nong Kai, Deputy General Director of the Bureau of Information Technology, Development, Cyberspace Administration of China, to deliver the opening remarks. Welcome.

Long Kai: Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the 19th IGF Open Forum on Digital Technology in Power Screen and Low Carbon Development. It’s a great pleasure to meet all of you here in Riyadh. On behalf of the organizers, the Bureau of Digitalization Development, Cyberspace Administration of China, I would like to express our gratitude for your participation. I would also like to extend special thanks to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this year’s host country of IGF, for their extraordinary work and dedication to the success of this forum. The Chinese government places great importance on the coordination between digitalization and green transformation, and it’s committed to promoting the empowerment of green and low carbon development through the adoption of digital technologies. President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to strengthen economic and technological cooperation, accelerate the coordination of digitalization and green transformation, and advance the upgrading of energy resources, industrial structures, and consumption patterns to foster green socio-economic development. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that we will support enterprises in upgrading traditional industry via AI and green technologies. In July 2024, the Chinese government issued a policy document guidelines on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of socio-ecological development, which further outlines the acceleration of coordination between digital transformation and green technology. Third, we will promote digital industry development by green transformation in the traditional industry. To achieve these goals, a set of initiatives have been implemented, including pilot projects in 10 cities in China. By so far, these efforts have gained significant progress and results, providing replicable and scalable examples. We believe that digitalization and green transformation are increasingly becoming notable trends in the global development. Practical evidence has shown that digital technologies can deeply integrate with a set of key sectors such as energy, power, industry, and technology. We believe that digitalization and green transformation can deeply integrate with a set of key sectors such as energy, power, industry, and technology. Such as energy, power, industry, transportation, and constructions in carbon reduction. This integration effectively enhances the efficiency of energy and resource utilization, playing a pivotal role in the green transformation of traditional industry. From a global perspective, this coordination has become a key driving force of sustainable global growth. On this occasion, I would like to share a few insights. To start with, innovation andEuropean development. We are pushing for international collaboration in technology innovation, research, and application. The strengthening of strategic researches and enterprises’ technology strategy and the strengthening of the company’s status as a technology innovation core encourage the application of technological achievements and keep pace with new industries, new patterns, and new urges. First, innovation drives development. We need to foster technological innovation and application and coordination between digitalization and green technology. This includes strengthening fundamental research and the deployment of cutting-edge technologies, enhancing the role of enterprises as the primary driver of technological innovation, promoting the commercialization of technology, and continuously nurturing new industries and business models. We need to focus on data centers, communication stations, electronic information products, manufacturing, and use, accelerating the development of energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies, and promoting the green development of the digital industry. Particular focus should be placed on the development and promotion of energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies in a set of areas such as data centers, communication-based stations, and the manufacturing of electronic products to facilitate the green and low-carbon development of the digital industry. Third, how to promote development? Digital technology can provide networkization, digitalization, and smartness for the green development of the economic society, and promote the overall energy consumption and carbon emissions of society. Second, integration leads to development. Digital technologies can provide networked, digitized, and intelligent tools for green transformation, contributing to reduce overall energy consumption and carbon emissions. Efforts should be made to accelerate the fusion of digitalization and green transformation, driving the deep integration of emerging technologies such as Internet, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and 5G with green and low-carbon industries. This will enable the green transformation of key sectors such as industry, energy, construction, and transportation, shifting industrial structures from high-carbon to low-carbon and from low-end to high-end. Third, open public development. Digitalization and green transformation are common opportunities for the development of countries around the world. We must continue to deepen and expand the field of bilateral coordination, multilateral dialogue and cooperation, strengthen the field of bilateral coordination, technical rules, standardization, promote policy communication, technology exchange, project cooperation, and talent training. Third, openness makes development mutually beneficial. Digitalization and green transformation are shared opportunities for countries all over the world. We should further deepen and expand the lateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation in this field. This includes strengthening the formulation of technical rules and standards, promoting policy coordination, technological communication, project collaboration, and talent training. We hope this will become a key element in efforts to advance the shared future of humanity. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Today’s forum has built a good platform for exchange with Sino-China Cooperation. Famous professors, experts, scholars, and business representatives from all over the world have come together. I hope we can deepen exchanges, strengthen cooperation, and develop together to discuss the best practice for future bilateral cooperation, to build a beautiful earth, and to share a green future. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, Today’s forum provides an excellent platform for discussion on the coordination between digitalization and green development, gathering professors, experts, scholars, and industrial representatives from around the world. Let’s further deepen communication, strengthen cooperation, and provide better insights into the best practices in this field, contributing to a shared green future and a beautiful earth. Finally, I wish this forum great success. Thank you all.

Xue Lan: Thank you, Director Nongkai, for your insightful remarks. Now let me invite Professor Peng Gang, Vice President and Provost of Tsinghua University, to deliver opening remarks. Please welcome. Welcome. Distinguished guests and esteemed guests from all over the world, good morning. First of all, on behalf of Tsinghua University, as the organizer of this open forum,

Peng Gang: I would like to extend my warmest welcome to all of you. It’s a great pleasure to meet all of you here on the 19th IGF. This forum provides us a great chance to have a discussion on leveraging digital technology for green and low-carbon development, a crucial topic for today’s world. On behalf of Tsinghua University, the co-organizer of this open forum, I want to extend my warmest welcome and sincere gratitude to all the experts and guests here. The green and low-carbon development in this digital era is a focusing topic of global governments in today’s world. Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized that green and low-carbon transformation is a key to high-quality development. The green and low-carbon development in this digital era is a focusing topic of global governments in today’s world. Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized that green and low-carbon transformation is a key to high-quality development. In July 2024, the Chinese government issued guidelines on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of socio-economic development, In July 2024, the Chinese government issued guidelines on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of socio-economic development, advocating for deep integration of digitalization and green development to drive this transition. The convergence of these strategies greatly promote sustainable growth in China and global countries. The convergence of these strategies greatly promote sustainable growth in China and global countries. The university has played an important role in the digitalization process of green and low-carbon development. In recent years, Tsinghua University has focused on the cross-disciplinary exploration of digital technology and green and low-carbon development. Universities, as hubs of innovation and leadership in sorts, should play a vital role in advancing this agenda. At Tsinghua University, we have prioritized interdisciplinary research at the intersections of digital technology and green development. Tsinghua University is not only one of the first universities in China to carry out artificial intelligence teaching and research, but also established several research institutes such as the Carbon Energy Laboratory and the Carbon Integrated Research Institute in recent years, and established solid technologies for the research of related cross-disciplinary courses. As one of China’s pioneers in AI research and education, we have also established institutions such as Low-Carbon Energy Lab and Institute for Carbon Neutrality, laying a solid foundation for such interdisciplinary exploration. At the same time, we also pay great attention to the social issues behind digital technology applications. In 2019, we established the Institute for Intelligent Social Governance, and studied a series of issues on the basic theory and policy of intelligent society, such as the deep study of digital technology and green and low-carbon development. Over the past five years, the Institute has achieved a series of significant achievements in the field of digital technology, and has contributed to the global smart society governance. In the meantime, we also recognize the societal challenges faced by digital technology. In 2019, we established the Institute for Intelligent Society Governance, focusing on fundamental theories and policy issues related to digital technologies and low-carbon development. Over the past five years, the Institute has made significant contributions to global intelligent governance through research and policy insights. With the strong support of China’s National Internet Information Office, Tsinghua University has hosted the opening seminar on digital technology and green and low-carbon development. We have invited experts from the United Nations, China, Singapore, Australia, and many other countries and international organizations. We hope to use this opportunity to further address the issues of digital technology and green and low-carbon development, and build a high-level international dialogue and exchange balance. With the guidance from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we are proud to host this forum, bringing together experts from the United Nations, China, Singapore, Australia, and other nations and global organizations. This forum aims to foster high-level dialogue and collaboration. With the guidance from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we are proud to host this forum, bringing together experts from the United Nations, China, Singapore, Australia, and other nations and global organizations. This forum aims to foster high-level dialogue and collaboration, generating fresh ideas and advancing global practice in digitalized green development. Regarding this issue, I would like to share three key thoughts with all of you. First, we should pay more attention to the cultivation of young talents. To achieve this goal, we should strengthen interdisciplinary education in AI, which is the most important part of the digital economy. Second, we should support the development of high-quality human resources. Third, we should support the development of high-quality human resources. To achieve this goal, we should strengthen interdisciplinary education in AI, bring technologies and societal governance to cultivate outstanding talents with technical expertise and societal awareness. Second, we should further enhance collaboration among stakeholders. Second, we should further enhance collaboration among stakeholders. In the coming years, we will deepen partnerships among governments, industries, academia, and research institutions to address fundamental and practical challenges, driving innovation and application. Third, we should promote global cooperation, Third, we should promote global cooperation, Third, we should promote global cooperation, with focuses on advancing international collaboration in technology communications, standards alignment, and financial integration. We can further make the welfare brought by technological evolution more inclusive. I wish this forum great success. Thank you. I wish this forum great success. Thank you.

Xue Lan: Thank you, President Pongda, for your inspiring speech. Now let’s turn to our distinguished panel of experts to share their insights on the theme today. Our first speaker is Professor Gong Ke, former President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations and also Executive Director of Chinese Institute for New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Strategies. Professor Gong, the floor is yours.

Gong Ke: Thank you. Thank you so much. So, may I have my slides? So, today I’m going to discuss with you two questions. First, here is an internet governance forum. We talk about internet, we talk about digital technology, we talk about artificial intelligence. So, the first question is, what is the overarched goal of the digitalization? What is the overarched goal? What is the digitalization we want? So, the second question is, how to achieve these goals? So, first, now today the world is in the course of… two transitions, transformations. First, it’s the digitalization. Let’s say, because the digital technology is a technology, generative, revolutionary, general purpose technology, they change our world, change our life in a profound way. But what is the problem for this? This transition should not be a technology-centered transition, be a people-centered transition. However, the biggest problem facing to the humanity on the earth and how to sustain the human life on the earth. So here is the 17 global sustainable goals that are common goals for the humanity. It’s a common task for all country. So the core issue of these goals is to balance the increasing of the human wellbeing and decreasing the national cost. So these goals are about human wellbeings and these goals are about the national cost. And these goals are linked to the human wellbeing and the national cost. So that’s a core issue of the sustainability of the earth. This picture from IPCC shows you since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the average earth surface temperature is increasing. It’s increasing. However, if we move out of human activities, industrialization and so on and so forth, we have to see this change of the temperature of the earth’s surface. That means that in the average level as it’s at a worse millions of years. So the key issue is to save the conditions of the earth for the humanity. And that is the goal of the digital transition. That’s the goal of digital transition. That’s a human centered digitalization. So this is not my personal opinion. That’s a consensus of United Nations, the member states, 196 member states. Here I see the newly adopted global digital compact by the United Nations two months ago. And the first sentence of this global compact is digital technology are dramatically transforming our world. They offer immense potential benefits for the wellbeing and advancement of people and societies. And for our planet, they hold us the finest of accelerate achievement of the sustained goals. Sustainable development goals is the goals of the digitalization. And there’s some objectives. The first object, no. No. No. Anyway, the first objective of the global digital compact is to achieve, to accelerate the achievement of the sustainable. Next page, please help me. Next page. Can you go to the next page? Okay. So, however, we have the goal of the digitalization. The question is how to achieve this goal. In the narrative, as mentioned by Dr. Long, it’s a coordinated transformation of digital and green transformation. But to coordinate transformation, we need a coordinated capacity. We have to turn these digitalization to turn these technical key technologies, 17, I named 17 of them, and the 17 sustained development goals, and to turn this into so-called digital coordinated digital capacity and sustainability capacity. Only with this, we can achieve all those. Capacity building, as mentioned by Provost Pong, education, the key to achieve our goals. So, finally, because of the limitation of the time, I just conclude my presentation in three words. Understanding the digital and green transformation, and settings as redevelopment as a goal of digitalization, reaching a building capacity for the digital transformation.

Xue Lan: Thank you so much. I stop here. Thank you, Professor Gong, for your brilliant presentation. Next, I’m delighted to invite Mr. Fabio Fred Dixon, Director of the Office of ICT Policy at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTADS. He’s also the head of UNCTADS’ work on performance and digital economy. Welcome, Fabio.

Torbjorn Fredriksson: Thank you very much, Madam Moderator. And let me start by expressing my appreciation to the China Cyberspace Affairs Administration and to Tsinghua University for allowing UNCTADS to contribute to this very important dialogue on the shift to low carbon and a more digital economy and society. I’m delighted to welcome Mr. Fred Dixon to share his thoughts on this topic. Low carbon and a more digital economy and society. I’d like to share with you some findings from our recent report, the Digital Economy Report 2024. And I will seek to be very brief, but I hope that participants can also get access to the presentation afterwards. And let me see if I can get to the next slide. Yes, thank you. So the digital technologies are rapidly transforming our economy as you know, as has been said already. This is creating a much faster and much more powerful interaction between people and machines in the digital space. But at the same time, we know that we have big digital divides. Many countries are far behind in taking advantage of these digital opportunities. In addition, we have the parallel development of planetary boundaries being breached, including from climate change. But in many other areas as well. So from that perspective, it is very important to ensure that the development of the ICT sector of the digital technologies is also environmentally sustainable. In fact, we can see already that the ICT sector is generating a greenhouse gas emissions of a similar magnitude as the aviation or international shipping industry. China is of course very important in this context because China is a giant in the context of the digital economy. And we have just a few examples here on this slide showing the tremendous progress that China has made in digitalization and is now a very important force for the globe in terms of digitalization. In the report, we take a lifecycle approach to exploring the environmental footprint of digitalization. We have been talking so far a lot about how digital technologies can help with environmental concerns, but we also need to recognize that digitalization in itself is generating an environmental footprint. So we’re looking in the report at the production stage, at the use stage and at the end of life stage of the lifecycle. And we’re looking at the direct effects in terms of natural resource depletion, energy use, water use, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution and some others. If we start with the production phase, we often think about digitalization as being something virtual, something happening in the cloud. But the reality is that it has a very heavy material footprint. For example, to produce one laptop weighing around two kilos requires the extraction of 800 kilograms of raw material resources. We also see that the devices that we’re using in the digital economy are becoming more complex. For instance, when we produced telephones about 50 years ago, we needed 10 of the elements included in the periodic table. By 1990, we used 27 such elements. And now when we produce smartphones of various kinds, we use 63 of the elements in the periodic table. That is more than half of all the known elements on earth. The same minerals that we use when we produce the digital technology are also the same that we use to provide a more low carbon environment. So that means that these two transitions that we are witnessing towards a low carbon economy and towards a more digital economy is generating tremendous demands for metals and minerals. For example, the demand for cobalt, graphite, and lithium is expected to increase by 500% until 2050. At the use phase, I’m just zeroing in here on the data centers because as we shift increasingly to computing intensive technologies like artificial intelligence, the virtual reality, crypto mining, and so on and so forth, this is generating a tremendous increase in the need for electricity and water that are used by data centers. And the big… data center operators, they can no longer keep their greenhouse gas emissions stable or reduce them because of the growing demand for energy and electricity. This is having a strong impact both at the local level where the data centers are located and of course if it generates more greenhouse gas emissions it will also have global implications. The third phase is about how we deal with the waste from digitalization and here we have seen a growing amount of waste being generated over the past decade or so in an increase by more than 30 percent and we can see that most of the waste per capita is generating the most advanced economies, the most digitally ready economies. Unfortunately a lot of the waste that is generated is not collected properly, not collected formally and therefore also not managed formally and at the global level only one quarter of all the digitalization related waste is currently collected formally. In China that share is around 16 percent and in Africa it’s only one percent so we have a long way to go to improve that situation and one of the problems is that many developing countries lack proper legislation to organize the formal collection of waste and especially here digitalization related waste. An overall recommendation of the report is that we need globally to move more towards a circular digital economy. The production of digital products currently is very linear and that increases the need for raw materials and it reduces our ability to extract valuable materials from the digital devices and servers and so on that come to the end of life. So this is an area where there’s a huge potential for improvement and this is something that requires a collective effort across stakeholders and across countries. We are also in need to address what we call the double bind of developing countries. You can see that currently most developing countries have to bear a high share of the cost of digitalization from an environmental perspective but many are not very successful in benefiting from these digital opportunities so we need to both help countries to deal with the costs of digitalization in terms of the environment but we also need to continue to support countries that are far behind in order for them to be able to use digital technologies to address the environmental concerns. Finally let me say that in order for us to make progress here we need to work collectively as the previous speaker was saying we have come to an agreement at the global level to work together to build the global digital compact. We need to better integrate what we do in the digital space and what we do in the environmental space and we need to strengthen the capabilities of the poorer countries to be able to develop the right policy responses in this area and also to benefit more from digitalization. I will end that and I will just direct you to the report for those who are interested in learning more about this and I thank you again for allowing me to participate in this session. Thank you very much.

Xue Lan: Thank you very much Mr. Fred Dixon for your wonderful presentation. Now let me welcome Professor Xu Jun, the Dean of the Intelligent Society Governance from Tsinghua University. Welcome, the floor is yours Professor Xu. Thank you very much. Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear Professor Gong Ke, Mr. Wang Jianchao, Mr. Long Kai,

Su Jun: dear Professor Hun Gang and Ms. Zhou Taonan, dear friends. First of all, it’s my great honor to impress my warm welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming. Nowadays, information technology, especially AI, is being widely deployed, bringing significant improvement in productivity and allowing people to enjoy tremendous benefit. A brand new age, intelligent society is coming. But as the English novelist Charles Dickens said, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. AI also brings unpredictable risks and challenges. To focus on these risks and challenges, Tsinghua University established a platform research institute, ISG, the Institute of Intelligent Society Governance in 2019. The ISG focused on interdisciplinary research on AI social impact and its mission is to create a humanity-intensive society. Since 2021, to investigate the social impact of AI, Chinese government launched a nationwide initiative called AIC, which stands for Artificial Intelligent Social Impact Implement. There are 92 experiment base was established and more than 2,000 scenarios were set with about 30,000 people involved. To my knowledge, this initiative is the largest scale social experiment on AI application worldwide. According to our research, intelligent society has five key characteristics, including information reach, instant feedback, reshaping of cognitions, deconstruction of recognization, voice of the volunteers. We also studied some concepts such as information, token, group, polarizations, opinion, meaning, pollutions, platform, power, energy consumption, online gaming, and digital labor. All these concepts have been studied in my new book, which was released yesterday morning. We have found that it is a significant challenge to enable low-carbon development through digital technology. While consuming energy, AI also has huge potential to reduce energy consumption, promoting low-carbon development across society, especially in traditional high-energy consumption sectors, such as power system, transportation system, heavy industry, and construction business. For example, in Eidos, a western city in China which is famous for its energy industry, we have examined how AI facilitated the transportation of energy industry. Our research showed that the coordinated transformation of digital and green development can reduce energy consumption and promote low-carbon development. Ladies and gentlemen, the history of human society is the history of science and technology development. Intelligent society is an amazing age. AI is one of our greatest inventions in our history. But in the future, people must not and shall not become slavers of technology. Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist, once remarked, concern for man himself and his fate must always find the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Overcoming these challenges is a tough work. As highlighted in a UN report recently, governing AI for humanity, it is not technological change itself, but how humanity responds to it that automatically matters. Today, we gather together to show our hope and ambition for the future. Let’s work together to make sure that all nations, all people over the world, all people over the world can benefit from the coordinated transformation of digital and green development, and to build a human-centered, humanity-intensive society. We shall do it, and we must do it. Thank you.

Xue Lan: Thank you, Professor Su, for your insightful presentation. Now, let me welcome Ms. Dou Guimei, principal of Tsinghua University Primary School and also co-director of the National Experiment Base of the Intelligent Society Governance. Ms. Dou, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Du Guimei: distinguished guests and friends from around the world. I’m the principal from Tsinghua University Primary School. I would like to start from a passage from the UN 52 years ago entitled We Only Have One Earth. This is a typical case for topic-based learning practice in my class advocated for low-carbon lifestyle in the community. Finally, we expanded to the proposal for the health school. I think that topic-based learning practice is about coming out of the classroom and apply what you learn to daily practice. I’ve been working on topic-based learning for the past 30 years. After years of exploration, this practice has won the most important prize in China’s fundamental education. So, topic-based learning is the beginning of academic research to come out of the classroom and strengthen the practice. We feel that the Chinese people emphasize cultural confidence and talk about cultural heritage and culture. In this way, in the course of our research over the years, my team and I have been studying topic-based learning, which is similar to today’s concept education, to cultivate students’ core qualities. So, in the course of our research over the years, we have also won the highest honor award for the first-ever national educational achievement. Over the past 10 years, I have led a team to form the theoretical and practical results of topic-based learning. On November 1 this year, it was officially released and became a national achievement. I’ve been working on topic-based learning for the past 30 years. After years of exploration, this practice has won the most important prize in China’s fundamental education. And we still pay close attention to serializing the framework for topic-based teaching and collect a set of works. All these works were finally published on November 1 and recognized by the nation. Entering the age of intelligence, we are trying to use the method of topic-based teaching to incorporate the core values of digital education and ecological civilization into the education philosophy of Tsinghua High School, the central school of children’s standing, and to combine it with China’s ancient Japanese culture and the meaning of proximity to time. Then, through the four mechanisms of value co-creation, mutual respect, mutual incentive, digital resilience, we are trying to improve and further optimize the quality of the campus in all aspects. Now, I can take the methodology of topic-based teaching practice to digital literacy and environmental awareness education and integrate them into our philosophy of let students be the core of the school. By incorporating traditional culture elements into our classroom, we try to promote environmental education from our four main channels, namely value co-creation, class integration, compatible incentives, and digital empowerment. Taking AI-powered low-carbon campus as a case for topic-based learning, we have established four main scenarios. Scenario one, low-carbon intelligent platform. This is our zero-carbon Google campus. Scenario two, low-carbon smart platform. This is our low-carbon high-tech platform. Scenario three, low-carbon high-tech cloud. This is our high-tech cloud-based cloud platform. Scenario four, low-carbon smart cloud. This is our zero-carbon booth that monitors temperature, humidity, wind, 5MPF, wind power, and PV output. This allows us to dynamically access the school’s environmental status and become the learning material for children. Scenario two, low-carbon education. In the campus, we are setting up a solar panel. Students can use digital technology to assist students in ecological research and improve the cultivation of biodiversity. Students can use infrared cameras to observe wildlife in the protection of natural resources. This is also an important part of their learning. The scenario two is low-carbon education application. In our campus, we have installed a lot of solar flowers. We also leverage intelligent technologies for students’ ecological explorations. During the exploration, they use in-frame cameras, telephoto lenses, and AI image recognition to classify wildlife and gain firsthand experiences. Scenario three is low-carbon interaction space, carbon cycle science and technology experience. In the school, we use sand to simulate the ocean, rivers, cities, forests, oil fields, farms, farms, volcanoes, and sky scenes. The elements in the corresponding scene will move in this way to improve the students’ basic cultivation and cultivation of environmental balance. Scenario three is low-carbon interactive spaces. We also implement several carbon cycle experiences focusing on simulation in ecosystems like oceans, cities, and forests, bringing environmental science to life. Scenario four is sports in the smart playground. In the school, we have added AI rope skipping, AI 50-meter running, sunbathing, fun integrated machine, and dance. The children have accumulated data in this part and developed a tree-growing tree that is made into a sunroof. The tree continues to grow into a forest in the class’s collective activities, and we can see the students’ growth. Scenario four is intelligent physical education. We further add some intelligent applications to traditional EE education like AI-assisted running among a lot of sports activities. We also develop an intelligent system for students to keep track of their progress in physical education. So in the age of AI, how to deal with the full growth of elementary school students’ lives and the harmony of getting along with us in this era. So when we held the opening ceremony, I also brought this petition today. I think this should be a basic consensus for all citizens of the world. Finally, on behalf of all students at Tsinghua University Primary School, I would like to share the Low-Carbon Campus Initiative for a sustainable future with global friends. So finally, where are the children? Where is the AI-enabled low-carbon campus education? Let’s work together. Thank you. In short, we believe that where children are, where AI-encouraged low-carbon campus is. Let’s work together. Thank you.

Xue Lan: Thank you for such a wonderful speech on the role of education in AI and low-carbon development. Thank you again, Mr. Do. Next, I would like to invite Professor Edward Arrawa, former Vice Dean and Director at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, to deliver the speech. Welcome, Professor Arrawa. Please share your slides. Can you hear me? Yes. Wonderful.

Eduardo Araral: Thank you, Professor Fang and to colleagues at Tsinghua University for this invitation. I am honored to speak to you today on the topic of Modeling Clean Energy Transition Using AI, which is the current project of my interest. AI can help improve climate models, as the recent Economist magazine has reported. Artificial intelligence is helping improve climate models, improve prediction accuracy, improve policymaking, reduce computational cost, and to scale regional and global patterns. But my focus is not on climate prediction, but on how can we use AI to help us create better models for energy transition. So I created a model on clean energy transition. In this model, you have the… the dependent variable, clean energy adoption as a function of policies, infrastructure, fossil fuel risks, and other variables. I’m still working on this paper, but basically the idea is how to use AI to do a complex modeling of this clean energy transition. The idea here is that this energy transition depends on so many factors, and governments, and donors, and UN agencies should be able to pay attention to these variables. So one important factor to monitor is the policy support for clean energy transition, the readiness of national infrastructure in terms of the grids, storage, and offshore facilities, the fossil fuel risks, such as the volatility, supply, security, geopolitical risks, and the risk of declining investments in fossil fuel. Then, of course, you have the issue of availability of financing for clean energy, especially for developing countries. Then you have the issue of the grid, electrical grid. Are they ready to be integrated, especially for renewable energy like solar, wind? Then you need to look at market maturity. What is the level of competition and openness in the energy market? Then you have to factor in social acceptance. Do the people accept clean energy? Then you have to look at carbon pricing regulations, carbon taxes, and emissions limits, nationally determined contributions. You have to include that in the model as well. Then you have to also look at, including the model, the rate of technological innovation, such as advancements in solar panel, wind technology, the efficiency and storage of batteries, as well as developments in nuclear modular reactors. Then you also have to look at energy demand, which is a function of economic growth, and then the demand for clean energy over time. And so what I’m trying to say is that those of you who are interested in the audience to collaborate with me on this project, how can we use AI to do a complex modeling of this clean energy transition, you can get in touch with me. That’s all I wanted to say. Again, thank you to Professor Phan for this kind invitation. Thank you. Excuse me, thank you, Professor Irani. Next, I would like to invite Professor Salva from Kansas School of Business and Curriculum at the University of Texas. Thank you. And hopefully, the more outflow you have and the less inflow, the more efficient you will be. I will not go into this, but we have modeled all of this and the role of cognitive computing technologies to help you get more efficient and use lower energy. So give you just a couple of examples. We have used digital twins to be able to analyze what are the inefficiencies in moving capital from one place to another, okay? In terms of moving capital, because if you can model how capital moves, then you can increase the efficiency and use lower energy. Another way is you can actually understand what is inhibiting the movement of capital. So here, you have two different images where you just strategically relocating and using information technologies, you can increase capital intensity. Here is an example of how AI is being used to regenerate capital so that you are recycling, and it goes back to the comments made earlier about circular economy. And just one more, here is where you can map using cognitive computing technologies where your capital needs to be upgraded or maintained before it loses complete value. So how do you do that? I’m happy to share more examples of these projects we are doing across the globe. And with that, thank you very much. Thank you.

Xue Lan: Thank you, Professor D’Souza. Now, let’s welcome our last speaker, Ms. Zhou Chaonan, the chairman person of Range IDC, the last but not the least.

Zhou Chaonan: The floor is yours. Ms. Zhou Chaonan, the chairman person of Range IDC, the chairman person of Range IDC, the vice-chairman of Henggang, the chairman person of Gongke, and the guests from all over the world, good morning, everyone. I’m very honored to participate in this open forum on digital technology assistance, green low-carbon development. I’m from the Chinese Renzhe Group. It’s a high-tech enterprise that provides scale-up, green, and smart sourcing resources for the artificial intelligence industry. Here, I’d like to share a few points with you on the practical and thought-provoking development of smart technology-assisted low-carbon green. Distinguished guests and dear friends from around the world, good morning. It’s a great honor to participate in this open forum on digital technology empowering green and low-carbon development. I’m from Range Group, a high-tech enterprise dedicated to providing large-scale, green, and intelligent computing power resources for the AI industry. Today, I would like to briefly share some of our practices and thoughts on how digital technology contributes to green and low-carbon development. President Xi Jinping stressed that green low-carbon development mechanisms should be strengthened to support enterprises to use digital technology, green technology to transform and upgrade traditional industries. It can be said that the double-edged sword of digital technology and green technology has become an important issue in the transformation of today’s society. Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of establishing mechanisms for green and low-carbon development and supporting enterprises in upgrading traditional industries with digital and green technologies. Indeed, the integration of digital and green technologies has become a vital topic in the transformation of modern society. Since the establishment of Range Group, we have been committed to the mission of industrialization and have been committed to providing green, sustainable, and smart infrastructure for the transformation of modern society. After 15 years of development, we have deployed seven intelligent computing industry members in the seven smart industrial areas, including Changshan, Yuegang, Dawan, Chengqing, Hailan, and Gansu, to contribute to the smart transformation of all industries. Since its inception, Range Group has adhered to the mission of serving the nation through industry, and is committed to providing green and sustainable computing infrastructure to support the nation’s societies in China and global nations. Over the past 15 years, we have established seven intelligent computing industry parks in China, including Hebei Province, Pinghu in Yangtze River Delta, Foshan and Huizhou in Guangdong, Chongqing, Hainan Free Trade Port, and Lanzhou in Gansu, contributing to the intelligent transformation of a set of industries. We need to pay more attention to the decoupling technology under the existing structure. China’s data centers, green energy, and national standards for energy and power use efficiency are constantly improving. The PURE value has gradually dropped from 1.6 to 1.3. We have been working on this at the frontline for a long time, and have been working hard to explore the PURE value in public and private sectors, and to further reduce the PURE value in the population. Through our continuous efforts, our data centers have been able to solve systems such as low-carb, full-fat, and smart systems through modular and integrated devices and smart operations to achieve a PURE value of around 1.15. If we use the most advanced near-freezing mode, the PURE value can be further reduced to 1.09. The power usage effectiveness PURE of data centers in line with national green energy standards has been continuously improving from 1.6 to 1.3 in the past several years as the explorers in the frontier of the industry. We have been keeping on exploring whether there is still any gap to further reduce the PURE. Through years of effort, we developed a self-designed intelligent low-carbon cooling system for data centers which optimize energy efficiency through modular design, integrated equipment, and intelligent operations. This innovation has reduced PURE to approximately 1.15 and thanks to the commercial liquid cooling methods, it can reach as low as 1.09. This project has incurred significant demonstration impact, earning us recognition as a national green data center from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other government agencies. In the future, we believe that green development will be the ultimate trend for intelligent society and our efforts will yield more profound socio-economic impacts. We have established the Intelligent Society Research Institute in cooperation with Tsinghua University to better utilize Tsinghua University’s multi-disciplinary research and the technical and practical advantages of Runze Group to support the development of digital green system. In addition, we have jointly launched a series of forward-looking standardized and systematic work in the field of intelligent society transformation related to standardization and other issues related to multilateral conferences to further communicate our experience and results with our friends. In the meantime, we aim to address deeper institutional challenges behind digital technology’s role in green and low-carbon development. To this end, we have co-established a joint institute on intelligent society research with Tsinghua University, hoping to better leverage both Tsinghua University’s multi-disciplinary strengths and Runze Group’s technical and practical expertise. We have initiated several forward-looking projects focusing on the coordination between digital and green development, standards for intelligent society, among other important issues. In the future, we look forward to sharing our insights on important global platforms like IGF and engaging with you all on these crucial issues. Thank you. Thank you.

Xue Lan: Thank you. Let us work together to contribute to the great cause of empowering green and low-carbon development through digital technology. We have two minutes with all of you. Turn on the voice of this video. Please switch to Channel 1. Channel 1. Channel 1. Okay. A wonderful speech and also the video. And I want to take the last chance to thank you all, our distinguished experts and also audience for your patience. We really run out of time, but I think we also had a wonderful discussion today. I hope we will keep in touch and keep our passion on this important issue in our era. In the end, I would like to claim that we are closing our events today. So please keep in touch. We will see you next year. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Digital technologies can contribute to sustainable development

Torbjorn Fredriksson

Gong Ke

Long Kai

Eduardo Araral

Digital technologies can accelerate achievement of sustainable development goals

Digital technology must be people-centered and aimed at sustainability

Digital and green transformations need to be coordinated for sustainable growth

AI and digital technologies can improve climate models and energy transition planning

Multiple speakers emphasized the potential of digital technologies to support sustainable development goals and improve environmental outcomes when properly implemented and coordinated with green initiatives.

Environmental impacts of digitalization need to be addressed

Torbjorn Fredriksson

Zhou Chaonan

ICT sector generates significant greenhouse gas emissions

Production of digital devices requires large amounts of raw materials

Data centers consume increasing amounts of energy and water

Improving energy efficiency of data centers through innovative cooling systems

Speakers acknowledged the environmental challenges posed by the digital sector, particularly in terms of emissions and resource consumption, and discussed the need for innovative solutions to mitigate these impacts.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted China’s efforts to integrate digital technologies with green development initiatives, emphasizing the government’s role in promoting this coordination for sustainable growth and industrial upgrading.

Long Kai

Zhou Chaonan

China is promoting coordination of digitalization and green transformation

Establishing mechanisms to support green upgrading of industries with digital tech

Both speakers emphasized the need for comprehensive, interdisciplinary research on the implications of AI and digital technologies, particularly in relation to sustainability and social impacts.

Peng Gang

Su Jun

Importance of interdisciplinary research and education on AI and sustainability

Importance of studying social impacts of AI through large-scale experiments

Unexpected Consensus

Integration of AI and sustainability in education

Peng Gang

Dou Guimei

Importance of interdisciplinary research and education on AI and sustainability

Using AI to create smart, low-carbon campuses and education

While most discussions focused on broader policy or technological aspects, these speakers unexpectedly converged on the importance of integrating AI and sustainability concepts directly into educational settings, from university research to primary school campuses.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement centered around the potential of digital technologies to support sustainable development, the need to address the environmental impacts of digitalization, and the importance of coordinating digital and green transformations. There was also consensus on the need for interdisciplinary research and education in these areas.

Consensus level

The level of consensus among the speakers was relatively high, particularly on the overarching themes of leveraging digital technologies for sustainability and the need for coordinated approaches. This consensus suggests a growing recognition of the interconnectedness of digital and environmental issues, which could potentially lead to more integrated policy approaches and research initiatives in the future. However, the specific strategies and implementations varied among speakers, indicating that while there is agreement on the general direction, there is still room for diverse approaches in addressing these challenges.

Different Viewpoints

Focus of digital technology implementation

Torbjorn Fredriksson

Gong Ke

Digital technologies can accelerate achievement of sustainable development goals

Digital technology must be people-centered and aimed at sustainability

While both speakers emphasize the importance of digital technology for sustainability, Fredriksson focuses on its potential to accelerate sustainable development goals, while Gong Ke stresses the need for a people-centered approach.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the specific focus and implementation strategies for digital technology in sustainable development.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the importance of digital technology for sustainable development but differ in their emphasis on specific aspects or approaches. This suggests a general consensus on the overall direction, which is positive for advancing the topic of digital technology empowering green and low-carbon development.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers acknowledge the energy consumption issue of data centers, but while Fredriksson highlights the problem, Zhou Chaonan focuses on solutions through innovative cooling systems.

Torbjorn Fredriksson

Zhou Chaonan

Data centers consume increasing amounts of energy and water

Improving energy efficiency of data centers through innovative cooling systems

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted China’s efforts to integrate digital technologies with green development initiatives, emphasizing the government’s role in promoting this coordination for sustainable growth and industrial upgrading.

Long Kai

Zhou Chaonan

China is promoting coordination of digitalization and green transformation

Establishing mechanisms to support green upgrading of industries with digital tech

Both speakers emphasized the need for comprehensive, interdisciplinary research on the implications of AI and digital technologies, particularly in relation to sustainability and social impacts.

Peng Gang

Su Jun

Importance of interdisciplinary research and education on AI and sustainability

Importance of studying social impacts of AI through large-scale experiments

Key Takeaways

Resolutions and Action Items

Unresolved Issues

Suggested Compromises

So the first question is, what is the overarched goal of the digitalization? What is the overarched goal? What is the digitalization we want?

speaker

Gong Ke

reason

This question frames the entire discussion by pushing participants to consider the fundamental purpose of digitalization, rather than just its technical aspects.

impact

It set the tone for subsequent speakers to address not just how to implement digital technologies, but why and to what end, particularly in relation to sustainability goals.

We need to both help countries to deal with the costs of digitalization in terms of the environment but we also need to continue to support countries that are far behind in order for them to be able to use digital technologies to address the environmental concerns.

speaker

Torbjorn Fredriksson

reason

This comment highlights the complex challenge of balancing digitalization’s environmental costs with its potential benefits, especially for developing countries.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include global equity concerns and the need for a nuanced approach to digital development that considers both environmental and economic factors.

AI is one of our greatest inventions in our history. But in the future, people must not and shall not become slavers of technology.

speaker

Su Jun

reason

This statement encapsulates both the promise and potential pitfalls of AI, emphasizing the need for human-centered development.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards the ethical implications of AI and digital technologies, prompting consideration of how to ensure technology serves humanity rather than the reverse.

So in the age of AI, how to deal with the full growth of elementary school students’ lives and the harmony of getting along with us in this era.

speaker

Dou Guimei

reason

This comment brings the discussion to a practical, grassroots level by considering how AI impacts education and child development.

impact

It introduced a new perspective on the application of AI and digital technologies in everyday life, particularly in education, broadening the scope of the discussion beyond high-level policy considerations.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by expanding its scope from technical implementation to broader considerations of purpose, global equity, ethics, and practical applications in areas like education. They encouraged a more holistic view of digitalization and its impacts on society, environment, and human development. The discussion evolved from focusing solely on how to implement digital technologies to critically examining why and for whom these technologies should be developed, emphasizing the need for a human-centered, sustainable approach to digital transformation.

How can we use AI to do complex modeling of clean energy transition?

speaker

Eduardo Araral

explanation

This is important to better understand and predict the factors influencing clean energy adoption, which could inform policy decisions and strategies for accelerating the transition.

How can we further reduce the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of data centers?

speaker

Zhou Chaonan

explanation

Continuing to improve energy efficiency in data centers is crucial for reducing the environmental impact of digital infrastructure as demand for computing power grows.

How can we better integrate digital transformation and green development policies?

speaker

Torbjorn Fredriksson

explanation

Improved policy integration is necessary to ensure that digitalization supports rather than hinders environmental sustainability goals.

How can we address the ‘double bind’ faced by developing countries in terms of digitalization and environmental costs?

speaker

Torbjorn Fredriksson

explanation

This is important to ensure that developing countries can both benefit from digital opportunities and manage the environmental impacts of digitalization.

How can we move towards a more circular digital economy?

speaker

Torbjorn Fredriksson

explanation

Transitioning to a circular model is crucial for reducing the environmental footprint of digital technologies, particularly in terms of resource extraction and e-waste management.

How can we strengthen interdisciplinary education in AI, digital technologies, and societal governance?

speaker

Peng Gang

explanation

This is important for cultivating talents who can address the complex challenges at the intersection of digital technology and sustainable development.

How can we enhance collaboration among stakeholders (governments, industries, academia, and research institutions) to address challenges in digital and green development?

speaker

Peng Gang

explanation

Improved collaboration is necessary to drive innovation and practical applications in sustainable digital development.

How can we promote global cooperation in technology communications, standards alignment, and financial integration for digital and green development?

speaker

Peng Gang

explanation

International cooperation is crucial for ensuring that the benefits of digital and green technologies are inclusive and globally distributed.

Summary

This discussion focused on the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health technologies to replace or augment doctors in healthcare delivery. Participants explored how AI could address healthcare shortages, improve quality of care, and enhance patient experiences. They discussed the advantages of AI, including 24/7 availability, personalized care, and the ability to process vast amounts of medical knowledge. However, concerns were raised about the digital divide, potential loss of human touch in healthcare, and the need for proper regulation and ethical considerations.

The panel highlighted successful implementations of digital health solutions in low-resource settings, such as MomConnect in South Africa, which provides maternal health information via mobile phones. They emphasized the importance of building trust in AI systems and ensuring they are culturally appropriate and accessible to all populations. The discussion touched on how AI could liberate healthcare workers from administrative burdens and allow them to focus on more complex cases.

While some panelists believed AI could largely replace primary care visits and certain specialties like radiology, others argued for a hybrid model where AI augments rather than replaces human doctors. The importance of training future healthcare professionals to work alongside AI was stressed. The panel concluded that while AI will significantly transform healthcare delivery, human touch will likely remain valuable in certain aspects of care. They emphasized the need for continued research, careful implementation, and addressing equity concerns as AI becomes more prevalent in healthcare.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The potential for AI and digital health technologies to augment or replace doctors, especially for primary care

– Challenges around trust, quality, and equity in implementing AI/digital health solutions

– The changing relationship between patients, doctors and technology in healthcare delivery

– The need to address the digital divide and ensure access to digital health tools in rural/underserved areas

– The importance of human touch and empathy in healthcare, even as technology advances

Overall purpose/goal:

The discussion aimed to explore how AI and digital health technologies are reshaping healthcare delivery, and to what extent they may replace or augment the role of doctors, especially in resource-constrained settings.

Tone:

The overall tone was optimistic about the potential of technology to improve healthcare access and quality, while also being thoughtful about challenges and ethical considerations. There was a mix of excitement about technological possibilities and caution about potential downsides or unintended consequences. The tone became more speculative towards the end when panelists were directly asked if AI would replace doctors.

Speakers

– Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Chairman of the board for HIMSS India, moderator of the discussion

– Peter Preziosi: President of CGFNS Global, a nurse by training

– Mevish P. Vaishnav: Leader of the International Patients Union

– Zaw Ali Khan: From the American University of Barbados

– Debbie Rogers: Runs Village Outreach in Africa

– May Siksik: Runs the Innovation Network Canada

Additional speakers:

– Melody Musoni: Works for a think tank called ECDPM

– Sakshi Pandita: Moderating online questions

AI and Digital Health: Transforming Healthcare Delivery

This discussion, moderated by Rajendra Pratap Gupta, explored the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health technologies to reshape healthcare delivery, particularly in resource-constrained settings. The panel, comprising experts from various healthcare and technology backgrounds, examined how AI could address healthcare shortages, improve quality of care, and enhance patient experiences.

Historical Context and Potential Impact

Rajendra Pratap Gupta opened the discussion by reflecting on his predictions from 10 years ago about technology eliminating middlemen in healthcare and bringing services closer to users. This set the stage for exploring how AI and digital health are now poised to revolutionize healthcare delivery.

The panelists generally agreed that AI and digital health technologies have significant potential to augment and transform healthcare. Peter Preziosi highlighted his work in Rwanda, where remote patient monitoring devices and nurse-led primary care models are being implemented. May Siksik, from the Innovation Network Canada, suggested that AI could provide more personalized and empathetic care than time-constrained doctors, especially for cultural minorities like First Nations.

Debbie Rogers, who runs Village Outreach in Africa, emphasized the potential of digital health tools to improve access to care in underserved areas. She cited successful implementations such as MomConnect in South Africa, which provides maternal health information via mobile phones and has significantly improved maternal health outcomes. Another example mentioned was the use of AI-powered sonograms in Ghana.

Mevish P. Vaishnav, leader of the International Patients Union, introduced the Patient Centricity Index, a tool developed to measure and improve patient-centered care. Interestingly, both Vaishnav and Rogers noted that patients, especially youth, may trust and engage more with AI-powered health services, particularly for sensitive topics like sexual and reproductive health.

Challenges and Considerations

Despite the optimism, the panel identified several challenges in implementing AI in healthcare:

1. Digital divide: Rogers emphasized the need to address inequitable access to digital health tools in rural and underserved areas.

2. Cost and infrastructure: Preziosi highlighted barriers in low-resource settings, while Rogers provided specific cost comparisons (20 cents vs $10.20 per user per year for different AI solutions).

3. Cultural context: Rogers pointed out the need for localization of AI solutions, noting that current large language models are primarily trained on Western culture and medicine.

4. Regulatory and ethical considerations: Zaw Ali Khan stressed the importance of these factors in AI adoption.

5. Maintaining human touch: An audience member raised concerns about preserving empathy and in-person care options.

6. Misinformation: Melody Musoni, an audience member, brought up concerns about quality control in digital health information, particularly around fad diets and miracle cures.

Future Role of Healthcare Professionals

The panel had differing views on the extent to which AI might replace doctors:

– Khan suggested that AI may replace primary care centers and some specialized roles.

– Rogers proposed that doctors who use AI will replace those who don’t.

– Siksik envisioned AI as part of interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

– Preziosi maintained that human touch would remain important for some aspects of care.

– Vaishnav and Siksik believed that AI could replace the majority of doctor visits, particularly in primary care.

There was agreement on the need to train a new generation of doctors to work effectively with AI, as highlighted by Khan. This suggests a future where healthcare professionals work alongside AI technologies rather than being entirely replaced by them.

Key Takeaways and Emerging Trends

1. AI has the potential to reduce medical errors and address healthcare worker burnout.

2. The cost of implementing AI solutions is decreasing while computational power is increasing, as noted by an audience member.

3. AI may provide more transparent explanations for diagnoses and treatment recommendations compared to overworked healthcare workers.

4. There’s a need for academic institutions to adopt digital health solutions and train future healthcare professionals in their use.

5. Despite the rise of digital solutions, there may still be a continued need for human doctors, analogous to the resurgence of physical bookstores despite e-books (as pointed out by Rogers).

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted both the transformative potential of AI in healthcare and the complex challenges that must be addressed for its successful implementation. While there was general optimism about AI’s ability to improve healthcare access and quality, particularly in resource-constrained settings, the panelists also emphasized the need for careful consideration of ethical, regulatory, and cultural factors. As healthcare continues to evolve with technological advancements, finding the right balance between AI-driven efficiency and human-centered care remains a critical challenge for the future of healthcare delivery.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: conversational AI and low income and source settings. The whole idea was to check the level of awareness people have on the word conversational AI and what is the relevance. To most of us who are in this field, it is chatbots. But trust me, despite asking people, we couldn’t get a speaker from our vast network on LinkedIn. When we wrote we need speakers on conversational AI, so-called president of the associations in digital health said we do not know this field. Actually, it is chatbots. We had a very good panel with us that time, the head of AI at WHO, the president of humans.ai, Sabin Dima, Dinu, who is the CIO of the United Nations Staff Pension Fund, and Dr. Olubosa from Nigeria. We ran a good session. And a year now, we are actually talking about, will AI replace doctors? But let’s go back 10 years into history. I think I need to check. Can you move the slides, please? So as the chairman of the board for HIMSS India, 10 years ago, I told doctors that the future is tech, please, tech, IGF. Tech, please, tech, IGF. This is what the slide was. The technology eliminates middlemen. Today, if your doctors don’t need technology, technology would not need them in the future. And 10 years fast forward, we are in 2024, heading into 2025, which is just a decade after. And look at what has happened. And let me also go back to share what I presented at that point in time. I think I need more. Some issue with the presentation, we’re just going to sort it out. I think whenever we talk about doctors and AI, some technological glitch comes in, which I’m not very surprised because they are a very powerful stakeholder in this discussion. Can we manually move the slides, please? Can we? So let me talk to you, technology moves faster than I can. I’m sorry about that. That’s the way it is. Sorted out? So, no, no, no. So look at this slide. You know, those of you who have used the PCO booths to go and make calls and the long distance trunk calls. And what happened when the cell phone moved analog to the technology move from analog to digital? You know, we can make calls from cell phones wherever we want, whenever we want. And now you can use your watch to make phones. So effectively, technology has progressed. And what it has done is eliminated the middle person. You know, you don’t need to go to a PCO booth. You don’t need to use. Lines for a trunk call, you can use it from your cell phone. I use my cell phone. I sometimes don’t carry my phone at all. Next slide, please. Next. And this is another interesting slide on the entertainment sector. We had this huge antenna. Sometimes it was 70 feet. You need to connect to get to watch maybe seven, eight channels. What happened when it moved? Entertainment moved from analog to digital. You moved to a set-top box. And now, anything you want to watch, you just pay for it. And it’s at your convenience. So what it does, technology is taking that middleman away. Again, it took the middleman away. There is no need for antenna. I don’t need a set-top box. You don’t need a provider of that service in your area. You are connected globally through the satellite system. Next slide, please. This is my most favorite slide. At one time, Kodak and Fuji were fighting for the color of the prints. And they were talking about the quality. Digital photography came in. And Canon actually is the one which came in. And what appeared was both of them literally became bankrupt. But that was not the end of the story. We have now mobile phones which have the camera. So you can look at what has happened is we have moved a whole lot of generation moving analog to digital. Now, in everything you will see is that we eliminated the middleman. Same happened with libraries and the bookstores. Today, you have your Kindle or your e-book reader. And you can actually read whichever book you want. I carry hundreds of books on my Kindle. And what effectively happens is technology gets you closer to the user and eliminates the connector. Now, if I take these slides back to my health, what I believe is that when a product, service, or a sector undergo the digital transition, analog to digital, intermediary goes off. And health care has a lot of intermediaries right now. So I think the fate of clinicians is a foregone conclusion. And this is what I’ve been saying for over a decade. I’m going to stop here and look at asking my expert panel, which is with me, is like, what do we feel about the future? Are we going to have a day where AI will see you now is going to happen instead of the doctor will see you now? So I’m going to put this question to Dr. Peter Pezziosi. Dr. Peter, thanks for joining us. I think it’s too early in the morning or too late in the night for you to join us. I’m sorry for the dot R. But thank you for taking our time. Peter Pezziosi is the president of CGFNS Global. And he’s done extensive work in terms of trying to provide relief to people where clinicians are in short supply through nurses. Dr. Peter Pezziosi, what’s your experience of working in Rwanda? Would you want to share with us?

Peter Preziosi: Sure, definitely. And I’ll be very brief. But, Rahendra, I agree. I think it’s here and it’s even coming. And I agree with you about the displacement as we look at these medical brains that are coming that are powered by AI and AI engines that are looking at technology. Just for background, I lead a 50-year-old global assessment and certification organization supporting the mobility of nurses and allied health professionals worldwide. Earlier this year, we began searching for the right partners to evaluate some technology-enabled new models of care in the primary care and public health space. Working with the Society for Family Health in Rwanda and a remote patient monitoring device manufacturer, Medwand, what we did is we set out to establish a model of nurse care. nurse-led primary care that would be easily replicated across the globe, cost-effective, co-dependent on technology, and one that promotes access to care and prevention. This model will contribute to already existing task-shifting initiatives that help to bring care closer to the communities. The Society for Family Health is Rwanda’s premier organization for providing health to rural communities throughout Rwanda by constructing and equipping health posts operated by nurses. Under our protocols that we’ve developed, we’ve embarked on a journey that we believe will impact health prevention, health promotion and preventive care around the globe. We see this by empowering nurses, community health workers, and other allied health professionals by equipping them with the right technology tools to provide care. And to seek for a second opinion when they have to. So this is still emerging that we’re looking at. We believe this care solution will reduce the number of referrals that are transferred to upstream health facilities that are already crowded and lack adequate resources, and make the model for an integral part of primary healthcare. The model will also contribute to job creation by allowing nurses to increase their healthcare portfolio and entrepreneurship. So far, we’re in five remote locations that have been identified in rural Rwanda that center around designated health posts and district hospitals. Healthcare workers at those locations have been trained on the MedOne device that captures all vital signs and some more functionalities critical in providing primary care. So within this remote patient monitoring device, it includes a thermometer, stethoscope, ECG, EKG, pulse oximeter. a high-definition camera that can be used to view inside the ear, nose, throat, and skin, as well as integrate with any blood pressure monitor, glucometer, and spirometer. The device is synced with a tablet, which is used to capture, store, and transmit information, and also make it possible to have real-time consultations via video conference. Early indicators have been very positive. The health post workers have shown the ability to adapt to the technology and have communicated the anticipated decrease of time needed for diagnosis with the ability to send data real-time to advanced practice nurses. The community has shown an increased receptiveness and indications of better compliance when diagnosis is accelerated. Travel times and distance are reduced significantly. The physician staffs receiving information in hospitals in the major hubs are less burdened to have to track data, and their response time is reduced on their behalf as well. So, overall, we’re confident that our original intent will have the strong empirical data needed to impact the lives of many by reducing cost, improving health, increasing reach, and empowering a new up-skilled health workforce. Over the next few months, we’ll be gathering hard data to prove that the nurse-led primary healthcare model can have an impact in rural communities in Africa and then also beyond in other continents. Thanks, Rajendra.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you so much, Peter, and I think you made very important points of moving from a doctor-centric system to a lot of health professionals like nurses. And we have a work which we are doing with nurses and pharmacists, and we believe that the future of healthcare lies in digital health plus nurses or digital health plus pharmacists and not necessarily just doctors. That being said, I think we have to move forward. you also leveraging artificial intelligence and empowering nurses to take on-spot decisions with regard to patients’ queries, needs, and serving them?

Peter Preziosi: We have a new initiative actually funded through Johnson & Johnson that will be started in Ghana. It’s AI-powered sonograms to detect hypertension in pregnant women to prevent the maternal child deaths that are so prevalent in Ghana. So we’re looking at that. There are other initiatives, some point-of-care solutions that we want to test in other areas. And actually, we started to talk with you and love to work with you on looking at various primary care providers that could really help. I think nutrition, registered dieticians will be very useful. And I’m pleased to see that the International Patients Union is on this panel because I think that that’s an important role to really look at this from a consumer perspective. Because I think what we are going to have to look at is helping to provide self-care solutions to the patient community before they even need to get to nurses, allied health professionals, and others.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you so much, Peter. And I think it makes my job easier to switch to the Patients Union representative here. Mavish, you run the International Patients Union. And is there something that you want to share with this panel on the prospects of replacing the need for doctors in settings where you didn’t just need OTC-based medications or acute care problems? And what are you doing in that area for the patients?

Mevish P. Vaishnav: Good morning, everyone. This is Mavish from India. And I lead the International Patients Union. In the health care sector, if you see, everybody is organized, be it doctors, nurses, pharmacists. but patients are the one who are unorganized. Nobody hears them. So, at International Patients Union, we have a platform, the Patients Union, where we provide a platform for the patients to voice their opinions, their concerns, and share their views. They can share their views with other patients so that they can get well-managed for their diseases. If you see at Patients Union, we are making artificial intelligence, the authentic intelligence. Medical science is a science. So, if you say, I have a fever, I’ll give you a paracetamol. If you say, I have a cold, I’ll give you the medicine for cold. If you have a pain, I’ll give you the medicine for pain. That’s a painkiller. But, if all these things can be put into a system, which is AI-backed, it can actually help doctors as well as patients. Patients doesn’t need to travel from 40 kilometers or 30 kilometers to just visit a doctor for primary care. The doctors can be saved from their timing to see the secondary care and tertiary care, the surgeries. And through this system, we at Patients Union are developing a program. We have launched the Patient Centricity Index, through which every system has been put, like the symptoms of the diseases. If you just open your app and say, I have following symptoms for my knee pain or something like that, it will throw you with the diseases, the right prescription for it. And this way, we can actually save time for doctors. So, yes, AI is important and can be helpful in the primary care.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: So, you’re saying, Mehwish, that patients in India will be able to get their information about healthcare needs, not from the net, which is unverified, but from Patients Union without even meeting a doctor, is that right? Yes. So, effectively, this will be probably the first experiments of its kind where patients can get information about primary care from an artificial intelligence-backed system.

Mevish P. Vaishnav: Yes, it is an authentic data that will help them.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Fantastic. Zaw Ali Khan is with us from the American University of Barbados. Zoh, you run an academic organization, but you also are a tech czar in terms of bringing new tech to healthcare. Given what’s going around the world, do you think it’s time for us to prioritize where do we invest clinicians’ time and how much of their role we replace with technology? What’s your view on that?

Zaw Ali Khan: Thank you, Dr. Rajan, for inviting me to this session. I feel that there are certainly many use cases where the clinician’s role can completely be… eliminated, not just for the sake of providing convenience to the patient, but also for reducing the workload of the doctors themselves. So there are plenty of use cases that would see the replacement of doctors with technology altogether. But there are certain, I feel, you know, challenges where it’s a softer approach which will help. Because, you know, as far as the regulatory issues are concerned, you need to have doctors on board to approve these tools. And in order to have them on board, you need to make them feel safe and give them the confidence to use these tools. So for that, I feel that the role of academic organisations is paramount. Because, you know, the doctors that have already practised their whole life in a certain way, asking them to change, asking them to adopt a new thing, means you’re basically telling them that whatever you were doing so far was inadequate. There were some limitations in that. And that’s a very hard or very bitter pill to swallow. And instead of that, if you were to highlight their own challenges and how tools and technologies are sorting those issues, then they’d be more on board with this idea. And this is what I’m talking about, the more experienced doctors who are at the tail end of their career. But of course, they are the stalwarts. If they were to, you know, join these pioneering efforts, then everyone else will follow. At the same time, you also need a new generation of doctors who are capable of navigating these digital tools. So over there, again, the academic organisations have a role of making sure, first of all, these academic organisations any of the teaching hospitals, they themselves need to adopt more and more digital health solutions so that they can demonstrate to the students. Unless they adopt themselves, they won’t be able to demonstrate. Secondly, once they have demonstrated all of that, they need a structured course for that. And we have been fortunate enough to partner with the Digital Health Academy for providing our students with an elective for digital health. So that’s a structured course which is delivered by experts from around the world. And lastly, so first thing I said, more adoption of health tools by making sure that the health care workers don’t feel threatened, at least at the get-go. And actually, it is not a threat. Because the main problem that you’re trying to solve is the shortage of health care workers. And a related problem that you’re trying to solve is health care worker burnout. So if you’re solving burnout, every health care worker would help you achieve that goal. So focus on burnout. Focus on, from the perspective of health care workers, focus on burnout. From the perspective of patients, focus on medical errors. From the perspective of health care organizations or health care systems, focus on the shortage of health care workers. It’s the same problem, but just with three different angles. And once you’ve done that, then all the stakeholders will come together to adopt more of these solutions. And ultimately, of course, everyone, once they start seeing the benefits, I’m sure that one or two generations down the line, they’d be surprised that, oh, we used to have PHCs. So that’s the future that I envision. And I hope that we’re able to accelerate that.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: So this is very interesting, the point that you make. And at the Academy of Digital Health Sciences, where we run courses on doctors, our experience has been very different. The doctors who take courses are like 30 years, 40 years experience. And when they pass the course after one year, they’re as excited as kids, sending what they created to their sons, grandsons. And the unfounded fear becomes forces that help them. So that’s what we have seen in doctors. So we’re going to see a competence divide. But what is a worrying and probably a call to action for clinicians, everyone, I guess, is like the slides that I showed. The technology didn’t wait for the sector to evolve. It just disrupted it. So the fact is that whether doctors adopt it or not, technology is going to invade that. That’s a fact of life. Our studies show that some of the specialties will get totally replaced, which is a very, very strong statement to make. But when I look back at the statements made 10 years back, that actually come true. I think fields like radiology, dermatology may not be doing well with just doctors. AI can do a phenomenal job out there. But there are surgeries where robotics plus surgeons are needed. Specialists may be needed for neurology and other cardiology sector. But AI is getting matured with time. I mean, that’s what we’ve been seeing. And now let me get to Debbie Rogers, who joined us from Africa. Debbie, you run Village Outreach in Africa. And countries like India, Africa, and other LMIC countries face a huge shortfall of doctors. What do we do? Do we wait for doctors to get prepared and be MBBS, MDMS? Or do you bring technology? Because there’s nothing that exists. What do you say?

Debbie Rogers: I definitely am a proponent of bringing technology into the mix to relieve some of the burden on the health care system. In sub-Saharan Africa, we have 14% of the world’s population. but 25% of the world’s disease burden and only 3% of the health workers. So if you look at those stats, it’s very easy to see that if we just keep trying to train more and more health workers, we’re not going to get anywhere. We have to be using technology to be able to augment the work of health workers. And the way we think about this is we think about moving care from the facility. A lot of work has happened to move care into the community with community health workers. But with a mobile phone, you can move care from the facility to the community to somebody’s own home. And so we use very simple technology, technology like SMS and WhatsApp to communicate directly to citizens and to help them from a self-care perspective, but also to access the right services at the right time. An example of this is a program we’ve been running for 10 years in South Africa called Mom Connect. And basically every mother who goes into a clinic for her first ANC visit is signed up to the platform. And throughout her pregnancy and up until the baby is 10 years old, she is able to receive messaging, which will help her to care for herself and to understand better how to care for her baby as well. And we’ve seen really great results both on self-care. So things like better nutrition and uptake of breastfeeding to access to services like uptake of family planning after birth, improved attendance of ANC visits. So we can really see that something as simple as an engaging platform delivered directly to a mobile phone. You don’t have to have any training. It’s exactly what you do to communicate to your friends and family that can have a huge impact on health and it can relieve a lot of the burden on the health care system. So that the health workers can be doing the work that they really need to be doing and not the work. that can be taken over by technology. I think for me, I don’t know if we can say necessarily that we will replace doctors, but I certainly believe that doctors who use AI and use technology will definitely be replaced by those who don’t. I mean, the other way around, those who don’t use it will be replaced by those who do. Because I think it’s going to make their work so much more efficient and effective. It’s going to make patient experience much better and people are going to vote with their feet and they’re going to go where the patient experience is better. And I think that’s definitely where I see things going is very much more task shifting, different tasks going to different caters of health workers. And those who use AI and use technology are definitely going to be replacing those who don’t.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: David, do you think, you know, we have been always saying that doctors who use digital health replace those who don’t, but do you think there could be an extension of this saying that the healthcare workers who use digital health will replace doctors who don’t? You know, because I can tell you, you know, this is not coming just because I’m sitting on this dais on IGF and I’m saying, there’s a hospital where they segregate the high-risk pregnancies with normal pregnancies. And I was told by the chairman of that hospital, who is a doctor, this hospital has been around for 76 years, that in normal pregnancies, the mother does not see a doctor even after delivery. It is the nurses who handle it. So, and they use technology. So just imagine how much precious time of the doctor, the gynecologist or obstetrician is saved because the delivery happens only through nurses. And this is not a small number. I mean, this is, I’m talking of India and this hospital has been doing it. So, I mean, I’m, you know, getting to the stage to conclude, that India has been an evangelist of technology. I was skeptic, you know, in the beginning, you know, thinking that it will not happen. But as I see over the last few decades, I think technology has been showing itself with great confidence. commitment and accuracy now. So do you think that other healthcare professionals like, you know, our friend, Dr. Peter Preziosi is doing in Rwanda and Ghana, will other clinicians who use technology replace doctors? Because given, I mean, I see your numbers, India has the same problem. You have 25% of disease burden, 3% of workers, no way on earth you’re going to match them over the next few decades. No way. So do you think technology will be…

Debbie Rogers: I agree, there’s gonna be massive task shifting and things that were previously deemed as only able to be done by certain specialists are going to be, is going to be able to be done by somebody who does not have the same amount of training plus technology. So I do think the task shifting and moving from one cater to another is definitely gonna happen. And we see it happening already because just out of necessity, I mean, in Sub-Saharan Africa, there aren’t enough doctors to reach everybody. So a huge amount of the care is already on nurses. I do think though, we have to think carefully about the fact that we still have too few nurses and we still have too few community health workers and we still have a problem of burnout, which means that as fast as we’re training people, we’re losing them. And I think we have to think very carefully about, and I do believe this is an important role of technology, removing the burden from healthcare workers so that they can do what they really need to be doing rather than things that can be done by technology. And I think that’s gonna help an enormous amount to relieve that huge dearth of healthcare workers that we have worldwide, not just in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thanks, Debbie. You know, I’ll add to that, we are very lucky to have one of the leaders in India who is the president of the Indian Nursing Council, Dr. Dilip. You know, what we have done as Academy of Digital Health Sciences, we have partnered with him to train 2 million nurses on digital health. And same thing we have now done with pharmacists, we’re going to train 400,000. on digital health. I think these could do phenomenal work and I think by next year, IGF, we’ll be able to show the impact we have created training of most like, I think within now and then, we should aim to touch half a million of them trained. Eventually we’ll train maybe three million of nurses and pharmacists to take on some of the frontal roles. But having said that, now I have with me Dr. May Seksek. She runs the Innovation Network Canada. May, you have been leading the Innovation Network and you’re building a new healthcare model. Where does technology fit in the model? Is it going to be more dominant than the clinicians or it’s going to be just again back to the same old model? And going by the fact that Canada is among the handful of countries which pioneered digital health. My very dear friend Richard Alvarez was the President and CEO of Canada Infobae which was the first government organization to implement digital health. What’s your take on that?

May Siksik: I want to say sorry Thanks Rajendra. I wanted to say that Debbie has brought up really important statistics and some critical information here. The demand for healthcare is rocketing and supply is still a space. The system is destined to crash at some point. From my perspective, it’s again going back to these stats, we really need to have technology that is able to support the healthcare system We really need to have technology take care of what’s on doctors and nurses. I think that’s really important. So in the system that we’ve developed, one of the main concerns right now based diagnosis and so on is the fact that large language models will not hallucinate. This is one of the things that we’re working on. You can hear me? Okay, perfect. So one of the things that we really need to address is hallucination. Right now, AI-based diagnosis cannot be working on right now. I think we really need to address that. And we’re working actively at Innovation Network with academic organizations to address this issue so that we can actually have an AI-based system that can be qualified to do such tasks without a human supervising it. And I think that’s really important because then we can save a massive amount of time from healthcare professionals. Doctors, for example, in Canada, they get paid by every 15 minutes. And I mean, most of the time, it’s very difficult to actually address a medical case, especially with complex medical cases, within 15 minutes, which means that they’re not really able to do their job as well as they can and they should. So having, I mean, the way I think about it is that it’s having, for example, medical AI-based medical diagnosis is like having a co-pilot for doctors. You know, you wouldn’t set foot on a plane if you don’t know that there’s a co-pilot that’s for redundancy. Yet we go to doctors and who, I work with a lot of physicians and I hear from them that mistakes are often made and often they get buried with doctors. So it’s important to have these tools for doctors to not just empower patients, but also empower doctors as well. Another aspect I wanna bring is the fact that I don’t think they’ll ever be able to, AI will ever be able to completely eliminate doctors. I think we’ll always have, but we’ll save tremendously in terms of the time that’s needed from doctors. I think there are two aspects here. One of them is the fact that we’re always, you know, we are human beings and. We often, we need that interaction and assurance from doctors. We also need to understand for, especially complex medical issues where we need to look at different factors like ethnic background and culture and so on. You need to have that contextual understanding. Now, having said that, this has been a huge source of medical errors that actually literally led to fatal issues for patients. So it’s a double-edged sword. We need, doctors can be really good at understanding contextual context for medical cases, but at the same time, they can also make mistakes because of context, because they’re drawing patterns and so on. So again, going back to having that co-pilot from technology is really important.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: May, and I would ask you that if you were to start moving from your driver driving you versus a car which is driven autonomous, would you do that?

May Siksik: Would I use an autonomous driving vehicle? Yeah. So in fact, I mean, I have actually worked in compliance for a safety standard for autonomous driving vehicles. I’ve worked very closely on this field and I can tell you, so my job was actually to really oversee where mistakes can happen and the system could result in fatal issues. And because of that back, and it was quite a complex process so I worked with all, so, and you can see that mistakes could happen and compliance is extremely important. So you really need to have a standard where you actually have to check things. So, and this is going back to, we really need to qualify AI.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: So May, in this May, this is the month of May, I will. in U.S. delivering the opening address at ADA and I decided to use an autonomous vehicle, PIMO. I didn’t have a problem. It’s the worst thing. To a doctor, you go once in a year, probably twice in a year. If you’re a chronic patient, multiple times. But in heavy traffic in the United States, in the morning or evening, you won’t drive and take the risk. But I decided to do that. Let me tell you, it was pretty safe. If I can trust a driverless car and reach there, again, going back to the presentation I made 10 years ago in Hames, what essentially this technology is doing is taking the middleman away. There’s no driver in the car. I reached my destination on time. The driver doesn’t, you know, fleece me by taking a longer road, charging me more. I’m just charged. I go to my destination. So if you trust a driverless car, why won’t we trust a doctorless surgery with a robot?

May Siksik: So I totally agree with you, but driverless cars have a standard that they must be compliant with. And I can tell you, it’s a very, very complex and big process. So you’ve got auditors that come and make sure that it’s compliant. And we can do that, Rajendra, with medical-based diagnosis. And I think we’re getting close to there. We’re not 100% there yet. We’re not, we’re not, we can’t qualify yet, but we need to get there. We need to have a standard and we need to be able to say we’re compliant with the standards.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Yeah. And I agree. And going to Mavesh, you know, you’re talking of patients. Are patients ready to accept this kind of technology? I mean, Mavesh, I want to throw this question that you run Patients Union. Are patients ready to accept AI as a doctor? So if you say AI first, doctor later, would they accept it?

Mevish P. Vaishnav: Yes. So there is a study where it states that six out of 10 patients know digital health, but two out of 10 doctors know digital health. So awareness, that is important. And doctors are more prone towards, you know, when a patient, I can share an experience with you. family member went to a doctor and she asked her can you prescribe me DTX she was like what is that so she’s not aware about DTX so it gives a thought or maybe a doubt for a patient that if a doctor doesn’t know about this technology how will she be able to help me in my managing diabetes so yes patients are more prone and they are more accessible to AI they would love to be a part of AI where there are zero errors I would not say zero errors but negligible errors.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: thanks my wish and this brings me to a very important point that may 6 I grades you know about the empathy so may today my social media knows more about me than my doctor you know they tracked me what I do using my phone it tracks me what I do using my computer what I like what I do like the tone through my phone when I talk so it could be more you know personable to me in terms of personalizing the content the way I speak the way I like and how many seconds I need a response so if I have a doctor that AI doctor would be more empathetic won’t get angry because I get angry very often so do you see that technology is better in terms of empathy than a human doctor.

May Siksik: Actually yes so but having said that I do think that technology can be better than doctors at in terms of empathy but having said that sometimes a patient at a hospital will need for certain cases they will need humans so all I’m saying is that we can’t eliminate doctors in terms of empathy and I want to say that I mean using AI based tech for medicine is is critical actually right we actually are losing lives right now because people can go to a clinic and not have access to the right diagnosis and so I talked about I talked about the tiny bit of hallucination that an AI system does does, but humans make way more errors, way more errors than, than, than doctors. I just, just to be making my job easier.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you.

May Siksik: It’s true. I just, I mean, I need to, uh, we need to talk about all aspects of this. Right.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: So that’s a reality check. So going to ZAW, that’s all running an academic organization where you do research and you work across multiple countries, what do you think about AI being more empathetic, being more accurate, because there’s a two challenges that will come in the way of creating trust for technology.

Zaw Ali Khan: Yeah. Thank you, Rajenji. Uh, so as far as AI, uh, knowing more about me than I know about myself, I would frame it that way. Uh, I recently got to know that, uh, you know, if you ask chat GPT, uh, uh, how would a typical day, uh, based on what you know about me, if you give a chat GPT prompt prompt saying that, uh, based on what you know about me, what would my desk look like, or what would my workplace look like? So it’s able to recreate that quite accurately based because of the, uh, frequency and detail of interactions that we are having with these, uh, AI models. So, uh, imagine if we were to have health, uh, related, uh, interactions with these AI models, uh, as frequently as we are having work related, uh, uh, interactions, uh, that would be, uh, many times more, um, I mean, in terms of magnitude, I would say exponentially more personalized than any, what any doctor or healthcare worker can provide. Uh, it’s of course not physical. It’s not a physically or humanly possible for doctors to provide that level of personalization as. Ms. May said that doctors are getting 15 minutes with the patient and in UK I’ve heard that they get 7 minutes or 8 minutes on average. So it’s impossible to even diagnose many of the conditions in that short amount of time let alone give a personalized empathetic care to the patients. So I agree that digital tool has that potential.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Some countries they get 34 seconds. If I remember correctly it was Bangladesh you know where doctor gets 34 seconds or so. So even if it is any other country 34 seconds one minute you can’t even pronounce the name and the problem of a patient you know how will you diagnose. That means you have made up your mind to prescribe something and the patient has just come in on time. Yeah so that’s another that technology won’t do by the way because there will be a digital footprint of what you do. So Peter coming to you given your global experience and you are a nurse by training. That’s correct. And I think you are closest to the patient than the doctor. That’s why I call it like doctor says still close to God doctor and nurse is closest to the patient. How do you see this relationship between technology patient and the clinician evolving?

Peter Preziosi: I agree with many many of the comments that were stated earlier. I think the challenge is that we tend to be focused throughout the world on a medical model and the challenge that we face we face in communities is that clinicians are not working at the top of their capabilities and for a variety of different reasons. Many times if you’re talking about you know physicians, nurses, pharmacists, they’re they’re struggling with the morass of administrative paperwork that’s not necessary for them, takes them away from clinical direct clinical care. As a number of the panelists were mentioning, these AI-enabled tools, digital health tools, are partners to really enable people, clinicians, to be able to work at the top of their capability. But there’s so much more that happens, and it’s very different based on the jurisdictions that you’re talking about, the different countries that you work in. From a regulatory, legislative perspective, there are professional turf battles. And why I’m so thrilled to see the patient’s union here is that we talk a lot about patient-centered care, but we’ve got to really bring that patient involved and engaged in the services that are being provided because they should be much more empowered in terms of what it is that they need to do. Because if you look at it, just take the issue of obesity. Obesity is rampant now around the world because people are not eating properly. They’re not exercising properly. Aging is a challenge that there’s no cure for, really. Maybe there will be a digital cure into the future. But the issue is that there are many health issues that don’t succumb to a traditional medical model. So we just have to start to begin to turn some of that upside down and look at the appropriateness of care. I think it was Debbie that said earlier, looking at the right care at the right time, right place. These are the issues that we have to get better, and I do believe digital health solutions will help to augment and assist us in moving more into those areas.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you, Peter, so much. And to those who have joined online, I would say put your questions in the. we’re going to take questions, we’re going to dedicate substantial amount of time for questions. But you know, this brings me to Debbie and Debbie, you know, that countries like Africa, India with billions of population, and there’s so much less resource in terms of doctors, of course, India in the last few years has done phenomenally in terms of adding doctors, we add now 175,000 doctors every year, which effectively means that in next five years, we would double the number of doctors we already have. Having said that now with technology taking dominant role, and number of doctors coming up more. And now going back to Africa as a region where some patients may not have seen a doctor in their lifetime. How will they understand the difference between technology and a doctor? I mean, if I present them, hey, look, there’s a doctor you’re talking to. And you know, I’ll put a disclaimer, there’s a doctor is AI based doctor, they haven’t spoken to a real doctor. What do you feel would be an opportunity or a challenge for a country like Africa where someone gets addressed empathetically through technology? How will they differentiate? What will be their response on this? I mean, they have not seen a doctor, they get their talk very well. They don’t get 30 seconds, they get 30 minutes if they want, they can chat, they can tell all the problems and the AI will tell them, look, this is your thing. And if they get the right advice, I think, as you said, as Dr. May said, and as Dr. Zaw said, if they get the right advice, they would come back to this for more because they would start trusting that voice that talks to them and it will be the voice that they probably like the most. What do you think about that, Debbie?

Debbie Rogers: I think you bring up an incredibly important topic of trust. And I think we provide digital health solutions and we work very, very hard on making sure that they are trustworthy, that people love the services, that they understand that the service is there to support. And in doing so, we are able to get them to change their behavior in a way that they wouldn’t be able to if they didn’t trust the source that it was coming from. Now, I don’t know whether people, I don’t have the knowledge or have done the research around whether people will trust AI or doctors more. I think it’s probably going to be down to a personal perception. But I do believe that people can trust AI and people can trust digital health solutions. And I think that’s incredibly important when you’re building these solutions. As an example, we integrated a diagnosis engine into MomConnect. It’s a diagnosis engine that we didn’t develop. It’s called Ada Health. And we integrated it via WhatsApp into MomConnect. And we had a higher completion rate of going through diagnoses on MomConnect than on the Ada Health app. And the best we can put that down to is that mothers actually trust the MomConnect service. Another example of trust is we get inundated on Mother’s Day with pictures of people’s babies and messages thanking us for the support that they’ve been giving. And good morning MomConnect and good night MomConnect messages. Whether it’s a piece of technology at the end or it’s a person at the end, you can build trust and you can get people to engage with them. And sometimes they believe that there is a person on the other end. And sometimes they believe that it’s AI on the other end. And that depends on the usage and the person as to what you want to try and encourage. For example, in our sexual reproductive health and rights platforms, we find that youth want to speak to AI and not to a person because they’ve been judged so much by people. And so in that instance… for example, it actually is very helpful for us to have AI. And so I absolutely believe that people will be able to engage with AI, trust AI, knowing that it is AI, they may trust it even more than doctors sometimes, depending on what their experience has been in the past.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: You bring that very important point of the world called engagement. I think technology with no denominator of money at the point in time and not being a human, it could actually spend time probably the patient wants to spend with and engagement would lead to maybe better outcomes if the advice is right based on standard clinical protocols, which means, as you said, AI could be trusted more. I mean, as they send you pictures, I’ve seen your work and I really admire what you have done is that people feel that there is someone with them when they want it. And that’s what is missing in health care today. And I think Peter Presuzzi would allude to this, but Peter, given the fact that we have nurses and there are success stories of the nurses and how they touched and transformed lives, do you think that the future of health care lies with leveraging this workforce, nurses and technology together and somewhere maybe technology? What is your take on this?

Peter Preziosi: Yeah, that’s a great way of putting it around is is liberating all clinicians, nurses, given that there are twenty nine million worldwide, the largest profession. Absolutely. We need to you know, we start with them, but there there’s so much more out there like the work that you’re doing with pharmacists and others. You know, we’ve got you know, we’re doing much work around rehabilitation care with the World Health Organization. And we’re actually in Ethiopia looking at rehab care, driving that into primary care. A quarter of the world’s population needs some form of rehab care. Yet so many clinicians are ill prepared. to tackle this. And when you’re taking a look at the challenges around war and conflict and working in these zones where you’ve got traumatic amputees and trying to reintegrate people into a quality of life, rehab care is incredibly important. But yes, liberating through, I mean, there’s no magic bullet. Are these digital health and AI solutions the magic bullet? Absolutely not. As many people have talked about here, engagement. There are a variety of issues that need to help. But there’s nothing, obviously, to be afraid of with the technology evolution and emerging that as true partners. Again, I’ll just emphasize, it’s also as important to liberate the consumer, the patient, and their families equally with these technologies.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Peter, I think this is a very important point of liberating the clinicians from their too many tasks that can be handled and also the consumers. Let me now jump and open this to questions from the audience. Then I have some questions, which I will ask back the panel again. So if there are questions from the audience, we’ll be very happy to take that. Can someone please provide the mic to the audience? And Sakshi, if you have online questions, please read out to us. Sure, sir.

Audience: So everyone, that was a very nice discussion. We have a few questions online. I’ll just read them out for you. First one is from Ms. Arushi Negi. She asks, if we are planning to replace doctors with digital health tools, how do we make sure they are not compromising quality of care?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Peter, over to you.

Peter Preziosi: Well, this is exactly one of the reasons why we’re going slow and really testing these point of care solutions. Many, you know, and there are countries, high-income countries, Canada, the US, India has done, you know, a great deal of this kind of work where you’re looking at, you know, testing out these solutions, integrating that into clinical workflows. I don’t think replacing is the right word, but, you know, really augmenting. And, you know, there are AI-powered medical brains now that are helping to augment 92% of the workloads of clinicians and practices. And most of this is administrative burdens. Rohindra was saying before, when you’ve got a physician that has only 34 seconds to go in and they don’t even have time to pronounce the patient’s name and the diagnosis. So it’s that, it’s looking at, it’s looking at the work differently and testing those solutions out and seeing what’s best with the consumer to be able to optimize human potential.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you, Peter. In fact, I would very much agree with you on that point. You know, recently in our office building, we had a plumber who always came and told us that his wife has low weight and she’s coughing. And, you know, we said, okay, why don’t you get a tuberculosis check done? So he went and got a check done and the sputum was negative, but the x-ray showed that it was tuberculosis. And the doctor would not start the treatment because the sputum was negative. So we did a telemedicine consultation through a tertiary care facility. And he said, just start the treatment. It is abundantly clear that, you know, there is tuberculosis. So it was technology that came to the rescue, but the conventional system of diagnosis and treatment or consultation didn’t work. But sometimes it is augmentation, sometimes it is replacement, and sometimes it- would be just the doctor. So having said that, Zaw, what do you feel will create that trust that is missing in technology for now?

Peter Preziosi: I want to comment on one thing, Rehendrik, because you’re right. Trust and engagement is so critically important. I was, prior to being at CGFNS International, I was the World Health Organization, actually during the pandemic. And there was a lot of vaccine hesitancy around the world. A lot of individuals don’t trust the treatments that are out there, the vaccines that will prevent the spread of infectious disease and pandemics that are cropping up. This is a real challenge that we have. It’s not just around digital health. It’s around the entire value chain that we see across the health care system. Because as it was said earlier, health care is very contextual and highly personal. And these are the things that we have to focus on. And to your point earlier, AI really understands us in a lot of ways that maybe other humans might not. And what Debbie was saying around sexual and reproductive health issues, where teenagers might feel more comfortable, less judged by talking to a bot. So these are really important issues that happen. But you can’t just make these blanketed statements around the world, because there are a lot of different cultural nuances. Over.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you. Zao?

Zaw Ali Khan: Yeah, Rajenji. So about the issue of trust, I feel in the context of communities where doctors are not available at all. So in that vacuum, of course, any solution would be taken very spontaneously by the patients. But as far as systems where people are used to doctors, if you’re able to emphasize the advantages of technology which they are already seeing, like in India, there used to be next day deliveries used to be considered very fast. And now we have same day deliveries and even 10 minute hyper fast deliveries. So there’s this convenience that consumers are getting used to. And if you see patients as the consumers in the health care system, then eventually they’re going to demand that same kind of convenience in health care as well. Along with that, of course, they would also want high quality. For high quality, they would want to spend more time with doctors. They would want more counseling and coaching. But of course, since that’s not physically possible, then the next best thing would be technology. And technology can actually build more trust because it’s capable of counseling and coaching patients in a much more personalized manner, as we already discussed. But more importantly, it comes with the added advantage of being potentially very transparent about where they’re getting the information from, why they’re recommending a specific course of treatment, why they have concluded a specific diagnosis. So the technology can actually explain all of that much more better than any of our overworked health care workers can. And it can also provide the evidence-based data to support their recommendations. And I’ll just stop right here. Just one more point. Lifelong learning. Even if we train our doctors, our nurses, health care workers to be very good at lifelong learning, we don’t have to be good at lifelong learning. we can’t expect them to absorb the huge oceans of knowledge that is being created continuously in the medical science sector. Whereas AI can effortlessly absorb all of that, assimilate it, and always be up to date with the latest evidence.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you, Zou. And the question is very important that how do we maintain the quality without compromise? I was on the accreditation committee of the government of India for hospitals. And of course, we still agreed on the same parameters of number of doctors to bed, nurses to bed, and what we do. But there was no objective parameter. So in technology, at least, I can say for sure that you will be having a digital footprint of all that you do. So I can see exactly at what readings did the patient enter the system, when did they exit, and when did they get readmitted. So maybe we would redefine what are the parameters of quality. In an AI system, I think the number of hallucinations per patient’s life journey would be an important quality yardstick. And to me, if you ask me, I am not saying I’m overexcited about it, but I believe that technology will be able to manage quality better than the conventional care delivery model because it tracks everything in the process. Everything you do has a digital footprint. I will definitely ask my colleague, Dr. May, what she feels about it.

May Siksik: Yeah, I completely agree, Rajendra. And this kind of reminds me of the empathy point that we brought up a little bit earlier, which is I want to mention that one of the projects that we’re working on is with First Nations. And First Nations have an issue with the way the medical system is set up in Canada, for example, because you can only go to the doctor with one issue. But the way their culture is, when you go in, you need to talk about the full picture, and they have multiple things that they talk about. It’s just a very cultural thing. And this is something that can be completely taken care of with an AI-based system. So I completely agree with you that this completely be helpful in this regard and develop that trust with populations who normally would not would avoid going to doctors which creates like I know in Canada that creates big problems because it means that conditions get worse and manifest into something serious and it cost the system in terms of you know not just dollar value but also societal impact and cost lives.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: May I remember in one of the books I wrote that in one of the province in Canada they run a lottery to be attended by doctors. Lottery system you know by doctors so if that’s the seriousness you know it’s really tough for me to ignore not giving technology to such populations. Mavish from a patient standpoint how would you see quality in technology versus a conventional doctor?

Mevish P. Vaishnav: So if you see I feel patient would be more happy to get time from a doctor but a doctor should be able to understand my condition well my history he should know my history and if I don’t get that much time how will I trust the doctor but if I go to AI and I say okay these are my symptoms and what best options or what treatment you can provide me I would get better outcomes from that because it has as you said it has a complete standard operating protocols and the treatment guidelines from where it can take out the data collate it and share it with me so I would trust the AI more than a doctor.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Debbie what’s your take on on the quality that we’re talking of in the technology age?

Debbie Rogers: I absolutely believe that quality from a technology perspective could be better than, could be better than individuals and in many cases have been. One thing I do just want to point out is that we need to be very careful on technology increasing the digital divide. For example, LLMs at the moment are primarily trained on Western culture, medicine, languages, intonations, cultural context. And that is not going to be appropriate for rolling out in Rwanda, for example. And we need to spend a lot more time ensuring that the quality is not just high quality for certain communities, but high quality for all communities, particularly those who are underrepresented at the moment. So while I think that it’s possible that it will get to that point, I think we need to be conscious in how we are approaching improving quality within these things to ensure that we do it in an equitable way.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you, Debbie, so much. We have a question from the audience, please. Please tell about yourself and ask the question.

Audience: Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, my name is Melody Musoni. I work for a think tank called ECDPM. So the medical field at all, but I was happy with the conversation that we were having here and I learned a lot. I guess mine are more of concerns. And I think Debbie have already touched on one issue when it comes to digital divide, because my fear is the more we digitalize the healthcare system, we are going to leave so many people behind. Even just to give the MomConnect example that Debbie was demonstrating and showcasing, you have to have a phone for you to be able to register and to use it. And if you don’t have that phone already you’re automatically excluded. So I think as we start thinking more about how we are incorporating AI in digital healthcare we also need to bear in mind the issues of digital divide and marginalization. That’s the first point I wanted to make. And then the second point I also wanted to make is perhaps we also need to think about the option of opting in to a digitalized service and opting out because I think you mentioned the other speaker about the importance of human to human interactions. Personally, I think I would still want to go to a human doctor if I have the opportunity to do so instead of relying on a technology. So I think as we are advancing in our innovation on healthcare, we also need to make room for people who may still want to have access to physical doctors or real doctors. And the third point I also wanted to mention I think the speaker online kind of touched on it. I think now with generative AI there’s a lot of misinformation and fake news that is flying, especially around fat diets. So people I know, especially they use Oprah a lot and they have generated so many videos where they’ll be like, Oprah, you think it’s Oprah. We say, I was using this product and after using it in two months, I lost weight. And a lot of people are falling for that misinformation and a lot of people are buying these products. So I think we also need to find ways in which we can address the issues of misinformation and fake news. And I think the example you gave about patients going to doctors and requesting for a certain medication and the doctor is not aware is a good example of that because they are seeing all these things on social media and they expect all doctors to know. So there should be a way in which we address issues on fake information. information, especially around use of certain healthcare services, for example, and I’ll stop there. Thank you. I think he also had a question.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Yeah. Very important points raised. And I think this is what Peter and others were alluding to, you know, that while we get to implement technology at scale, we should be careful about the don’ts more than dos, because that’s something that we need as frameworks to implement. Yes, you have a question.

Audience: Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. So more than a question. I think it’s just some comments I had written it down so that I don’t forget it. But I think an important point that we missed upon was basically how doctors are limited. That has been addressed, of course. But compute is growing at a larger scale than ever. So it was Moore’s law before where it was, you know, it grows two times every two years. Now it’s four times and the cost is going down with GPUs and, you know, multiple compute systems. But at the same time, you have compute systems that can run AI models on a system that is as cheap as $20, but give you an accurate response in six seconds. So this has been, you know, still not been implemented. And I think this would help a lot of places where you need instant care. And the compute cost is a lot for running these large models. So I see them as superpowers. And also touching upon the point of the empathy that we discussed, you know, I remember the movie Wall-E. I’m not sure if everyone has watched it. But basically, you know, they learned everything from what they saw. So I think empathy is a social model, because now what you see is what you believe in. So if you start seeing an AI doctor, you won’t probably go to a normal doctor eventually thinking, oh, I think that’s a human that won’t be as accurate as an AI, although that’s very dystopian. But I think that’s just how it comes to be, you know, with new technologies. And one interesting point that I noted, Mr. Zoh, you said that you addressed at GPT as him. Now we have started, you know, addressing AI models as a person instead of, you know, just being on the cloud or somewhere else. So that’s something that we’ve already started, you know. started doing and it’s in the matter of two years so I think you know that’s something we need to consider as well yeah.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you so much it’s a very important point you know that and I keep concluding you know with the way world is changing that this is not a technology change it’s a societal change society is changing you know don’t think that we need to adopt technology the society has already adopted adopted technology we are all learning without barriers today a teacher is not the main custodian of the information to deliver to the student it’s a YouTube any lecture you want on any topic you want you can go and watch same way patients watch Instagram they go and ask their doctors hey I looked at a star I saw actually a India’s world’s top cricketer talking about a CGM why would someone believe their doctor they would believe the best Batman who is like icon role model talking that I use CGM my sugar is controlled not tell me who is making a choice we used to say in healthcare doctor is the customer and patient is the consumer now technology is changing that role and relationship from customer to consumer directly which was never thought of for centuries it was doctor who decided not today as a patient I know more about my treatment than my doctor knows I mean it’s a real experience I am telling you being in healthcare being an advisor to my health minister of my country my doctor didn’t know about digital therapeutics I decided not to go to her she was a young doctor I mean very experienced very famous known for controlling but she didn’t know when I use a CGM I was told showed the readings I said why do I show to her she didn’t prescribe me you will have patients like me too I mean you’ll have patient who will believe the doctor so all kind of things will exist but I think it’s a big societal change now this brings me to I would still take one online questions actually it is before I want to go back to my panelist again based on what we have discussed sure so so the next question is how can we ensure the accessibility of digital tools in rural areas? I think I would go to Debbie first.

Debbie Rogers: There are a lot of things that we still need to address from an infrastructural perspective and from a cost perspective in order to ensure that digital health can be used in rural areas. Just the fact that what the previous audience member mentioned that even MomConnect, you have to have a phone, there are still major barriers to access to digital health technology. These include things like electricity. If there’s no electricity where you can charge a device, you’re not going to be able to have a digital health solution. If you don’t have any mobile penetration in that area, it’s going to be very challenging. You can do offline, but it’s very challenging. The other thing from a cost perspective, just thinking about AI, for example, we on MomConnect, it’s 20 cents per user, 20 US cents per user per year to run the program. If we were to shift that completely over to generative AI, it would be $10.20. The cost at the moment, and I hear the other previous audience member around the cost of compute going down. The cost at the moment is also prohibitive for a lot of these technologies. Things will go down, access to various things like electricity will go up. But we have to be more conscious about this in ensuring that those who need the services most are not left behind. Because unfortunately, just market forces alone have not actually solved all of these problems.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Bringing this point of cost of technology, of course, not what I’m saying may apply now, but when cell phone came in, at least in my country, I used to pay a very heavy cost of called airtime and cell phone usage. Today, you only pay for data. You don’t pay for calls. It’s free. We’re the cheapest data. So I think technology, not only the computing power goes up, the cost goes down, but I think you have raised an important point of the digital divide. Within the IGF, I also lead three dynamic coalitions. So one of the goals that I’m putting to my overall 31 dynamic coalitions is that still 2.7 billion people are not connected to the internet. That means one out of third person on this planet has no access to internet. We are very privileged people to be talking about all these things. And we should always understand that we are privileged and that’s what we are supposed to deliver. And these forums is talk the real issues and not ignore anything that matters. So I totally understand what you’re saying is very important. And as IGF community, you know, which is responsible for putting its views to the UN on this matters, this is a very important bond given that health is a determinant for living. You know, it’s not something that is a choice that you have. It’s a right health is a right. And technology makes that right possible. So that being said, I would move this to Peter. Peter, you working in Rwanda and now Ghana, what is your take on this?

Peter Preziosi: Yeah, I think what has been said, I would close by saying, look, technology, it’s exciting. It’s a new horizon of opportunity. But we have to be conscious of the unintended consequences, the ethical dilemmas, the digital divide issues, the challenges that we continue to see worldwide as as as we’re looking at governments around the world taking money from health education and welfare into defense spending. We’re seeing a sweeping shift in looking at, you know, that, you know, isolationism and that will be a challenge. if we think about not just the health worker being mobile, the work is becoming mobile. So it’s going to really democratize in many ways opportunity for access to good care if we pay attention to the digital divide discussion that was talked about. And here I would go back to all my panelists on a very important point. I have seen all the discussion that you all made in a very important element point, including questions from the audience.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: What came out is that technology is going to move from a doctor-dependent model to a non-doctor-dependent model. It could be any clinician. It could be a non-clinician. It could be a citizen doctor. But having said that, when all of us agree on a few points, cost is going to come down because of technology. It’s going to be convenient. You can have it when you want. It’s going to have better engagement, better empathy, better quality, a better experience, and a better repository of knowledge. My question to each of my panelists is to justify why will technology not replace a doctor? I mean, starting with Dr. Peter Petrosi, please.

Peter Preziosi: Yeah, I think the human touch is critically important. I think that we’re going to find so many other types of technologies. Looking at precision medicine, I’ll just bring that up as well. We haven’t talked about really treating people at the molecular level, the cellular level, which is going to transform care delivery. And again, looking at the divide that exists between those higher resource countries to the lower resource countries, and how do we begin to democratize that? So I think that having the future health professional will succeed. and evolve with technology, not without it. Those will be the individuals and the patients that will be able to succeed and to do much better in the world.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you, Peter. Mavish, from the patient standpoint, will technology replace doctors?

Mevish P. Vaishnav: If you see, it’s been years for me that I’ve gone to bank. So if bank is on mobile, why not AI doctor on mobile? So yes, I am for it. AI will actually help doctors to enable treatment. So yes, AI will replace doctors.

May Siksik: I think that AI will replace the majority of doctor visits.

Zaw Ali Khan: So as far as the title of this panel discussion is concerned, I feel yes, AI will definitely replace PHCs, first and foremost, and perhaps some of the other specialized use cases as well. But PHCs, because over there, it’s not actually replacing doctors. I mean, if I were to rephrase this, to make it more satiable for our health care workers, it’s not that the technology is replacing them. Rather, it’s making room for them to do their job more effectively. So that way, I feel it’s a win-win for doctors, patients, health care systems around the world. And one more thing that I’d like to add in that is about the regulatory standards and the need to define them with the participation of all stakeholders, particularly because one of the audience members mentioned about the risks of AI, particularly about generative AI. But I think there would be risks in other use cases as well. well. And over there, I would emphasize that the role of academic organizations, academies like the Academy of Digital Health Sciences or AUB, American University of Barbados, we need to make sure and other organizations need to make sure that we are training the next generation of doctors and our faculty members, our stalwarts, in a way that they’re not cynical when it comes to technology. Because if our experts are cynical, then they will, they might advocate for harsher standards and that might decelerate this transition from doctor-centric healthcare to a non-doctor-centric healthcare. Thank you.

May Siksik: I just wanted to add that, to clarify that they will replace the majority of hospital, of doctor visits, but even for the visits that they cannot replace, they need to be at, AI will need to be at the table as part of that team, interdisciplinary team. And it’s, that’s quite, going to be quite important.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Previously, have you seen the AI before doctor? Yeah. Debbie, your take?

Debbie Rogers: I’m going to use an example that you used of Kindle and how, you know, libraries and bookstores have been replaced by the Kindle. In recent years, there’s actually been a resurgence of bookstores and there’s a huge growth in that market. I personally, even though I’m a technologist, I like to read physical books because I like the way they smell and I like the way they feel. And I’m quite happy to carry around a big tome with me in order to get that advantage. And so I don’t think that even if something is possible, even if it does make these things easier, I don’t think we’re going to replace human touch entirely. And there are definitely going to be. people who prefer human touch. And it may even be that for a while, we have a drop in the number of people who are accessing doctors, but that it will resurge again when people realize the advantages that you can get from the human touch that you just cannot get from technology. So I don’t believe there’ll be entirely replaced. I do believe that it’s going to make the lack of health workers a far smaller problem. And I do believe that it’s going to be critical that AI is a part of the team, as you mentioned, May, but I don’t believe it’s going to replace doctors entirely, despite being a technologist.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta: Thank you so much, Debbie. And it was a great discussion. And every year at IGF at Digital Health, we discuss how technology is shaping healthcare and how healthcare is shaping technology, it’s both ways. I really thank Dr. Peter Preziosi for being awake late night and joining us and sharing his valuable insights, which are going to shape the way we look at health. This is Zohr Ali Khan from the American University of Barbados. May, Dr. May Siksek, Mavish and Debbie Rogers. Thank you all so much. And Sakshi Pandita, who’s been moderating us online and for all the panelists who joined us, all the viewers who joined us and asked those important questions. Next year, we’re going to present you the findings of what AI did to healthcare. Thank you so much and wish you a very happy holiday season. Merry Christmas and a great year ahead. Thank you. Bye, thanks. Thank you.

Agreement Points

AI and technology can augment and assist healthcare workers

Peter Preziosi

Zaw Ali Khan

Debbie Rogers

AI and technology can augment and assist healthcare workers

AI and technology can reduce administrative burdens on clinicians

Digital health tools can improve access to care in underserved areas

The speakers agree that AI and technology can enhance healthcare delivery by supporting healthcare workers, reducing administrative burdens, and improving access to care in underserved areas.

Need to address digital divide and ensure equitable access

Debbie Rogers

Peter Preziosi

Need to address the digital divide and ensure equitable access

Cost and infrastructure barriers in low-resource settings

Both speakers emphasize the importance of addressing the digital divide and ensuring equitable access to AI and digital health solutions, particularly in low-resource settings.

AI will play a significant role in future healthcare delivery

May Siksik

Zaw Ali Khan

Mevish P. Vaishnav

AI can provide more personalized and empathetic care than time-constrained doctors

AI may replace primary care centers and some specialized roles

Patients may trust and engage more with AI-powered health services

These speakers agree that AI will play a significant role in future healthcare delivery, potentially replacing some traditional roles and offering more personalized care.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that technology and AI have the potential to disrupt traditional healthcare delivery models by eliminating intermediaries and bringing services directly to users.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Zaw Ali Khan

Technology eliminates middlemen and brings services closer to users

AI may replace primary care centers and some specialized roles

Both speakers emphasize the importance of healthcare professionals adapting to and effectively utilizing AI technologies in their practice.

Debbie Rogers

Zaw Ali Khan

Doctors who use AI will replace those who don’t

Need to train new generation of doctors to work with AI

Unexpected Consensus

Potential for AI to provide more empathetic care

May Siksik

Mevish P. Vaishnav

AI can provide more personalized and empathetic care than time-constrained doctors

Patients may trust and engage more with AI-powered health services

It’s somewhat unexpected that AI is seen as potentially more empathetic than human doctors, challenging the traditional view that empathy is a uniquely human trait in healthcare.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the potential of AI and technology to augment healthcare delivery, the need to address the digital divide, and the significant role AI will play in future healthcare. There is also consensus on the importance of adapting to these technologies and the potential for AI to provide more personalized care.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the transformative potential of AI in healthcare. This implies a shared vision for the future of healthcare that integrates AI and technology, while also recognizing the challenges that need to be addressed. The consensus suggests a likely acceleration in the adoption of AI in healthcare, but with careful consideration of equity and access issues.

Different Viewpoints

The extent to which AI will replace doctors

Peter Preziosi

Mevish P. Vaishnav

May Siksik

Debbie Rogers

I think the human touch is critically important.

AI will actually help doctors to enable treatment. So yes, AI will replace doctors.

I think that AI will replace the majority of doctor visits.

I don’t believe there’ll be entirely replaced. I do believe that it’s going to make the lack of health workers a far smaller problem.

The speakers have differing views on the extent to which AI will replace doctors. Peter Preziosi emphasizes the importance of human touch, while Mevish P. Vaishnav and May Siksik believe AI will largely replace doctors. Debbie Rogers takes a middle ground, suggesting AI will significantly reduce the burden on health workers but not entirely replace them.

Unexpected Differences

Trust in AI vs. human doctors

Mevish P. Vaishnav

Audience

Patients may trust and engage more with AI-powered health services

Importance of maintaining human touch and option for in-person care

While it might be expected that patients would prefer human doctors, Mevish P. Vaishnav suggests that patients may actually trust and engage more with AI-powered health services. This contrasts with the audience member’s emphasis on maintaining the option for human-to-human interactions in healthcare, highlighting an unexpected difference in perspectives on patient preferences.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the extent to which AI will replace doctors, the challenges in implementing AI in healthcare, and patient preferences for AI vs. human doctors.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate. While there is general agreement on the potential benefits of AI in healthcare, there are significant differences in opinions on how much AI will replace human doctors and how to address implementation challenges. These disagreements have important implications for the future of healthcare delivery, medical education, and health policy. They highlight the need for continued research, ethical considerations, and careful planning in the integration of AI into healthcare systems.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need to address challenges in implementing AI in healthcare, but they focus on different aspects. Debbie Rogers emphasizes the importance of addressing the digital divide and ensuring equitable access, while Zaw Ali Khan focuses on regulatory and ethical considerations. They agree on the goal of responsible AI implementation but differ on the primary challenges to address.

Debbie Rogers

Zaw Ali Khan

Need to address the digital divide and ensure equitable access

Regulatory and ethical considerations in AI adoption

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that technology and AI have the potential to disrupt traditional healthcare delivery models by eliminating intermediaries and bringing services directly to users.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Zaw Ali Khan

Technology eliminates middlemen and brings services closer to users

AI may replace primary care centers and some specialized roles

Both speakers emphasize the importance of healthcare professionals adapting to and effectively utilizing AI technologies in their practice.

Debbie Rogers

Zaw Ali Khan

Doctors who use AI will replace those who don’t

Need to train new generation of doctors to work with AI

Key Takeaways

AI and technology have significant potential to augment and transform healthcare delivery, especially in underserved areas

AI may replace or significantly change the role of doctors in some areas, particularly primary care

There are important challenges to address in AI adoption, including the digital divide, quality control, and maintaining human touch

The future of healthcare likely involves interdisciplinary teams that include AI alongside human professionals

Patients may come to trust and prefer AI-powered health services for some types of care

Resolutions and Action Items

Continue testing and implementing AI and digital health solutions, especially in underserved areas

Work on developing regulatory standards for AI in healthcare with input from all stakeholders

Focus on training the next generation of healthcare professionals to work effectively with AI

Unresolved Issues

How to fully address the digital divide and ensure equitable access to AI-powered healthcare

How to balance AI adoption with maintaining human touch in healthcare

The extent to which AI will ultimately replace human doctors versus augment their capabilities

How to effectively combat health misinformation in the age of AI and social media

Suggested Compromises

Implement AI gradually, starting with administrative tasks and primary care, while maintaining option for human doctors

Develop AI solutions that work alongside human healthcare professionals rather than fully replacing them

Focus AI adoption on areas with greatest shortages of healthcare workers

Today, if your doctors don’t need technology, technology would not need them in the future.

speaker

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

reason

This comment provocatively frames the relationship between doctors and technology as potentially adversarial rather than complementary, challenging the traditional view of technology as simply a tool for doctors.

impact

This set the tone for the discussion to explore how AI and technology might replace or fundamentally change the role of doctors, rather than just augment their existing work.

We believe this care solution will reduce the number of referrals that are transferred to upstream health facilities that are already crowded and lack adequate resources, and make the model for an integral part of primary healthcare.

speaker

Peter Preziosi

reason

This comment introduces a concrete example of how AI and technology could reshape healthcare delivery, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

impact

It shifted the discussion from theoretical possibilities to practical applications, prompting others to consider specific use cases and implementations of AI in healthcare.

At International Patients Union, we have a platform, the Patients Union, where we provide a platform for the patients to voice their opinions, their concerns, and share their views.

speaker

Mevish P. Vaishnav

reason

This comment brings the patient perspective into the discussion, highlighting the importance of considering end-users in the development of healthcare technology.

impact

It broadened the conversation to include patient empowerment and engagement, leading to discussion of how AI might directly serve patients rather than just assisting doctors.

For example, in our sexual reproductive health and rights platforms, we find that youth want to speak to AI and not to a person because they’ve been judged so much by people.

speaker

Debbie Rogers

reason

This comment provides a surprising and counterintuitive example of how AI might be preferable to human interaction in some healthcare contexts.

impact

It challenged assumptions about the necessity of human touch in all aspects of healthcare, leading to a more nuanced discussion of when and how AI might be more appropriate than human doctors.

LLMs at the moment are primarily trained on Western culture, medicine, languages, intonations, cultural context. And that is not going to be appropriate for rolling out in Rwanda, for example.

speaker

Debbie Rogers

reason

This comment highlights an important limitation of current AI technology in healthcare, particularly for global applications.

impact

It introduced considerations of equity and cultural appropriateness into the discussion, prompting reflection on how to ensure AI healthcare solutions are truly global and inclusive.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from abstract possibilities to concrete applications and challenges of AI in healthcare. They broadened the conversation to include patient perspectives and global equity considerations, while also challenging assumptions about the necessity of human doctors in all healthcare contexts. The discussion evolved from whether AI would replace doctors to a more nuanced exploration of how, where, and for whom AI might be most beneficial in healthcare delivery.

How can we ensure the accessibility of digital health tools in rural areas?

speaker

Audience member

explanation

This is important to address the digital divide and ensure equitable access to healthcare technology.

How can we address issues of misinformation and fake news in digital health, especially around fad diets and miracle cures?

speaker

Audience member (Melody Musoni)

explanation

This is crucial for maintaining trust in digital health solutions and protecting patients from harmful misinformation.

How can we develop AI models that are culturally appropriate for diverse communities, particularly those underrepresented in current training data?

speaker

Debbie Rogers

explanation

This is essential for ensuring AI-based healthcare solutions are effective and equitable across different cultures and contexts.

How can we define regulatory standards for AI in healthcare with the participation of all stakeholders?

speaker

Zaw Ali Khan

explanation

This is important to ensure safe and effective implementation of AI in healthcare while addressing concerns from various perspectives.

How can we reduce the cost of implementing AI-based healthcare solutions in low-resource settings?

speaker

Debbie Rogers

explanation

This is crucial for making AI-powered healthcare accessible in developing countries and rural areas.

How can we integrate AI into medical education to prepare future healthcare professionals?

speaker

Zaw Ali Khan

explanation

This is important to ensure future healthcare workers are equipped to work alongside AI technologies.

How can we balance the use of AI in healthcare with maintaining the human touch in patient care?

speaker

Multiple speakers (Peter Preziosi, Debbie Rogers)

explanation

This is crucial for ensuring that the implementation of AI doesn’t compromise the empathetic aspects of healthcare.

Summary

This panel discussion focused on the paradox of inclusion in Internet governance, exploring the challenges of creating truly inclusive processes in international cybersecurity and digital policy forums. The speakers highlighted how efforts to increase participation, such as proliferating initiatives and multi-stakeholder forums, can paradoxically create barriers due to the high resource demands of engaging in numerous processes.

Key themes included the need for better coordination between national and international levels, the importance of interdisciplinary teams in government delegations, and the challenge of balancing political control with meaningful inclusion of diverse stakeholders. Speakers discussed examples like the UN Open-Ended Working Group on cybersecurity and the Palma Process on cyber intrusion tools to illustrate these dynamics.

The discussion emphasized structural inequalities that persist despite inclusive processes, such as developing countries lacking resources to participate effectively in multiple forums. Participants noted the importance of national-level coordination mechanisms and capacity building to enable more diverse and substantive engagement internationally. The need to include marginalized communities and identities in digital governance was also raised.

Speakers proposed some best practices, including creating ownership through early stakeholder consultations, fostering interdisciplinary teams within governments, and calibrating political risk to allow for more distributed leadership of initiatives. Overall, the discussion highlighted the complex challenges of achieving meaningful inclusion in Internet governance while maintaining effective processes and outcomes.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The paradox of inclusion in internet governance: efforts to be more inclusive can create barriers to meaningful participation due to the proliferation of forums and initiatives

– Challenges of coordinating between different government agencies and stakeholders at both national and international levels on cyber/internet governance issues

– The need for multidisciplinary teams and better knowledge transfer between different internet governance forums and processes

– Balancing political control with genuine inclusivity and openness to diverse perspectives

– Ensuring representation of minority and underrepresented groups in internet governance processes

Overall purpose:

The goal was to explore the “paradox of inclusion” in internet governance – how efforts to be more inclusive can paradoxically create new barriers to participation – and discuss potential solutions or best practices to address this challenge.

Tone:

The tone was collaborative and constructive throughout. Panelists and participants shared insights and experiences in a collegial manner, building on each other’s points. There was a sense of shared purpose in trying to tackle a complex challenge. The tone became more solution-oriented towards the end as participants reflected on key takeaways and potential next steps.

Speakers

– James Shires: Co-director of Virtual Roots, a UK-based NGO working on cybersecurity and Internet governance research, education, and public engagement

– Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi: Cybersecurity program officer at the ITU (International Telecommunication Union)

– Hurel Louise Marie: Associate Fellow with Virtual Roots, works in the cyber program at RUSI (Royal United Services Institute)

– Corinne Casha: Representative from Malta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Additional speakers:

– Audience member: Julia Eberl from the Austrian Foreign Ministry, working at the mission in Geneva

– Audience member: Akriti Bopanna from Global Partners Digital, previously worked in India’s foreign ministry for G20

– Audience member: Natasha Nagle from the University of Prince Edward Island

Expanded Summary: The Paradox of Inclusion in Internet Governance

This panel discussion, featuring experts from various backgrounds in cybersecurity and internet governance, explored the complex challenges of creating truly inclusive processes in international cybersecurity and digital policy forums. The central theme was the “paradox of inclusion” in internet governance, a concept introduced by James Shires, co-director of Virtual Roots.

1. The Paradox of Inclusion

The discussion began with Shires explaining that efforts to increase participation in internet governance, such as proliferating initiatives and multi-stakeholder forums, can paradoxically create barriers due to the high resource demands of engaging in numerous processes. This proliferation of initiatives makes it difficult for stakeholders, especially those with limited resources, to participate meaningfully across all forums.

Louise Marie Hurel, Associate Fellow with Virtual Roots, expanded on this concept by highlighting how the specialisation of debates leads to fragmentation of discussions. She also raised the provocative point that inclusion efforts can be weaponised for political purposes, with the proliferation of initiatives sometimes serving as a political strategy to control the scope of debates and who participates in them.

2. Challenges of Coordination

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the challenges of coordinating between different government agencies and stakeholders at both national and international levels on cyber and internet governance issues. Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi, Cybersecurity program officer at the ITU, emphasised the importance of national-level coordination for effective international participation. She highlighted the need for creating ownership at the national level across different expertises, including various ministries and critical infrastructure providers.

Corinne Casha, representing Malta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, echoed this sentiment, discussing the establishment of national cybersecurity committees for better coordination. She also pointed out the difficulty in maintaining consistent representation across multiple forums, underscoring the challenge of balancing specialisation with comprehensive engagement.

The lack of communication between different UN processes, particularly those based in Geneva and New York, was raised as a concern by an audience member from the Austrian Foreign Ministry. This highlighted the need for better coordination not just within nations, but also between international organisations and processes.

3. The UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Cybersecurity

Louise Marie Hurel provided significant details about the UN OEWG on cybersecurity, highlighting it as an example of the proliferation of international forums. She discussed the challenges associated with this process, including the difficulty of meaningful participation for smaller states and non-state actors, and the potential for forum shopping by more powerful actors.

4. The Palma Process and Multi-stakeholder Initiatives

Corinne Casha discussed the Palma Process on cyber intrusion tools as an example of an initiative attempting to address inclusivity challenges. This process aims to develop guidelines for the responsible development, transfer, and use of cyber intrusion tools through multi-stakeholder consultations. It illustrates efforts to balance political control with diverse participation in addressing complex cyber issues.

5. Strategies for Improving Inclusion and Representation

The speakers proposed several strategies to address the challenges of inclusion:

a) Interdisciplinary Approaches: Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi stressed the need for interdisciplinary teams to engage in various processes, combining technical, diplomatic, and policy expertise to address complex digital issues effectively.

b) Multi-stakeholder Consultations: Azzouzi and Casha both emphasised the importance of creating ownership through multi-stakeholder consultations, involving diverse stakeholders in the decision-making process.

c) Capacity Building: Casha mentioned funding initiatives to support participation from developing countries, addressing the resource imbalance that often hinders inclusive participation. Specific examples included the Women in Cyber Fellowship and the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building.

d) Fostering Productive Disagreement: Hurel highlighted the importance of fostering dialogue that allows for productive disagreement, suggesting that true inclusion requires openness to challenging perspectives.

6. The Role of Ministries of Foreign Affairs

Corinne Casha and other speakers discussed the crucial role of Ministries of Foreign Affairs in coordinating cyber issues at both national and international levels. They emphasized the need for these ministries to act as bridges between various domestic stakeholders and international forums, ensuring coherent national positions and effective representation in global discussions.

7. Persistent Challenges and Unresolved Issues

Despite these proposed strategies, the discussion highlighted several persistent challenges:

a) Structural Inequalities: Hurel pointed out that structural inequalities persist despite efforts at inclusion, particularly affecting developing countries and their ability to participate effectively in multiple forums.

b) Balancing Political Control and Inclusion: There was a recognition of the tension between maintaining political control and achieving genuine inclusivity, with Casha noting that relinquishing some control is necessary for true inclusion.

c) Representation of Minority Identities: An audience member, Natasha Nagle from the University of Prince Edward Island, raised the important question of how to ensure representation of minoritised identities in digital governance spaces.

d) Circumvention of National Legislation: Akriti Bopanna from India provided an example of how international forums can be used to circumvent national legislation, illustrating another aspect of the paradox of inclusion where global processes might undermine local democratic decisions.

8. Conclusion and Future Directions

The discussion concluded with Hurel summarizing three key paradoxes: meaningful leadership, meaningful coordination, and meaningful dialogue. These encapsulate the ongoing challenges in achieving true inclusion in internet governance.

Corinne Casha suggested a follow-up session or report to further explore the issues raised during the panel. The discussion also touched on the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behavior as a potential framework for addressing some of the challenges discussed.

The speakers agreed that addressing the paradox of inclusion requires careful balancing of specialisation and comprehensive engagement, political control and diverse participation, and national coordination and international representation. The ongoing nature of these challenges underscores the need for continued dialogue and innovation in approaches to internet governance.

James Shires: Yes. Hi, Louise. Testing. Can we hear and see you? Can you hear and see us? Yes, all good. Can you hear me okay? Very well. Let’s get started. So, hi, everybody. Hi. There’s behind us. And welcome, everybody, online. We’re very happy to be hosting this panel on the paradox of inclusion in Internet governance. My name is James Shires. I’m co-director of Virtual Roots. Virtual Roots is a UK-based NGO that works in cybersecurity and Internet governance research, education, and public engagement. So, we have a fantastic lineup of speakers today. We have Yasmin Azouzi, to my right, in person. We have Louise Marie Harrell online. And we have Corinne Kasher, who, unfortunately, is in a taxi coming from a very similarly named conference center that she was accidentally taken to and will arrive soon. These things happen. So, I’ll just say a little bit about the purpose of the panel overall, and then I’ll hand over to our speakers. I will start with Louise online. Then I’ll go to Yasmin. I’ll talk a little bit about my perspective on the paradox of inclusion. And hopefully, by then, Corinne will have sorted out her travel issues. We’ll then open the floor to questions and discussion for everyone, both in person and online. We’re very much looking forward to the discussion. And thank you all for being here early on a Thursday morning. So, we put together this panel because… because we felt that there was a real issue with internet governance and inclusion. And we call this the paradox of inclusion. The idea here is that we see a proliferation of efforts to bring in different actors in internet governance, whether these are multi-stakeholder forums, whether these are efforts to include developing countries and smaller states or states with fewer resources, and there’s lots of different efforts to do these, through different conferences, initiatives, meetings, and so on. In fact, there’s so many of these different efforts that actually keeping up with them all, keeping track of them all, and participating meaningfully in them all, is itself a high resource burden. And that’s what we term the paradox of inclusion. Internet governance recognizes that it has to be inclusive. It has to bring in multiple stakeholders. But those who are really able to track the real range of internet governance forums from this one to those of the UN, such as the OEWG on cybersecurity, through to the Global Digital Compact, through to the Cybercrime Convention, through to the multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Paris Call, et cetera, et cetera. So this is what we want to talk about today, is the starting point, recognizing that inclusion matters, that there are genuine and very well-developed efforts to make internet governance inclusive, but that sometimes these efforts, as we would say in English, for want of a better phrase, shoot themselves in the foot. They actually bring up barriers to participation through requiring such a thin spread of attention and resources across the internet governance portfolio. That’s the idea behind the session. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this paradox of inclusion, but before we do so, I’ll turn to some short opening remarks from each of our speakers. Our first speaker is Louise Marie Harrell, who is an Associate Fellow with Virtual Roots and is also working at the Royal United Services Institute. Louise, I’ll leave you to do a much better introduction of your own work than I can, and the floor is yours.

Hurel Louise Marie: Thank you very much, James, and thank you all. I would love to be there with all of you, but sadly, and thankfully also, because since we’re talking about inclusion, I think the fact of just being able to connect the IGF has always been great in that sense. And I think James already kind of set a very interesting tone to our conversation here. I am Louise Marie Harrell. As James said, I work in the cyber program at RUCI. And we’ve been reflecting a lot on different elements related to that, but personally, I’ve been attending the IGF for 10 years now, which is kind of like baffling. And I think there’s no other better place to actually have this conversation because being involved in the IGF throughout different cycles of maturity, and also other spaces such as ICANN, but also being increasingly involved in the cybersecurity discussions, which is the bit that I’m going to talk a little bit more about, I think you see those different communities of practice emerging and specializing. So when we look at, in particular, at the proliferation of initiatives, especially when it comes to cybersecurity, and that has something, like if you look from 2017, or 2015, right, to today, it’s quite impressive to see how many initiatives, especially on cybersecurity that have emerged. you would have the group of governmental experts at the UN as the one place, and it was a very kind of multilateral, I mean, it’s still a multilateral process, but you would have 30 governments or so discussing what is state responsibility and how international law applies to cyberspace. And back then also you would have the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, which back then was also like just called the London Process, starting to mature and to become a bigger platform. And today these initiatives have consolidated quite a bit. I mean, obviously the negotiations at the UN have been taking place for at least 20 years when it comes to state responsibility, but the traction that these dialogues have had is quite substantive. So just to frame this a bit, right now I think we see two movements. And one is we can look at the proliferation of these initiatives in firstly as the specialization of the debate, right? I remember I used to attend the IGF like in the, like again, like 10 years ago, and I would look, where is the cyber community here? And you would have one or two panels talking about this from, let’s say a more cyber diplomacy initiative. And you would see government representatives, and I remember in Geneva, trying to talk about the GGE at the IGF. But nowadays there’s so many other spaces. There’s the Counter Ransomware Initiative, which talks about rent, well, as the name says, you know, ransomware. The Pal-Mal Process, which looks at commercial cyber proliferation. The OEWG, which is looking at state responsibility. And also, I mean, to some degree, the interdependence between state and non-state responsibility in cyberspace. We have the GFCE, which is looking at capacity building, cyber capacity building, and obviously the… you know, Yasmin will definitely, you know, touch upon like capacity building from the ITU’s perspective. We have the Tech Accord, which is an initiative that was spearheaded by Microsoft, but that tries to create this community of practice and thinking within the private sector in different parts of the private sector and how they see norms for their own, let’s say, sector when it comes to cybersecurity and the Paris call as James very already mentioned, which is kind of a mix of different stakeholder groups. So one way in which we can see that discussion, as I said, is the proliferation as the specialization of the debate, where we think that, you know, we cannot have this ethereal, broad conversation. We need to get to these smaller bits and spaces. But obviously the other side of the coin is looking at the proliferation of the debate as also being a political strategy, which it is in many ways. So if you think about the ad hoc committee on cybercrime, that is the result of a long friction at the geopolitical level of Russia trying to push forward in some ways, the discussion of actually have, not just Russia, but in that case, the presentation of the resolution to have a legally binding instrument on cybercrime. And that echo, that really just contemplates the vision of many other countries that have not been involved in the Budapest Convention or that don’t necessarily agree that they should just subscribe to something, that they should be part of the development of it, which is, you know, an increasingly and very valid point from their standpoint. So you have those movements, such as the ad hoc committee, which has ended right now, that becomes part of that, let’s say, political strategy. Another example of proliferation being a political strategy is precisely to specialize debate because then you can control a bit more. or what the scope is, and who is involved in this conversation. So on the other hand, if we look at the counter ransomware initiative, it started out as something that was very much state department led, right? The US spearheading that, but then it has increased throughout the last couple of years. And that requires again, kind of how do you create a platform for a particular dialogue, but that you ensure that you’re still open and flexible to bring others on board. And I’m sure James will talk more about the Pal-Mal process as something that’s quite interesting as well in terms of that proliferation as a political strategy. But I’d say like from an OEWG standpoint, and James, please flag to me when I am, if I’m speaking too much, but I just wanted to give a little bit of a glimpse of the OEWG as part of this paradox of inclusion, right? I think it comes as this proposed solution. So back in 2019, when you had the start of like two simultaneous processes, the GGE, the last GGE and the OEWG, you had this narrative that the OEWG as an open-ended working group, as a UN mechanism for a particular type of dialogue, it would be more inclusive firstly, because it would include all member states. So it would shift the conversation to all of the GA members, the General Assembly members. So from a composition standpoint, it seems that it would probably be more inclusive and also that it would have some kind of participation from non-state actors. But so the enabler is that we’re going from 30 to 193 countries. The challenge there is obviously that enabling effective participation of member states as part of this process is a whole different ball game, right? We’ve been working quite a lot at RUSI to facilitate like workshops on responsible cyber behavior and just working with other governments, like let’s say small island states, like talking about ransomware and trying to really kind of democratize the access to some bits of the debate or to go deeper into some elements of the OEWG agenda. There are structural elements that are just reproduced in these spaces, which is normally you have one person, if it is a small UN mission, you have one diplomat, one person that’s there covering a myriad of themes, right? So even if you have a process that has gone to the 193 countries, is it actually an effective participation? Because again, many countries won’t see that, state responsibility in cyberspace is the first topic on their national priority. And they only have one person in the UN covering these topics. And on top of that, they really don’t, they don’t prioritize because that’s also challenging. And if they want to bring someone from the capital, right, to participate, that’s the cost of meaningful inclusion as part of that expansion of those that can participate. So you have an enabler from a process standpoint, but that does not address the structural challenges over there. Obviously, there’s some solutions such as the Women in Cyber Fellowship, which is an initiative that is funded by state department, the UK government, Australia, and a couple of others that seek to bring women diplomats, or let’s say representatives of national cybersecurity agencies to be the representatives at the OEWG. So again, how do you kind of, you enable a process, but then how do you make sure that that process is actually inclusive at the end of the day? So it’s more of a walking the talk paradox that we’re thinking over here. And in some ways, the- The second logic of inclusion within the OIWG, so we talked about the state one, the non-state actor inclusion, again, the process does enable non-state actors to participate, unlike the GGE, as I said, which is 30 states that participated, it was just them. No opportunity to look at what they were discussing or even like webcast at the UN, and the OIWG does all of those things, which is great. But the disabler, I’d say, or let’s say the paradox of inclusion for non-state actors is obviously that it becomes, it has become a weaponized discussion. So since the start of this latest OIWG, the 2021 to 2025, what we’ve seen is right at the start, at least a year of the process, or more than half of the first year of the process, there was the stalemate between states that wanted to promote effective modalities for stakeholder participation, so that they would be able to provide their speech, to give a speech over at the UN, or that they would be able to listen in through the UN webcast, or that they would be able to be accredited. And there were other states that said, no, we don’t need to have those stakeholders. But they also said, well, if we have to have these stakeholders, we need to have a veto power over who gets to be in the room. So that has led to a stalemate for most of the first bit. And after that, to the effective vetoing of different organizations, including my organization, and also, let’s say, really important technical community experts, such as the Foreign Money and Incident Response Team, which could effectively provide inputs into some of the conversations, but that they were also vetoed by some member states. So you see that there is a process enabling… but that there are political challenges or things when it comes to the meaningful inclusion of non-state actors in these spaces. And just to finalize, because I’m sure that I’m almost done with my time, is looking at the third logic of inclusion. So we talked states, non-state actors, and I think the third one is thinking about the context where this dialogue is being held being more inclusive. So this is a first committee process, which means that usually it’s the highest level of the conversation on international peace and security when it comes to cyber. So obviously the chair of this process has a lot of responsibility to shape meaningfully that inclusion. So the enabler there for thinking about this broader context of the dialogue is the chair, for example, hosting online convenings. He organized the high level round table on cyber capacity building, where organizations from different parts of the world could effectively share their experiences in implementing cyber capacity building. You see also in this process, different proposals from developing countries gaining traction, such as Kenya, suggesting and tabling recommendation for a portal to look at threats so that other states that might not have as much cyber threat intelligence or that might have less access to information that they can share. So you also have coalitions of different states coming together, both developing cross-regional representatives, which is not something specific about the OEWG, but it says that the process is enabling those types of interactions in spite of geopolitical tension between two poles that you see. see effectively happening in the room. But you see, for example, El Salvador working with Estonia, working with Switzerland to think about the applicability of international law in cyberspace and tabling, let’s say, documents for a further conversation. But the outcome, or let’s say, the background tension in this third bit of like the space of this dialogue is really that is the question of what comes next. So I don’t know how many of you are familiar, but the OEWG is coming to an end in 2025 in July. And there is another proposal for a program of action. So let’s see another way in which we structure the dialogue at the UN within this, you know, a regular institutional dialogue for cyber. And there is this dichotomy between these two proposals. One is obviously the OEWG was the result of a Russian table proposal, which has effectively been, you know, successful in the past five years in actually pushing the conversation forward, at least maintaining that dialogue. But there is obviously a need for a more dynamic dialogue that can go deeper into different topics. And that, you know, can more effectively include stakeholders. And that’s the program of action. Not that one is better than the other, but there are different proposals for how that dialogue should happen, that regular institutional dialogue, and the member states will need to decide. So within this context of these three paradoxes, in many ways, how do you think that going forward? And I think there is a very politicized tension between these two proposals. And I think right now is, is thinking about the design of the process, right? And I don’t think that necessarily we’re always tackling those underlying inequalities. But in any case, I just wanted

James Shires: to stop there. I think there are other bits in terms of the relationship between the IGF and the OEWG. AWG or the coexistence of different UN processes, especially on cyber, but I’m very happy to talk about that afterwards. But I just wanted to maybe set the scene from an AWG standpoint of what are these different logics of inclusion and what are the challenges to these three logics of inclusion? Louise, thank you so much. That is a incredibly rich introduction and overview of the paradox of inclusion. And I really appreciate you breaking it down into this question of between states with non-state actors and also these other modalities of inclusion as well. Given that you covered so much ground there, I do just want to give the people in the room and online the chance to respond or ask a few questions while it’s fresh in their mind. And then we will turn to our next panelist. So if there is anyone who would like to come in online, please do put your question in the chat. If you’d like to come in in person, obviously just raise your hand and we will bring the mic to you. So while you’re maybe thinking of that, and if anyone is thinking of questions, I would just highlight one recent publication from Virtual Roots through our site, Binding Hook. Now, Binding Hook is a way to disseminate academic research in an accessible way to a wide audience. And there’s a new piece from last week on Pacific Island cybersecurity, how to co-design cybersecurity governance for and with Pacific Island states. So if you’re interested in that part of Louise’s remarks, please do check out that piece that has just come out on Binding Hook. If there are no questions in the chat, and everyone here seems very content, I will move on to our next panelist, who is Yasmin Azouzi. So I’m going to turn it over to Yasmin, who’s going to talk a little bit more about cybersecurity and how it can be used in the future. So Yasmin, again, please do introduce yourself a little bit more, and the floor is yours.

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi: Thank you very much, James. Thank you, Louise, for that incredible overview. Good morning, everyone. So my name is Yasmin. I’m a cybersecurity program officer at the ITU. So the ITU, as many of you know, is the U.N. cybersecurity and technology agency, and the ITU is a global organization. So we have a virtual moment for Internet governance. So next year, we have the WSIS plus 20. We’re currently navigating the global digital compact, topic specific ones like the ones in cybersecurity, open-ended working group, ad hoc committee on cyber crime, and we’re seeing in general, as mentioned, very nicely, that there is a proliferation of fora, which has obviously both opportunities and challenges. So I’m going to talk a little bit about what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it. So we have a number of fora that are also addressing overlapping issues, overlapping Internet governance issues, and this is being compounded, of course, by duplication and silos at times. So, for example, I can give a specific example from the ITU. So agreements that member states and resolutions that member states have voted on at ITU statutory meetings on the topic of open-ended working groups, and we have a number of fora that we’re working on, and we’re also working on the open-ended working group agenda item on cybersecurity. And this is partly due to member state representation in the ITU being mainly ministries of ICTs, ministry of communication, of digitalization, while the open-ended working group, first committee diplomats at times, but also representatives of national cyber agencies, this shows basically a lack of coordination at national level. So, for example, the open-ended working group, this is a representative of the national cyber agency, and it’s a group that is not represented in the open-ended working group, and it’s a group that prevents them from being represented in this. It’s about financial resources, at times it’s also the technical expertise and ability to communicate, and it’s also the technical expertise and ability to communicate, and it’s also the technical expertise and ability to navigate the interdisciplinary nature of digital policymaking. So this I think is the core of why this paradox exists, because the silos that are present at national level are being reflected internationally. In fact, digital issues touch upon multiple disciplines, so it can span from national security to economic development to human rights to sociological change, and this very interdisciplinarity, while enriching, also contributes to the fragmentation. So I’ll take cyber security as an example. As I mentioned, the Open Ended Working Group addresses cyber security within the first committee of the General Assembly, which focuses on peace and security, and the Committee on Cybercrime operates in the third committee, yet cyber security can also have implications in the second committee on economic development, which has a critical role in security. And in parallel to that, at the same time, at the ITU, at WSIS processes as well, we are emphasizing technical cyber capacity building for the purpose of sustainable development and economic and social development, and this is far removed from peace and security aspects being discussed elsewhere. The Global Digital Compact sees cyber security more as an enabler of securing digital space in general, and it focuses very much on the harms of privacy protection and calls for international cooperation more in a high-level way. So this way of compartmentalization makes it challenging for stakeholders, particularly from low-resource nations, to align their priorities and also to maintain continuity across these different sectors, which causes, again, the silos and duplication. Paradoxically, given also the topic, the solution actually may lie in reducing this fragmentation at national level by improving, for example, inter-agency cooperation, focusing on fostering interdisciplinary teams that are equipped to engage meaningfully in I think that this approach can offer some key advantages. So first off, countries need to establish multidisciplinary teams that can have expertise in technical, diplomatic, and also policy-making communities. For example, representation of national cybersecurity agencies or national computer incident response team at the open-ended world often results in practical, context-specific experiences that are a bit different compared to, let’s say, traditional career diplomats. However, this, of course, requires a pipeline of trained multidisciplinary professionals that have the expertise in technology, but also in diplomacy, so being able to operate in that nexus, in a way. Second, capacity-building with inclusivity in mind must be key. So initiatives must prioritize inclusive capacity-building that can bridge technical and policy silos. So, for example, at the ITU, we have a program that is a part of the ITU that is a part of the ITU that is a part of the ITU that is working on a number of issues, both technical and policy silos. So, for example, at the ITU, that bring together those two communities at national level so that they are accustomed, let’s say, to interagency in that manner. Programs should focus on enabling countries to engage also in Internet governance forum in a holistic manner, so being equipped both, again, from the technical and the policy side, but also from the policy side. So, for example, the ICT forum is a very utopic goal, realistic or useful to think of consolidating all Internet governance forum, but what we can focus on is actually enhancing coordination and avoiding duplication by aligning mandates, creating, let’s say, better linkages between discussions, for example, on the capacity building, cyber security capacity building, these agendas can be implemented in a more holistic way. So, for example, the ICT forum is a very utopic goal, realistic or useful to think of consolidating all Internet governance forum, but what we can focus on is enhancing coordination and avoiding duplication by aligning mandates, creating, let’s say, better linkages between discussions, for example, on the capacity building, cyber security capacity building, these agendas can be implemented in a more holistic way. So, for example, the ICT forum is a very utopic goal, So, I would like to conclude by saying that I think that we need to be very, very careful about how we create these interdisciplinary teams and this can also include having coordination mechanisms in place that can regularly consult across disciplines so that there is consistency when it comes to international negotiations and international fora. So, just to conclude, as we’re looking at, say, the future of Internet governance , we need to be very careful about if there is a difference between

James Shires: . Thank you, Yasmin. And just to repeat my call from earlier, if anyone does have any questions for Yasmin or Louise at this stage, then please do bring them into the discussion. We would love to hear from you whether you are in person or online. I am extremely pleased to have our third speaker here, Corinne. Corinne, please do come up to the table. You snuck in behind me and I didn’t even see you, so that is clearly operating in stealth mode. Now, Corinne, hopefully we will follow on with her perspective on the paradox of inclusion and maybe also the paradox of travel in Riyadh as well. Corinne, it is a pleasure to have you here. I will hand over the mic to you.

Corrine Casha: Yes, hi. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be with you here today. I don’t have much to add, actually, to what Yasmin already said, because I think she really encompassed the discussion very well, and I noticed that she really sort of hit the nail right on the head about the paradox of inclusion. So I just really wanted to add on to what Yasmin said. I think it’s important to avoid having the fragmentation of all these processes through also the fact that you need both the technical and the political level to work very closely together. And the issue of resources was one that really struck me. I know this is one of the main issues, that there are a lack of resources. And from our perspective as Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we are really working hard to fund resources so that we aim to actually provide resources where necessary. So if it’s, for example, the fact of the lack of representation, we fund fellows. We fund also diplomats from, let’s say, least developed countries, et cetera, so that they are able to be represented at the highest levels of decision making. One other aspect that struck me was the need to harmonize the processes and also to enhance coordination. I think this is really key. And obviously, the Global Digital Compact only came into, let’s say, adoption last September at the UN General Assembly. So we will see how it will fit in with the other processes. But that’s all from my end. I will add some closing remarks as well. But I really wanted to hear what participants think about this and what their views are on how to promote more inclusion and also to avoid the fragmentation of the processes. Because this will be really sort of key in us as governments to factor in what needs to be done for this to be, let’s say, a more harmonized process.

James Shires: Thank you. Thank you, Corrine. And yes, we look forward to your concluding remarks as well. So before we turn to an open discussion, and at that point, I will be asking everyone what your perspective is on the paradox of inclusion. So please do get some interventions ready. What I’m going to do is reflect a little bit on one example of the paradox of inclusion that I’ve been working on very closely. And what I’ll do is I’ll use Louise’s framework, because I think it’s a very helpful one of inclusion at a state level, inclusion at a non-state or multi-stakeholder level, and inclusion in terms of modalities as well, to illustrate how this paradox emerges through a particular process. And the one I’ll talk about isn’t the OEWG or the Global Digital Compact, these sort of very high-profile major ones. It’s a little bit more niche. It’s the pow-mow process. Now, can I get a quick show of hands in the room if you’ve heard of or know about the pow-mow process? If anyone does, then please put your hand up. Glad the panelists do as well. If you don’t, then I think I will give a quick overview of what it is. So recently, there’s been a recognition among many states that many offensive cyber tools, otherwise known as cyber intrusion capabilities, have both positive and negative uses. They have positive uses because they are necessary for cybersecurity. They help organizations test their defenses and improve their defenses through things like penetration testing within cybersecurity, so asking someone external to try and hack into your networks, so you know where the holes are and you can fix them. They have negative uses when they are used by cyber. criminals, for ransomware or other theft, and also when they are misused by state actors. So this is where companies would offer cyber intrusion capabilities commercially, often known as spyware, and then states would buy that and then use it. This is a, in many cases, perfectly legitimate activity, right? States need such surveillance capabilities for reasons of national security, but often, in many cases, they have overstepped the line, right? They have used capabilities in ways that are not proportionate, that lead to significant human rights violations as well. This is a recognized issue in internet governance, and there have been many efforts to try and address this at both a national and a multi-stakeholder level. And so, for example, you have the US, which is a major producer of these capabilities, right? It’s a major center for spyware development, research and sale. The US then imposes sanctions on particular companies that it thinks have violated the norms or boundaries that it wants to impose. So there are very high profile cases of US sanctions and indictments and other measures, such as restrictions on government procurement, so US government agencies can’t buy from certain companies in order to shape this market. There are also efforts at the multi-stakeholder level. Some of you may have heard of the Cyber Tech Accord, and this is a group of tech companies, industry companies, who came together to develop their own voices. on internet governance. They produced principles for what they called curbing the cyber mercenary market, right? So they put a different frame on it. But again, they’re trying to intervene in this sphere. Now, again, that wasn’t especially effective. And so what happened last year is a new initiative was launched called the PowerMile process. This aimed at both bringing in industry, including the spyware industry itself, including the companies worried about that, such as the big tech companies, including the states buying and using spyware and commercial cyber intrusion capabilities, and those being affected by it. So in short, it was a big tent initiative, right? It wanted to get everyone together to find a solution to this complex problem. And let’s unpack that initiative, which has now been running for just under a year in the three levels that Louise mentioned. Firstly, at a state level, was it inclusive? Well, in one way, yes, right? Anyone who wanted to, any state that wanted to sign up to the PowerMile declaration published in February could do so, right? They could attend the conference, they can engage in discussions, and put their name at the bottom. And now the state interaction on these discussions is getting more detailed. But it was still not completely equal, right? The sponsors of this initiative, the funders and organizers, are the British and French governments, right? They are the ones running it. They are aiming to include as many other states as possible. But ultimately, the conferences are in Europe, they’re in the UK and France. Most of the attendees and organizers are from these states. there between having a very stereotypical sort of European perspective on the issues and making it as wide an invitation as possible. So that’s at the state level. At the multi-stakeholder level, yes, there are efforts to include multi-stakeholders. So Virtual Roots is a multi-stakeholder participant in the Pal-Mal process and multi-stakeholders have the opportunity to engage at these conferences. They can submit responses to a consultation that closed a couple of months ago on these issues and they will continue to be able to feed into the process. But again, this is clearly a two-tier system. You have in each event a day reserved for multi-stakeholder discussion and then a day reserved for state-only discussion. So while the multi-stakeholders are able to input, they are not able to observe or have any understanding of what is going on in the state negotiations. So in a way, it’s a bit like the OEWG on one side and then the GG on the other side, right, where it’s just the states in a closed forum. So multi-stakeholder, yes, but also two-tier. And then finally, in terms of modalities, and this is where it is very interesting, the open consultation that ran for three months over the summer this year was on the declaration on the way forward for the Pal-Mal process. And what was interesting was a lot of industry coalitions and companies contributed to this consultation. Most of them were from the cyber security industry, right? They were contributing from the defensive side. But what the aim was, was for also to get the companies who build and make and sell the spyware to contribute as well, right? It’s a genuinely multi-stakeholder process. And it didn’t quite succeed in that, right? They were looking for more and more contributions from all parts of the industry, as well as civil society as well. And so, again, when you go into each of these processes, and that’s just one example, you can unpack the layers in which efforts at inclusion are both very laudable, right? They do, in fact, increase inclusion. But on the other hand, they only go so far. And indeed, the barrier to entry to these processes, the amount of knowledge you have to have to enter is far beyond maybe that of an embassy diplomat or a non-specialist, right? You need to really be engaged in these processes to contribute effectively. So with that example, I will now open the floor. Open the floor. And so, how we’d like to run this second half of the session is just to ask the participants in person or online. If you’re online, then please do put it in the chat. I will read it out, and we can ask the panelists to reflect on your remarks. To ask you some very simple questions. Firstly, does the paradox of inclusion ring true to you? Is it something that you recognize in your own work? Is it something that you think, nah, what are you talking about? Why are we even here, right? So that’s question one. Question two is, where do you see it most relevant to your work? And how might you try and overcome it, right? So maybe first, is it something that you recognize? And then where and how do you see it happening? I’ll pause. In the room, please do put your hand up if you’d like to contribute. Online, please do come in on the chat. Yes. Okay, I can hear myself. That’s good. Thank you so much. I’m Julia Abel from the

Audience: Austrian Foreign Ministry, currently working at the mission in Geneva, and I’ve been involved in some of the processes that you’ve talked about. So it was very enlightening to see kind of a full overview, because I can very much resonate with the questions that you’ve raised, that as a diplomat, we tend to work on a couple of these processes, but not all of them. So I was not aware of the Palma declaration, for example, because I’ve been on a mission abroad, and not in capital working on the processes holistically, for example. So that was very interesting. Thank you very much for bringing that up as a question. I wanted to make three points on everything that has been discussed. And one was, from my point of view, we need different expertise in all these processes. And what you’ve brought up, for example, cybercrime, cybersecurity, when you when we look at it from a national point of view, cybercrime, we had a lot of our criminal law experts involved nationally looking at actual criminal law provisions and how it would be applied for us. When we talk about cybersecurity, we get a lot of the defense side in, we get international law questions in. So this requires quite a different expertise and different people also from a national level. But I do hear the need for also coordinating better nationally. So that that is something for sure. And we also always try to bring national experts also into our delegations when we have these discussions on different processes and negotiations. But Austria also funds other like developing country diplomats to come to certain processes. We did it, for example, in the cybercrime process, that we wanted to get the experts from capitals, from developing countries, to be part of the process, because we don’t only want to talk among diplomats, we want to talk with the people that actually have to implement this at a national level. So that is something we did, and I know the Council of Europe is also very active on capacity building when it comes to that. So there are initiatives and there is a wish to bring in the people that actually work on these issues, at least when we talk about government participation. One thing that resonated with me is what Yasmin said about what the ITU does and then what the different committees in New York do, and having worked in both environments, I do see that there is a bit of a lack of communication between Geneva and New York on processes like that, and then, of course, you have the capitals in it as well. And that’s a bit of my question also to the panellists of, have you seen any best practices, or do you have any ideas of how to help, both from a member’s perspective, from a stakeholder perspective, and also from a UN agency perspective? Like, how can we strengthen the communication between these processes to avoid duplication, which is a strain for all of us, really? Thank you so much for your intervention,

James Shires: and a combination of both very insightful points and also a good question to push us to identify best practices as well. Yasmin, given we had a little bit on the ITU, maybe I could turn to you first, and then, Louise, online, to give a little response. Over to you. Thank you very much, and thank you for the very insightful question.

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi: Indeed, it’s… I think it’s a decades-long problem of having the lack of communication between the Geneva and New York. But when it comes to good practices, one thing that pops into mind is the kind of work that we do at the ITU at national level in particular. So if I give you an example, when we are supporting developing countries in particular, when it comes to their development or establishment of something like national cybersecurity strategies, part of that agreed upon methodology is to actually have consultation workshops prior that are inclusive of many different stakeholders. And at times we found ourselves in contexts where those same actors had never actually been in the same room together. But this is sort of a prerequisite that we put in terms of if you need your strategy to be developed, these are the people that you need to have in the room. And so that stems from, of course, an inclusion need, but also a very practical need. I mean, if a strategy, since it’s a living document, it’s something that needs to be implemented, is developed by a small group of stakeholders and then is asked actually to be implemented by wider stakeholders, it makes it difficult. So creation of ownership, I think, at national level across different expertises, so ministries and national agencies, but also critical infrastructure providers. We’ve had in the same room central banks, energy representatives, but also ministries ranging from MFA all the way to, of course, defence, interior and others, because, of course, it’s extremely interdisciplinary and a national strategy also needs to have all of those elements be taken into consideration. So this is, say, a model that we have seen being also the start also of better coordination at inter-agency level, where you didn’t have it before. We’ve often felt a bit of resistance at times from, let’s say, the lead agency at national level due to, I guess, wanting to keep ownership over things. things, but then gradually seeing that shared ownership has actually yielded better results in terms of coordination, but also in terms of effective implementation of things. And having also different perspectives on the same topic has actually taught a lot to different stakeholders. So I think this could be one good practice. So having, again, might seem like a leitmotif here, but multi-stakeholder actors at the table prior to, let’s say, major negotiations or major establishment of strategies or policies is part of the solution. It might sound obvious or simple or easy, but I think this is really where it starts.

James Shires: Thank you. Thank you, Yasmin. And Louise, over to you.

Hurel Louise Marie: Yes, thank you so much for that question. And I mean, I 100% agree with what Yasmin just said. But just to add on top of that, I see there are two points that came to mind when you were kind of asking your question. And one of them is, I wonder whether we need to create a community that goes to these places and that kind of like, I know that that is like spreading one thin. And I think that’s exactly where we started this conversation of, do we have to follow so many processes that we can’t actually do that? So I mean, from both a government and a non-governmental perspective, I think, for example, attending the IWG and attending the IGF, that community being able to leave that privileged space. And also, I mean, you could argue that there are some privileges to being able to actually attend the IGF. But being able to have those communities going to other places means that you can, that whenever there’s not an overlap, there’s a new set of community there. But you ensure that there is that knowledge transfer, or at least that experience from that particular room, it’s going to the other. place. So I think the question here is how do we take these New York dynamics or New York-centric dialogues and how do we translate it, transpose it, and let’s say provide the space for those same dialogues, even though let’s say not in the same format, to happen in other places. And I think there’s some answers or let’s say best practices that I’d like to highlight. The first one is, well, just a couple of days ago, and starting from that same productive discomfort, we, RUSI and Virtual Routes, we organize the cyber policy dialogues over here at the IGF, well, over there at the IGF, which is a networking session, right? And the purpose is really to identify people that are doing that kind of similar research or that are engaging in those spaces or that are interested in those spaces, right? So creating the space for us to have those kinds of New York-centric conversations like in another geographic location is absolutely fundamental. And that is one way in which we can do that from, let’s say, an IGF, OAWG kind of cross-pollination, but that could obviously apply for many, many other, let’s say, processes. Another possibility there or example is that over at RUSI, we have launched the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behavior, which is a platform for researchers from all different regions to kind of come together and reflect on what responsible cyber behavior means from their, let’s say, perspective, from their geographic location. And we organized a discussion over in Singapore during Singapore Cyber Week with researchers and government representatives, not just from the Southeast Asian countries, but other regions as well that were attending CICW to discuss norms of responsible state behavior and the practical behaviors that they see from their regional perspective. So we got like small island countries saying that, you know, for example, climate-related concerns and critical infrastructure protection is much more relevant, or that is actually kind of like state responsibility and responsible state behavior is ensuring that the climate discussion is connected to the critical infrastructure discussion at the first committee, right? Which is a very different interpretation, you would argue, but that it is like once you go to the regional level and once you do that cross-pollination is that that can be quite useful. So, I mean, that is another example of a best practice of how we take those very specific bubbles and how do we, let’s say, expand those dialogues and how we as non-governmental actors can do that, but also as governments, I think one other example that I would give here is my other, let’s say, side is I’m part of the National Cybersecurity Committee in Brazil, which has been established as an outcome of the National Cybersecurity Policy. And that committee is mostly government representatives, different parts of the government, of the public administration, but you do have three civil society representatives and three industry representatives and three representatives from the technical community. And what we’ve been discussing, one of the things is how to make sure that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can better coordinate across, do more of the interagency coordination to then take those, let’s say, inputs to the international fora, right? So, for some countries, you don’t need to have an informal mechanism. And for Brazil, it hasn’t been a formal mechanism, but just having the conversation about how to do that better and how to kind of like calibrate because the ministry has developed its own cyber division, right? How do you foster that or facilitate that liaison role that the MFA crucially plays in collating those different views, right? Even if you can’t have a more diverse delegation going with you to, let’s say, New York or Geneva. So, my question, perhaps, back to the diplomats in the- room is, you know, is there something about best practices of the MFA being more well equipped, or best practices there to think about how to facilitate that interagency coordination, or even if you have a shortage of resources, how you can feed back into those places or feed into in a better setting? Do we need to have MFAs more well equipped for this scenario where there’s a really a spread of different cyber related processes? Anyways, I’ll stop there. Because as you’ve seen, I speak way too much, but hopefully, I’d like to hear from you all.

James Shires: Thank you very much, Louise. And just to add a short footnote to what Louise and Yasmin have said. I think Louise started by saying there are two reasons right for this proliferation of initiatives. One is specialization. And the other one is politicization, right? And Yasmin pointed out that one of the main challenges is giving participants, whether multi-stakeholder or states, a sense of ownership in each initiative, right? So you want to engage early, engage transparently, and set out a clear roadmap for how things will go ahead and when people should and how they should intervene. Now, the danger there, right, is if you engage very transparently and openly early on, with people who do not share the same objectives of the initiative, maybe even would like to sabotage or delay it or see it not exist, right, then that gives them an opportunity to do so very easily. Because you say, okay, we will not move ahead until we have got full ownership from everyone in the room. And so someone says, Oh, I don’t want this to happen. I’m not going to agree. And it doesn’t move ahead. So the best practice that I think of here is Be as open as possible, so do engage really transparently early on, but with clear deadlines and with clear suggestions for who will take forward action after those deadlines. So you have things like the PowerMile consultation period. That is good because it invites broad interventions, it has a deadline, and it’s clear who will go on afterwards. So it’s very hard to say, you know, there was no opportunity to be involved from maybe those that don’t want to see it go ahead or want to push forward for a delaying tactic. But still, the real nub of the issue is that how do you identify those actors that will take it forward? Is it going to be the same people? So ideally not. So in the PowerMile process, in the absence of anyone else, they close the consultation and it’s the UK and France who then take it forward. So you’re back to the original problem of inclusion. Ideally, you would have a different set of actors, but who will be nominated and ready and funded with the resources to take it forward. So just to highlight the politicisation happens in those processes as well. We do have a question online. So I wonder if we could enable unmuting and Akriti, please do ask your question. Hi, thank you so much. I guess it’s more of a comment to Louise’s point than a question. And I’d love to be able to unmute video if that’s possible, by the way, it can’t be. I think just to the point about politicisation and what Louise was saying about the MFA.

Audience: So I’m Akriti, I work at Global Partners Digital, and before that I was working in India as a foreign minister in the G20. And something that we noticed, and especially more so when we were organising a convention on cybercrime and AI at NFT. and this was part of the G20 presidency, so it was under the aegis of technically the foreign ministry, but because there are so many departments, like for us the internal security is done by a ministry called the Ministry of Home Affairs, and then we have a Ministry of Information and Technology, and then we have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So and I was coordinating technically on the side of the MFA, but coming from tech policy I was kind of more aware than say most foreign policy people were about some of those discussions, and I think what I noticed was that a lot of the times the positions that came up were something that at least my MFA were just checking to make sure that it didn’t go against, sorry, what we had said at the UN. It wasn’t so much that they were making the policy as so much that they were just checking that it wasn’t contradicting our international opinion on something else. So I just wondered that even if we did have diplomatic practices from the MFA, I think a lot of constructive input, and that’s our challenge as civil society is kind of to make sure that we have connections or sort of a community or interactions with different, like the internal political machinery, which is different ministries, because a lot of times you can come in at the very last stage, but we’re not really involved at the point where the policy is being discussed, so much as just where it’s being vetted, and to me sort of that’s a, you know, very clear delineation between how you participate. So there’s, of course, the things that the MFA can do, but I just wonder how much of that onus on how to involve civil society will then fall on, say, the MFA, whereas permeating that culture within the internal politics where you invite opinion from civil society and different departments, and I guess there is going to be one ministry that needs to lead that, and if it’s an internet governance, which I guess a lot of times happens in international discussions and whether that’s an MFA prerogative or whether it’s someone else, but I think that’s a huge challenge for us as civil society from a national point of view, that how is our national engagement so strong that when we say something internationally, it really comes from kind of the local perspective. or that we’re heard at the very first layer that we can be heard at. Thank you.

James Shires: Preeti, thank you so much. And yeah, it again just highlights this important for coordination at both layers, right? You cannot have a inclusive and effective international layer without first working hard and solving problems in the national layer. We do have a representative from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs on our panel. So I was wondering, Corinne, if you would maybe say a little bit about your perspective on what the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in these issues, sort of how technical should it be? How can it rely on other technical communities and draw on those different parts of government?

Corrine Casha: First of all, I wanted to make a point on the Palma process. We received an invitation from the French and the UK governments to participate. So we received a formal invitation. And I have to say that we thought about it and we thought that it was a very important process, particularly on the point of also promoting inclusivity and on also getting industry and other different factions on board. So we did participate. This was the first time for us. And I was aware also of the different factions that participated. We had one representative from the industry and one representative from the Ministry, sorry, from a line ministry that participated. And I was happy to see that they were included in the consultation process. And I think for us, this was something that we would like to also encourage other states to sign up to, because it’s very important to not only in terms of, as I said, including the other, let’s say, factions that are not always included in the decision-making, but also as a way of promoting, let’s say, coordination between different states. So that was a point on the Palma process. And on the points raised, I very much share the same thoughts as the Austrian colleague as well, from Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There are a lot of different processes and with the different processes, you have to see which representatives are going to attend which process. Sometimes it’s very difficult also from our side side I think particularly difficult was the cyber crime convention because we had an issue of not having our delegates participate directly in New York, our criminal lawyers, it was very difficult to get them to participate in negotiating sessions. So it was very challenging for us because we had to rely on our delegates in New York and to coordinate back sort of with the line ministry. So that was very challenging because also one other thing is with the sort of proliferation of different processes, I mean even the line ministries themselves are having to keep up or having to keep up pace with all these different processes taking place and sometimes you know you don’t have the necessary specialists, especially with cyber crime for example, there are certain technicalities that where we don’t have the necessary expertise to deal with them. So it’s very hard to keep pace with all these different processes to make sure that you have all these specialists on board and I would say that the cyber crime convention for us was the most difficult because of the fact that we didn’t have these specialists who would be able to go back and forth from New York to Malta and negotiate. And I was also very struck by what Louise said about the sort of transfer of knowledge from New York to other centers of discussion. I mean the fact that I’m participating the first time in the IGF is also sort of decision based on that. The fact that I’m coming from the foreign ministry but at the same time I’m participating in a forum where it’s not just the foreign ministry but also other technical fellows, civil society etc. participating. I think it’s important to share knowledge. in that respect. And there was another point on, I believe that Louise raised, about the sort of need to have this sort of harmonization process going also with respect to the Cyber Security Committee, which she mentioned about Brazil. We also have a Cyber Security Committee in Malta. I’m a representative on that committee. And again, it brings together all the players, all the line ministries, all the representatives of the industry. But the foreign ministry is really sort of coordinating, let’s say, has a coordinating role in that, make sure that what the representatives or the delegates say, as also the online participant mentioned, doesn’t sort of run counter to what we say in New York or in other areas. But I think the fact that this Cyber Security Committee was established was very, not only timely, but also very important. I think it has helped a lot to, first of all, bring sort of to the table items or let’s say issues that maybe not all participants or delegates are aware of. I’m thinking in particular about the issue of the application of international law in cyberspace. For example, that was an area which was being discussed at the EU level, but not every delegate, let’s say from the police force to, let’s say, the critical infrastructure department. I mean, they were not aware of the discussions that were taking place. I mean, they were aware of it in a general sense, but not so much into the detail. And I think it was very important that this was raised at the committee. And so, I mean, the committee has a very important role to play, because it brings together the different sort of factions, but it also enables certain issues to be exchanged, to have more information. And for us, it was important. I think without the committee certain sort of items or issues would maybe fall through the cracks and then line ministries or other entities would come to know about it much later than they would actually come to know about it if there was not the committee. So I think it’s a very important framework as well. For us it’s sort of a formal establishment, it’s under the office of the prime minister so there’s a sort of also prime ministerial lead over that which gives it also a certain influence and a certain weight to take decisions. But I believe that this is also one aspect where harmonization comes into play and where we avoid sort of also the fragmentation of cyber issues because at the end of the day there’s so many processes, so many different ministries tackling different aspects of cyber. The sort of committee brings them together and for us nationally it’s helped a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much Karina and that’s a

James Shires: yeah fantastic insight into how these national structures of coordination work as well. Akriti I can see you’ve got your hand up to respond again and then I will turn open the floor. So

Audience: Akriti come in and then we’ll open the floor. Yeah thanks, just to point out because you know she mentioned the issue of cybercrime convention and from our point of view, so when India we had this law in India which was struck down by the supreme court which was our highest law in the land because the speech was extremely vague in terms of what it marked as offensive and the overreach was such that it was marked down and then eventually India tried to bring the exact like literal verbatim exact same prohibition to the cybercrime convention trying to circumvent our national jurisdiction to you know then have it obviously the international law and then you have to ratify it then you know to get it back into our national legislation and it was I mean it was honestly a little bit shocking to us as a civil society that that route was trying to be used to you know legitimize the chilling effect on freedom of speech again. But also another point was that because that was happening at the cybercrime convention and at least in India the capacity to follow international conversations on intent governance and such is much more limited than national. So the kind of traction that we got on that was so little like if you weren’t very specifically tracking the cybercrime convention which is kind of literally maybe one organization if any in India then it didn’t get as much traction as when of course the national debate was happening and I think that was quite for us just kind of alarming to see that they were moving to the international forum from the national forum and kind of the like because the harmonization works that the way it does they thought that they could try to get away with it and eventually didn’t pass of course so it’s not a reality today but it was quite alarming to see that that kind of those kind of actions also happen and the lesser we see harmonization and even just civil society kind of input or attention on the internet governance spaces it can really come back from what people consider an elitist internet governance level to really our national legislation so just to respond to that thank you. Thank you and yeah that example of

James Shires: states trying to circumvent maybe civil society or popular resistance to certain measures of legislation by going through the international level is really fascinating. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to come in with their perspective on the paradox of inclusion? I see no hands would anyone online like to come in please do raise your hand or put something in the chat if not then I will offer the floor to Yasmin and Louise for their interventions but there is someone already so Sasha please do come in and can we give Sasha some video as well if you’d like to have video if you don’t want then leave it off. Hi, good day. Can you all hear me? Yes. All right. I can’t get the video so that’s that’s

Audience: fine. All right. So my name is Natasha Nagle. I’m here with the from the University of Prince Edward Islands. And my perspective is through the inclusion, digital inclusion perspective. And just inquiry considering the way in which we, we look at the way in which we fragment internet, generally speaking, and the way in which we identify the subtext within the presentation of information. And when it comes to internet government governance, how do we consider the identities that are being put forward? Is it going to be a situation where when it comes, when you look at that lateral transfer from physical inclusion to digital inclusion, what structures are in place to ensure that minority identities are being presented in such a fashion that it is represented on the world stage? And just just general comments on on that particular space, because when it when it comes to our intersectionality and internet identity, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of those minor minority identities within that digital space. Thank you.

James Shires: Thank you very much, Sasha. In which case, what I will do if there’s no other comments in in person, then I will offer the floor to Yasmin and Louise to give some concluding remarks, but also specifically to address that question of ensuring we have the digital

Hurel Louise Marie: inclusion of minoritized identities and communities. Louise, would you like to go first? Sure, happy. do so, and thank you for that question, Sasha. I think from where I’m standing, and from the, let’s say, sorry, sorry if my voice is a bit robotic at the moment, but just recovering from a cold. From where I’m sitting, and from the example that I gave, I think there is a reflection to be made as to how we best include or recognize minorities in the context of these very high-level processes, right? And I think I gave a very brief example of how some member states have been trying to do that, and I know that that doesn’t respond very specifically to the kind of physical offline, online kind of representation, but again, from that process specifically, let’s say like the OEWG, you do have member states facilitating and supporting the Women in Cyber Fellowship, which I think creates, let’s say, a precedent for not only having more like gender balance there, but effectively having women and folks from different, let’s say, standpoints to actually negotiate an official text, and I wouldn’t underestimate that because there are different ways of approaching the negotiation of a text, and obviously the subjectiveness of your background, where you’re coming from, be it geographically, be it in terms of your gender, that really kind of like plays into the way in which you navigate the world, and that’s not different when you enter a UN windowless room, right? And I think that’s actually very important, and I, you know, just seeing that specific fellowship taking place throughout the last, like, I don’t know, since 2018 at least, 2019, sorry, with the start of the OEWG, you do see the of similar women attending these spaces. And I think that’s good because it just maintains a memory of having effective representatives there. So hopefully that responds a bit to your question, but again, from the very specific standpoint, my concluding remarks is almost like a summary because as you know, James, I tried to kind of like cluster things and structure kind of thoughts. So going back to the notion of paradox, I think we have three paradoxes if that’s the word now reflecting. I think the first one is thinking about the paradox of meaningful leadership. We talked about lots of different processes. I think there is a thing over here, which is there is a value in spearheading certain initiatives and setting into motion, so structuring it. But I think there’s a very important point. And I think that’s something that you raised quite nicely, James, which is, is there a moment for us to delegate some of that leadership? And if that leadership is delegated, how that should happen? Also calibrating political risks, right? Because that’s what member states are usually doing, right? It’s like, I don’t wanna lose control over this process, but I want to indicate that it’s actually inclusive. But is there something about calibrating between spearheading, setting it in motion and delegating? What does delegation look like? The counter ransomware initiative has different working groups with different countries doing that. And I think non, like also like non-state actors, like sharing that, but I might be wrong. The second paradox then, meaningful leadership. The second one for me is like meaningful coordination. And in the meaningful coordination, I think what we saw is calibrating between like interagency mechanisms, developing those if that is something that’s relevant at the national level, be it like a committee structure. So similarly to Malta, like in Brazil, it’s right. like the office of the president, so that provides some political capital domestically, but how do you ensure also that you are having a mixed delegation once you go externally, right? So how do you calibrate between like inter-agency coordination and kind of like international projection? And the third paradox, and finally, is a meaningful dialogue. So, and this is a provocation really, like, okay, it’s very nice and easy to say like, oh, we’re open to dialogue, to meaningful dialogue, we’re going to bring these stakeholders in, we’re going to do consultations, we’ll have a very nice timeline, and this will look very structured, but are we actually open to productive disagreement? Even if like for member states that are funding, like, you know, there were lots of examples of like funding to go to the ad hoc committee, funding, like, these developed countries or developing countries or underrepresented communities, is that actually in the end kind of like, is there an openness for a productively discomforting, uncomfortable dialogue? That’s the word. And open to other expert input from maybe communities that we don’t know, or that we haven’t figured out. And I think one example is the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building, which obviously there’s this whole kind of like cyber capacity building community within the cyber world, but there’s a development community, so how do you bridge those? Not saying that the GC3B, the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building, is the example, but that is one case where you see this attempt to articulate that conversation, and it’s still very, you know, it’s still gaining its own kind of like traction, right? And I’m sure Yasmin will have some additional thoughts on that. So these are the three kind of like points that I like to add there. But thank you very much all for your contributions. This was great, especially at

James Shires: 6am until like 8am here in London. Thank you, Louise, and impressively awake. I was really struck by this idea… of calibrating political risk and maintaining control, right? Because at the end of the day, right, to have a more inclusive process to really spread ownership, there has to be some kind of letting go, right? Some states who are currently in charge or others new in charge process have to relinquish some kind of control and be ready for the progress to go in different directions. And that is really an uncomfortable place to be in, especially if your whole mandate as a Minister of Foreign Affairs or other official is to steer and maintain control in that way. Yasmin, minoritized identities and communities, and then concluding

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi: remarks. Thank you. Sounds good. Thank you very much, James. So I would like definitely to echo what has been said until now and really, really, really keep the focus also on fostering ownership at national level. I think the point on the delegation of leadership definitely is a challenging one, but I’ve seen through national processes, lead agencies that sort of relinquish a little bit that lead role to a certain extent and seeing the usefulness in doing that. That, of course, doesn’t stop us from keeping the balance, of course. And I think both sort of approaches are necessary. So one of them is definitely creating the focus on interdisciplinary teams that are equipped, again, to engage meaningfully in different fora. So in a perfect world, we would have similar something to like what the Austrian representative here has mentioned, multidisciplinary teams that bring different experts at international level as well. And I think to ensure also sort of continuity with these sort of multidisciplinary teams, keeping the lead agency as being sort of the core is also necessary. So the lead agency can sort of keep tabs on the processes, on the different ones, and give that overview as well on the different things that may be lacking at times, while in parallel to that, delegating some of that power or some of that leadership when it comes to having specific processes that are topic-specific, for example. So apart from the national level that I keep coming back to that I think is really, really core, it’s really the key here, of course, inclusivity at international level is needed as well. Akriti’s very relevant example definitely showed the need for obviously going beyond let’s say multilateral or state-focused processes and keep that inclusivity of civil society at international level as well, but I think a lot of it actually needs to happen at national level. Thank you. Thank you very much, Yasmin. And finally, I would turn to our third panellist, Corrine

James Shires: Kasher, for your concluding remarks. We have had our five-minute warning, so we will be wrapping up after these remarks. And thank you, everyone, for your participation. Corrine, over to you.

Corrine Casha: Thanks, James. Well, not much to say. I think the two panellists before me actually wrapped up everything nicely. I mean, we’ve discussed a lot today, and I think we’ll take home, I’ll definitely take home a few of the remarks that participants made today, especially, yes, about the Austrian colleague mentioned interdisciplinary teams, and also Louise mentioned, for example, the transfer knowledge. Yasmin mentioned also the need to sort of, about the consultation process. It was one thing that struck me most about best practices. So I think we have quite a checklist of things that we have gathered here today. And I think they were all very, very valid remarks. I myself, I think, I’m also pleased to be here, not only because I shared some of my experiences, but because I took home a lot of points to consider. So maybe, I don’t know, I mean, we can definitely come up also with a sort of report from this session, and maybe circulate to participants as well. But I think we have all spoken very much about the need to reduce fragmentation, about the need for inclusivity, about the need, as you said, of political risk and sort of relinquishing control. I personally think that what we discussed here today would be very relevant to take forward. Perhaps you can have another session also to follow up on this. And from my perspective, I mean, it ends there. I think we’ve discussed a lot today. And I’m very happy to have participated and to have listened to everybody’s take here. So thank you very much.

James Shires: Thank you, Corrine. And as a quick reminder, before we close, please do check out Roussi’s Global Partnership on Responsible Cyber Behavior, which is online. Louise is running that. And of course, do visit Virtual Roots, and we will be doing more activities in this space. We will be engaging more, so we’d love to continue to have this conversation in future. Have a great last day of the IGF, and thank you everyone. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Proliferation of internet governance initiatives creates challenges for meaningful participation

James Shires

Hurel Louise Marie

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Corinne Casha

Proliferation of initiatives creates barriers to meaningful participation

Specialization of debates leads to fragmentation of discussions

Difficulty in maintaining consistent representation across multiple forums

All speakers agreed that the increasing number and specialization of internet governance initiatives make it difficult for stakeholders, especially those with limited resources, to participate effectively across all forums.

Importance of national-level coordination for effective international participation

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Corinne Casha

Hurel Louise Marie

National-level coordination is crucial for effective international participation

Establishing national cybersecurity committees for better coordination

Role of foreign ministries in coordinating national positions

Speakers emphasized the need for strong national-level coordination mechanisms, such as cybersecurity committees, to ensure coherent positions and effective participation in international forums.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the tension between political control and genuine inclusion, suggesting that true inclusivity requires a willingness to relinquish some control and engage with diverse perspectives.

Hurel Louise Marie

Corinne Casha

Inclusion efforts can be weaponized for political purposes

Relinquishing some control is necessary for true inclusion

Both speakers emphasized the importance of meaningful engagement with diverse stakeholders, including being open to disagreement and challenging perspectives, to create genuine ownership and inclusivity in internet governance processes.

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Hurel Louise Marie

Creating ownership through multi-stakeholder consultations

Fostering dialogue that allows for productive disagreement

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of interdisciplinary approaches in internet governance

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Corinne Casha

Hurel Louise Marie

Need for interdisciplinary teams to engage in various processes

Difficulty in maintaining consistent representation across multiple forums

Importance of knowledge transfer between different forums

There was unexpected consensus on the need for interdisciplinary approaches to internet governance, with speakers from different backgrounds agreeing on the importance of combining technical, diplomatic, and policy expertise to address complex digital issues effectively.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the challenges posed by the proliferation of internet governance initiatives, the importance of national-level coordination, the need for inclusive and diverse participation, and the value of interdisciplinary approaches.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among the speakers on the key challenges and potential solutions for improving inclusion in internet governance. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the complexities involved and a common desire to address the paradox of inclusion. The implications of this consensus are that future efforts in internet governance may focus on developing more coordinated and interdisciplinary approaches, both at national and international levels, to ensure more effective and inclusive participation across various forums.

Different Viewpoints

Role of specialization in internet governance debates

Hurel Louise Marie

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Specialization of debates leads to fragmentation of discussions

Need for interdisciplinary teams to engage in various processes

Louise Marie argues that specialization leads to fragmentation, while Yasmine emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary teams to address this fragmentation.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to specialization vs. interdisciplinary engagement, and the specific mechanisms for improving national and international coordination.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low, with more emphasis on complementary perspectives rather than outright contradictions. This suggests a general consensus on the challenges of inclusion in internet governance, with differences primarily in the proposed solutions and areas of focus.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the challenges of inclusion, but Louise Marie focuses on structural inequalities, while Corinne emphasizes the practical difficulties of representation.

Hurel Louise Marie

Corinne Casha

Structural inequalities persist despite efforts at inclusion

Difficulty in maintaining consistent representation across multiple forums

Both speakers agree on the importance of national-level coordination, but propose different mechanisms to achieve it.

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Corinne Casha

National-level coordination is crucial for effective international participation

Establishing national cybersecurity committees for better coordination

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the tension between political control and genuine inclusion, suggesting that true inclusivity requires a willingness to relinquish some control and engage with diverse perspectives.

Hurel Louise Marie

Corinne Casha

Inclusion efforts can be weaponized for political purposes

Relinquishing some control is necessary for true inclusion

Both speakers emphasized the importance of meaningful engagement with diverse stakeholders, including being open to disagreement and challenging perspectives, to create genuine ownership and inclusivity in internet governance processes.

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

Hurel Louise Marie

Creating ownership through multi-stakeholder consultations

Fostering dialogue that allows for productive disagreement

Key Takeaways

The proliferation of internet governance initiatives creates barriers to meaningful participation, especially for actors with limited resources

There is a tension between specialization of debates and fragmentation of discussions across multiple forums

National-level coordination and capacity building are crucial for effective international participation

True inclusion requires relinquishing some control and being open to productive disagreement

Structural inequalities persist despite efforts at inclusion in internet governance processes

There is a lack of communication and coordination between different internet governance forums (e.g. Geneva vs New York-based)

Resolutions and Action Items

Consider creating a report summarizing the key points from this session to circulate to participants

Explore having a follow-up session to continue the discussion on inclusion in internet governance

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively balance specialization of debates with the need for coherent, coordinated governance

How to ensure meaningful inclusion of minoritized identities and communities in digital governance spaces

How to improve coordination between different internet governance forums and processes

How to address structural inequalities that persist despite inclusion efforts

Suggested Compromises

Creating interdisciplinary teams that can engage across multiple governance forums

Delegating some leadership/control to other stakeholders while maintaining overall coordination

Balancing state-led initiatives with meaningful multi-stakeholder consultation and civil society inclusion

Fostering national-level coordination mechanisms (e.g. cybersecurity committees) to inform international engagement

The idea here is that we see a proliferation of efforts to bring in different actors in internet governance, whether these are multi-stakeholder forums, whether these are efforts to include developing countries and smaller states or states with fewer resources, and there’s lots of different efforts to do these, through different conferences, initiatives, meetings, and so on. In fact, there’s so many of these different efforts that actually keeping up with them all, keeping track of them all, and participating meaningfully in them all, is itself a high resource burden. And that’s what we term the paradox of inclusion.

speaker

James Shires

reason

This comment introduces the central concept of the ‘paradox of inclusion’ which frames the entire discussion. It highlights how efforts to be more inclusive can paradoxically create barriers to participation.

impact

This set the stage for the entire discussion, providing a framework for analyzing various internet governance initiatives and their inclusivity challenges.

So you have those movements, such as the ad hoc committee, which has ended right now, that becomes part of that, let’s say, political strategy. Another example of proliferation being a political strategy is precisely to specialize debate because then you can control a bit more or what the scope is, and who is involved in this conversation.

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

reason

This comment introduces the idea that the proliferation of initiatives can be a deliberate political strategy, adding complexity to the discussion of inclusivity.

impact

It shifted the conversation to consider the political motivations behind the creation of new forums, deepening the analysis beyond just logistical challenges.

So creation of ownership, I think, at national level across different expertises, so ministries and national agencies, but also critical infrastructure providers. We’ve had in the same room central banks, energy representatives, but also ministries ranging from MFA all the way to, of course, defence, interior and others, because, of course, it’s extremely interdisciplinary and a national strategy also needs to have all of those elements be taken into consideration.

speaker

Yasmine Idrissi Azzouzi

reason

This comment highlights the importance of national-level coordination and inclusivity as a foundation for effective international participation.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider how national-level processes impact international inclusivity, leading to a more holistic analysis of the challenges.

And I was happy to see that they were included in the consultation process. And I think for us, this was something that we would like to also encourage other states to sign up to, because it’s very important to not only in terms of, as I said, including the other, let’s say, factions that are not always included in the decision-making, but also as a way of promoting, let’s say, coordination between different states.

speaker

Corinne Casha

reason

This comment provides a concrete example of how a specific initiative (the Palma process) is attempting to address inclusivity challenges.

impact

It moved the discussion from theoretical concepts to practical examples, allowing for a more grounded analysis of potential solutions.

And just inquiry considering the way in which we, we look at the way in which we fragment internet, generally speaking, and the way in which we identify the subtext within the presentation of information. And when it comes to internet government governance, how do we consider the identities that are being put forward?

speaker

Natasha Nagle

reason

This comment introduces a new dimension to the discussion by focusing on the representation of minority identities in digital spaces.

impact

It broadened the scope of the inclusivity discussion beyond just state and organizational representation to consider individual and community identities.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by progressively expanding and deepening the analysis of inclusivity in internet governance. Starting with the introduction of the ‘paradox of inclusion’, the conversation moved through considerations of political motivations, national-level coordination, practical examples of inclusive initiatives, and finally to questions of identity representation. This progression allowed for a multifaceted examination of the challenges and potential solutions to achieving meaningful inclusivity in internet governance processes.

How can we strengthen communication between different UN processes (e.g. Geneva and New York) to avoid duplication?

speaker

Austrian Foreign Ministry representative

explanation

This is important to improve coordination and efficiency in international cybersecurity discussions.

What are best practices for Ministries of Foreign Affairs to facilitate interagency coordination on cyber issues?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

This could help improve national-level coordination to better inform international positions.

How can we ensure meaningful inclusion of minority identities in internet governance processes?

speaker

Natasha Nagle

explanation

This is crucial for ensuring diverse perspectives are represented in digital policy discussions.

How can we calibrate between spearheading initiatives and delegating leadership in international processes?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

This is important for balancing control and inclusivity in multi-stakeholder initiatives.

How can we foster openness to productive disagreement in international dialogues?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

This is necessary for truly inclusive and meaningful discussions on complex issues.

How can we better bridge the cyber capacity building community with the broader development community?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

This could lead to more holistic and effective approaches to digital development.

Summary

This session, co-hosted by the Dynamic Team Coalition and Youth Coalition on Internet Governance, focused on addressing the evolving demands on education and workforce shaped by AI, quantum computing, blockchain, and robotics. Participants discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by these technologies, particularly in the context of the Global South and marginalized communities.

Key points included the need for innovative educational strategies that incorporate AI and emerging technologies into curricula, while also addressing digital divides and ensuring ethical use. Speakers emphasized the importance of adapting education systems to prepare students for a rapidly changing job market, with a focus on critical thinking, problem-solving, and ethical considerations in technology use.

The discussion highlighted the complexities of implementing AI in education, including concerns about over-reliance on AI tools and the need for proper guidance on their use. Participants stressed the importance of inclusive design in educational technology and the need to consider diverse perspectives, including those of indigenous communities.

Several speakers addressed the need for regulations and ethical guidelines for AI use in education and the workforce. They emphasized the importance of involving multiple stakeholders, including students, educators, and policymakers, in developing these frameworks.

The session also touched on the challenges of digital exclusion in the Global South and the need for policies that ensure both technological inclusion and high-quality education. Participants called for more research into local needs and contexts to inform policy development.

In conclusion, the discussion underscored the need for collaborative action among various stakeholders to navigate the complex landscape of AI and education, with a focus on creating inclusive, ethical, and effective strategies for preparing youth for the future workforce.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The need to adapt education systems and curricula to prepare students for AI and emerging technologies

– Challenges of digital divides and unequal access to technology, especially in the Global South

– Importance of teaching ethical use of AI and technology, not just technical skills

– Balancing technology use with human interaction and social skills

– Need for regulations and policies to guide ethical AI use in education and workforce

Overall purpose:

The goal of this discussion was to explore how education systems and workforce development need to evolve to address the rapid advancement of AI and other emerging technologies, while considering challenges like digital divides and ethical concerns.

Tone:

The tone was largely collaborative and solution-oriented, with participants building on each other’s ideas. There was a sense of urgency about the need to adapt education systems quickly. The tone became more nuanced as the discussion progressed, with increased focus on challenges faced by marginalized groups and the Global South.

Speakers

– Marko Paloski: Moderator

– Ananda Gautam: Coordinator for Asia-Pacific region from the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance

– Mohammed Kamran: Advocate from Pakistan, co-coordinator

– Marcela Canto: Representative of the Youth Brazilian Delegation

– Ethan Chung: Youth Ambassador of the Mampa Foundation from Hong Kong

– Umut Pajaro: Teacher at university and high school

– Denise Leal: From the Youth Coalition, Latin American Caribbean region

Additional speakers:

– Nirvana Lima: Facilitator and participant of Youth Programme Brazil

– Sasha: Student at University of Prince Edward Island

Revised Summary: AI, Education, and the Future Workforce

Introduction

This session, co-hosted by the Dynamic Team Coalition and Youth Coalition on Internet Governance, addressed the evolving demands on education and workforce shaped by emerging technologies, particularly AI and robotics. The discussion brought together speakers from diverse backgrounds to explore challenges and opportunities presented by these technologies, with a focus on the Global South and marginalized communities.

Key Discussion Points

1. Adapting Education Systems to AI and Emerging Technologies

Speakers agreed on the urgent need to adapt education systems for a rapidly changing technological landscape. Umut Pajaro emphasized interdisciplinary and project-based learning approaches, as well as teaching critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The discussion highlighted innovative educational strategies incorporating AI into curricula while balancing technology use with human interaction.

2. Digital Divides and Unequal Access

Ananda Gautam raised concerns about the digital divide, particularly in the Global South. Marcela Canto provided a perspective on technological colonialism, stating, “We are now experiencing a new configuration of colonialism. While the global north has large technology companies that employ CEOs and software engineers, we in the south are left with the worst jobs.” Gautam also noted the progression from digital divide to AI divide and highlighted the importance of community networks in providing internet access to underserved regions.

3. Ethical Use of AI and Technology in Education

Mohammed Kamran and Ethan Chung emphasized the need for digital literacy and proper use of AI tools. Kamran advocated for government regulations, while Chung focused on the lack of ethical guidelines for AI use in education. Umut Pajaro suggested involving students in creating rules for AI use, highlighting the need for diverse perspectives in policy-making.

4. Language Accessibility and Cultural Sensitivity

Denise Leal discussed the importance of language accessibility in digital education, referencing the UFLAC IGF session. Umut Pajaro raised points about addressing language barriers for indigenous populations, emphasizing cultural sensitivity and self-determination in technology adoption.

5. Challenges in AI-Assisted Learning

Mohammed Kamran discussed the challenges of detecting AI-generated homework and the need for more experience-based assignments. Ethan Chung elaborated on the proper use of AI in education and assessments, suggesting a balance between AI-assisted research and original thought.

6. Technology Overuse and Digital Detox

Ananda Gautam raised concerns about the overuse of technology and the need for digital detox, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a balance between digital and non-digital experiences in education.

7. Future of Work and AI Impact

Marko Paloski highlighted the risk of job losses due to automation, underscoring the importance of preparing students for a rapidly changing job market with a focus on critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Proposed Solutions and Action Items

1. Include more debates about education and involve educators in future IGF discussions

2. Create standards for appropriate use of AI and technology in education

3. Implement project-based assessments that require original thought alongside AI-assisted research

4. Develop guidelines for AI use in education alongside formal regulations

5. Balance technology integration with preservation of traditional teaching methods and social interaction

6. Connect different UN spaces and regulations related to technology and internet governance

7. Promote community networks to improve internet access in underserved regions

Conclusion

The discussion emphasized the need for collaborative action among stakeholders to navigate the complex landscape of AI and education. It highlighted the importance of creating inclusive, ethical, and effective strategies for preparing youth for the future workforce while addressing challenges such as digital divides, ethical concerns, and cultural sensitivities. The session stressed a holistic approach considering technical skills, critical thinking, and the preservation of diverse cultural perspectives in the evolving digital landscape.

The Youth Coalition election registration was briefly mentioned at the end of the session, encouraging youth participation in internet governance.

Marko Paloski: So, let me, hello everyone and welcome to our session, the, just a second, to our session I think that also online participants can hear us, yes, so this session is co-hosted by the Dynamic Team Coalition and the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance with a will to address the evolving demands on the workflows, workforce shaped by the AI quantum computing and blockchain infrastructures and robotics. The focus will be on identifying innovative educational strategies and career paths that adapt to these, to adapt to nowadays technologies. Participants will discuss interdisciplinary learning, project-based models, micro-credentials, tech appreciations, lifelong learning platforms and language divide, also gender divide, aiming to align educational and professional development with the future technological landscapes. This session is a roundtable session, so we’ll guide the dialogue on educational systems and employment, also going through the digital divide and the existing gaps in the countries that have less access to digital literacy, empowerment and infrastructure. According to UNESCO, around 3.6 billion people worldwide still lack reliable internet access and in the developing countries, access to digital literacy and infrastructure is limited. By the ITU reports, only 19% of the individuals in the least developed countries use the internet, compared to 87% in the developed countries. There is no longer a clear pathway to success through education. A report by the MC Kinsey Global Institute suggests that by 2030, up to 800 million jobs worldwide could be lost to automation, representing one-fifth of the global workforce. As the youth and the team dynamic coalition on and internet governance. We see as a part of our responsibility to promote this dialogue on the perspective of education and future consideration the advancements of the technology and the internet. With this, I want to give the floor now to participants. First, I will go with the on-site participants, and then on the online participants. Give the floor to give introduction and why their statement is very important here in this panel, and also to give us answer on what are their personal views on the current situation of education and employment, especially on the topic of the youth. I mean, this is the panel for the youth, but we can also cover other areas. But here, this question is to the topic on the youth. I would give the first question to Ananda Gautam to introduce himself and try to answer his personal point of view.

Amanda Gautam: Thank you, Marco, for inviting me here. And I think I’m audible, right?

Marko Paloski: Yes.

Amanda Gautam: OK, cool. So my name is Ananda Gautam. I’m from Nepal. So I’m also coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region from the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance. I lead various other youth initiatives in global, regional, and national level. So my major engagement is capacity building of young people. So as Marco said, the challenges of education and young people, so we are in a very kind of situation where a lot of digitization has happened. I can reflect when I think if someone is from the 90s, like we can say, the Gen Z has been so much kind of like in the digitized world. We were not that much connected, because we grew up with the technology, I believe. In the 90s, the technology was just thriving on the public sector. It was the 70s when the technology got into its footsteps, but in the 90s it was in thriving situation and we got to experience the development of technology with the development of our livelihood. We saw the offline part of the world as well, but now if there is no internet, I think we barely use our electronic devices. But nowadays there used to be electronic devices without internet as well, and they were used for purposes, and then before that there were typewriters and other things. And coming today, now we are in the kind of like, we used to talk about digital divide and now we are in the age where we talk about AI divide. So this is kind of situation, but still there’s a very kind of situation where we need to separate global north and global south because we have existing traditional gaps as well. We have literacy gaps, we have digital gaps, and we have AI gap. You need to have first literacy and then you need to have digital access, and then you can have access to AI and other emerging technologies, but we have all the three gaps. But today’s young people have chances to thrive with all the technologies and they have literacy, they have access, they have access to AI technologies and other emerging technologies as well. So the point here is how do we actually segregate or how do we separate what is the maximum limit that we can use the technology, or are we leveraging technology for good, or are these technologies always useful, are there any threats while teens and young people are using the internet, along with the opportunities that it provides, we are seeing so much threats. that are now aided by AI and all kinds of things. Another thing relating to education is now we are using generative AI and we believe that some children and young people might believe that the content generated by the generative AI applications is legitimate. That is another issue because people don’t know what legitimate or what is the originality of the content, people might not know. So we need that kind of literacy now. It is not like we need to regulate or we need to ban those kind of users but we need to teach people how they can leverage this internet and other aided technologies like AI and there might be another technology sooner, they need to be taught or we need to have capacity building, digital literacy programs that enables them to properly utilize this technology. I’ll stop here for the first round and I think we’ll be definitely going for the second round. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: Thank you, Ananda. You point out very important topics. I mean, there is not just digital divide but only digital literacy. There is also other divide, gender gap, which are very important, especially in the youth, as you mentioned, we are coming or raising now with those kind of technologies every day but still it’s a good thing and also other points which we’re gonna come back later with the questions. Now I will give the floor to Mohammed Kamran to introduce himself and give some personal state on the current situation.

Mohammed kamran: Thank you, Marco. It is not less than an honor for me. So hello guys, everyone. Mohammed Kamran from Pakistan. I’m advocate, I’m practicing in my own province right now. Also I’m with as a co-coordinator and apart from that I am with other organizations but no need to mention. and all of that. I agree with coming back to the point that how we see from Pakistan. Like, I’ll talk about my own country because I belong to Pakistan. So how we see all of this situation, how we see what is happening around, I totally agree with my brother, with my friend, that the shift from digital world, digital computers to the AI computers was too fast. We couldn’t see that coming. And all the teachers, students, and the parents, we are really confused how to deal with them and how to tackle the situation. Like, most of the teachers nowadays in the institutions that I know, they’re detecting the AI homeworks. Like, the students that have done homeworks with the AI, they are busy in detecting such homeworks. They do not know if it is useful if students are using AI. I’ll just give you, like, I won’t go to the explanations, which we’ll be talking in a while. Two, we lack literacy. And by literacy, I mean that students, they are trying to use AI, but they do not know the limits. And who are the ones who are teaching the limits? The adults again. So I think we have to start from the adults. And from adults, we will move to the youth because youth are the future of the country. So first, we have to have some regulations about the AI, that what are the limits to which they are not dangerous. Because if we use a lot of AI, I think that is also going to be a bit dangerous. So we’ll talk about this in detail, inshallah, in a while. That was a brief talk about this in a while. Thank you, guys.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. Thank you, Mohamed. Yes, I mean, the future is AI. So I think we’re going to more, more, and more use AI. But we’re going to see later. if there is any what we can do about in the future, yes. Now I will give the floor to Marcella Canto, which is coming from Brazil, to introduce and give some personal statement on the current situation.

Marcella Canto: Thank you so much. So I’m from Brazil. I’m here representing the Youth Brazilian Delegation. And I’m from Rio de Janeiro, but not the city of Rio. I live in the state of Rio. And my city is called Sao Gonçalo, which is the second most populous city of the state of Rio de Janeiro, yet it remains a peripheral city. And I think we need to take like two or three steps behind to talk about education and digital education specifically, thinking about inequalities specifically of the global south. And especially when we are talking about public policies who will make change and make difference. But I will talk about this later in my presentation, so I will pass the mic.

Marko Paloski: For the introduction and on answering the question, now I will give the floor to Ethan Chung for the last on-site participants to introduce themselves and give a short statement.

Ethan Chung: Hi, guys. I’m Ethan Chung, and I’m a Youth Ambassador of the Mampa Foundation. I’m from Hong Kong. And I’m not actually working for a job, so I can only tell you guys a perspective for education and a perspective of how we are educated. So I think in order to be related to technology, the education system is not enough because we’re doing paperwork right now, and we’re writing papers on normal writing and comprehension things on papers. But I think that we should educate something that is related to AI or maybe other technologies. And the education system should actually educate us how to use the AI and how to use these technologies much harder, not only just how to use it. Because we all know how to use it, right? Check GPT, you just input the question and it gives you an answer. But how to use it correctly? How to use it better that it won’t be against the law? This is the key point and I think should be discussed later.

Marko Paloski: Yes. Thank you very much. Now I would go to the online participation. I would give the floor to Umut. Can we just, yeah.

Umut Pajaro: Hello everyone. Good morning from my side. Well, we see that these kind of technologies are a rapid advancement and have those like taking my surprise as someone you already say. And it’s actually revolutionizing the industry and redefining the skill that we need to try in the modern workplace and the education system. Well, this kind of transformation actually presents not only a challenge, but also opportunities for educational institution and individuals seeking to navigate this evolving evolution of the workplace. So in my personal opinion, I think that educational institution must adapt to these changes to adequately prepare the future workforce. And I hope that we explore a little more on that or during this conversation, especially in the educational strategies that we can adopt to adapt these technologies and examine the changes in career pathways or different workforce that we can have in the future.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. Umut, I will pass the floor to Denise.

Denise Leal: Hello everyone. I think you can hear me well. I am Denise. I’m the CEO of the company. And I’m here to talk to you about the future of education in the future. And I’m here to talk to you about the future of education in the future. And I’m here to talk to you about the future of education in the future. I am Denise Leal from the Youth Coalition. I am from Latin American Caribbean region. When we first started to think about this session, this Dynamic Coalition session, we were in a dialogue with the DTC, the Dynamic Team Coalition, and we were talking a lot about how the future is changing and how it’s changing right now, right in front of our eyes. And we have to think about the work and the education in a very innovative way. We cannot, we can’t anymore think about the education as traditional as we’ve always seen before. We need to adapt because future that is already here is asking for it. We’ve discussed a lot about many things during our meetings to come to this session and to have a dialogue on it, not only thinking about the youth view as the 18 and 35 years old youth view, but also for children and teens. What is it like to be a student in a classroom where you are studying a thing that you won’t use, considering that you actually will need to know about AI, about technology, about social media, and lots of other stuff that you are not learning in your class. So here we are today waiting for discussions on these topics and willing to hear you all. And I am super excited to talk about it. And I also will bring some aspects on marginalized people, global South and traditional people also. So, because we have to include them in the discussions and talk about them and also about infrastructure because. if we are talking about digital era education and work. We have also to consider that there are people excluded, there are people that don’t have access to internet, proper access to internet. So we have a lot to talk and now that I have presented myself I will give the word to you, Mirko, so we can continue the flow.

Marko Paloski: Thank you, Denis. Yes, I want to point also one thing that we discussed in the youth coalition between us that the youth coalition is from 18 to 30 and we represent the youth, but the youth sometimes it’s not just 18 from to 30. That’s why I think the teen dynamic coalition is very much needed because nowadays I’m, for example, 29 and when I was studying or going to primary school, high school, I was still using the technology, Facebook, I don’t know others, but it’s not the same like it’s now with the TikTok, with much more usage. I know my nephew is using the tablet sometimes too, he knows automatically, so it’s totally different viewpoint and sometimes even we are as a youth still cannot represent their, how can I say, issues, their challenges or what they are and how they are experiencing the technology. So that’s very important and this coalition should be established like dynamic teen coalition and get more and more involved to be also their voice heard. Okay, I will go now to one of the questions, I mean in the beginning Ananda mentioned that there are some more divide gaps, Karen also mentioned, Cameron, sorry, also mentioned that should also be education to the adults because they are the ones who are teaching the youth and sometimes the youth may know more than the adults. There we also had it, I think Umut mentioned that the institution get more involved, so I would ask the question, what is, I mean, with the current situation we see that more and more AI is evolving and other advanced technology like quantum computing, robotics, those kind of things, but there is a big demand of the workforce shaped by the AI. So my question here is, considering this, which innovative educational strategies could be used that we can adapt to these technologies? So in the future, but maybe not in the future, maybe in the present, because most of this technology, depending on the country, are already taking over. So what do you think is the innovative educational strategy that we should go with that one, or how should we come to that adapt or, I don’t know, approach, let’s say? I will get, I don’t know who first would want to answer you. Okay, Kamran.

Mohammed kamran: Yeah, so as I’ve mentioned earlier that the jump from the digital machines to the AI machines was too quick. I think we didn’t see that coming, but yeah, it is what it is. So first of all, I think some people, they see it like the strategy, we’re talking about the strategies, how we can face all of these things. So like there are three ways. Firstly, people would be mostly adults, because the youngsters, the youth are using AI more than the adults. It is their thing. So the adults, what they do is they flee from the situation, like they leave the situation and they go to some, we are not seeing it, so it’s not happening. Secondly is that they fight for it, like they fight against it, that, you know, you shouldn’t be doing this. As I’ve mentioned earlier that most of the adult teachers, they’re busy in detecting the homeworks that have been done by AI. I think that is also wrong, that is injustice. If a kid is able to solve his homework with the help of an AI, It is just another tool that is here to help us. As our vehicles are here, as other technologies are here, I think AI is also here to help us if we do not cross the dangerous limits. We’ll talk about that as well. But this is the second one. We shouldn’t be fighting it as well. Then what should we do about it? I think we should adopt to it. That let’s not flee from it, let’s not run from it, let’s not fight it either. Let’s adopt to it. Why don’t we adopt to it? Because this is the future. We cannot say that AI is not happening and I’m not going to allow that. That adults who say that, let’s do it the old-fashioned way. I think that is also wrong because if there is something, this is as if we would say that, let’s not go to that place by our vehicle. Let’s not use the aeroplanes. Why not to use horses? It is the same to me. No, they’re just listening. So yeah, using AI is not bad, but to a certain limit. So I think the strategy that we should adopt is the adaptation to the situation, adaptation to the AI, and also there should be some regulations that to what limit AI, and not only AI, but all the other technologies that you’ve mentioned earlier, of course. But as AI is the boss, we know that. So that is why I’m mentioning, I am referring to AI again and again. So yeah, we should have some regulations. We should have some limits. Like this is the limit. This is, but yeah, who’s like, then you’ll ask us, you’ll ask me that, who’s going to watch over a kid with an iPad? As Marco has mentioned, that our children, like our people, like the babies, they know how to use, how to turn on the Wi-Fi. They’d go to the YouTube, they’d search for the shark, so baby shark, yeah. I think all of you know that. So our kids, they do know about all these things. When we were kids, we didn’t even know how to turn on a mobile phone. Like we’d ask our parents to please open the snake game for us. We’d be playing the snake games. I don’t know if you guys have done that. But nowadays, kids have adopted it. And I think we shouldn’t stop their way, but we should teach them their limitations. Because if they exceed their limitations, their screen time increases. That is going to be a bit dangerous, because we do not want machines in the future. We want humans. We want them to have feelings. And we’ll be talking about the future strategies, inshallah. I have a point in that too, but all in good times. I’ll get back to that in that question. But now we are talking about the present strategies. So I think the biggest strategy, and to me, the simplest strategy, I’ll say this in very simple words, is the adaptation to the situation. We shouldn’t run from it. We should adapt to it. Because as it is said that, when we do the reconstruction of a house, let’s say that we are like the beautification or something like that. If we want beautification in this room, we’ll demolish one wall of the room only to reconstruct it in a better way. So I think if we do not run from the situation, let’s reconstruct it in a better way. Let’s do the beautification in it. Let’s beautify it. Let’s make it in another way. If this is not working, let’s do this in another way, in the modern way that is needed. So yeah, that’s from my side. Thank you, Marco.

Marko Paloski: Thank you for your deep answer, I would say. And thank you for pointing out that there are many, many more things that are included here. It’s not just one thing. And that the AI is… part of all that I mentioned, robotics, in every technology that we are using now, AI is a part, as you mentioned, AI is the main component or the boss. I would give the floor to Umut now, if he can share also some experience on this question, and then we’re going to revert on-site to someone.

Umut Pajaro: Okay, yeah. Well, in my case, I actually think on this question every day, because I’m not only a teacher in university, but also in high school, when actually I had teens from 13 to 18 and 17 using AI in my classroom. And besides thinking on ways, on how they are using it as a tool, I start to explain to them that most of the answers probably are not exactly correct. So I started to use the tool in a different way than everyone else. One of the things that I do is to put the actual tool into test in the classroom, so they actually can know exactly what are the limits of the tool inside of the classroom. So they actually can know the implication of using that technology by experience. So that’s one of the things that I think it should be incorporated in the curriculum when it comes to emerging technologies, is having to use the technology and the implication of that technology by experience. So the students are actually going to know beforehand in really early stages, as I do in my case because most of my students have 12 or 13 years, so they are really young. So from that age they are already starting to learn what are the implications of using that and what is the limit of using that. Another thing that I started to find out in my practice as a school teacher is that not only this hands-on experience or the real-world applications on air disposal, also the interdisciplinary approach to the use of these technologies is also really helpful because it gives them a more realistic way of understanding how these technologies can be used and how this technology can actually help them to improve their daily lives. Another thing that I would try to do in my classroom is actually create some critical thinking and problem solving. It’s to use this tool, the different tools, as a way to improve their analytical thinking and problem solving skills and try to give them some abilities to adapt to the new challenges. Another thing that I try to improve there is not to demonize or to be against these technologies in the classroom. I just wanted to understand that what is there actually could help them also to increase their creativity, increase their design thinking, and ability to generate solutions to new ideas. This could be the pinpoint to another solution or what the problem that they had. So that’s what I’m trying to do. And another thing that I use this kind of tools in the classroom, and I think it’s important to have it besides all the things I already said, is to understand that this tool could also have an important role of creating collaborative efforts inside a classroom and outside of the classroom. Because if you have this different kind of tools to resolve a problem in a real life context, you will actually have to work together and collaborate between peers. So that is important. That is an important ability, not only in our educational system, but for our life. When we’re going to start to work in some, I don’t know, some important entrepreneurship or something like that, we’re going to work with people and we’re going to collaborate together. So we need to adapt to have these technologies inside of the classroom, but thinking on the future of the workforce. Yeah, that would be all for my side now.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. Thank you very much, Umut, for sharing your experience from the other side, from the institution. Now I will give the floor maybe to Marcela to give more on the Global South and those opinions.

Marcella Canto: I think to answer your question, it’s crucial to consider that digital skills must be included in the curriculum of basic education. The changes I think that people used to see as a have to, I see as a must to. There’s a misconception around the use of digital device will take the educational process more innovative. Some examples are using tablets in class or using AI to increase productivity, but it’s a mistake. If education doesn’t challenge social structures that perpetuate inequality, discrimination, and oppression, then it’s not really innovative because it doesn’t promote significant change there. We are now experiencing a new configuration of colonialism. Migration and international division of labor continues, but in a new guise. While the global north has large technology companies that employ CEOs and software engineers, we in the south are left with the worst jobs, whether it’s mining for processor production or removing objectable content from the internet. Technology alone will not save us from our problems because technology is not neutral. There is always a purpose and a bias. What I mean is that if the global south maintains the colonial logic, the structure remains the same. Aerocentrism remains the same. The underemployment that we are facing in the world is the same as the underemployment in all of the contexts of dependent capitalism. Our development will still be underdevelopment because it is still operating the colonial system where the south feeds the north in an unequal relationship not only with raw materials, but also with precarious labor. So, what I believe is that the curriculum in digital education needs to focus on training technology creators, not just average users with common digital competencies and non-technical know-how. We don’t need only competencies as promoted, for example, in this document of UNESCO called Global Citizens for Education. We must have systemized it and historically accumulated knowledge that enables critical think. Because through this, we will be able to criticize and transform reality. And I need to highlight the curriculum’s power. The curriculum in basic education is what is projected as a society. And curriculum produce ways of being as decent interpreting the world. When a current problem in a region or a need of a group of population are not included in the curriculum, it’s also a political decision. If technology curriculum does not address race, gender, class, is this curriculum truly emancipatory and effective in changing the current scenario and combating online violence? Does this curriculum really manage to significant change in a way that impacts the collectivity? Or just one or another individual will be able to ascend economically and socially different for the community? Does this curriculum empower people who are not recognized as knowledge producers and whose very humanity has been denied to justify subjugation of people in the colonial process? A process that ensured the exploitation of all the possible forms of the global South and developed in the North-South? In addition, can we produce a society technology creators who will behave ethically if the curriculum does not proactively combat diverse forms of discrimination? That’s say, I don’t think it’s possible for a single person or even a single stakeholder group to point out effective solutions to such a complex and profound issue. But I would like to use this basic granted to me at the IGF to extend an invitation to who’s are here, either in person or online, especially our colleagues from the global South. How can we articulate an emancipatory digital technology curriculum that truly combats extraterrestrials and propagate oppression? What are the needs of your country, your state, your city, and your community that should be addressed by educational policies? What are the latent concerns? How do we need to encourage different groups that excluded to become technology producers? How can we organize a way that respects multiculturalism and the diversity of region and allows for global cooperation? Thank you so much.

Marko Paloski: Thank you very much for bringing the whole perspective. I mean, it was more than answering. No, no, it’s good. It was more than going deep and explaining all the issues that are happening, and that it’s not just one issue, but they are more connected. I would give now the floor to Ananda to give his opinion on this question.

Amanda Gautam: Am I ready? OK. So my point is, on this point, I think she has created a lot of thoughts. And being a bit late on the panel is like you can opt into whatever is shared already. And then the challenge is I have to bring something new. So my point would be, as we have been discussing how it has changed the landscape for the young people and teens, with the changing landscape, we are now also talking about digital detox as well. Some people doesn’t have access. Some people has over access, like so much of screen time, and then the health issues related to that, and then the kind of social interaction that we are missing in most urban parts of the world. That is one thing. And another thing is we need to. leverage these same technologies to provide same equal opportunities to the people who are in remote locations. So these are the very fundamental two things that needs to be covered and balanced, you know, for where we have like already access and other kind of thing. Children today are very tech-savvy, I think someone told, I think Mohammed told that, they can just find anything out of the smartphone, that I have never been able to using a smartphone, but they will be overusing it at times because what we do, we go to the door in our house and then we just send a text message, can you open a door for me, we have like forgotten to knock the door or like call someone to open the door, you know, like these are the kind of things. If we need something, we’ll just text someone in the kitchen, in the home, we’ll not opt in for talking with our families, we’ll, if we are in a dinner table, we’ll be like looking at our smartphones and we can like, when friends meets at the restaurant for a meetup, everyone is looking at the social media. So this is the kind of essence we are losing at one point. And another part is like, there are some people who need to have access to these kind of things. So the balance would be, we need to have mechanisms, right set up, like I will share a case study for you. We were doing a USIGF in Nepal, we had like a fellowship calls for that, and I think there were 150 applications for 15 spots. And then while going through the reviewing the application, we found out that 90% of the applicants use AI to draft their applications. And the strength, another interesting point is the 10% who didn’t use the AI was not because they don’t want to. want to because they didn’t know how to use it. So sooner or later, it is not like we wouldn’t be using AI or generative AI. It is that we have to use it. I do it every day, but how do we use it is very important. So we need to find out the ways we need to teach. Like someone was talking about integrating it into the school syllabus. Yeah, exactly. We need to integrate how do we people use digital technologies along with the emerging technologies so that they are aware. And also, we need to teach them. We need to know, or we need to have, I think there are not much resources done. What is the optimal time that they will be hanging up with their gadgets? Because we do it starting from day to night. If you tell my kind of routine, I wake up in the morning, get in my desk, and I start using laptop. And then I think it’s until midnight of the day. That’s my almost routine. But we need to have enough research in place so that we know what is the balance in between having social interactions or having time in real nature and then using those technologies to kind of foster our work. Someone was asking a question how these things can be done in rural context. Maybe we can use these technologies to empower education and everything in rural context. But at the first, we need to know the nuances that how do we do it. Otherwise, we’ll be just throwing a technology to people. We’ll start using it. We can see. I don’t know how popular is TikTok in other countries. In Nepal, people started making money out of TikTok. And then people started. throwing their clothes out you know like because that gave them money. They thought that is the good way of making money. People were like topless and then like and they found out in a while that getting a nipple will block their account. They started just blocking their nipples and getting topless in the TikTok life because they thought this is the legitimate way to make money. So throwing out technology without education will be kind of like massacre but we need to have technology in place. We need to provide access to them. Along with them empowerment is very important. We need to know what are the right set of skills they need to know before using that technology. I’ll stop here.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. Yeah thank you very much Anandan for pointing out several issues here especially the one for too much consumption and using of the internet and while we have still places where they cannot have the basic access and needs to access to the internet. I will give the floor before to Dennis and then come back to Ethan.

Denise Leal: Thank you. We are having some online participation so I would like to mention before speaking we have here a friend from Africa saying that we need to consider the UNESCO guidelines on ethical use of AI as a possible answer which is pretty interesting. I was having a dialogue here on the online chat saying that in some countries we don’t have regulations and we don’t have basic information on how to consider the use of AI and how to monitor to supervise it. So in the discussion here that our online friends have been talking about is that ethical use of AI is a major point to consider in education. implementation, but how we supervise it. And it is a challenge to comply with the principles of the safety on internet. So it is also a discussion I want to bring because our friends here are telling us it’s important. And we have some questions I would like to address. A friend from Bangladesh, IGF, Charmaine, has asked how can remote work opportunities be made accessible in underserved regions? And there is another question, but I will talk about this one. It is indeed a challenge. It is important to discuss about it. We do have some places across Latin American Caribbean which don’t have proper internet access. So we have some projects, some community networks that take internet to these places. And they also work with empowering communities to teach them how to use internet and all the internet network. And it’s really interesting. But that shows us that we don’t only need to talk about the use, this very futuristic thing which is using AI and technology in schools, but we also need to talk about the implementation of internet in some places and how we empower these people to properly use internet and telephones and mobile apps and all this stuff. Because this is a discussion and it’s very beautiful to say that we are implementing technology in our schools. In Brazil, we have some places in some regions, the schools of future, they are so-called like that because they implement programming classes. as part of the education and this is impactful, but we also have this discussion on how we implement the education on the very basic aspect of using internet. We also need to talk about the literacy of internet, of using internet. So, I wanted to talk about it and say that I heard some very important things about this topic in UFLAC IGF this year. We had a session on indigenous people where a community of an organization called KIST talked with us saying that when it comes to internet education, we need to provide language accessible internet education. So, it’s our very futuristic to include a language accessible internet education. So, when it comes to technology, we have to provide a language accessible education. So, these people that come from different backgrounds, regions and communities can also develop their technologies and create data and create information in internet. So, I will stop what I’m talking now and I will just mention some questions that we have here on the chat so that other speakers can address the answers if they want. We have this other question here. How can we ensure ethical use of AI and data in both education and workforce management? Also from Bangladesh Women IGF. And we have some comments here. Another question from Gregory Duke is I’ve heard that regulations could affect innovation negatively and I like this new revolution. What should be considerations from youth leaders? in policy input. And Sasha is asking, as youths, how do you envision AI to be used in assessments in educations? That’s it. A lot of questions, a lot of discussions. Now you guys get there. Thank you so much.

Marko Paloski: I will give the floor first to Ethan to answer the main question, and then we can jump in the question that they’re asking. Maybe we will open later the floor to other questions from the participants on site and of course online.

Ethan Chung: Hey, okay, let me take this off. So first of all, before I start the pitch, I want you to keep in mind that AI is here, not for us to rely on, but for AI should be assisting us to maximize its effectiveness on the human society. So here’s the thing. When we rely on AI, it leads to a lot of misbehaviors, and therefore it will have negative effects. So for example, my own experience, so last year I had an exam about coding, and then it’s a JavaScript system. And what my friend did is he opened another website and he used the AI to generate a whole code that works. And we submitted it, but he failed, I passed, because his AI generated code, it’s in Python method, but not JavaScript, so he failed the exam. And by this, we could tell that when we rely on AI, it will have negative effect. He did not process it in his brain. So what we need to use, like what we need to do for AI, or not do for AI, I should say, what we need to use AI for is we need to use the information provided by AI, and we process it, and we do a summary of the information that it provides. And so I think, for me, I would like to be educated with the education strategy that I would want so that I can adapt to these kind of technologies is that. some kind of project-based works. Because, so for example, we’re doing a project, right? And the teacher shall allow us to use AI beside of banning us from using AI. And by this, I mean that the teacher should guide us how to use AI correctly. And so we can know that that’s how we use AI. That’s how we actually, how to process AI’s information, but not only relying it to generate information and we use it. Because by that, we cannot improve. That then we will stop here. The improvement of the whole society will stop here if we rely on AI. So that’s a kind of education strategy. So to enhance the use of AI. And yeah, that’s kind of the educational strategies that I can give it.

Marko Paloski: Yes. Thank you, Ethan. I mean, it’s a good point of view how you make, how we use AI and it was for what? Not just to relay, I mean, on AI. To use for our, to approach our maximum or to, I don’t know, establish maximum potential or to help the things that we can, I mean, we spend time much more on something else. I would now go to the two questions that Denise mentioned from the online. And after that, open the floor on on-site if there are some questions so we can proceed. The question that was asked online and Denise tried to answer some of them, were how can remote work opportunities be made accessible in under-reserved regions? And then the second one was, how can we ensure ethical use of AI and data in both education and workplace management? The second one was, how can we ensure ethical use of AI and data in both education and workforce management? I mean, we mentioned something. I saw Ananda that he gets the mic.

Amanda Gautam: Yeah, it is about rural context. So I think I can talk about it. So. The first starts with the access, of course, because without access we cannot talk about anything else. So there will be, how do we, if there is no community networks or not, they are the last mile networks where community manages their own network and there are a lot of funding opportunities available for doing community networks. That is the one how we can, and there are universal service funds that are available to take the access into the underserved regions. That would be a start. And then having only access to internet is not enough. Like Dennis mentioned, I was about to mention that as well. If you take an example of Nepal, only 75% of the people are literate. And if people don’t have enough literacy to access the content, there might be a barrier with language. In Nepal itself there are more than 120 languages spoken. So having access to meaningful content would be more challenging. After we bring the access to the internet, having access to meaningful access is equally challenging and equally important. That’s why TikTok 5, you don’t need to have much knowledge. You just need to either record yourself in your language you know and you post it and people don’t need to do anything. Just swipe, you get the knowledge. Or like you get the content you want. And that is how TikTok got idol in Nepal. So those kinds of platforms might be sometimes very essential to maintain the access to meaningful content. But we need to know, have the right balance, what contents are shared on those platforms. Another thing I think somebody asked in the question as well. what is the right balance of over-regulation or what are the things that we can have ethical AI. There might be three instances. One might be legislation, policy, or code of conduct. Among these three, I think code of conduct is very important because we know the digital world is just as mirror of our real world that we are living in. Umut mentioned in some way some days back we have biases in society and data are made by the society and those biased data lead to the biased decision by the AI system, which is obvious. And similar on the how do we use technology, we have a kind of like non-ethical code of conducts that we do, misconducts that we do in the society and same thing we reflect that in the digital world. So we need to have like good code of conducts so that we use those things decently and the thin line between decency and indecency varies from place to place. So it is very contextual and it is very local but we need to identify what is decent and what is indecent. So these are like very basic fundamental things. Of course we need to have legislations, we need to have policies that promote these technologies that provide access to the people where these are not underserved because there is no profit in the ruler context but it is not always about profits. There are ways to do it, many agencies are doing it, community networks are the very good examples which have been thriving in Africa and other regions. I think we can discuss about it all day but I’ll end it here. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: Thank you very much especially for the pointing out for the use and how we can of these technologies. I would give now floor to Umut because he can also relevate to these questions?

Umut Pajaro: Well, there is two questions that I call my attention. One is how we can ensure the ethical use of AI in education and workforce. Well, my answer to that is actually, it could be quite obvious. It’s actually remote. It’s actually to try to get those involved or the stakeholders that are actually part of the education system. And that implies to include even students as part of making the rules, the key rules to use these kind of tools in education, in education, the clearest as possible. But those rules, let’s say in that way, it can be not only as a recommendation or suppose or kind of best practices or something like that. We need also that the government start to regulate this, the use of this kind of technologies inside the educational systems because the educational system institutions, because there is a way somehow that they can be complemented. And actually, can we somehow enforce or make accountable these ethical guidelines that we are putting into place in a different discussion or consensus that we get as different stakeholders. In this case, I include the stakeholder from the students. Also, that means you include teens, children, or everything on everyone that is part of the educational process. The other question is about innovation. And I, my answer to that is that regulation, it doesn’t actually, it doesn’t actually cut innovation. It’s actually, if you do a good regulation based on human rights, the innovation that you make and respect those laws that are based on human rights, are going to last longer if you actually respect the human rights and respect the law. So innovation make it into a framework, and making it into a framework that respect human rights and the characteristics or the context of where those laws came from, actually made those innovation and the law lasting in time, because it actually is responding to what the people needs. And actually it’s respecting what the people needs and what the people want from the society. So yeah, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say.

Marko Paloski: Thank you very much, Umut. I would ask now the audience if they have some questions here. I know that online there is a lot of questions, but let’s first see if there is. We have one question. Let me, I will try to use this mic.

Nirvana Lima: Good morning, everyone. My name is Nirvana Lima. I’m a participant of Youth Programme Brazil. I work as a facilitator and I’m here with the delegation. So first I would like to thank you for your panel. Congratulations for all of you. I live in a indigenous territory in Brazil composed for 29 towns. It’s in Ceará state. One of these towns is called Brejo Santo, and that is sited in Brejo Santo, the third official indigenous school of Brazil. They have a curriculum based on their ancestral traditions, philosophies, and culture. And until now, they don’t have access to the internet. I would like to ask you about the positive and negative aspects that they can face when they are connected to the internet in the very near future. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: I would ask any of the participants if they want to answer this question, also online. Or to take the second one? Okay, you can. Okay. Umut, just to take the second one, and we’re going to go to both. Okay.

Audience: Okay, thank you so much. My name is Mariana. I’m from Youth Brazil also. Thank you for the panel. I think all you said is really important, but my question goes a lot with the curriculum that was said and some things about the AI. I think we need to think, I’m going to be direct to my question, given to the challenges faced by the global south, such as digital exclusion of many young people due to an unequal access to internet and technology, as well the biases built in technology systems. What public policies do you think can be implemented to ensure both technology inclusion of these young people also has high quality technology education, while ethically protecting these young people, individuals in labor market that are increasingly driven by technology skills in their CVs, like entering the market and entering all these things. And we need to understand that, like, English right now. is something that you have to understand to insert yourself in the market, so technology skills also. So how do you guys think we can build these public policies for the future? Thank you so much.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. I would give you now the floor to Umut, because he wanted to answer the first question.

Umut Pajaro: Yes, when it comes to indigenous population, when they want to have access to technology, one of the things that I learned in the recent years is they have to decide what actually one to access on the internet and how they want to access on the internet. They’re going to face a lot of challenges, as far as I see. Until now, probably one of the main challenges is the language barrier. Dennis already mentioned that before in his speech, that the language barrier is one of the main things that they’re going to face. And there is a couple of wars in a region in Latin America where indigenous people are actually using the internet to actually protect their languages. So for example, in Colombia, we have in the north part of Colombia, we have indigenous people that is called the Waju. They’re actually trying to protect their languages, their language, creating Wikipedia in their language. And they’re trying now in the second stage not only having Wikipedia on their language, but also creating some specific capacity building on cybersecurity and other things in the language also. So that’s probably the next stage, not only in defining that they’re going to face the same problem as everyone else in the internet, but trying to make it in their own language and respecting the way they want to be involved in the internet. because that’s the other aspect that it gains here. Yeah.

Marko Paloski: Thank you very much, Umut, for answering the question. I would ask now the speakers who would like to take the second question or maybe also add something on the first one.

Mohammed kamran: Okay, so I think the second question is, she asked that, how can we regulate the useful, the positive use of AI and all of such things? I think I will go with what Anand here said that it should be from the government, from the parliament. And I would like to add to it, and that is that it shouldn’t be a taboo anymore, that let’s talk openly about what is right and what is wrong. Our parents, they tell us that this is right and this is wrong, but we do not tell the youth that you shouldn’t go for, I do not know, but something is in our head that don’t talk about these things. We do not tell our youth people, like our youth that don’t prefer nudity, as he has mentioned, that on a lot of social medias, the youth is going towards that way in order to make more money. I don’t know, because they get more views for that and they get a lot of money for that, so they are going that way. It’s just a small example. Hacking, for example, is nowadays so into us, like, sorry for moving from, fleeing from the topic, but these are the problems that we are facing, so let’s not give a deaf ear to this thing, let’s discuss it, but before that, it should be from the government. In Pakistan, for example, we have a PICA Act, Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, it was promulgated in 2016. but these are only for the prevention of electronic crimes like cyber crimes. We should have such acts, such regulations by the parliament which would enclose the hacking, sorry not hacking, but the nudity, like very specifically. I’m again saying nudity is just a small example of the problems that we are facing on the social media, there are a lot more than that. So all of them should be pointed out and should be promulgated by the government, from the government, for the public, and they should regulate the acts. Only then I think we would move to the positive use of AI with 100% like the positive, like we will have the positive impact of all the AI and all the stuff. So yeah, that’s from my side. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: Thank you very much.

Audience: I think the first step to understand the needs or what we need to combat, I think we need to create and research the needs of locations, states, and even countries in a way that we know we are facing, you know. You know to do the research, ask to local communities, to people, and in the way there is a interaction between government, private sector, and civil society. So I think it’s the first step, and then after that we need to face these questions. I don’t think only education, but education is a really important step. We need to address like gender issues, race issues, class issues, and any other type of violence should be talked about in curriculum of digital education. So I think it’s, I don’t think it’s the only way. but I think it’s really important.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. Thank you. I will go now online to Denisse to see if there is online some questions and to raise some comments.

Denise Leal: Yes, there are a lot of questions and discussions here on the chat. There is also a participant that wants to speak, but I will before talk about an important topic that we’ve been talking here. Well, they’ve asked us about regulations and innovation and what should be our considerations in policy input. And we’ve started a discussion on regulations and how it’s important that we get our regulations improved. Because we have these very old innovation policies, and also the intellectual property laws, they are not really adapted to the digital era reality. So we have to improve our regulations. And we also need, and it’s also another comment I made here, and also that I’ve been making in other spaces, we need the United Nations spaces to connect with each other. You see, we have these spaces from the intellectual property, and we have these spaces from biodiversity and climate change. And they are all creating treaties and impacting regulations. And they are all having discussions on AI, internet, and other spaces that encompasses the digital era and digitalization. But why don’t we have these people and these United Nations spaces also here in IGF, or in the United Nations Data Forum, for example, because the thematics, they are related. So there is a… a mechanism being developed to regulate the DSIs, the digital sequence information, but it’s being developed in the UN Biodiversity Forum and it’s not related to other spaces, but how is it? Because it will impact internet and other things and data specifically. So for me, the aspect is we need regulations to improve, to guarantee the safe use of internet and innovations that are inclusive. And we need them to connect these internet regulations and the other regulations, they need to be connected. They need to talk, these spaces need to have conversation. And a very important aspect of it is we cannot create a regulation about internet and technology without hearing the technical community because we are going to create a law that doesn’t have an effective impact. Because we will say you have to supervise it, but if we don’t say how and why, without hearing the technical community, it will probably not be a good regulation with effective results. But I see some comments here and I would ask our IGF person here in the chat, if we can open Sasha’s mic, so she can speak. She wants to make a comment. May I unmute her?

Marko Paloski: You will see now. I’m sorry.

Denise Leal: No?

Marko Paloski: I would check now, but I think let me just.

Denise Leal: Okay, so.

Marko Paloski: Now she should be able to unmute herself.

Denise Leal: Yes, thank you. We can see you.

Audience: Good day, everyone. Very lovely presentation and session so far and definitely glad to be here. So if you could hear the assumption in my voice, I’m from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. And I had a, it was such a revolting conversation. I had just one or two comments there based on the conversation. When we consider inclusive education, when we consider inclusive design, we also considered within the education spectrum, how do we design technology to fit the user? And so the user, the students are the center of the process and it hasn’t always been that way, but it is definitely the direction in which we hope that we’ll take adaptive technologies and inclusive technologies and design for the persons in mind. Just like the chairs that you sit on and you think about human-centered design, it’s really the direction in which education and educators hope to take technology and AI. And that’s the problem within itself is that you have to be able to define the limitations of AI technology. And it’s such a fast moving field that it’s difficult to pinpoint. And so it’s also important to consider, okay, before we even put that into the curriculum to teach students, how do we regulate it? How do we guide that practice and move from governing policies to practices, to curriculum, to the school content and then to the classroom environment and the way in which we implement it when it comes to project or problem-based learning. So it’s a very complicated issue that we’re having right now and that’s within my field of study here at the University of Prince Edward Island. And so it’s very, very… complicated to really begin that process. And I would love to get a little more, you know, idea of your perspectives when it comes to that particular space and what you have been experiencing. From the point of the Indigenous culture as well, when you look at that transfer from physical space to digital space, what’s being lost in that process? And so many parts of their culture as well would be lost within the process of that change of physical identity to digital identity. And you lose yourself in that process of digital exchange. So definitely, please, if you could give me some more of your perspectives within your education of how you see AI being used in the most proficient way when we can’t really define its parameters at this time. It’s such a fast-changing space. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: Thank you, Sasha. I would give who wants to answer this question, but I will try to make one minute maximum because we are close to the end of our session. So, okay.

Mohammed kamran: Hello. Yeah. So I think, like, the last point, I would just add to the last point that how we see the use of AI when it’s like no regulations, we don’t have anything on the floor, and yet we are using AI. So I think, as I’ve mentioned very in the start of the session, that all of us are confused. The teachers, the parents, the students, we are all confused how to make use of it. Some are saying that, okay, use it like the teachers, for example. I’m giving example of teachers again and again because we are here to talk about the youth, right? But it is not specifically to the teachers. All of us, like, some say that it’s good to use. Others are here only to… Like only to stop us from using it. So I think everyone is confused right here and I myself I’m unable to answer to the question that how are we like how we are doing with this stuff because we have nothing on the floor yet a 100% regulations like we have the traffic rules. We have other rules, but we have generally the cybercrime rules and Regulations like that, but not very specifically to pinpoint the this very issue. We have nothing on the floor so I think we are confused that but Using our humanity using our limits of humanity. We should I think only use it for the positive ways We should go for the positive ways. We should teach our children. We should teach our youngsters the Positivity in everything that the like the way we use positivity in our in our in our lives We should do the same way in this issue as well. So, thank you. That’s all for my side

Marko Paloski: Thank you Because we are closing to the our time I would give to every speaker just maximum one minute to wrap up and what is from this I don’t know take over or action points that we everybody should Take and in consideration or maybe it’s actionable stuff that we should do it Maybe to the next stage of IGF or maybe even closer. So yeah Who would like Maximum one point just one minute. Sorry

Amanda Gautam: The major would be It is a like common one, but it is a collaborative action It is not a part of like one stakeholder can do it. There is a role to play by every stakeholder so but navigating the Landscape it might be complex for people. So we need to make it easy like people don’t know how to take on some places so we need to Make a loud about internet works how they can be deployed opportunity is to do that. And I think we need a kind of transparency in terms of information available out how to do the things. I’ll stop here for the sake of time. Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone.

Marko Paloski: I think you should maybe turn on.

Denise Leal: I think in the next IGF, we should have more debates about education and more debates calling teachers and educators, specifically, that want to work from the technical committee and try to analyze more the public policies of each country, each continent, and have more of that debates. I think, I guess.

Marko Paloski: OK, thank you. It’s OK. Yeah.

Ethan Chung: All right, so for the next IGF, first of all, I think I won’t be here due to some, because I got to go for an exam. So I won’t be here. But I’ll try my best to contribute. And I think for next IGF, we are all together here from different nations, different race, and to here to actually create a standard for people to know what we are doing. And we want the people to follow the standard so that they know what’s not suitable, what’s suitable. And I think that’s what IGF is doing now and what it is made for. Yes.

Mohammed kamran: So being the last speaker online, sorry, on-site. Yeah, sorry. We’re just confused, online and on-site. Sorry. So being the last speaker on-site, I think it’s a responsibility for me. I don’t think I’ll be able to wrap up as it deserves to be. But I think sticking to the topic, education should be more experience-based, like for example. For example, if we are going to go for something, once again, I’ll go to this school or college. The teachers should test the students on their experience. If they give them an assignment to write an essay on, let’s say, the Riyadh, of course, they’re going to use the AI for that, or the internet. So I think the assignment should be more like an experience based, how was your experience in Riyadh? Of course, the AI doesn’t know about that. Also, about the meaning of something to them. Let’s say what internet means to them. So that would be another way that they are going to contribute on their own to it. Apart from that, they can ask them about the application of something, that if we have this mic, what is your application? What do you think we can use this for? So they’re going to put a lot of efforts from themselves, from their own mind and their own heart. And apart from that, being humans, I think that we should ask them about their feelings about something. OK, what do you feel about Saudi Arabia? What do you feel about the IGF 2024 that has happened in Riyadh? So I’m sure each one of us are going to write, I think, maybe 500 pages essay on this. And so yeah, I think our education should more focus on ourselves, instead of going for just a stereotypical kind of style. So thank you so much for having us. Thank you, Marco. Thank you.

Marko Paloski: Thank you. I would just give a brief one minute to Moot.

Audience: Denis, maybe shorter. Well, in my case, it’s going to be fast. It includes educators and students from all the stages. or designing, implementing and developing the technologies that actually are affecting the daily lives.

Denise Leal: Thanks everyone for being here. It was very interesting. I wanted just to thank everyone and especially I wanted to say that I really enjoyed hearing people from just to thank everyone and especially I wanted to say that I really enjoyed hearing people from Caribbean region. I am glad for it because usually we from Latin America lack this contact, so it’s important for us to hear from you from Caribbean. And also I wanted to point that this was a session that was thought and created with DTC, Dynamic Team Coalition. Unfortunately they are not here. They need to receive more support next years to be in IGF, but I wanted to thank Ethan for being here representing the teams because he is a team with us, a very brilliant and intelligent one, so you don’t even notice he’s so young. And I really appreciate our debate. Thanks for everyone that joined. Our speakers not only from the Youth Coalition but also from Pakistan and the projects there and also from the Brazilian Youth Program and other programs here. Thanks everyone for you joining us and we count on you on our next activities. We wanted to remember that we are on our election registration time from Youth Coalition, so if you are part of our mailing list, please register yourself. That’s it.

Marko Paloski: Thank you, Denis, and I want to thank you everybody, to the panelists, to the audience here and also online. Thank you for coming here and enjoying in this discussion. And before we wrap up, I would say maybe make a group picture while you are still on screen. So yeah, thank you everyone.

Agreement Points

Need for digital literacy and proper use of AI tools

Ananda Gautam

Mohammed Kamran

Umut Pajaro

Ethan Chung

Digital divide and unequal access to technology

Need for digital literacy and proper use of AI tools

Importance of hands-on experience with AI in classrooms

Lack of regulations and ethical guidelines for AI use in education

Speakers agreed on the importance of teaching students and adults how to use AI tools properly, addressing the digital divide, and providing hands-on experience with AI in classrooms.

Adapting education systems to emerging technologies

Umut Pajaro

Marcela Canto

Denise Leal

Need for interdisciplinary and project-based learning approaches

Importance of teaching critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Curriculum should address social issues like race and gender

Focus on training technology creators, not just users

Need for lifelong learning and adaptability

Speakers agreed on the need to adapt education systems to include interdisciplinary approaches, critical thinking skills, and addressing social issues, while focusing on creating technology creators and promoting lifelong learning.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of creating guidelines and regulations for AI use in education, with Kamran focusing on government involvement and Pajaro stressing the inclusion of all stakeholders, including students.

Mohammed Kamran

Umut Pajaro

Need for government regulations and policies

Importance of stakeholder involvement in creating guidelines

Both speakers highlighted the importance of considering cultural and social aspects when implementing technology in education, with Gautam focusing on maintaining human connections and Pajaro addressing language barriers for indigenous populations.

Ananda Gautam

Umut Pajaro

Balancing technology use with social interaction

Addressing language barriers for indigenous populations

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of human-centered design in educational technology

Audience

Umut Pajaro

Ethan Chung

Importance of human-centered design in educational technology

Importance of hands-on experience with AI in classrooms

Lack of regulations and ethical guidelines for AI use in education

There was an unexpected consensus on the importance of human-centered design in educational technology, with speakers from different backgrounds agreeing on the need to prioritize user experience and ethical considerations in AI implementation.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the need for digital literacy, adapting education systems to emerging technologies, creating regulations and guidelines for AI use, and considering cultural and social aspects in technology implementation.

Consensus level

There was a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the main issues discussed. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in integrating AI and emerging technologies into education systems. The implications of this consensus include the potential for collaborative efforts in developing educational strategies and policies that address the identified challenges and opportunities.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to AI regulation in education

Mohammed Kamran

Umut Pajaro

Need for government regulations and policies

Importance of stakeholder involvement in creating guidelines

While Kamran emphasizes the need for government regulations to guide AI use, Pajaro advocates for a more inclusive approach involving all stakeholders, including students, in creating guidelines.

Focus of digital education curriculum

Marcela Canto

Ethan Chung

Curriculum should address social issues like race and gender

Lack of regulations and ethical guidelines for AI use in education

Canto argues for a curriculum that addresses broader social issues, while Chung focuses more specifically on the need for education on ethical AI use within legal boundaries.

Unexpected Differences

Perspective on AI’s role in education

Mohammed Kamran

Ethan Chung

Need for digital literacy and proper use of AI tools

Lack of regulations and ethical guidelines for AI use in education

While both speakers discuss AI in education, Kamran unexpectedly takes a more positive stance, viewing AI as a tool to be adapted to, while Chung focuses more on the potential risks and need for strict guidelines.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to AI regulation in education, the focus of digital education curricula, and the balance between embracing AI and setting boundaries for its use.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers is moderate. While there is general consensus on the importance of addressing AI in education, speakers differ in their specific approaches and priorities. These differences reflect the complexity of integrating AI into education systems and highlight the need for multifaceted solutions that address various concerns including regulation, curriculum design, and ethical considerations.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the need for proper education on AI use, but they differ in their approaches. Gautam emphasizes balancing technology with social interaction, Kamran focuses on teaching limits and ethical use, while Pajaro advocates for hands-on experience in classrooms.

Ananda Gautam

Mohammed Kamran

Umut Pajaro

Need for digital literacy and proper use of AI tools

Importance of hands-on experience with AI in classrooms

Balancing technology use with social interaction

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of creating guidelines and regulations for AI use in education, with Kamran focusing on government involvement and Pajaro stressing the inclusion of all stakeholders, including students.

Mohammed Kamran

Umut Pajaro

Need for government regulations and policies

Importance of stakeholder involvement in creating guidelines

Both speakers highlighted the importance of considering cultural and social aspects when implementing technology in education, with Gautam focusing on maintaining human connections and Pajaro addressing language barriers for indigenous populations.

Ananda Gautam

Umut Pajaro

Balancing technology use with social interaction

Addressing language barriers for indigenous populations

Key Takeaways

There is a need to adapt education systems to emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and robotics

Digital divide and unequal access to technology remain major challenges, especially in developing countries

Ethical use of AI and data in education and workforce management is a key concern

Interdisciplinary, project-based learning approaches are needed to prepare students for future technological landscapes

Curriculum should address social issues like race, gender, and class alongside technical skills

Balancing technology use with social interaction and critical thinking skills is important

Regulations and policies need to be updated to address emerging technologies while fostering innovation

Resolutions and Action Items

Include more debates about education and involve educators in future IGF discussions

Analyze public policies on education and technology across different countries and continents

Create standards for appropriate use of AI and technology in education

Involve educators and students from all stages in designing and implementing educational technologies

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively regulate AI use in education when the technology is rapidly evolving

How to ensure ethical use of AI and data in both education and workforce management

How to make remote work opportunities accessible in underserved regions

How to balance innovation with regulation in technology and education policies

How to address the potential loss of indigenous cultures in the transition to digital spaces

Suggested Compromises

Use AI as a tool to assist learning rather than relying on it completely

Implement project-based assessments that require original thought alongside AI-assisted research

Develop code of conduct guidelines for AI use in education alongside formal regulations

Balance technology integration with preservation of traditional teaching methods and social interaction

We are now experiencing a new configuration of colonialism. Migration and international division of labor continues, but in a new guise. While the global north has large technology companies that employ CEOs and software engineers, we in the south are left with the worst jobs, whether it’s mining for processor production or removing objectable content from the internet.

speaker

Marcela Canto

reason

This comment provides a critical perspective on how technological advancement is perpetuating global inequalities, challenging the notion that technology inherently leads to progress for all.

impact

It shifted the conversation to consider the broader socioeconomic implications of technological advancement and the need for more equitable development.

We need to have mechanisms, right set up, like I will share a case study for you. We were doing a USIGF in Nepal, we had like a fellowship calls for that, and I think there were 150 applications for 15 spots. And then while going through the reviewing the application, we found out that 90% of the applicants use AI to draft their applications.

speaker

Ananda Gautam

reason

This real-world example illustrates the pervasive use of AI in unexpected areas and raises questions about authenticity and fairness in competitive processes.

impact

It led to a discussion about the need for guidelines on ethical AI use and the importance of teaching critical thinking skills alongside technological skills.

We need to integrate how do we people use digital technologies along with the emerging technologies so that they are aware. And also, we need to teach them. We need to know, or we need to have, I think there are not much resources done. What is the optimal time that they will be hanging up with their gadgets?

speaker

Ananda Gautam

reason

This comment highlights the need for a holistic approach to digital education that goes beyond just teaching technical skills to include digital wellness and time management.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include considerations of digital well-being and the importance of balancing technology use with other aspects of life.

When it comes to indigenous population, when they want to have access to technology, one of the things that I learned in the recent years is they have to decide what actually one to access on the internet and how they want to access on the internet.

speaker

Umut Pajaro

reason

This insight emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity and self-determination in technology adoption, particularly for indigenous communities.

impact

It led to a discussion about the need for culturally appropriate approaches to digital inclusion and the preservation of indigenous languages and knowledge in the digital space.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening its scope from purely technical considerations to include critical perspectives on global inequality, ethical concerns, digital well-being, and cultural sensitivity. They challenged participants to think more holistically about the societal impacts of technology and the need for inclusive, equitable approaches to digital education and development. The discussion evolved from a focus on skills and access to a more nuanced exploration of the complex interplay between technology, society, and culture.

How can we articulate an emancipatory digital technology curriculum that truly combats extraterrestrials and propagates oppression?

speaker

Marcela Canto

explanation

This question addresses the need for a curriculum that tackles discrimination and promotes equality in digital education, especially in the Global South context.

What are the needs of your country, state, city, and community that should be addressed by educational policies?

speaker

Marcela Canto

explanation

This highlights the importance of understanding local contexts when developing educational policies for digital literacy and technology.

How do we need to encourage different groups that are excluded to become technology producers?

speaker

Marcela Canto

explanation

This question addresses the need for inclusivity in technology production, especially for marginalized groups.

How can we organize a way that respects multiculturalism and the diversity of region and allows for global cooperation?

speaker

Marcela Canto

explanation

This question explores how to create inclusive and globally cooperative approaches to digital education and technology development.

How can remote work opportunities be made accessible in underserved regions?

speaker

Charmaine (online participant)

explanation

This question addresses the need to extend digital work opportunities to areas with limited access to technology and internet.

How can we ensure ethical use of AI and data in both education and workforce management?

speaker

Bangladesh Women IGF (online participant)

explanation

This question highlights the need for ethical guidelines in the use of AI and data across educational and professional contexts.

What should be considerations from youth leaders in policy input regarding regulations and innovation?

speaker

Gregory Duke (online participant)

explanation

This question explores how youth perspectives can be incorporated into policy-making for technology regulation and innovation.

As youths, how do you envision AI to be used in assessments in education?

speaker

Sasha (online participant)

explanation

This question addresses the potential applications and implications of AI in educational assessment from a youth perspective.

What are the positive and negative aspects that indigenous communities can face when they are connected to the internet in the very near future?

speaker

Nirvana Lima (audience member)

explanation

This question explores the potential impacts of internet access on indigenous communities, considering both benefits and challenges.

What public policies can be implemented to ensure both technology inclusion of young people and high-quality technology education, while ethically protecting these young people in a labor market increasingly driven by technology skills?

speaker

Mariana (audience member)

explanation

This question addresses the need for comprehensive policies that promote digital inclusion, education, and ethical protection for youth in the evolving job market.

Summary

This discussion focused on creating gender-inclusive data policies and a more equitable data future in Africa. Panelists from various sectors explored the opportunities and challenges in achieving this goal. Key points included the need for representative data collection that considers intersecting identities, addressing biases in algorithms and data sets, and ensuring data privacy and security. Participants emphasized the importance of involving diverse communities, especially women and youth, in designing and implementing data initiatives.

The discussion highlighted the role of governments in developing inclusive policies, raising awareness about data rights and risks, and collaborating with multiple stakeholders. Tech companies were urged to prioritize inclusivity in product design and stakeholder engagement. The importance of capacity building, digital literacy, and education was stressed as crucial for empowering marginalized groups to understand and protect their data rights.

Challenges discussed included the implementation gap between policy creation and execution, data interoperability issues within Africa, and the need for greater transparency in data practices. Panelists agreed that progress is being made, with many African countries developing data protection frameworks, but emphasized that continued efforts are needed to build trust and improve policy communication.

The discussion concluded with calls for ongoing collaboration, education, and skill development to create a more inclusive data future in Africa. Participants recognized that while significant strides have been made, achieving a truly gender-inclusive data ecosystem requires sustained effort and engagement from all stakeholders.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of gender-inclusive data policies and practices in Africa

– Challenges and opportunities in implementing data protection laws and raising awareness

– The role of different stakeholders (government, tech companies, youth, civil society) in shaping inclusive data governance

– Strategies for engaging communities and building trust around data issues

– The need for collaboration, education, and transparency in data policy implementation

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how to create more gender-inclusive data policies and practices in Africa, with a focus on engaging different stakeholders and addressing challenges in implementation and awareness.

The tone of the discussion was generally constructive and solution-oriented. Panelists shared insights from their various perspectives and experiences. There was an emphasis on the progress being made, while also acknowledging ongoing challenges. The tone became more urgent when discussing the need for youth involvement and practical implementation of policies. Overall, the conversation maintained a hopeful outlook on achieving more inclusive data governance in Africa.

Speakers

– Christelle Onana: Senior Policy Analyst and lead of the digitalization unit at the African Union Development Agency

– Catherine Muya: Online moderator

– Suzanne El Akabaoui: ICT advisor to the ICT minister in Egypt, advisor for data governance

– Victor Asila: Data manager and lead data scientist at Safaricom (a telecommunications company in Kenya)

– Emilar Gandhi: Global Head of Stakeholder Engagement and Policy Development at META

– Bonnita Nyamwire: Head of the Research department at Pollicy Uganda

– Osei Keja: IGF Riyadh representative, public interest technologist

Additional speakers:

– Melody: Audience member

– Chris Odu: Audience member from Nigeria

– Peter King: Representative of Liberia Internet Governance Forum

Gender-Inclusive Data Policies in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

This discussion explored the creation of gender-inclusive data policies and a more equitable data future in Africa. Panelists from government, technology companies, and civil society organisations examined the opportunities and challenges in achieving this goal.

Key Themes and Insights

1. Importance of Gender-Inclusive Data

Bonita Nyamwire emphasised that truly inclusive data should represent all genders and their intersecting identities, including factors such as race, ethnicity, age, educational level, socioeconomic status, and geographical location. This comprehensive definition set the tone for a nuanced discussion about the complexity of achieving inclusive data practices.

Speakers highlighted the need to identify and address biases in data collection, algorithms, and technology design. Victor Asila from Safaricom specifically mentioned the importance of algorithmic audits to prevent bias.

2. Strategies for Achieving Gender-Inclusive Data

Panelists proposed various strategies to achieve more inclusive data practices:

a) Capacity Building and Education: Nyamwire advocated for transforming data collection processes through capacity building, while Suzanne El Akabaoui, ICT advisor to the Egyptian ICT minister, emphasised the need for broader digital literacy initiatives.

b) Community Engagement: Nyamwire stressed the importance of involving diverse communities in designing data initiatives. Emilar Gandhi from Meta echoed this sentiment, highlighting the value of stakeholder engagement and trust-building.

c) Transparency and Accountability: El Akabaoui emphasised the need for transparency and accountability in data practices, as well as the implementation of privacy-enhancing technologies.

d) Sharing Best Practices: Nyamwire suggested sharing good practices on collecting and reporting gender data across different regions and sectors.

3. Role of Technology Companies

Emilar Gandhi from Meta outlined several responsibilities for technology companies:

a) Ensuring inclusivity by design in products and policies

b) Hiring people from underrepresented groups

c) Engaging with stakeholders and building trust

Gandhi also highlighted Meta’s initiatives to support youth involvement, including their trusted partner program and efforts to engage with civil society organizations and academia.

4. Youth Involvement in Data Governance

Osei Keja, the IGF Riyadh representative, raised critical points about youth involvement:

a) Youth are often left out of policy conception and implementation

b) There’s a need for a shared vision and continuous learning to ensure youth buy-in from the beginning of policy development

c) Young people face challenges in accessing decision-making spaces and having their voices heard

d) The importance of creating opportunities for youth to participate in policy discussions and implementation

Christelle Onana from the African Union Development Agency also emphasised the value of youth perspectives in policy discussions, indicating broad agreement on this issue.

5. Government Roles and Responsibilities

Suzanne El Akabaoui outlined several key responsibilities for governments:

a) Developing inclusive policies and regulations

b) Implementing privacy-enhancing technologies

c) Promoting digital literacy initiatives

d) Ensuring transparency and accountability in data practices

El Akabaoui highlighted Egypt’s efforts in this area, including the establishment of the Personal Data Protection Authority and the implementation of data protection laws.

6. Challenges in Policy Implementation

While progress is being made in developing data protection frameworks across Africa, speakers identified several challenges in implementation:

a) Lack of public awareness about the importance of data protection

b) Need for improved transparency and collaboration in policy communication

c) Importance of contextualising approaches for different regions

d) Implementation gap between policy creation and execution

Specific Initiatives and Examples

1. Egypt’s Personal Data Protection Authority and data protection laws

2. Meta’s trusted partner program and engagement with civil society organizations

3. African Union Development Agency’s role in promoting youth involvement in policy discussions

4. Safaricom’s focus on algorithmic audits to prevent bias

Thought-Provoking Comments and Future Directions

1. Nyamwire’s comprehensive definition of gender-inclusive data, which broadened the conversation beyond simple gender binaries.

2. Keja’s call for a shared vision that includes youth from the conception stage of policy development, challenging typical top-down approaches.

3. Keja’s acknowledgement of male privilege in a patriarchal society, calling for men to be more engaged in supporting gender-inclusive policies.

Audience Questions and Responses

Audience members raised questions about:

1. The practical implementation of data protection policies

2. Strategies for improving data literacy among different population groups

3. The role of technology companies in supporting underrepresented groups in developing countries

Panelists emphasized the need for continued collaboration between governments, tech companies, and civil society organizations to address these challenges.

Conclusion

The discussion revealed a strong commitment to creating more gender-inclusive data policies and practices in Africa. While significant progress has been made, particularly in developing data protection frameworks, challenges remain in implementation, awareness-raising, and ensuring meaningful inclusion of diverse perspectives, especially those of youth and underrepresented groups.

Key next steps identified by panelists include:

1. Improving collaboration between governments and tech companies on data transparency

2. Developing sustainable programs to protect and empower underrepresented groups

3. Enhancing mechanisms for policy implementation

4. Exploring secure ways for African countries to share data among themselves

5. Continuing to promote digital literacy and awareness of data protection issues

Panelists’ closing “one word” summaries:

– Emilar Gandhi: “Collaboration”

– Suzanne El Akabaoui: “Awareness”

– Victor Asila: “Inclusivity”

– Osei Keja: “Action”

– Bonita Nyamwire: “Transformation”

These summaries underscore the multifaceted approach needed to achieve a more equitable and inclusive data future for Africa.

Christelle Onana: On behalf of the African Union Development Agency, I am honoured to welcome here today for this session which is actually a continuity of a discussion we started at the African IDF in Addis Ababa. So the African Union Development Agency is mandated to support the socio-economic development of African countries. And part of it is this year we have been working on supporting the domestication of the EU data policy framework because we do support the implementation of policies and strategies defined at the African Union level. So we are committed to supporting the implementation, as we just said, of the African Union data policy framework that was adopted in 2022. We are working to help the member states to develop robust national strategies and national data policies and build capacity in general within data governance and specifically with the data protection authorities. As we work to build data-driven economies across the continent, we must be acutely aware of the persistent gender digital divides we have been hearing from the beginning of the forum on Sunday and the gender gap that exists within the data governance landscape. So these gaps may pose a significant barrier to what we are trying to achieve, to the full participation of African women. marginalized groups in the digital economy. So this session will explore the importance of a gendered approach to data and digital environments. We must ensure that the unique needs of women, girls, and marginalized communities are recognized and met. This requires the intentional application of a gender lens in the implementation of the AU data policy framework and the development of national data strategies and policies. So we have with us this morning distinguished panel on site and online that I choose who will be sharing with us their expertise and insight on this crucial topic. So my name is Christelle Nana. I work for the African Union Development Agency. I’m a senior policy analyst and I also lead the digitalization unit. So to me, with me here this morning, we have online Mrs. Suzanne El Akabaoui, who’s the ICT advisor, the advisor of the ICT minister in Egypt. Welcome, Suzanne, if you’re online, if you can hear.

Suzanne El Akabaoui: Yes, I can hear you. Thank you so much.

Christelle Onana: We also have Mr. Victor Asila online, who’s a data manager at Safaricom. Welcome. Thank you, and good morning. On site, we have Madam Bonita Nyamwire, who’s the director of research at Policy. We do have Madam Emilar Gandhi, who is Global Head of Stakeholder Engagement and Policy Development at META. And to close the loop, we have Mr. Osei Kagea, who is IGF Riyadh representative. So welcome to all of you. I think we’ll start the discussion straight. I would like you, starting with the speakers online, to introduce yourself, share with us in two minutes, briefly, what you do that is relevant to our topic today. Starting with Mrs. Suzanne Akabawi. Thank you.

Suzanne El Akabaoui: Thank you. Good morning, esteemed panelists. My name is Suzanne Akabawi. I am advisor to the ICT minister for data governance. My main role when I joined the ministry was to establish the Personal Data Protection Authority of Egypt so that we can implement the personal data law that was issued back in 2020 as part of the creation of a legal context that is favorable for digital transformation.

Christelle Onana: Thank you, Suzanne. Victor?

Victor Asila: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Victor Asila. I work for Safarico, a telecommunications company in Kenya. As a lead data scientist, so on a day-to-day basis, my work is to lead a team that builds data products using scientific methods that can be used for data protection. give insights to the business so that the business can work effectively. It’s a pleasure being here, and I’m glad to be part of the panel.

Christelle Onana: Thank you, Victor. Bonita?

Bonnita Nyamwire: Good morning, everyone. My name is Bonita Nyamwire, and I work for Policy. Policy is based in Kampala in Uganda, and at Policy we work at the intersection of data design and technology to ensure that experiences, needs of women are amplified in tech and data, and digital technology overall on the African continent. Thank you.

Osei Keja: Hello, good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you are joining us from the world. My name is Osei Keja from Ghana. I’m a public interest technologist working at the intersection of society and technology, and I’m also here as an African youth rep on this panel. The topic is a very nuanced one, and youth being the central core of this conversation, whether it’s forming or using the Internet, we hope to be part of the discussion where we get to contribute. I’m excited to be here and hope to learn more. Thank you very much.

Emilar Gandhi: Thank you so much, everyone. My name is Emilar Gandhi, and good morning to you all. I’m head of stakeholder engagement at Meta, and my role really is to ensure that we have strategies in place to ensure that, you know, whenever we are building our products or our policies, we engage externally. We talk to people who use our products. experts, we talk to people who are interested in the issues that we are dealing with. So that’s the team that I work on. And this is an important topic. And thank you so much for including us. And I’m really looking forward to having this discussion and learning from everyone on the panel.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much. I think now that we know who we are in the room, we can kick off with the discussion. So we’ll start with Bonita with the first question. So what, for you, is a gender-inclusive data future, specifically for Africa? And how can it be achieved?

Bonnita Nyamwire: Thank you so much, Christelle. So a gender-inclusive data is one that is representative of all genders. It also is representative of their intersecting identities. By intersecting identities, I mean like race, ethnicity, their age, educational level, socioeconomic status, geographical location, so that everyone is captured and no one is left behind. Because intersection reveals injustices, inequalities, and so on and so forth. Then the other one on gender-inclusive data is one that actively identifies biases and then addresses them. There are several biases in data, but also in technology. For instance, there is bias in algorithms. I remember this was talked about on Monday in the plenary session. There is bias in data, which can make data skewed or unevenly distributed, which means that even the outcomes of such data that has bias will also be unevenly distributed. And so this also affects the other processes that come after the data, where such data will be used. For instance, in decision-making, it will also be uneven and so on and so forth. So there’s also bias in designing technologies, for instance, bias in the languages, you know, not supporting diverse languages, for instance, dialects on the African continent, which then limits accessibility. Then the other one about agenda-inclusive data is one that ensures safety and privacy, generally protecting individuals from harm and exploitation, especially due to data misuse, but also the biases that come from the data. Then the other one is agenda-inclusive data should be one that ensures agency and ownership in terms of allowing individuals and communities to have control over their data in a way that they are controlling to how the data is collected, how the data is stored, how the data is used. If there are any changes that need to be made to the data, for instance, they are involved. So generally like citizens participating in the data, but especially on the gender side and other marginalized communities. And so how can this be achieved? So one is to transform, no, one is to mainstream gender into national statistics in terms of in planning, in research, because mainstreaming helps to assess gender data collection and identify gaps relating to a missing agenda related. indicators. So mainstreaming is one aspect that can be done to achieve a gender-inclusive data and gender-inclusive data initiatives. Then the other one is transforming data collection processes through capacity building. For instance, capacity building on designing data collection tools to be able to capture data in all different gender diversities, and then training data collectors and researchers to understand what gender inclusivity is, because not everyone may be aware or have that kind of training. And then, again, under transforming data collection and capacity building, there is also equipping researchers and other stakeholders like policymakers with the skills to identify and mitigate the biases that I already talked about. And then the other one is to involve and engage diverse communities in designing and implementing data initiatives. For instance, collaborating with women and feminist organizations to align goals and processes of initiatives. And then the other one is to share good practices on collecting and reporting gender data so as to shape the notions and impact of excellence. So this is very good, sharing good practices, what are the different stakeholders doing in terms of gender-inclusive data initiatives so that we all can be able to learn from each other. And then also to connect gender data to gender equality agendas, because gender equality agendas ideally are based on evidence and facts. And the facts come from the data that is collected, whether it is is text data, whether it is numbers. So connecting these two gender data to gender equality agendas is very important. And then invest in research and innovation, funding interdisciplinary research focused on intersection of gender, data, and technology is also very important. And then also sustaining this funding in terms of upskilling that I already talked about, funding to maintain collaboration and so on and so forth. Yeah, thank you so much.

Christelle Onana: Maybe I should have interrupted you earlier because you gave quite a lot of insight towards the answer we were expecting, but it will also be good to give the responsibilities or suggest as you name. You mentioned quite a lot to answer the question. What I noticed is you mentioned the agenda, inclusive data involving the cultural representation within the design, the algorithm, safety and privacy, the agency and ownership of the communities and the individual. And then lately you were giving the answer to the how it can be achieved. Yeah, mostly about involving the communities to collaborate on the gender inclusive data, good practice sharing, investment into research. I think we’ll leave it there. We need to digest it and we’ll move to the next speaker, Mrs. Suzanne L. Akabawi. So. What are our government, our African government, doing currently to ensure that women and marginalized groups have control over their data in a way that respects privacy and agency?

Suzanne El Akabaoui: Thank you very much for allowing me to have a word about this matter. I think that mainly the work that is being done in African countries revolve around trying to have inclusive policy and regulations. It’s important to develop gender inclusive policies and enforce these policies that would expressly address the needs and rights of women and marginalized groups. These policies should include ensuring that data protection laws are inclusive and consider unique vulnerability of these groups. A very important principle in this case is the principle of transparency and accountability, whereby regulations should require companies to be transparent about their data practices and hold them accountable for any issues related to misuse of data. In this case, governments should provide for regular audits and impact assessments to ensure compliance with privacy standards. Another aspect would be related to the education and digital literacy. In which case, providing education and training on digital literacy would empower women and marginalized groups to understand the rights, to practice them. And the implications of data sharing, this would include teaching them how to protect the personal data and personal information online. Of course, teaching or encouraging women and marginalized groups to pursue education and career in fields like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These types of education encourage critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. So, by having more of these people thinking critically, it will help us also implement the laws in a more efficient way. On the side of the businesses, designing tech companies should prioritize the development of technologies that are inclusive and accessible. In the case of, in order to mitigate the impacts of the digital illiteracy in certain instances, having systems that instate privacy and personal data protection ex ante is important. So, it’s important to think during the design and testing phases. include personal data protection principles is important. As mentioned earlier by my colleague, addressing bias is key. So it’s important to implement measures to identify and mitigate bias in data sets. Obviously, recently in AI systems as well. So it’s important to use diverse database and involve marginalized groups in the development process to ensure fair and equitable outcomes. Community engagement is another important pillar, whereby both governments and tech companies should actively engage with communities to understand the needs and concerns. And this can obviously be done through consultations, focus groups, partnerships with local organizations. The collaboration with civil society is important as well, because working with NGOs and advocacy groups and other civil society organizations can help ensure that the voices of women and marginalized groups are heard and considered in policymaking and technology development. Finally, strengthening personal data protection through data protection laws that are robust and data protection laws that provide strong protection for personal data through the issuance of clear guidelines on how to obtain consent. how to minimize data and to guarantee the right to access and deletion of personal data where applicable. The implementation of privacy enhancing technologies is becoming important. Encryption, anonymization and securing data storage to protect users’ data from unauthorized access and misuse is an important aspect as well. To give a quick overview of where Egypt stands in this case, Egypt does recognize the importance of data protection and it has introduced the law 151 of the year 2020 and the law aims at protecting the personal data and penalize the misuse of personal data. So it is part of the strategic goals and the vision, the Egypt vision 2020 and we work on achieving and guaranteeing gender equal, gender equality through the empowerment of women economically, socially and politically. We do try to give women control over their data. The Personal Data Protection Center has an important project in this case ensuring that their privacy and agency over the data are respected. So generally speaking, it is important that the visions emphasize the importance of creating inclusive digital societies where all… citizens, especially women and marginalised groups, can benefit from digital transformation and protection initiatives. Thank you.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Suzanne, for your very elaborated answer. Allow me to follow up with you on a certain of points that you mentioned. Definitely, our member states are working towards strengthening the data protection authorities and working on enforcing the data protection side of the data for the communities overall, and I’m sure for the minorities, the marginalised groups, for the women, for our girls. But you talked about the government that need to work with the companies to be transparent about their data processes. How does this practically happen? That’s one. How is it enforced? I would like to ask. What do our states do? That’s one. How do we track inclusive technologies? I mean, practically, how does that work at the national level? What do the government do with the research, the academia? Because you mentioned the data protection authorities, you mentioned the companies, the commercial side of it, you mentioned the civil society. What happened at the academia level? And practically, do the engagement with the communities happen in the countries? How often? How is it further enforced or implemented? How do we measure the impact? How can we evaluate the impact of such engagement? Thank you.

Suzanne El Akabaoui: Thank you for your question, that is very interesting. Actually in Egypt, the personal data protection law has established the Personal Data Protection Authority and it has given the authority a certain set of mandates varying from building the capacity of personal data protection officers and personal data protection consultants, but it has also provided for the controllers and processors to obtain licenses. And in the case of Egypt, this has been an important part because it is allowing the personal data protection center to review the practices with the tech companies and generally speaking with controllers and processors on sound personal data management practices. The center instates methodologies on how to handle personal data in a more secure way and through the licensing process review the methodologies and the policies and the collection so that we can guarantee that the principles relevant to personal data protection are respected, such as minimization, purpose limitation, etc. So in practice, what happens is that through the review, through the licensing process, granting the license process, we get to review with the various stakeholders their practices relevant to the personal data protection, both from a legal perspective. and from a technical perspective. On the other hand, the center has another mandate that is to raise awareness. So we work very closely with the civil society, with the private sector, and we try to raise awareness through various events. And this is another aspect of how we get to include all stakeholders. In the case of issuing policies, guidelines and up-to-date policies and guidelines with the fast-paced developments in technology, we also get to have public consultation on these guidelines. So it gives us an idea about the interests and how the different stakeholders see the implementation of the law so that we can implement it in the most efficient ways. Academia is heavily involved because training data protection officers, who are the ones that need to assist the personal data protection in implementing the law in their respective, be it a controller or a processor, are involved. We are trying to include curricula related to personal data protection in various disciplines through academia as well. So the center has vast mandates, a vast range of mandates that are, if working together and put together, should allow to mitigate the impacts and have a more inclusive approach in the journey of digital transformation. Thank you very much. I hope I have answered your question.

Christelle Onana: Definitely. Thank you very much, Susan. Thank you. We’ll now move to the technology side. We’ll look at Victor, who works daily on big data and data science. So generative AI and big data analytics are shaping the future of the information. You do a lot of computation, a lot of analysis. We get insight from that. What opportunities and what risk do these technologies present for gender-inclusive data policies, looking specifically at the African context for our women, mothers, ourselves, our girls, and then the marginalized group?

Victor Asila: Right. Thank you. So there are numerous opportunities. Victor, maybe before you start, I would like you to think of if my grandmother was in the room and you were to explain that to her so we can all understand. I will try. I will try to be as basic as possible. So having said that, I think it will be imperative that I try to… kind of define what generative AI and big data analytics means for a basic person. So, I’ll start with big data. So, we generally describe big data using what we famously call the three Vs. So, we describe it using the volume, that is the amount of data we generate per unit time. We also define it by a second V, which we call veracity. So, how frequent do we generate this data per unit of time? Then thirdly, we define it in terms of variety. So, what different pieces of data do we generate within a specific unit of type? So, generation, the different data sets that can be generation could be classified as text, probably images, sound, video, and what have you. So, I think from a basic perspective, that’s how we describe big data. Then analytics is just the tools and methodologies that we use to get insights from the data, from the big data that we have generated and collected. Now, what is generative AI? So, generative AI is a type of AI that can generate new content, and the new content can be a text, can be a word, can be a picture, can be a video, or whatever that is possible within the technology. So, I think in that sense, my grandmother should be able to understand what generative AI and what big data means. and moving on to what potential it holds in terms of shaping gender and inclusive data policies. We’ll start by opportunities. I think from a technology point of view, having the ability to generate huge datasets within a unit of time at a faster rate, and having varied types of data being collected, then we have an opportunity, number one, to ensure that we get granular insights. And these insights are not just insights for the sake of insights, but insights that are related to gender disparities, insights that are going to help us identify these gender disparities and give us a glimpse into the areas that need intervention. So looking at analyzing big data, I mean, we have an opportunity to uncover nuanced patterns and trends that relate to gender. So that’s the first part. I mean, we have an opportunity to collect gender-specific data, and we have an opportunity to analyze these gender-specific data to ensure that we uncover the patterns that relate to gender. Then number two, as a practitioner, most of the time we do help the business using data to kind of tailor specific products that speak to specific appetites for our customers. So we can flip that and also use the same technologies to come up with solutions using data that address gender-specific related issues. And in doing so, we are going to promote. inclusivity and also promote equity. Now, the second opportunity that I look at from a practitioner perspective is that as practitioners when we build these models, we use algorithms and partly these algorithms do propagate the bias that we as humans, the biases that are inherent in the data that we generate and collect as humans. Therefore, by propagating these biases, then we inadvertently kind of perpetuate the same into the algorithms. What we can do is that we usually do what we call algorithmic audits. From a Safaricom perspective, we specifically come up with policies and practices that each data scientist who is building a model or an algorithm that they adhere to. Part of the checks that we do have is to ensure that the algorithms that we build do not perpetuate biasness and that they are fair and that they are equitable. From a craft perspective, that’s what we do at Safaricom. From also a craft perspective, we try to ensure that the data that we use to build these models and algorithms is as diverse as possible. One thing we usually do is to ensure that the data is balanced. We encourage our data scientists to ensure that their data is balanced and that it’s inclusive to all. groups of interest. And more so, it does not, it does not negatively impact any group. A third opportunity that I see is policy development and implementation. Once we have these insights, we can make informed decisions. And therefore, policymakers who make these, these decisions can leverage these insights to craft more effective and inclusive gender policies. There’s another bit to that, which is monitoring and evaluation. Since we are collecting timely data, I think we have an opportunity to sort of in a near real time basis, I always believe that we cannot, you know, achieve real time kind of monitoring. But we can achieve a near real time monitoring where we continuously monitor the impacts of gender policies, providing real time feedback to our policymakers and enabling them to make adjustments where needed. So I’ll quickly cover the risks. So one risk that as a practitioner, I see is that these these is on data privacy and security. So whenever you handle gender specific information or data, then that exposes you to, to, you know, information that, you know, can, can be used in a negative way. And therefore, it can fail to, to, it can expose privacy issues of individuals by by, you know, exposing their sensitive information. So any breach could could have serious implications. And therefore, for the bad actors, they can use that as an opportunity to misuse that data. It could be misinterpreted inadvertently. are leading to policy that can inadvertently harm rather than help the gender inclusivity agenda. So the other one, I think I’ve spoken about it, which is bias and discrimination. Then we also can run into ethical and legal challenges. I’ve heard of cases where, you know, some of the companies have been penalized by the regulators because of the biases that, you know, that the algorithms do inherently carry. And also, you know, just by doing that, they have failed to adhere to the regulatory compliance landscape around data usage and and the complexity of AI. So I think in a nutshell, those are the risks and opportunities that I see from a practice perspective. Thank you.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Victor. Maybe Emilar has something to add there. Thank you so much. Adding to what he just said or in general? In general, to what he said.

Emilar Gandhi: Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much, Victor. I was writing notes. I know you asked, you know, how to describe this for, you know, like our grandparents, but I was writing notes as well as I was talking because we all benefited from that. I will, I think just beyond just adding to what he said, I think obviously it’s important to look at inclusion for products, you know, to look at inclusivity by design and not just think about it as an afterthought. I thought that was really, you know, that’s something that Safaricom is doing. I think that’s something that’s really, really. But just, I think, adding on to what he said, I think for us as a tech company, you know, when we think through about what inclusion means for us, and just going back to what some of my colleagues have already said, for us, you know, diversity and inclusion for data practices, just obviously it starts not only when, you know, you see the product out there, inclusion for us is at the core of our mission as a company, it defines what we do, and by that, I mean, I think let’s take a step back, because when we are thinking of just products and policies, we are forgetting that there are people behind them. So I think, and I’ve seen, I think, even some research by policy as well, that it’s important for tech companies to even, you know, when they’re doing the hiring practices, to actually hire the, you know, people who come from these underrepresented groups. I’m really gratified to see, I think even for Safaricom, you have people like Victor who are leading this work, rather than having someone sitting somewhere trying to design products for a society that they are not, you know, that they are not in, because lived experiences I think are very, very important. You might read about something, you might, you know, learn about something from books, but actually having lived experiences is important. So for us it matters, inclusion is at the core of our mission, we hire people, you know, with that in mind, but also when you hire someone, and we know this professional development is also important, because you want to keep them, so making sure that they actually stay, you know, in the company. I’ve been at Meta for eight years now, you know, so, you know, I think prioritising professional development is important. I’ll also look at where I work in, which is stakeholder engagement. And for us, stakeholder engagement is not just outreach. And I think for some, it’s just focusing on outreach, but we know stakeholder engagement is about relationship building. And once we talk about relationships, particularly for us in these parts of the world, there is the issue of trust. And I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there is a trust deficit for us, especially in tech companies and the people that use our platforms. How do we ensure that we build trust? And it’s not something that, by just being here at the IGF and having this conversation, we build trust. It’s a marathon. It’s not something that you just build trust. One thing Madam Susan mentioned is that it’s important for tech companies, and we do this as well, where there is a trust deficit, working with local partners to ensure that they are an intermediary for us. We have a trusted partner program. I’m sure for some of them, you’ve heard about that, where we have 400 organizations globally that we work with. And we’ll be here, if you’re part of that program, to hear from you as well. But our inclusive stakeholder engagement strategy is anchored on three things. One is expertise. And by expertise, I know in this room, we have some people who have PhDs, but for us, expertise, we’re also looking at lived experience as a form of expertise. And I think that broadens the people that we talk to. I’m happy to see someone from the youth group, and I was saying to him, what’s the limit of youth groups? Because we know in some regions, it’s as high as you can be. So expertise is one pillar that we look at. We also look at transparency. So when we are identifying the… that we are going to talk to about our policy development or product development, we go beyond, you know, when we’re identifying, we go beyond geographical diversity, we go beyond gender diversity or even language, but, you know, or expertise, but we really look at it from a comprehensive, you know, from a comprehensive perspective. I liked what Bonita said, you know, about intersecting identities, because if we just talk about underrepresented groups, is it women, is it people with different needs, so they are, you know, intersecting identities, I think that we can look at when we are engaging. And the last one would be transparency. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it’s not, we can do all these things, you know, look at people with lived experiences, people who have the expertise, we can be as inclusive as we think we want to be, but if we are not transparent about the work that we are doing, and we are not talking about it and, you know, responding to the questions that we receive and sharing as much information in the decisions that we are making and sharing information about who we are engaging, why are we engaging with them, what have we had from them, then it’s a fruitless exercise. So being transparent about all these things, I think would be important. And I think I’ll just end there, and let me know if there’s anything else. I know it was just about, do you have anything to add? And I’ve added a whole.

Christelle Onana: We’ll come back to you. Thank you very much, Emilar. So now we’ll turn to the young man in the room representing the Yelp voice. So, Osei, how do you think young people in our society can play a role in shaping a more inclusive society? data governance ecosystem. Where do we start? Can you share any initiative where you guys have voices and it has successfully influenced a policymaker in the data governance landscape?

Osei Keja: Thank you very much. A lot has been said. Whilst my able panelists were presenting, I picked some words, representative, inclusive, transparent, lived experience, not just outreach, expertise. I think we need to start from the conception space of policies, then we talk about implementation. And also one word you use, afterthought. Oftentimes, most young people are seen as afterthought in these stakeholder engagements or say formulation of policies. We are just like the props to the occasion when everything has been done. Hey, young people, come. And we just add them out. But I’m very, very happy in this discussion, we have a young person on board. And throughout the whole process, the design of frameworks, data frameworks, you voice are not there. I made this comment whilst, I think on this same topic in Ethiopia, Honorable Stanley Olagide mentioned that there was a youth forum and one young person did made a comment which changed the entire perspective of parliamentarians. Young people, especially in West Africa and also Africa, I will lead with Mariam as coordinator for West Africa Youth IGF and also the Ghana IGF. We’ve been doing amazing things through. So Ghana IGF, we did a virtual hackathon, tech hackathon this year. And there was so many ideas which were churned out. We did push to. We had our report and we did push in our policy makers. But as I said, from the conception stage to the implementation stage, there’s that kind of big gap. Young people are left out. The implementation process or, say, legislative process, young people are left out. We have the expertise, too. We are not saying we are a repository of all knowledge or we are a monolith of knowledge. We know better than our fathers or our mothers. No. But we need to be included. There’s that big gap there. From the conception stage, we’ve not had anything. So the West Africa Youth IGF, we had good engagement with our parliamentarians. There were outcomes. But we don’t know the end game of it. We’ve not been included in the whole process at the end of it. So the young people have been doing African Youth IGF. We came here last time in Ethiopia. We’ve done incredibly well. We’ve had our outcomes. But we don’t know. We just, OK, go. That’s it. Young people have been at the forefront of advocacy, awareness, and also mobilization. We’ve been effective mobilizers. So Safaricom, META, AU-NEPAD, GIZ, doing amazing works. But I think we can be great conveyor belts in speaking to people with lived experience and bringing people with lived experience on board, conveying the message out there, being part of the implementation process. I hope I’ve fairly answered your question.

Christelle Onana: I’m following up. So I understood that you have been voicing, you have been doing great things, and there have not been any positive outcome from your engagement or your handovers, which means there is no successful example of what you have worked on that has influenced the policymaker. Is it correct?

Osei Keja: On the granular level or, say, on personal level, I personally may have worked on projects which have influenced things. But as a collective, it’s firefighting is very hard. It’s like you are shouting and across the continent, Africa, a lot of young people feel dejected on head. It’s like they are screaming but they are not heard of because they keep pouting the same things. On a personal level, on a granular level, people may have or I may have some experiences here.

Christelle Onana: Okay, may I follow up by asking, so what do you recommend two to three recommendations, practical on how we can engage and make sure that your voice is not only heard but act up and on regarding the issues we’re discussing now to the policymakers, to the private sector, to the researcher, to us as a development agency, to the partners?

Osei Keja: Yeah, vision. I would like to quote my favorite teacher from primary school. He said, if you know the road and you don’t know where you are going, it will lead to nowhere. So, we need to have a shared vision. So, from the conception stage to the implementation stage, we know where we are going so that the young people may be bought into the idea. We are going here. We are going here. That’s how we are going. And also, system thinking. We need to continuously think through things. There may be some faults from the conceptualization or say frameworks where we can piece things together, the jigsaw. We can piece things together so that we know we are moving somewhere. Continuously thinking through things through linear complexity or say diverse complexity. We need to continually think through things. And also, continuous learning. Whether it’s policymakers or big tech, obstacles, we need to continuously learn. That leads to personal mastery. Continuously learning through things. Learning, benchmarking from other experiences. we need to robustly think through the framework where we need to learn from other people to benchmark appropriately. So this is my answer to you.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much. Thank you, Jose. So I would like to come back to Emilarbefore we open the floor for the first break to the participant. We heard you when you were complimenting Victor’s answer about how you consider the inclusivity at META, how you’re doing that. I would like to add, how is it tailored to the different context, the inclusivity that you incorporate into your processes from the beginning, looking at different perspective? Thank you.

Emilar Gandhi: Thank you so much. Thank you, that’s a very important question. I think before I even respond to that, I think I was just writing notes on what he was saying, and I think also youth need as much support as possible to get to where they are going once there’s a shared vision. In terms of contextualizing our approaches, here’s what we do, and it really depends on each context. But what’s important for us, first of all, is really to ensure that external stakeholders, when we are engaging, are involved right from the beginning. So it’s not when we are now going out to them, but actually understanding what are their issues, what is it that we need to prioritize? We have the products, we have the Facebook, Instagram, all these platforms, but what are some of the issues? that you are facing in terms of, you know, our community standards. Yeah. So what are those issues? So understanding that and bringing it internally to ensure that we, you know, when we look at our policies, we look at that, you know, from that lens. So that’s number one. So ensuring that we are actually prioritizing issues that we hear on the ground, that we hear from local participants. The second thing is actually devising our engagement approach with, you know, with an understanding of our stakeholders. And by this, I mean, not all formats of engagement, you know, can work with different stakeholders. Zoom, there’s a Zoom fatigue. I don’t want to say Zoom, not like company Zoom, but, you know, there is, you know, just engaging virtually. For some, it doesn’t work. That’s number one. Some people prefer face-to-face. Also understanding language, because we know, you know, different languages. What we might express in English is not what it is in Izizulu or in other languages. So really understanding who needs to be in the room as well. I might be the one working on the issue, but for him to understand, maybe I’m not the one who can talk to him about it. Can we do it via policy or can we do it through other organizations? So understanding that to ensure that our engagement strategy speaks to that. So what I’m trying to say here is that there are processes that we have to put in place before we get to the destination, as we are saying. So many ways, I think, of slicing the cake.

Christelle Onana: You know, since you started talking, I was about to say, what have you done in relation to the youth? Talking about that. Can you share with us practically?

EmilarGandhi: or what we’ve done up with the youth. So first of all. Considering the point that he mentioned to be embarked from the beginning, having the vision as. Yes, yes. So what have we done with the youth? Quite a number of initiatives. So I can start one around capacity building because we also know that for youth to actually contribute meaningfully into our product and policies developments, you have to understand the issues. Otherwise just you and me talking will not be as useful. So one of the things that we have done is to put resources into capacity building initiatives like the African Internet Governance School, which I think the last one was in Addis. So making sure that initiatives like that are well supported and well resourced. Also supporting some of the local youth IGFs as well. Supporting in terms of resources, but also ensuring that we even have some of our internal experts, if you invite them to some of the events. The other thing also is we talked about recruitment, but also even actually having programs where we have some young people working within the company and also learning what is happening and ensuring that they can bring that through internships, through placements as well, to ensure that they can bring some of the things that they learn externally. We’re also working with some universities as well to support their programs around tech degrees or apprenticeships or courses as well. So quite a few multifaceted ways that we are working with the youth. But we also know that it’s not something that we can do by ourselves. So we’ll need to work with governments like Madam Susan’s departments or other organizations like. policy who are already entrenched in the processes and NEPAD as well who are already doing quite a lot with Agenda 2063 and all these other things.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much Emilar. We’d like to pause here for now to open the floor to the participants on site but also online if we do have questions before we continue. Maybe we’ll look online first with our online moderator Catherine. Do we have questions?

Catherine Muya: So we have one question from Gahar Nye who says greetings from Afghanistan. Could anyone share a sample of the strategy to draw on it? Yeah so I think it’s not particularly about the discussion but maybe of the strategy like the one we gave in the description the AU data policy framework and the strategies we are developing but I’m not sure if the tech support can allow him to ask his question.

Christelle Onana: Maybe we can try to find out if you like with the participant online and then we come back to you to have a more accurate question I will suggest. So we’ll take a question on site. Yes Melody.

Audience: Thank you. So mine is more of a contribution. I think one of the issues you raised was we want something more practical and if you are to explain to your grandmother they understand and I think when we are talking about our community engagement and capacity building. Can you hear me? I’m going to give an example. I don’t work for META but I’ll give an example of WhatsApp for example. My family lives in rural Zimbabwe, so there is not any form of entertainment at all. So imagine you have been working the fields the whole day, you come home, there is no entertainment. But recently when I was talking to my mother, she was telling me that there is a WhatsApp group she joined. So every week they post like a chapter of a novel. Then she sits with her daughter-in-law and they read the novel. So I was thinking that capacity building and community engagement should not be that difficult. It is about finding something that will facilitate an engagement with your community. So if it means using a WhatsApp platform, for example, to reach out to so many people and talking about issues of privacy, we are talking about issues of gender inclusion and access to data, that would be one way. I think something very practical and a way of actually reaching out to the communities. Yes, I don’t work for NETA, but I think it is quite relevant and in my context I find it quite useful as well.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Melody, for your contribution. Once more, I think it highlights the need to collaborate because you were talking about the WhatsApp group, but this has to be initiated maybe by the local community group, the NGO on the ground, who will have to work maybe with people like us or with the company so much. Any other questions on site? The ladies, no questions? The men, no questions? We come back to our online participant question. Has it been refined? Maybe we will open it to the panelists if they would like to contribute to it. And it has been drafted. Pete?

Catherine Muya: Greetings from Afghanistan. Could anyone share a sample of the strategy to draw on it? Thank you.

Christelle Onana: Is it an engagement strategy or? I’ll suggest to answer as you understand it, because it’s quite vague.

Emilar Gandhi: So, OK, OK, I will respond to and also just drawing up, I think, from what Melody just said, I think to. You know, to draw up a strategy, you have to understand, I think you have to have a clearer picture of what success looks like, like what is it that you want to do and then you start sort of working backwards. And the second thing is to know that a strategy is not something that, in my opinion, that you finalise and then you say, now let me go out there and do what I laid out, because you might have a strategy, but you need to fine tune it as you go. Because and I’ll give you an example where sometimes we are working on a policy at Metta and like a few weeks ago, we were working on something around eating disorders. And you think, oh, let’s talk to, you know, medical professionals who deal with this issue or psychologists. But then you realise actually you need to talk to young people who might be affected by this or creators who are creating content around, you know, having a certain body type and having a certain, you know, body image and all that. So once you do that, once you maybe talk to a few people, you come back to say, you know what, actually, I need to re-look at my strategy. So I think just to answer to him, you know, a strategy, of course, you might have the frame, who is it that you want to talk to? So the identification. And first of all, understanding the problem, identifying who it is that you want to talk to, maybe lay out the different formats of the engagements. Is it going to be in-person? Are you going to do virtual engagements? What resources do you need? Like what budget do you need? Or do you not need a budget? The people that you’re talking to, are they willing to talk to you? Are they able to talk to you? Or are they willing but unable? Because maybe they don’t have a time to talk to you. So I think there are quite a few things that you might look at. And the last thing I think that you mentioned is impact measurement and looking at how do you measure the results of your engagement?

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Emilar We will resume with the questions. Do you, oh, sorry.

Audience: Hi, can you hear me? Good, good. Good morning or good afternoon for those online in case they’re turning in from somewhere in the afternoon. I come from The Gambia and there was an issue for the FGM bill that was called to be amended. And it caused a riot in the country. And a lot of people from the local communities and from the urban areas as well, they came out and had, I think, about a week or two. It was, the country was in uproar. They didn’t want the bill amended. It wanted the bill to be just out. And it kind of calls on to show how people, when they’re concerned about something, when they understand what it is, they actually push for it. And so in my country, for instance, we’ve had the data protection bill drafted since 2019, where in 2024 now, it’s been five years. And so we don’t have that kind of uproar or that kind of concern from civil society, from the students, young people, from the academia or anything like that, that much, that concerned, like they were with the FGM. And although there’s- this is an important issue as well. I think data is also an important issue. So the context is in such a way that people don’t understand data, its importance, why it needs to be protected and what measures are to be put in place to ensure that there’s inclusive data policy, inclusive data future that we’re talking about here. So what can the various stakeholders, the policymakers, the youth, the big tech companies, the academia and government do to ensure that people have a deeper and more concise understanding of data, its importance and things like that? What can they do collaboratively or at individual levels as well to kind of build that understanding within the community?

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much for your question. I believe some of the answer to the question has been given but I will open the floor again. I’ll let the panelists, maybe starting with Suzanne to tell us what can the country do for the citizen to be aware, to be sensitized about such issues in such a way that they feel concerned or they react when need be. Suzanne, please.

Suzanne El Akabaoui: I’m sorry, I won’t open my video because I have an internet issue. So I’m barely hearing most of what’s happening. If I understand well your question, you’re asking about what governments should do. Could you please repeat the question again?

Christelle Onana: Yeah, so the participants said it’s challenging for the population to react to some issues if they are not aware of the subject, if they don’t know what’s going on. And we all understood or we all know that data is very important, data protection, data privacy is important. What can be done by, the question was, what can be done by the different stakeholders to ensure that the population, the citizen are sensitized, aware. of the importance of data management, data protection, data privacy, data security issues?

Suzanne El Akabaoui: Okay, thank you very much. Let me tell you that the issue with data protection is that we used to have relationships between human beings that see each other. And now with digital transformation, we are sharing our data with people we don’t know. And the fact that we don’t know the risks associated with such sharing is what is an actual problem. Because if we understand the risks of misuse, the value of personal data and how it is, it has become a very valuable asset to the citizen and to businesses. It then becomes embedded in the culture and inherent to our day to day actions. So governments, mainly the role would be to raise awareness on various aspects, raise awareness about the rights to citizens, raise awareness about the risks associated with the mishandling of personal data. Putting in place a proper taxonomy of risks is important. Having scenarios of the risks associated with misuse of data, shared with citizens, so that they understand the importance of protecting their personal data and the value of their data and how to ask what will be done with their data is important. This is mainly done through education. It takes a long time because there will be an important cultural shift associated with this. Most African countries are warm countries and they feel closer when they share their data to each other. Now we are putting them in a context where most of the services are moving to a digital space where they don’t know what is happening and where this data will end up being with. So it’s important to raise awareness. It’s important also to give a lot of responsibility and accountability to the companies and controllers and processors about the importance of properly handling data. Governments should emphasize the value of data as an asset that is worthy of protection like any other asset a company would have, that it gives a competitive edge when there is a security of personal data. People will be more encouraged to deal with those who have sound personal data practices. So cascading down methodologies on controllers and processors on how to handle the data and how to secure it and how to see the value and draw value out of it. will encourage them to implement those practices and internal policies that allow such protection. And in parallel, of course, raising awareness, including in curricula for school students, university students, the importance of personal data and personal data protection. This is also a multi-stakeholder approach and the involvement of all stakeholders, including youth, is very important. In Egypt, we work a lot with the Ministry of Youth in trying to find solutions so that they are interested in reading privacy policies and understanding the rights. So it’s important that governments work on various pillars to achieve the target and purpose of raising awareness about the risks, about the opportunities, and the value of data.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Suzanne. Do any of the panellists would like to add to the response? Yes.

Bonnita Nyamwire: Thank you. I would like to add on what Suzanne was explaining. So raising awareness on risks, benefits, but also government needs to maintain transparency throughout the whole process. Because most of the time you find that citizens lack information or some information is withheld for reasons also that we do not know. So transparency is very key. Then the other one is collaboration. as government is raising awareness, they need to collaborate with other stakeholders. There’s academia, there are civil society organizations that work with citizens a lot. You know, so this collaboration is very important. They can go where, you know, into raising awareness together with government, where government cannot reach, civil society will reach, academia will reach. Then the other one is also, as they do awareness raising, it should be done on platforms and channels that can reach all the citizens, you know? Because for instance, if I’ll give an example of what government in Uganda did when they were introducing the digital ID. We didn’t know much about the digital ID, but we just had, oh, you need to go and register. You need a national ID for you to be able to access services, but we’re not told, what are the benefits? What are the risks? You know, what do we need to register? And many people misinterpreted because it is an exercise that came at a time when we’re nearing elections. And again, they are going to do the same thing. They are going to renew our national IDs when we are nearing elections in 2016 and nothing is being done, just like the other time. So explaining to the citizens, you know, why are we doing this? So that time, all of us misunderstood the exercise to like wanting to track the voters within the country and because of multi-party politics. So people say, I am not registering. Others gave wrong information. And now people are suffering because of the wrong information they gave during the national ID registration exercise. So they got the transparency is key, involving other stakeholders, but also the different channels, you know, because if you use a radio and then they say my mother in the village who doesn’t have a radio, or if you. which are going around the city with megaphones. What about those people who are deep down in the village? What, how will they get the information? So, and that’s what I can add on that. Thanks.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Bonita. We know transparency collaboration with the different stakeholders and making sure that the channels and the platform used can reach all the citizens. Anything else to add?

Osei Keja: Quick one. I think the topic is very, very interesting. Data have policies towards a gender-inclusive data future. I sit here as a man, and I would like to tell all the men here that we are in a position of privilege. In this society we live is deeply patriarchal and we should not be very dismissive in terms of the position we do find ourselves in our offices when these policies are brought to us. We should not be dismissive of what we are talking about. I think that part is often neglected because of how gender and society norms are. That’s what I would say.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much. Yes, please, sir. May I as well suggest that you present yourself before you ask the question so we know? Could you please present yourself briefly and then you ask the question? Thank you.

Audience: Okay, I’ll be very quick. I hope I’m audible. Yes. Good morning, everyone. My name is Chris Odu from Nigeria. It’s a very good thing I’m actually in this space listening to all what we’ve been saying in the conversations. And I think I’m here to learn and I want to know. We’ve been talking about these data policies and the rest. And I think over time what I found out is we’re not lacking policies. In fact, we have a good repository of policies, but we always have issues. And I’m speaking from my own primary constituency, which is Africa. We do have issues when it comes to this implementation. Are there actually mechanisms that we can start using? to actually improve how we implement these policies. Because you come up with a good policy, yes, you want to include women and all of that and everything, but two years, three years down the line, it’s the same result. So we’re still repeating the same thing, going around the same cycle. It’s just something we can start doing to improve how we implement these policies. That’s one. The second one, which I have an issue, is data interoperability within Africa. How are we sharing data? How secure is it? Can we even share data amongst ourselves within the African continent? It’s an issue, which I think I want to learn. I want to know more. How can you help with this so that I can take something back home? Thank you.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much for your question. We’ll take the second one and then we’ll quickly have an attempt to answer them.

Audience: Okay, good morning to all and good day everywhere you are. My name is Peter King and I am from Liberia. I represent the Liberia Internet Governance Forum. My question goes to the META lady. Please, I heard you talk about trust partnership program, inclusive stakeholder strategy. My issue goes to the idea, what META as one of the global brand in terms of data as data. The data you have at your disposal, what measure or what not just, because I want to also commend you for program that you’ve sponsored or supported at the Africa School Internet Governance. Beyond that, what program or what project do you have in mind in terms of sustainability that look at the issue of protecting policy for under represented groups and under safe countries? For me, I speak also for the… region in the MROU, that is Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast. We do not see a program that affects your users in terms of data. Because if you look at it, there are so many things that people need to be capacitated towards it. And when you talk about gender-inclusive data future, how is the future protected when a lot of content that make you get the money and from the people who are not even seen by you? That is my issue. Thank you so much.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much for your questions. So we will have an attempt to answer to all of them before we get kicked out of the room. Yeah, we have exactly five minutes to finish the session. Oh, so do you want me to jump in quickly? Yes, please.

Emilar Gandhi: So we have five minutes, and we can always discuss later. So good to hear from you. We have a team that’s responsible for Anglophone speaking countries. And I’ll be happy to introduce you to that team as well. Because I think, yes, local partnerships. And the example that I gave is just one of the many things that we are working on. But as you say, I think it’s so difficult to just say these things in these big forums. But you are not seeing something at the local level. And it will be great, I think, for you to meet with some of our local teams as well. Yeah. There was a question about the implementation of the policies. So one of the participants said he doesn’t think that we lack policies. But we lack the implementation of the. Does any of the panelists would like to take that?

Osei Keja: Yeah, thank you very much. Oftentimes, the importance of data protection frameworks or, say, laws are often misconstrued in some of the policy communication around it. I know for a fact in 2022 or 2023, I stand to be quite right, Nigeria implemented a data protection act, which is very, very paramount, very, very necessary. But the policy communication around it, so the average person is seen as, oh, these data frameworks, it’s not necessary. But Africa has come a long way. So far, more than 30 countries have developed frameworks. And it’s still a work in progress. And data interoperability is quite a big issue. But I think we are also making a significant stride as a continent, Africa. But the issue has to be trust. The issue has to be trust. So we need to build on trust. And most importantly, too, is the policy communication around it. How do people, governments bind their trust? How we can exchange data and all that? But still, I think we are getting somewhere, compared to, say, 10, 5 years ago. Thank you very much.

Christelle Onana: Thank you, Osei, for your answer. Any other view to complement?

Bonnita Nyamwire: To add on what Osei has said, I think the AU is doing a great job on getting different African countries to comply on data protection, on privacy, and all these other issues. And even GIZ is also doing a great job supporting the AU in all these aspects. So like Osei has said, there are baby steps that we are taking. But we have moved. And we are somewhere. And we are continuing to move. Maybe by the end of some 10, 20 years, we’ll be somewhere. And also, African countries are taking into consideration benchmarking and learning from each other. So Rwanda is doing well. Different countries are learning from it, and also the others.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much. Just to reemphasize what you just said, the work is in progress. We are doing baby steps. But eventually, we’ll be there. So indeed, we may not be lacking the policies and the regulation. But even in the way we develop them, we are now including implementation plans, which means that we have the intent to have them implemented, domesticated, and potentially enforced. That’s one. This is the work that we’re doing. We work for a development agency. Our work is to implement the policies that are defined at the union level. So we are making progress. And just to re-say what has been said during the week, we talk about harmonization. It may be an ideal concept. But we are looking into aligning policies regionally, aligning them continentally. So there is a projection to have the system, the technology, all that to communicate. Let’s put it this way. So before we get kicked out of the room, I would like each of my distinguished panelists maybe to say a word to resume our conversation today. One word. We’ll start with Suzanne and Victor online. And then we’ll move back to the room.

Bonnita Nyamwire: Thank you. It’s really difficult to say just one word. But I think that the main word I like is education. I believe education is the key to understanding, to securing, to critically think. And it’s important that we keep raising awareness and educating people about their rights, their duties, and responsibilize them to act soundly. Thank you very much.

Christelle Onana: Thank you very much, Suzanne. Victor?

Victor Asila: Yeah, thank you. So I’ll summarize it in a sentence or two. So we have something we say. One word? We train for the world. So we train. One word? We train for the world. One word. Skills. Thank you.

Christelle Onana: Emina? Collaboration. Thank you. Multi-stakeholder. Thank you. Inclusivity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for today. Thank you to our distinguished panelists. Thank you for taking the time to be with us for the conversation we had on the subject, on the topic. This is also how we raise awareness. We talk about that. We discuss that. We say sometimes things that we have heard a thousand times. But you know, in French we say, la répétition est la mère de la science. So repetition is the mother of the science. I would like as well to thank all my participants on site. Thank you for your attention and for your participation to the conversation. Have a good day. Bye. I would like to invite the room to have a family picture before we get kicked out of the room. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of inclusive data policies and practices

Bonnita Nyamwire

Suzanne El Akabaoui

Emilar Gandhi

Victor Asila

Data should be representative of all genders and intersecting identities

Governments should develop inclusive policies and regulations

Need to ensure inclusivity by design in products and policies

Opportunity to use big data for gender-specific insights

Speakers agreed on the need for inclusive data policies and practices that represent all genders and intersecting identities, from government regulations to product design in tech companies.

Addressing bias in data and algorithms

Bonnita Nyamwire

Victor Asila

Need to identify and address biases in data and algorithms

Need for algorithmic audits to prevent bias

Both speakers emphasized the importance of identifying and addressing biases in data and algorithms, with Victor Asila specifically mentioning algorithmic audits as a method to prevent bias.

Importance of education and capacity building

Bonnita Nyamwire

Suzanne El Akabaoui

Transform data collection processes through capacity building

Need for education and digital literacy initiatives

Both speakers highlighted the need for education and capacity building to improve data collection processes and empower marginalized groups in the digital space.

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers all emphasized the importance of engaging with diverse communities and stakeholders in the development of data policies and initiatives.

Bonnita Nyamwire

Suzanne El Akabaoui

Emilar Gandhi

Involve diverse communities in designing data initiatives

Need for education and digital literacy initiatives

Value of stakeholder engagement and trust-building

Unexpected Consensus

Recognition of progress in African data protection frameworks

Osei Keja

Bonnita Nyamwire

Progress being made but still work to be done on implementation

AU is doing a great job on getting different African countries to comply on data protection

Despite the focus on challenges, there was unexpected consensus on the progress being made in developing data protection frameworks in Africa, with both speakers acknowledging advancements while noting ongoing implementation challenges.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the importance of inclusive data policies, addressing bias in data and algorithms, the need for education and capacity building, and the value of stakeholder engagement.

Consensus level

There was a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the key issues discussed. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in creating gender-inclusive data policies, which could facilitate more coordinated efforts in addressing these issues across different sectors and stakeholders.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to achieving gender-inclusive data

Bonnita Nyamwire

Suzanne El Akabaoui

Transform data collection processes through capacity building

Need for education and digital literacy initiatives

While both speakers emphasize education, Bonnita Nyamwire focuses on transforming data collection processes through capacity building, while Suzanne El Akabaoui emphasizes broader digital literacy initiatives.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were subtle and primarily focused on different approaches to achieving similar goals in gender-inclusive data practices.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers was relatively low. Most speakers shared similar views on the importance of gender-inclusive data and the need for education and awareness. The differences were mainly in the specific strategies and focus areas each speaker emphasized, which could be seen as complementary rather than contradictory approaches.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of including diverse perspectives, but Bonnita Nyamwire focuses on community engagement in data initiatives, while Emilar Gandhi emphasizes hiring practices within tech companies.

Bonnita Nyamwire

Emilar Gandhi

Involve diverse communities in designing data initiatives

Importance of hiring people from underrepresented groups

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers all emphasized the importance of engaging with diverse communities and stakeholders in the development of data policies and initiatives.

Bonnita Nyamwire

Suzanne El Akabaoui

Emilar Gandhi

Involve diverse communities in designing data initiatives

Need for education and digital literacy initiatives

Value of stakeholder engagement and trust-building

Key Takeaways

Gender-inclusive data is crucial and should represent all genders and intersecting identities

There is a need to identify and address biases in data collection, algorithms, and technology design

Governments should develop inclusive policies and regulations while promoting digital literacy

Technology companies have a responsibility to ensure inclusivity by design in their products and policies

Youth involvement in data governance is important but often lacking in policy conception and implementation

Progress is being made on data protection policies in Africa, but implementation remains a challenge

Resolutions and Action Items

Transform data collection processes through capacity building

Involve diverse communities in designing data initiatives

Share good practices on collecting and reporting gender data

Implement privacy-enhancing technologies

Ensure transparency and accountability in data practices

Hire people from underrepresented groups in technology companies

Conduct algorithmic audits to prevent bias

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively implement existing data protection policies

How to improve data interoperability within Africa

How to ensure sustainable programs for underrepresented groups in different African regions

How to measure the impact of community engagement efforts

Suggested Compromises

Balancing the need for data collection with privacy concerns through education and transparency

Collaborating across different stakeholders (government, private sector, civil society, academia) to address data governance challenges

Contextualizing approaches for different regions while working towards continental alignment of policies

A gender-inclusive data is one that is representative of all genders. It also is representative of their intersecting identities. By intersecting identities, I mean like race, ethnicity, their age, educational level, socioeconomic status, geographical location, so that everyone is captured and no one is left behind.

speaker

Bonita Nyamwire

reason

This comment provides a comprehensive definition of gender-inclusive data that goes beyond just gender to include other important demographic factors. It highlights the complexity and intersectionality involved in truly inclusive data.

impact

This set the tone for a more nuanced discussion about what gender-inclusive data really means and the many factors that need to be considered. It broadened the conversation beyond just male/female to consider multiple dimensions of identity.

We need to have a shared vision. So, from the conception stage to the implementation stage, we know where we are going so that the young people may be bought into the idea.

speaker

Osei Keja

reason

This comment emphasizes the importance of including youth from the very beginning of policy development, rather than as an afterthought. It challenges the typical top-down approach.

impact

It shifted the discussion to focus more on how to meaningfully involve youth throughout the entire process of developing and implementing data policies. Other panelists began to discuss more concrete ways to engage young people.

Considering the point that he mentioned to be embarked from the beginning, having the vision as. Yes, yes. So what have we done with the youth? Quite a number of initiatives.

speaker

Emilar Gandhi

reason

This comment directly responds to and builds on the previous point about youth involvement, demonstrating active listening and engagement between panelists.

impact

It moved the conversation from theoretical ideas about youth involvement to concrete examples of initiatives, providing more practical insights. It also modeled how panelists could engage with and build on each other’s points.

I sit here as a man, and I would like to tell all the men here that we are in a position of privilege. In this society we live is deeply patriarchal and we should not be very dismissive in terms of the position we do find ourselves in our offices when these policies are brought to us.

speaker

Osei Keja

reason

This comment brings attention to the role of men in addressing gender inequality, acknowledging privilege and calling for men to be more engaged in gender-inclusive policies. It’s a powerful statement coming from a male panelist.

impact

This shifted the conversation to consider the role and responsibility of those in positions of privilege in creating more inclusive data policies. It added a layer of self-reflection to the discussion.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening the understanding of gender-inclusive data beyond simple gender binaries, emphasizing the importance of youth involvement from conception to implementation of policies, providing concrete examples of initiatives, and highlighting the role of those in positions of privilege. The discussion evolved from theoretical concepts to more practical considerations and self-reflection on the roles different stakeholders play in creating inclusive data policies. The interplay between panelists, building on each other’s points, led to a richer, more nuanced conversation that touched on multiple aspects of the complex issue of gender-inclusive data policies.

How do governments practically work with companies to ensure transparency about their data processes?

speaker

Christelle Onana

explanation

This question addresses the practical implementation of data transparency policies, which is crucial for effective data governance.

How do we track inclusive technologies at the national level?

speaker

Christelle Onana

explanation

Understanding how to measure and monitor the inclusivity of technologies is important for ensuring equitable access and use of data.

What do governments do with research from academia regarding data policies?

speaker

Christelle Onana

explanation

This question explores the connection between academic research and policy implementation, which is vital for evidence-based policymaking.

How often do engagements with communities happen, and how is their impact measured?

speaker

Christelle Onana

explanation

Understanding the frequency and effectiveness of community engagements is crucial for ensuring that data policies are responsive to community needs.

What can the various stakeholders (policymakers, youth, big tech companies, academia, and government) do to ensure that people have a deeper and more concise understanding of data, its importance, and related issues?

speaker

Audience member from The Gambia

explanation

This question addresses the need for widespread data literacy, which is essential for informed public participation in data governance.

Are there mechanisms that can be used to improve the implementation of data policies?

speaker

Chris Odu from Nigeria

explanation

This question focuses on the critical issue of policy implementation, which is often a challenge in many African countries.

How are African countries sharing data among themselves, and how secure is this data sharing?

speaker

Chris Odu from Nigeria

explanation

This question addresses the important issue of data interoperability and security within the African continent.

What programs or projects does Meta have for sustainability that address the issue of protecting policy for underrepresented groups and undersafe countries?

speaker

Peter King from Liberia

explanation

This question explores the role of large tech companies in ensuring data protection for vulnerable populations in developing countries.