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Summary

This Leaders’ Talk focused on ICT applications to unlock the full potential of digital transformation, examining how technology can drive socioeconomic progress across healthcare, education, and climate sectors. The discussion was moderated by Meni Anastasiadou from the International Chamber of Commerce and featured six expert panelists representing various organizations and regions.

Maria Bolshakova from the Regional Commonwealth of Communications outlined preparations for WSIS Plus 20, emphasizing the importance of implementing existing agreements rather than creating new documents and highlighting the need for responsible state behavior in ICT use. Graham Brookie from the Atlantic Council stressed that the multi-stakeholder model remains essential for realizing digital transformation goals, noting that global internet connectivity has improved dramatically since 2003, with unconnected populations dropping from 5.7 billion to 2.6 billion people.

Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of Human Health Network, argued that AI and emerging technologies risk deepening inequalities unless leaders shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking, co-design solutions with underserved communities, and incentivize impact over profit. Professor Himanshu Rai shared concrete examples from IIM Indore’s work addressing rural challenges in India, including training 300,000 teachers through WhatsApp videos and increasing rural artisan incomes by 60% through digital marketplace access.

Bocar Ba from Samina Council emphasized that connectivity is a right, not a reward, advocating for the Universal Broadband Financing Framework and stressing that infrastructure must be paired with governance based on transparency and accountability. Moira de Roche from IFIP highlighted the Stockholm Declaration’s focus on inclusive sustainable development, emphasizing lifelong learning and collaborative global action to avoid duplication of efforts. The discussion concluded with a call for strategic co-creation among all stakeholders to ensure technology serves as a true equalizer for global development.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **WSIS Plus 20 Preparations and Multi-stakeholder Governance**: Discussion of how regional organizations like the Regional Commonwealth of Communications are preparing for the World Summit on the Information Society Plus 20 review, emphasizing the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches and coordinated implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents.

– **AI and Digital Technologies as Equalizers vs. Dividers**: Examination of how emerging technologies, particularly generative AI, can either reduce or deepen global inequities in healthcare, education, and employment, with emphasis on problem-first thinking, co-designing with communities, and incentivizing impact over profit.

– **ICT Applications in Education and Rural Development**: Exploration of how information and communication technologies can address real-world problems, particularly in underserved communities, through examples like training rural teachers via WhatsApp videos and empowering rural artisans through digital marketplaces.

– **Digital Connectivity as a Human Right**: Discussion of the 2.6 billion people still offline globally, framing connectivity not as a privilege but as a fundamental right, and the need for infrastructure development paired with enabling policy environments and governance frameworks.

– **Collaborative Frameworks for Sustainable Development**: Emphasis on the need for strategic co-creation among governments, international organizations, civil society, and businesses to avoid duplication and competition, with focus on shared goals, complementary roles, and long-term engagement.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how ICT applications can unlock the full potential of digital transformation to drive socioeconomic progress across various sectors including healthcare, education, trade, and climate action. The session was part of the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event, seeking to identify strategies for leveraging technology as a catalyst for inclusive development while addressing digital divides and ensuring equitable access to digital opportunities.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented tone throughout. Speakers demonstrated urgency about addressing digital inequities while remaining optimistic about technology’s potential as an equalizer. The tone was forward-looking and action-focused, with participants sharing concrete examples and calling for bold leadership and coordinated efforts. There was a sense of shared responsibility and collective commitment to ensuring digital transformation serves all populations, not just the privileged few.

Speakers

– **Introduction**: Role/Title: Not specified, Area of expertise: Event facilitation/introduction

– **Meni Anastasiadou**: Role/Title: Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce, high-level track facilitator, Area of expertise: Digital policy, event moderation

– **Maria Bolshakova**: Role/Title: Deputy Director General at the Regional Commonwealth of Communications, Area of expertise: Telecommunications, digital policy, international coordination

– **Graham Brookie**: Role/Title: Vice Director Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council Technology Programs, Area of expertise: Technology policy, geopolitics, internet governance

– **Tatyana Kanzaveli**: Role/Title: CEO of the Human Health Network, Area of expertise: AI systems, healthcare technology, digital equity

– **Himanshu Rai**: Role/Title: Professor, Director of IIM Indore, Area of expertise: Higher education, rural development, educational technology

– **Bocar Ba**: Role/Title: CEO and Board Member of Samina Council, Area of expertise: Digital connectivity, broadband policy, digital transformation

– **Moira de Roche**: Role/Title: Chair of IFIP, Area of expertise: Technology development, international collaboration, sustainable development

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Leaders’ Talk: ICT Applications to Unlock the Full Potential of Digital Transformation

## Executive Summary

This Leaders’ Talk, moderated by Meni Anastasiadou from the International Chamber of Commerce, brought together five distinguished experts to examine how information and communication technologies can drive socioeconomic progress. The discussion, held as part of the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event, featured Maria Bolshakova from the Regional Commonwealth in the field of communications, Graham Brookie from the Atlantic Council, Tatyana Kanzaveli from the Human Health Network, Professor Himanshu Rai from IIM Indore, Bocar Ba from Samina Council, and Moira de Roche, Chair of IFIP.

The session focused on practical applications of ICT for development, with speakers sharing concrete examples of successful initiatives and emphasizing the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches to digital transformation.

## Opening Context and Framework

Meni Anastasiadou established the session’s framework by positioning ICT applications as critical tools for unlocking digital transformation’s full potential. She emphasized that the discussion would examine how technology can serve as a powerful lever for shared progress across the globe, highlighting the importance of the multi-stakeholder model in reducing global digital divides while maintaining internet openness and security.

## WSIS Plus 20 Preparations and Regional Perspectives

Maria Bolshakova, Deputy Director General at the Regional Commonwealth in the field of communications, outlined her organization’s preparations for WSIS Plus 20. The RCC serves Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia, and has developed a comprehensive declaration for the event. Notably, this declaration was opened to parties beyond the CIS region, with over 30 parties joining worldwide.

Bolshakova emphasized that the RCC advocates for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents, stating that “the multi-stakeholder approach provides the foundation for an inclusive, safe, and secure digital space.” She highlighted the need for responsible state behavior in ICT use as a basis for global peace and security, and identified the need for increased coordination between New York and Geneva on digital global processes.

## Multi-Stakeholder Governance and Global Connectivity

Graham Brookie from the Atlantic Council’s Technology Programs reinforced the importance of multi-stakeholder governance, arguing that this model remains essential for maintaining a free, open, secure, and interoperable internet. He provided compelling statistics demonstrating the system’s effectiveness: in 2003, 5.7 billion out of 6.4 billion people were not connected to the internet, while today it’s 2.6 billion out of 8.1 billion people.

Brookie emphasized that the multi-stakeholder system must continue to adapt to rapid technological developments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and the commercial space sector, while addressing increasing geopolitical competition.

## AI Development and Equity Concerns

Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of the Human Health Network, challenged current approaches to AI development, arguing that “most current investments in AI are not solving the problem of the majority. They’re scaling convenience for the privileged, not access for underserved.” She advocated for a shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking, emphasizing that AI development must address real needs in healthcare and education.

Kanzaveli provided vivid examples of needed applications: “We don’t need another AI to write responses to our emails faster. We need systems that can reach a mother in a rural village and help her to detect cancer earlier.” She stressed the importance of co-design with communities to avoid building bias into future systems and called for governments to incentivize impact over profit through aligned funding and policy.

## Educational Innovation and Practical Solutions

Professor Himanshu Rai, Director of IIM Indore, shared concrete examples of how educational institutions can leverage ICT for development impact. His institution conducted a survey of 39,000 educators and created 7-minute WhatsApp videos that reached 300,000 teachers, demonstrating the power of simple, scalable solutions.

Rai described several successful initiatives, including how digital technologies helped increase rural artisan incomes by 60% through improved marketplace access. He also mentioned developing a fake news detection system using a large language model with 65,000 inputs that achieved 95% accuracy.

His philosophy centered on the principle that higher education institutions must focus on solving real-world problems. He advocated for systematic inclusion, stating that “every time we do something as institutions of higher education or as not for profit organizations, we need to ask who’s missing from the room and we need to segregate that data by gender, age, disability, region, and identify the gaps.”

## Connectivity as a Human Right

Bocar Ba, CEO and Board Member of Samina Council, reframed digital exclusion as a human rights issue. He powerfully articulated that “2.6 billion people remain offline. And this is not just a technological gap. It’s a dignity gap. It means future delayed, voice unheard, and hope suspended.”

Ba advocated for treating connectivity as a right rather than a reward, referencing the UN Broadband Commission and the Universal Broadband Financing Framework. He emphasized that infrastructure alone is insufficient, stressing that connectivity must be paired with trust-building measures and responsible governance. Ba argued that enabling policy environments with regulatory certainty and harmonized governance are essential for digital transformation.

## Collaborative Frameworks for Sustainable Development

Moira de Roche, Chair of IFIP, concluded the discussion by referencing the Stockholm Declaration, which was written with the Swedish Computer Society in March and focuses on inclusive sustainable development. She advocated for quality education for all with emphasis on digital skills at all life stages, promoting a lifelong learning approach.

De Roche’s key contribution was her reconceptualization of collaboration, arguing that “true collaboration isn’t just about sitting at the table. It’s about designing the table together.” She called for moving from fragmented efforts to collective transformation, emphasizing the need for strategic co-creation among governments, international organizations, civil society, and businesses.

## Key Themes and Shared Priorities

Throughout the discussion, several themes emerged consistently across speakers. The multi-stakeholder approach received strong support from all participants, with speakers viewing it as essential for effective digital governance and development. There was also broad agreement that technology must address real-world problems and serve underserved communities, whether through AI development, educational initiatives, or connectivity programs.

Speakers emphasized the importance of enabling policy environments that facilitate rather than hinder digital transformation, and several highlighted the value of simple, practical solutions that can achieve significant scale and impact.

## Practical Outcomes and Next Steps

The session generated concrete outcomes, including Maria Bolshakova’s formal request that the RCC declaration be included in the WSIS Plus 20 outcome document to be submitted to the UN. The session’s insights were scheduled to be incorporated into the overall summary produced by the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event chair, with a comprehensive high-level track sessions summary planned for Friday at 3 p.m.

## Conclusion

The Leaders’ Talk demonstrated practical approaches to leveraging ICT for inclusive development across healthcare, education, and connectivity. The speakers provided concrete examples of successful initiatives while emphasizing the continued importance of multi-stakeholder governance and community-centered design. As Professor Rai concluded, “the future must belong to all of us,” reflecting the session’s shared commitment to ensuring digital transformation serves all populations rather than deepening existing inequalities.

The discussion highlighted both the progress made in global connectivity and the significant challenges that remain, particularly in serving the 2.6 billion people who remain offline. The path forward requires continued collaboration among all stakeholders to implement existing frameworks while adapting to emerging technological and social challenges.

Introduction: Now, we would like to welcome you to our next Leaders’ Talks, ICT application to unlock the full potential of digital. I would like to invite Ms. Meni Anastasiadou, our high-level track facilitator, to join us here on stage.

Meni Anastasiadou: Okay, I think this is on. Well, hello, everyone, my name is Meni Anastasiadou, I’m the Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce, and I have the pleasure to moderate the seventh Leaders’ Talk today on ICT application to unlock the full potential of digital. So, we have an incredible panel with us today, so we will be just giving some introductions and invite our speakers to join me on stage. We have Ms. Maria Bolshikova, the Deputy Director General at the Regional Commonwealth of Communications, Mr. Graham Berkey, the Vice Director Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council Technology Programs, Ms. Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of the Human Health Network, Prof. Himanshu Rai, the Director of IIM Indore, Mr. Boko Ra, the CEO and Board Member of Samina Council, and Ms. Moira de Vachelle, the Chair of IFIP. So, I would like to welcome you to the stage, and then we can begin our conversations. We will be looking into the intersection of technology and socioeconomic progress across various topics, ranging from healthcare to education and climate, as well as the role of the multi-stakeholder governance model, supporting ICTs for development. So, thank you to the speakers for joining me on stage. So, perhaps if we can start with our first question, just to remind everyone that our time today is a little bit limited, so if you could kindly keep your interventions to three minutes, and then we can ensure that everyone has the chance to come in and speak. I see all of our speakers have joined us on stage, so perhaps, Maria, if I can go to you. How are preparations for the WSIS-Bosch training being carried out at the Commonwealth of the United States or the regional level as well, and what is the role of the RCC in these preparations?

Maria Bolshakova: Many thanks for giving me the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, very happy to be here, and maybe a bit nervous to be the first one in a row, since we have a pretty wide issue to discuss throughout our very short panel. But to start with, for sure, I think like in every of the regions, it’s a very important issue now, this year, on how we prepared for WSIS Plus 20. And to start, and to briefly give a picture for you, the regional Commonwealth in the field of communications, its interstate coordinating body in the field of telecom and informatization, and we serve as a platform for discussing priority tasks and making common decisions at the national levels, in international arena, and we also officially bring the common position of Commonwealth of Independent States towards the ITU and UPU. We not only unite digital ministries of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as Mongolia, we also provide a very good and fruitful platform for cooperation among telecom operators, representatives of research organizations, institutions, and other different parties concerned on the international issues related to telecom. So, in November, we started, you know, like basic preparations toward the WSIS, and which resulted in the RCC declaration on WSIS Plus 20. Generally, the declaration provides the assessment of the efforts done, set out by each of the WSIS action lines shown in Geneva action plan, and also it assumes the key provision of Tunis agenda, which are not settled yet, and also we’ve tried to provide some directions on our further activities on the matter. Very generally, the declaration sells its reiterated commitment to something we agreed upon at both phases of the WSIS. It also kind of advocates against the practice of adopting new and new pretty similar documents, and calls for focusing on implementation of already agreed documents, noting that there is a great necessity to increase the level of coordination of efforts between New York and Geneva on the issues related to the digital global processes. What also we believe is really important, it’s also one of the key elements of our declaration, is that the states should be very responsible in their behavior, you know, like in the use of ICTs as far as we believe that it’s the basis for peace and security on the global level, and also understand on that matter that the multi-stakeholder approach is also the basis and the foundation for inclusive, safe, and secure digital space. And I should say that the document was agreed upon by the digital ministers, as I mentioned before, and then it was opened for all the parties concerned, and we’re happy to say that there are more than 30 parties joined, not from the CIS region, but also all over the world, and I should say that it’s still open to be joined. And to conclude this, I should say that I think it would be done for the moderator, we would like to kindly request the chair of the WSIS plus 20 high-level event to include our declaration in the outcome document of the WSIS plus 20 high-level event that would be, we believe, submitted to UNJ this year. So many thanks, Madam Moderator, for giving me the floor.

Meni Anastasiadou: Thank you so much for your very useful input, particularly on the importance of, you know, making use of what we already have, and the importance of coordination when we’re talking about the WSIS plus 20 review. So then, with that, perhaps, Graham, if I can turn to you. So how has the multi-stakeholder model enabled the really unlocking the full, let’s say, potential of digital transformation? We’d love to hear from you, your thoughts on this.

Graham Brookie: Yeah, thank you. I think it’s important to take a step back, because we get so far into the granularities of our processes that drive real progress, but when you look at the history of this, in 2003, we came together as WSIS and declared our action lines here in Geneva. And then in 2005, because we hadn’t figured out some of the granularities on internet governance, we came back and we made some more action items. And 20 years on, even with the rapid rate of technological change, those action lines remain vague enough to be flexible, but also vague enough to be relevant today, even with all of that change that’s happened since then. This may be obvious, but with the rate of technological change fastening or increasing, it remains wildly essential for WSIS to continue to exist as a primary mechanism for how we understand the technology and the implications of technology in the development and SDGs in particular. So, as an example for a metric of that, in 2003, one in three people around the world were not connected to the internet. At that point, the population was 6.4 billion people. There were 5.7 billion people that were not connected or realizing the opportunity of all these ICT applications. Fast forward to today, that number is down. There are still enormous amounts of progress that need to be made, but that number is down to 2.6 billion people with a global population of 8.1 billion people. So that’s one in three. And that is a remarkable achievement of, number one, innovation, and number two, We are all in a capacity building. We’re providing policy engagement to realize these goals. And the main mechanism by which we do that is through this multi-stakeholder system. Harnessing all of the opportunity for ICT applications is not possible without this. Yes, very unwieldy, sometimes very frustrating set of processes. But it’s not possible to achieve these great results without that. And in this moment, because I sit at a think tank, we analyze the geopolitics of this. And we’re seeing increased geopolitical competition, increased interdependence, especially in the ICT realm, ranging from the hardware and critical resources needed to underpin this ecosystem to the platform level itself. And we’re seeing this rate of rapid technological change increase. In the next few years, we’re going to see wild developments in AI, wild developments in quantum computing, wild developments in the commercial space sector. And if we do not, well, and I should say the industry is for energy and critical resources that underpin all three of those rates of technological change. And if we don’t harness the multi-stakeholder system to meet that moment, then things like the digital divide or the opportunity landscape that is provided by that innovation won’t fully be realized. And so we’re fully committed to this multi-stakeholder system. It’s the only mechanism by which we can keep a free, open, secure, interoperable Internet. And we’re looking forward to doing the work.

Meni Anastasiadou: Excellent contribution. And it’s precisely the numbers speak for themselves. The multi-stakeholder model is the vehicle to reach the ICTs for development vision. So if I can move to our next speaker on my right, Ms. Tatiana Canzavelli. So could I please ask you, in a world of increasingly shaped, which is increasingly shaped by AI and digital tools, how can we ensure that investments in emerging technologies like generative AI actually reduce and not deepen global inequities in health care, education and employment? And what bold steps must leaders take today to make tech a true equalizer?

Tatyana Kanzaveli: Thank you for your question. We are at the inflection point. Technology, especially generative AI, has huge potential to be a great equalizer or the ultimate divider. And the choice is ours. I’ve spent my career building AI systems. AI is not new, by the way. And across health care, government and underserved communities. And here’s the brutal truth. Most current investments in AI are not solving the problem of the majority. They’re scaling convenience for the privileged, not access for underserved. If we want AI to reduce global inequities, we must do three things. Number one, shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking. We don’t need another AI to write responses to our emails faster. We need systems that can reach a mother in a rural village and help her to detect cancer earlier. We need a tool that will enable a child in a war-torn zone to get education. Number two, we need to co-design with the communities we claim to serve. Inclusivity isn’t a panel topic. It’s a product requirement. If we’re not building with diverse voices at the table, we’re putting bias into the future. Number three, incentivize impact, not just profit. Governments and multilaterals must align funding and policy around outcomes that prioritize health equity, climate resilience, and workforce inclusion. The future isn’t about AI replacing humans. It’s about AI amplifying the right ones. And that means investing in bold, inclusive systems designed not just to scale, but to heal, uplift, and connect. Let’s stop admiring the problem. Let’s build the future we actually want. Thank you.

Meni Anastasiadou: Thank you very much. I particularly like your point on the importance of co-designing solutions that are relevant to local communities. So, thank you very much for your contribution. So, I will turn to my left again, over to Professor Himanshu Rai. So, how does ICT contribute to higher education and how can it be used to create social impact?

Himanshu Rai: So, thank you for the question. You know, I’ll foreground it in a little bit of a fact about what is the mission of education institutions, particularly higher education. In the 20th century and early 21st century, the mission statement, if you look at the universities and the best universities across the world, they talked about creating and disseminating knowledge to create some kind of an acumen. But then the first decade of the 21st century was a decade of reckoning. We first had the Enron scam in 2001, and then we had the U.S. subprime crisis. And suddenly we realized that there was a focus on flawed leadership, greed, and inequity. And thereafter, the institutions of higher education and the universities across the world have actually changed their mission statement. And one of the big changes that has happened, and I’ll talk about it in general, is that now we are talking about creating, curating, practicing and disseminating knowledge to solve real world problems. And I think that is where the role of educational institutions, particularly higher education, has changed. I’ll give you a quick example. We at IIM Indore identified five wicked problems. I’m going to focus only on one, and that were rural challenges. Why rural challenges? Nine hundred million people in India live in rural areas. That’s more than the population of the United States and Europe combined. And the kind of challenges that they face are completely different from the kind of challenges people in urban areas face. So one, for example, educators in the villagers, they are untrained. So what we did was we actually did a research survey of thirty nine thousand educators. And then based on our survey, we identified as to what do they need training on? I’m talking about basic primary school teachers. And subsequently, what we did was we created seven minute WhatsApp videos. And through them, we reached three hundred thousand school teachers who subsequently got empowered. So what we are talking about is very low tech, high impact initiative that actually worked. The second one that I’ll talk about is rural artisans. Much to our horror, we realized that 70 percent of the rural artisans in most parts of India earned less than a thousand dollars per year. And the reason was that there was information asymmetry between what they were producing and between the middlemen who were actually selling it at a much higher price. So therefore, what we did was we democratized the entire information. We worked with them on a concept called one district, one product. We helped them in getting access to the e-marketplace. And through that, we made sure that they had all the information that the middlemen had and they reached directly. And within six months of this initiative, we managed to raise their income by 60 percent. The third one was about fake news, which impacted rural areas much more than the urban areas. And again, we actually created an LLM using sixty five thousand inputs. And we have made a model which can predict fake news with almost 95 percent accuracy. Now, all of this is actually making sure that we are taking care of the people who are otherwise unaddressed. So I’ll end with, you know, every time we do something as institutions of higher education or as, you know, not for profit organizations, we need to ask who’s missing from the room and we need to segregate that data. data by gender, age, disability, region, and identify the gaps. Because one of the statements that I would like to close with is that the future must belong to all of us. Otherwise, it will serve none of us. Thank you.

Meni Anastasiadou: Many thanks, Professor. And again, the numbers are really impressive, your efforts and how you really reached 100,000 teachers with your low-technology but high-impact efforts. So, I will stay on my left, and I will go to our next speaker, Mr. Bocar Ba, who is the CEO Board Member of City Council. So, if I could ask you, how can digital technologies lift trade, extend healthcare, create decent work, and improve the state of the planet? So, please take the floor.

Bocar Ba: Distinguished Delegates and esteemed partners and colleagues, we are meeting today not merely to exchange reflection, but to affirm a shared obligation, which is to ensure the digital transformation of our world becomes the great equalizer of our time, not its great divide. And today, we stand before a simple question that is elegantly simple, yet undeniably powerful in its implication. How can digital technology thoughtfully deployed and inclusively designed unlock the full spectrum of human potential, hence advancing prosperity, dignity, and sustainability for all? And the answer begins with a connection. The digital handshake that enables inclusion, opportunity, and resilience. And as we speak, 2.6 billion people remain offline. And this is not just a technological gap. It’s a dignity gap. It means future delayed, voice unheard, and hope suspended. At Samina Council, we have a clear conviction. Connectivity is a right, not a reward. And in championing this across our region, we have built coalitions that blend capital with conscience and strategy with service. And with the UN Broadband Commission, we have co-architected the Universal Broadband Financing Framework, which is a blueprint for collective accountability, where the benefits of the digital economy are matched by shared responsibility to build and sustain its infrastructure. Yet, I’ll be unequivocal. Infrastructure alone is not enough. We must pair fiber with foresight, bandwidth with trust. And as artificial intelligence, as we know, and digital ecosystem expand, governance must lead with moral clarity, and we must insist on transparency, fairness, accountability. Not as optional virtues, but as nonnegotiable principles. The AI for good has lightened this conversation, and it’s on us as leaders to act with purpose and precision. And to fully unlock your question, digital potential, we must channel its forces toward inclusion. We must leverage digital solutions to deliver healthcare to the remotest villages, education beyond the confines of classroom, financial access to the previously unbanked, and green innovation, of course, to planet sustainability. But no mistake, there is no ambition can be materialized without enabling policies environment. And the investment needed to scale digital transformation requires regulatory certainty, harmonized governance, and for the private sector incentive that can reward risk and innovation. So, let us make policy a bridge to opportunity, not an impediment to progress. Colleagues, I will end with that. The true promise and your question of ICT is not in the technology itself, but in the lives it transforms when every woman, man, and child is equipped, not just to connect, but to compete, contribute, and even to lead. Let us remember today that digital transformation is not a destination, it’s a shared responsibility among us, a collective project that demands courage from the government, foresight from the industry, and clear engagement from every single development partner. If we succeed, the next time we will gather here, we will no longer speak of gaps, we will speak of generation uplifted, system reimagined, and why not nations in power. So, I will end with a reflection. Let us not just connect the world, let us elevate it, and let’s not just focus on how fast do we connect the network, but how do we improve the life of people. Thank you.

Meni Anastasiadou: Thank you so much. And I really support what you said earlier about the importance of enabling policy environments. It’s really the baseline to enable ICTs for development. And thank you for pointing that out as well. So, I will go to our last speaker, Ms. Ms. Meni Anastasiadou. So, last but not least, of course. So, what is in your role as chair of IFIP? What’s your role in supporting how emerging and innovative technologies can accelerate the development of economies and societies? How does the scientific and professional community research develop the use of technology as a catalyst? And how can all stakeholders collaborate meaningfully to improve socioeconomic conditions, working together rather than in competition or repeating the work which is already being done? So, over to you. Thank you. IFIP aligns with the

Moira de Roche: exploration of technology as a driver for socioeconomic progress across various sectors. True collaboration isn’t just about sitting at the table. It’s about designing the table together. When each sector respects the other’s strengths and commits to shared outcomes, we move from fragmented efforts to collective transformation. In March of this year, IFIP and the Swedish Computer Society wrote the Stockholm Declaration, which is all about inclusive sustainable development. The initiatives outlined resonate directly with areas of socioeconomic transformation. I want to say one of the earlier speakers was talking about rich and poor, and that’s absolutely correct. But really, it’s all about using technology to promote our economies. We need quality education for all, as we say in SDG 4, with an emphasis on digital skills at all life stages to reduce skills gap and giving more opportunity for employability. Lifelong learning is what it’s all about. We need collaborative global action with international collaboration to shape policies that are equitable and forward looking. Institutions like IFIP aim to go beyond the SDGs, advocating a post 2030 vision built on inclusive, secure and sustainable tech ecosystems. The big picture, as outlined in the Stockholm Declaration, reinforces how strategically implemented technologies, coupled with inclusive policy making and skill building, can unlock more resilient economies, broader social participation and environmental innovation. It’s a vivid reminder that tech isn’t just about tools and wires. It’s a powerful lever for shared progress across the globe. To collaborate meaningfully and avoiding duplication of competition, governments, international organizations, civil society and businesses must shift from siloed efforts to strategic co-creation. We must establish shared goals, vision, we must find complementary roles, we must build collaborative infrastructure where we build trust and a long-term engagement, and we must learn from what works. Study successful models like the First Movers Coalition, UND’s umbrella program in Saudi Arabia, the Coalition for Reform by the World Bank, and we must promote peer learning and cross-sector membership to scale proven approaches. Thank you.

Meni Anastasiadou: Many thanks, and I know that we are a little bit beyond our time here, but I would just like to take a moment to thank the speakers for their incredible points, and we’ll make sure to reflect those in the summary of the session that will then feed into the actual summary that will be produced by the chair of the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event. Please make sure to stick around until Friday. There will be a summary of the high-level event, and we’ll be back on Friday with a summary of the high-level track sessions at 3 p.m. So, once more, a huge thanks to all of our speakers and grateful for the audience for their participation. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder approach is fundamental for digital governance and development

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Graham Brookie
– Meni Anastasiadou
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder approach provides foundation for inclusive, safe, and secure digital space

Multi-stakeholder model is essential for maintaining free, open, secure, interoperable Internet amid geopolitical competition

Multi-stakeholder model is the vehicle to reach ICTs for development vision

True collaboration requires designing solutions together with shared outcomes rather than fragmented efforts

Summary

All speakers strongly endorsed the multi-stakeholder model as the essential mechanism for effective digital governance, development, and maintaining an open internet, emphasizing collaboration over fragmented efforts

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Technology must address real-world problems and serve underserved communities

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Himanshu Rai
– Bocar Ba
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

AI development must shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking, addressing real needs like rural healthcare and education

Higher education institutions must focus on solving real-world problems rather than just creating knowledge

Digital solutions must deliver healthcare to remote villages, education beyond classrooms, and financial access to unbanked populations

Technology should be used as a powerful lever for shared progress across the globe

Summary

Speakers agreed that technology development should prioritize solving real-world problems, particularly for underserved communities, rather than focusing on technological capabilities alone

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Policy frameworks must enable rather than hinder digital transformation

Speakers

– Bocar Ba
– Moira de Roche
– Meni Anastasiadou

Arguments

Enabling policy environments with regulatory certainty and harmonized governance are essential for digital transformation

Policy must serve as bridge to opportunity rather than impediment to progress

International collaboration needed to shape equitable and forward-looking policies

Enabling policy environments are baseline requirement for ICTs for development

Summary

There was strong consensus that policy frameworks should facilitate digital transformation by providing regulatory certainty and serving as enablers rather than barriers to progress

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Community involvement and inclusive design are essential for effective technology implementation

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Meni Anastasiadou
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

Co-design with communities is essential to avoid building bias into future systems

Co-designing solutions with local communities is crucial for relevant technology implementation

True collaboration requires designing solutions together with shared outcomes rather than fragmented efforts

Summary

Speakers emphasized that meaningful community involvement and co-design approaches are crucial for creating relevant, unbiased, and effective technology solutions

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sociocultural

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers referenced the same statistic of 2.6 billion people remaining offline, but framed it differently – Brookie as progress made, Ba as a dignity gap requiring urgent attention

Speakers

– Graham Brookie
– Bocar Ba

Arguments

Internet connectivity improved from 5.7 billion unconnected in 2003 to 2.6 billion today, demonstrating multi-stakeholder system effectiveness

2.6 billion people remaining offline represents a dignity gap with delayed futures and unheard voices

Topics

Development | Human rights | Infrastructure

Both speakers advocated for simple, practical technology solutions that address real needs of underserved populations rather than sophisticated solutions for the privileged

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Himanshu Rai

Arguments

Current AI investments scale convenience for privileged rather than solving problems for the majority

Low-tech, high-impact solutions like WhatsApp videos can reach 300,000 teachers effectively

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers emphasized the importance of building on existing frameworks and international collaboration rather than creating entirely new structures

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

RCC developed declaration on WSIS Plus 20 advocating for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents

International collaboration needed to shape equitable and forward-looking policies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected consensus

Simple technology solutions can be more effective than sophisticated ones

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Himanshu Rai
– Meni Anastasiadou

Arguments

AI development must shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking, addressing real needs like rural healthcare and education

Low-tech, high-impact solutions like WhatsApp videos can reach 300,000 teachers effectively

Low-technology, high-impact initiatives demonstrate effective resource utilization in development

Explanation

Unexpectedly, speakers from both AI/tech industry and academic backgrounds agreed that simple, low-tech solutions often outperform sophisticated technology in addressing development challenges, challenging the assumption that more advanced technology is always better

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Focus on implementation over innovation in policy frameworks

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Bocar Ba
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

RCC developed declaration on WSIS Plus 20 advocating for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents

Policy must serve as bridge to opportunity rather than impediment to progress

True collaboration requires designing solutions together with shared outcomes rather than fragmented efforts

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus across different regional and organizational perspectives that the focus should be on implementing existing frameworks rather than creating new ones, suggesting maturity in the digital governance discourse

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkably high consensus across key areas: the centrality of multi-stakeholder governance, the need for technology to serve underserved communities, the importance of enabling policy environments, and the value of community-centered design approaches

Consensus level

Very high consensus with complementary rather than conflicting perspectives. This strong alignment suggests the digital development community has reached maturity in understanding fundamental principles, which bodes well for coordinated action on WSIS Plus 20 and future digital governance initiatives. The consensus spans across different sectors (government, academia, private sector, civil society) and regions, indicating broad-based agreement on core principles for digital transformation.

Different viewpoints

Approach to WSIS Plus 20 – Implementation vs. Innovation

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Graham Brookie

Arguments

RCC developed declaration on WSIS Plus 20 advocating for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents

Multi-stakeholder model is essential for maintaining free, open, secure, interoperable Internet amid geopolitical competition

Summary

Maria Bolshakova advocates against creating new documents and focuses on implementing existing WSIS agreements, while Graham Brookie emphasizes the need for the multi-stakeholder system to adapt to rapid technological changes including AI, quantum computing, and commercial space developments

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Technology complexity for development solutions

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Himanshu Rai

Arguments

AI development must shift from tech-first to problem-first thinking, addressing real needs like rural healthcare and education

Low-tech, high-impact solutions like WhatsApp videos can reach 300,000 teachers effectively

Summary

Kanzaveli focuses on leveraging advanced AI technologies for problem-solving in underserved communities, while Rai demonstrates that simple, low-tech solutions can be more effective for reaching large populations

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Unexpected differences

Role of existing frameworks versus adaptation to new challenges

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Graham Brookie

Arguments

RCC developed declaration on WSIS Plus 20 advocating for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents

Multi-stakeholder model is essential for maintaining free, open, secure, interoperable Internet amid geopolitical competition

Explanation

Unexpected because both speakers support multi-stakeholder governance, but Bolshakova advocates for focusing on existing WSIS frameworks while Brookie emphasizes the need to adapt these frameworks to address emerging technological and geopolitical challenges

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus on core principles (multi-stakeholder governance, serving underserved communities, technology for development) with disagreements primarily on implementation approaches and priorities

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Speakers largely agreed on fundamental goals but differed on methods – whether to focus on implementing existing frameworks or adapting to new challenges, and whether to use high-tech AI solutions or low-tech approaches for development. These disagreements reflect healthy debate on practical implementation rather than fundamental philosophical differences, suggesting strong potential for collaborative solutions.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers referenced the same statistic of 2.6 billion people remaining offline, but framed it differently – Brookie as progress made, Ba as a dignity gap requiring urgent attention

Speakers

– Graham Brookie
– Bocar Ba

Arguments

Internet connectivity improved from 5.7 billion unconnected in 2003 to 2.6 billion today, demonstrating multi-stakeholder system effectiveness

2.6 billion people remaining offline represents a dignity gap with delayed futures and unheard voices

Topics

Development | Human rights | Infrastructure

Both speakers advocated for simple, practical technology solutions that address real needs of underserved populations rather than sophisticated solutions for the privileged

Speakers

– Tatyana Kanzaveli
– Himanshu Rai

Arguments

Current AI investments scale convenience for privileged rather than solving problems for the majority

Low-tech, high-impact solutions like WhatsApp videos can reach 300,000 teachers effectively

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers emphasized the importance of building on existing frameworks and international collaboration rather than creating entirely new structures

Speakers

– Maria Bolshakova
– Moira de Roche

Arguments

RCC developed declaration on WSIS Plus 20 advocating for implementation of existing agreements rather than creating new documents

International collaboration needed to shape equitable and forward-looking policies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Key takeaways

The multi-stakeholder model has proven effective in reducing global digital divide from 5.7 billion unconnected people in 2003 to 2.6 billion today, demonstrating its value as the primary mechanism for ICT development

Digital transformation must prioritize problem-first thinking over tech-first approaches, focusing on solving real-world challenges for underserved communities rather than scaling convenience for the privileged

Connectivity should be treated as a fundamental right requiring collective accountability, with infrastructure development paired with trust-building and responsible governance

AI and emerging technologies can either serve as great equalizers or ultimate dividers depending on how they are designed and implemented, with co-design involving affected communities being essential

Educational institutions must shift from knowledge creation to solving real-world problems, with low-tech, high-impact solutions often proving more effective than complex technologies

Enabling policy environments with regulatory certainty and harmonized governance are fundamental prerequisites for successful digital transformation

True collaboration requires designing solutions together with shared outcomes rather than working in silos or duplicating efforts across sectors

Resolutions and action items

RCC requested the chair of WSIS Plus 20 high-level event to include their declaration in the outcome document to be submitted to the UN

Session summary to be reflected in the overall summary produced by the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event chair

High-level track sessions summary scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m.

Participants encouraged to study successful collaborative models like the First Movers Coalition and World Bank’s Coalition for Reform

Emphasis on implementing existing WSIS agreements rather than creating new similar documents

Unresolved issues

Specific mechanisms for ensuring AI development prioritizes equity over profit remain undefined

Concrete steps for achieving the Universal Broadband Financing Framework implementation were not detailed

How to effectively coordinate efforts between New York and Geneva on digital global processes lacks clear resolution

Specific funding mechanisms and policy alignment strategies for incentivizing impact over profit in AI development need further elaboration

Methods for scaling successful low-tech, high-impact solutions globally were not fully addressed

Detailed frameworks for meaningful multi-stakeholder collaboration beyond general principles remain to be developed

Suggested compromises

Focus on implementing existing WSIS agreements rather than adopting new similar documents to avoid duplication while maintaining progress

Balance between technological innovation and responsible governance by pairing infrastructure development with trust-building measures

Shift from competitive to collaborative approaches across sectors while respecting each sector’s unique strengths and contributions

Combine private sector innovation incentives with public sector accountability measures to ensure both profit and impact considerations

Integrate both high-tech solutions and low-tech, high-impact approaches based on local context and community needs

Most current investments in AI are not solving the problem of the majority. They’re scaling convenience for the privileged, not access for underserved.

Speaker

Tatyana Kanzaveli

Reason

This comment cuts through typical AI optimism to expose a fundamental inequality in how emerging technologies are being developed and deployed. It reframes the entire AI discussion from technical capabilities to social justice and equity concerns.

Impact

This shifted the conversation from abstract discussions about AI potential to concrete critiques of current investment patterns. It established a more critical tone that influenced subsequent speakers to focus more explicitly on inclusion and equity rather than just technological advancement.

We don’t need another AI to write responses to our emails faster. We need systems that can reach a mother in a rural village and help her to detect cancer earlier. We need a tool that will enable a child in a war-torn zone to get education.

Speaker

Tatyana Kanzaveli

Reason

This provides vivid, human-centered examples that contrast sharply with typical tech industry priorities. It challenges the audience to think about technology’s purpose and who it should serve first.

Impact

This comment provided concrete imagery that grounded the abstract discussion in real human needs. It influenced the subsequent speakers to provide more specific examples of technology serving underserved populations, as seen in Professor Rai’s rural education examples.

Every time we do something as institutions of higher education or as not for profit organizations, we need to ask who’s missing from the room and we need to segregate that data by gender, age, disability, region, and identify the gaps.

Speaker

Himanshu Rai

Reason

This offers a practical methodology for ensuring inclusion that goes beyond rhetoric. It provides actionable steps for identifying and addressing digital divides systematically.

Impact

This comment introduced a concrete framework for inclusive development that other speakers could reference. It elevated the discussion from identifying problems to providing systematic solutions for ensuring no one is left behind.

2.6 billion people remain offline. And this is not just a technological gap. It’s a dignity gap. It means future delayed, voice unheard, and hope suspended.

Speaker

Bocar Ba

Reason

This reframes digital exclusion from a technical problem to a human rights and dignity issue. The poetic language (‘future delayed, voice unheard, hope suspended’) transforms statistics into emotional reality.

Impact

This comment elevated the moral urgency of the discussion and provided a human rights framework that influenced the final speaker to emphasize collaborative action and shared responsibility rather than just technical solutions.

True collaboration isn’t just about sitting at the table. It’s about designing the table together.

Speaker

Moira de Roche

Reason

This metaphor challenges conventional notions of stakeholder participation by suggesting that meaningful collaboration requires shared power in setting agendas and frameworks, not just participation in predetermined discussions.

Impact

As the final substantive comment, this provided a synthesis that tied together earlier themes about inclusion and co-design, offering a philosophical framework for how the multi-stakeholder model should evolve beyond traditional consultation approaches.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shifted the discussion from a technical focus on digital transformation to a human-centered examination of equity, inclusion, and power dynamics in technology development. Kanzaveli’s critique of AI investment priorities established a critical tone that influenced subsequent speakers to provide concrete examples of serving underserved populations rather than celebrating technological achievements. The progression from identifying problems (digital divides) to providing frameworks (Rai’s systematic inclusion methodology) to reframing the moral imperative (Ba’s dignity gap concept) created a coherent narrative arc. The final comment about ‘designing the table together’ provided a synthesis that elevated the entire discussion to questions of power, participation, and genuine collaboration. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a routine technology policy discussion into a more profound examination of how digital transformation can serve social justice and human dignity.

How to increase the level of coordination of efforts between New York and Geneva on issues related to digital global processes

Speaker

Maria Bolshakova

Explanation

This was identified as a key necessity in the RCC declaration, suggesting current coordination mechanisms are insufficient for effective global digital governance

How to ensure the RCC declaration is included in the outcome document of the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event

Speaker

Maria Bolshakova

Explanation

This was presented as a formal request to the chair, indicating a need for procedural clarity on how regional declarations can be incorporated into global outcomes

How to effectively harness the multi-stakeholder system to meet rapid technological developments in AI, quantum computing, and commercial space sector

Speaker

Graham Brookie

Explanation

With accelerating technological change, there’s uncertainty about whether current multi-stakeholder mechanisms can adequately address emerging challenges

How to shift AI investments from scaling convenience for the privileged to providing access for underserved communities

Speaker

Tatyana Kanzaveli

Explanation

Current AI investment patterns are not addressing global inequities, requiring research into new funding and development models

How to systematically identify and address gaps by segregating data by gender, age, disability, and region in development initiatives

Speaker

Himanshu Rai

Explanation

This methodology was suggested as essential for ensuring inclusive development but requires further research on implementation frameworks

How to create regulatory certainty and harmonized governance frameworks that reward innovation while ensuring accountability

Speaker

Bocar Ba

Explanation

The need for enabling policy environments was emphasized, but specific mechanisms for achieving regulatory harmony across jurisdictions require further exploration

How to move from fragmented efforts to collective transformation in multi-stakeholder collaboration

Speaker

Moira de Roche

Explanation

While successful models were mentioned, there’s a need for deeper research into scalable frameworks for avoiding duplication and competition among stakeholders

How to develop a post-2030 vision for inclusive, secure and sustainable tech ecosystems

Speaker

Moira de Roche

Explanation

IFIP’s Stockholm Declaration advocates going beyond current SDGs, requiring research into what frameworks and goals should guide technology development after 2030

Summary

This UNESCO session focused on integrating ethics into the development and deployment of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, and quantum computing. Dafna Feinholz, UNESCO’s acting director of Research, Ethics and Inclusion, emphasized that ethics should be foundational rather than an afterthought in technological development, highlighting UNESCO’s role in promoting innovation while protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The panelists shared diverse perspectives on implementing ethical frameworks across different sectors. Mira Wolf-Bauwens, a philosopher working in tech ethics, argued that while individual developers often have good intentions, institutional and economic pressures frequently override ethical considerations. She stressed the need to find ways to create a return on investment for ethical practices and advocated for anticipatory governance that considers potential negative outcomes early in development processes.

Ryota Kanai, a neuroscientist and entrepreneur, discussed the challenges of maintaining public trust in emerging technologies while balancing commercial pressures. He emphasized the importance of scientific validation and transparent communication about technological capabilities, particularly in neurotechnology where personal data extraction raises significant privacy concerns.

Chaichana Mitrpant from Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency shared practical implementation experiences, describing how Thailand adapted UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations to local contexts through multi-stakeholder engagement, working with regulators, and creating governance frameworks for different sectors. The discussion revealed that effective ethics implementation requires collaboration across government, private sector, and civil society, with governance models that can adapt to rapid technological change while maintaining core ethical principles. The panelists agreed that ethics differs from regulation by being broader, more anticipatory, and focused on motivations rather than just compliance requirements.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Ethics as foundational rather than an afterthought**: The panelists emphasized that ethics should be embedded from the very beginning of technology development, not added later. UNESCO’s approach advocates for ethics throughout the entire lifecycle of technology development, with all stakeholders involved at each stage.

– **Challenges of implementing ethics in commercial environments**: Multiple speakers highlighted the tension between good intentions at the individual level and institutional/economic pressures. The discussion revealed how profit motives and corporate dynamics can override ethical principles, even when developers have genuine ethical motivations.

– **Governance frameworks and keeping pace with rapid technological development**: The conversation explored how governance can remain relevant amid fast-evolving technologies like AI, neurotechnology, and quantum computing. Speakers discussed the need for anticipatory approaches and whether universal ethical principles can be applied across different technologies with specific customizations.

– **Multi-stakeholder collaboration and localized implementation**: The Thailand case study demonstrated the importance of working with various stakeholders (regulators, private sector, SMEs, citizens) and adapting international ethical frameworks to local contexts while maintaining core principles – described as “localized, customized, but not compromised.”

– **Distinction between ethics and regulation**: The panel addressed fundamental differences between ethical principles and legal frameworks, with ethics being broader, more agile, and focused on motivations and ideals, while laws provide specific, enforceable implementations of ethical concepts.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine how ethics can be effectively integrated into emerging and converging technologies (AI, neurotechnology, quantum computing) from the development stage onward. The session sought to advocate for embedding ethics throughout the technology lifecycle and explore practical implementation strategies, drawing from UNESCO’s experience with non-binding ethical frameworks and real-world case studies.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with speakers building upon each other’s insights rather than debating opposing viewpoints. The atmosphere was academic yet practical, with participants sharing genuine challenges and uncertainties they face in their work. There was a sense of shared commitment to ethical technology development, though speakers were candid about the difficulties of implementation, particularly regarding economic pressures and institutional constraints. The tone remained consistently engaged and solution-oriented, with speakers offering concrete examples and practical approaches to complex ethical challenges.

Speakers

– **Dafna Feinholz** – Acting Director of the Division of Research, Ethics and Inclusion at UNESCO; in charge of ethics of science and technology and bioethics at UNESCO for 16 years; led the process of elaboration of the recommendation of ethics of artificial intelligence

– **Mira Wolf-Bauwens** – Head of Initiatives Development, Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator in Jesta and Open Quantum Institute; philosopher by background who works on applying philosophy in tech; worked on digital ethics, quantum and blockchain; formerly worked at IBM Quantum

– **Ryota Kanai** – Founder and CEO of Araya; neuroscience background, former university teacher and researcher; leads a large research grant program; independent expert who participated in drafting the recommendation of ethics of neurotechnology

– **Chaichana Mitrpant** – Executive Director of Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ECTA) in Thailand under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society

– **Audience** – Various attendees who asked questions during the session

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the speakers names list provided.

# UNESCO Session on Ethics in Emerging Technologies: Comprehensive Discussion Report

## Introduction and Context

This UNESCO session brought together leading experts to examine the critical challenge of integrating ethics into the development and deployment of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, and quantum computing. The 9 AM session, held in a full but intimate room, featured three distinguished panellists alongside moderator Dafna Feinholz, UNESCO’s Acting Director of Research, Ethics and Inclusion, who has been in charge of ethics of science and technology and bioethics at UNESCO for 16 years.

The panellists included Mira Wolf-Bauwens, a philosopher who founded a responsible quantum computing research group at IBM and conducted extensive interviews with quantum computing colleagues; Ryota Kanai, a neuroscience professor who started a company 10 years ago focusing on AI and neurotechnology, specifically brain computer interface technology to help people with disabilities; and Chaichana Mitrpant, who oversees digital policy implementation in Thailand and leads the country’s AI Governance Center and international policy advisory panel. Their diverse perspectives created a rich dialogue spanning international policy development, academic research, commercial pressures, and national implementation challenges.

## Foundational Context: UNESCO’s Mission and Approach

Feinholz opened the session by emphasizing UNESCO’s foundational mission, established after World War II to promote peace through collaboration in education, science, and culture. She explained that UNESCO’s core approach to emerging technologies centers on promoting innovation while protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, with ethics at the center of science and technology development throughout the entire lifecycle.

A key principle underlying UNESCO’s approach is the recognition that “everybody will have a very different view and appreciation on what the benefit or harm can be,” making inclusive discussion essential. This philosophy shaped the session’s multi-stakeholder perspective and emphasis on diverse viewpoints in technology governance.

## Individual Perspectives: From Research to Implementation

### The Academic-Commercial Bridge: Neurotechnology Challenges

Kanai provided insights from his dual experience as both scientist and entrepreneur, describing the specific pressures that emerge when transitioning from academic research to commercial development. “I’m running a company and then I get investment. So investors push us to make money. I think that’s how our current economic system works,” he explained. This pressure leads some companies to market neurotechnology products that lack proper scientific validation, potentially undermining public trust in the entire field.

He emphasized that trust in science and technology is crucial for public acceptance and requires transparent communication about expert intentions and scientific validation. The challenge becomes particularly acute in neurotechnology, where the extent of information that can be extracted from neural signals remains an active research question with significant implications for privacy and regulatory frameworks.

### Quantum Computing and the Ethics-Industry Disconnect

Wolf-Bauwens shared findings from her year-long interview project with quantum computing colleagues, revealing a troubling pattern where individual ethical intentions become systematically undermined by institutional dynamics. She described how the same researchers who privately express strong ethical concerns about their work publicly compromise those values when faced with corporate pressures, funding requirements, and profit demands.

Her research revealed what she termed a “slaughtered or butchered conception of ethics in industry,” where companies use the term “ethics” to mean compliance with existing law rather than genuine ethical reflection. This distinction between authentic ethics and compliance-based pseudo-ethics helps explain why many corporate ethics initiatives fail to address real ethical concerns.

### Thailand’s Implementation Experience

Mitrpant presented Thailand’s practical experience implementing UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations, demonstrating how international ethical principles can be adapted to local contexts through what he described as “localized, customized, but not compromised” implementation. Thailand recently hosted UNESCO’s third Global Forum on AI Ethics with over 1000 participants, reflecting the country’s commitment to international collaboration on these issues.

The Thai experience revealed the complexity of multi-stakeholder engagement, requiring different approaches for different groups: enforcement mechanisms for government agencies, collaborative relationships with regulators for private sector companies, educational programs for small and medium enterprises, and awareness campaigns for citizens. This differentiated approach acknowledges that various stakeholders have different capacities, motivations, and constraints.

## Key Themes and Consensus Areas

### Ethics as Foundation, Not Afterthought

All participants agreed that ethics must be embedded from the very beginning of technology development rather than treated as an afterthought. This requires all stakeholders to be involved at each stage, from initial research through deployment and ongoing monitoring. Wolf-Bauwens emphasized that foundational ethical considerations are essential for creating truly beneficial technologies, while acknowledging that good individual intentions frequently become compromised when institutional and economic pressures emerge.

### Anticipatory Governance and Future Scenarios

The panellists demonstrated agreement on the need for anticipatory governance that can keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies. Wolf-Bauwens argued that effective governance must imagine potential consequences 2-10 years ahead rather than merely reacting to current developments. She noted that while she initially thought governance structures themselves needed fundamental change, she now advocates for working within existing democratic and inclusive structures, despite their inherent time-lagging nature.

Kanai complemented this perspective by emphasizing the need for a portfolio of different future scenarios to prepare for various technological developments, including considering even remote possibilities that experts might dismiss as unrealistic, noting that the pace of technological change often exceeds expert predictions.

## Audience Questions and Key Discussions

### Risk Management Approaches

An audience question about risk management prompted discussion of distributed approaches that avoid placing excessive burdens on individual stakeholders. Mitrpant explained that rather than requiring each developer to conduct comprehensive risk assessments, Thailand explores models where global-level threat observation can cascade down to developers and users, reducing individual assessment burdens while maintaining effective oversight.

The panellists agreed that risk management should begin early in development processes, similar to ethics committees for human research, and that new technologies often create “gray zones” that require careful navigation.

### The Distinction Between Ethics and Regulation

A significant audience question focused on clarifying the relationship between ethical principles and legal frameworks. The panellists reached consensus that ethics is broader and more fundamental than regulation, though they emphasized different aspects of this distinction.

Wolf-Bauwens argued that ethics is more agile than law and addresses motivations and positive actions rather than just prohibitions. Kanai highlighted the practical dilemma that actions can be legally permissible while remaining ethically problematic, emphasizing that laws represent specific implementations of ethical ideals but cannot capture all important aspects of ethics.

Feinholz added that ethics provides ongoing reflection for dilemmas that laws cannot always address, particularly in rapidly evolving technological contexts. Mitrpant offered a useful analogy, comparing ethics to vaccination in that it raises the bar for all stakeholders, while laws establish minimum agreed practices.

### Technology-Specific vs. Cross-Cutting Frameworks

The discussion explored whether separate ethical frameworks are needed for each emerging technology or whether cross-cutting principles can be effectively adapted. Wolf-Bauwens advocated for establishing cross-cutting ethical principles with technology-specific customizations rather than reinventing frameworks for each new technology, arguing this would be more efficient and create more coherent governance across the technology landscape.

The participants agreed that while core ethical principles such as justice, inclusivity, and accessibility remain constant across technologies, their specific applications require careful adaptation to address the unique characteristics and risks of different technological domains.

## Implementation Challenges and Practical Solutions

### Economic Pressures and Institutional Dynamics

Perhaps the most significant challenge identified was the systematic way in which individual ethical intentions become undermined by institutional dynamics. This pattern extends beyond individual companies to entire sectors and even national policy implementation. Mitrpant shared Thailand’s experience of drafting AI legislation, where those experiencing fraud and defects supported regulation while developers opposed it due to cost concerns.

Wolf-Bauwens raised the critical unresolved question of how to put a return on investment on ethics, making ethical practices economically viable in profit-driven environments. This challenge requires developing business models that demonstrate how ethical principles can coexist with profitability.

### Flexible Frameworks and Multi-Stakeholder Engagement

Feinholz highlighted the effectiveness of non-binding normative instruments, such as UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations, which allow adaptation by different member states and stakeholders while maintaining core principles. This approach provides flexibility for local implementation while preserving fundamental ethical commitments.

The session emphasized that effective ethics implementation requires collaboration across government, private sector, and civil society. This multi-stakeholder approach is essential but complex, requiring diverse expertise and perspectives while managing different interests and priorities.

## Conclusion and Future Directions

The session demonstrated both the complexity of integrating ethics into emerging technology development and the sophisticated understanding that experts from diverse backgrounds bring to these challenges. While significant challenges remain, particularly around making ethics economically viable and maintaining ethical commitments under institutional pressure, the discussion revealed promising approaches to addressing them.

The conversation evolved from abstract principles to practical implementation challenges, ultimately revealing that the central question is not what ethical principles to adopt, but how to create systems that can maintain ethical commitments under economic and institutional pressure. The participants’ shared commitment to foundational ethics, anticipatory governance, and multi-stakeholder engagement provides a foundation for continued progress in this critical area.

Key takeaways include the need for continued development of technology-specific ethical frameworks building on established cross-cutting principles, maintaining multi-stakeholder dialogue platforms to capture signals about technological development directions, and creating networks of experts to share knowledge across different technological domains. The session’s insights suggest that effective technology ethics requires not just good intentions or sound principles, but systematic approaches to addressing the institutional and economic pressures that consistently undermine ethical commitments.

Dafna Feinholz: Okay, good morning, good morning to all. Recording in progress. Thank you very much, be very welcome and thank you very much for coming to this session. We’re happy to see that we have a full room, even if it’s small, but at nine o’clock on ethics, we are very happy that we have you with us. And we are very happy about having the opportunity to have this session because, well, first, let me introduce myself. I’m Dafna Feinholz and I am the acting director of the Division of Research, Ethics and Inclusion at UNESCO. And I’m also in charge of ethics of science and technology and bioethics in UNESCO since 16 years ago. And I was also leading the process of the elaboration of the recommendation of ethics of artificial intelligence. And we’re also now going to have a recommendation on ethics of neurotechnology. So we have been working, I mean, this is one of the mandates of UNESCO, putting ethics at the center of the development of science and technology. The idea of UNESCO, as you know, UNESCO was founded with the aim of promoting peace. It was after the Second World War. And the idea is to have collaboration in the different areas of the work of UNESCO, which is education and culture and natural sciences, social and human sciences, communication, in order to foster peace. So the idea of UNESCO is to promote innovation, to promote research. But most importantly, is that this development should not be at the expense of. protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and that’s the departing point. And the second important departing point of UNESCO is that there needs to be this reflection ahead of what could be, I mean, if we want to develop a technology, what would be the impact of this technology? For whom? And what would be the benefits or the harms? And what kind of society will be building or we’re heading with this technology? And of course, another very important point of UNESCO is like, these questions are very complex and the answers are very complex, so there is no one unique voice that can answer these questions. So the most important part is to have a very inclusive discussion and debate about these responses, because everybody will have a very different view and appreciation on what the benefit or harm can be, depending on their needs, on their expectations, on the way they understand technology, on the kind of values and societies they envision and they want to live in. So that’s why having everyone around the table, and everyone really means everyone in the sense of everybody that is going to be affected by these technologies. And we have also always to think that sometimes people might not wish to be part of these technologies when we also have to take into account that, which is not easy in the case of some of them that are very pervasive, such as AI. But in any case, we do have to take that into account. So all that was behind the recommendation of AI and is always behind every document that we have. UNESCO has lots of documents related to this area on genomics as well, on climate change. And as I said, now, AI and also neurotechnology. So there are lots of important issues about artificial intelligence, as we know, bias, surveillance, erosion of privacy, deepening digital divides. This is also a very important ethical point. Accessibility of these technologies is one of the main ethical issues. Because sometimes ethics is thought about something very philosophical, very abstract, that we don’t know how to really interpret. But it’s very clear. I mean, it’s like, there has to be justice, there has to be no harm, there has to be respect for different understandings of technology, the respect of the good data. Because for technology to be ethical, it needs to be scientifically sound. So this is very concrete. Ethics is very concrete. So just to say that we are also working on quantum technology, we’re also working on exploration and exploitation of space. We are working on mental health of children and adolescents in the digital area, and on synthetic biology. So as you can see, we’re really trying to cover the intersections with AI. And I think one of the lessons that we have learned also is that when we create a normative instrument that is non-binding, it’s also very useful. Sometimes people think that you have to have a convention or a legally binding instrument because otherwise, nobody will comply. But it’s not what the experience that we have is that they are very useful, because they are, first of all, they are always the instruments, these instruments are always built with a high level understanding of the ethical issues of the technologies, not on the technologies themselves, because technologies change very quickly. So that’s why the idea is, what are the ethical issues behind them? So that’s why they continue to be relevant. And they also, this normal soft law kind of also allows to different member states and stakeholders to adapt themselves and to adapt the kind of framework that they need to make sure that these technologies are still governed in a way that protect human rights. So I think with this I will start zooming really in the session. I just wanted to frame a little bit why we put this session together. Now since this is a we are having this meeting of wishes and the reflection of what can happen in 20 years because it’s have been a while time already. So that’s why we thought this session could be very important because we want to try to advocate to include ethics across all the lines of what we see because of the reasons I’m just trying to explain. We want to advocate for ethics as something that it’s embedded from the very beginning when everything is conceived. That is the way we conceive it in the normative instruments that we have. We always speak about ethics through the whole life cycle of the technology and all the stakeholders that are involved in each of the stages. So this is what we want to advocate for and not to make sure that ethics is not an afterthought when it’s most of the time too late but from the very beginning. So what we want is to examine as I said a bit how these non-binding instruments can be very useful and can be paired with implementing tools, implementation tools that we have also developed and can influence as I said national policies, inspire institutional reforms, provide common ethical foundation. And again, to emphasise the need of having ethics in the design already, ethics in the key actions of connectivity, data governance, education, data inclusion, innovation, I mean we have heard so many sessions about data that is missing to be collected, but then what are we going to do with this data? Who is going to collect it? So ownership of data is very important. And of course, the interplay of artificial intelligence with many others as neurotechnology and data systems, etc. So I’m very honoured to have excellent and the highest quality possible of speakers with me, accompanying me. So we have Professor Ryo Takanai. He is the founder and CEO of Araya. Araya, that’s the way. Then we have Mira Wolf-Bowens. She’s Head of Initiatives Development, Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator in Jesta and Open Quantum Institute. And of course, we have Dr Chaya Mitpark, Executive Director of Electronic Transactions Development Agency, ETA in Thailand. So all of them are also very good partners of us. Mira has been one of the experts that we have been consulting because one of our experts bodies have developed a report on ethics of quantum. It’s working currently on ethics of quantum computing. And Mira has been participating a lot. Ryota is one of the independent experts that participated in the drafting of the recommendation of ethics of neurotechnology. And Professor, I don’t know how to pronounce Chai. He has been with all his team. They have been the greatest hosts of the third Global Summit, Global Forum of Artificial Ethics of Artificial Intelligence two weeks ago. We had more than 100 participants and 1000 sorry. 100 is easy. No, 100. But it was not only the amount of people and important representations of different stakeholders, but the quality and the excellent organization. So thank you again. So without further ado, I want to what we will do is we will do our round of three questions. And then we would like to also open the interaction with you at the end. So you can also ask questions to the panelists. And so let me let me start if you can do like five minutes each. So first of all, I would like to ask maybe I start with Mira. But the same question is for everyone. What role should ethics play in shaping the development and deployment of emerging and converging technologies? Because this is the conversion that is that is really at the heart. How how can we make sure that this is not an afterthought? How we can ensure that there are principles like inclusion, accountability, human dignity as part of it? And what have you seen? Because you have a lot of experience. What have you seen that works and does not work? What do you suggest?

Mira Wolf-Bauwens: Thank you. First of all, thank you very much for the kind invitation. It’s always a pleasure. And I say this and I really, really mean it. These kinds of discussions where we can truly speak about ethics are the ones that I like most because I feel most at home. By background, I’m a philosopher who’s ventured into applying philosophy and tech. So I worked on digital ethics since a while before quantum and blockchain. So it’s really, really good to kind of comment on why I’m critical of how ethics is understood in the industry. So I’m always very happy when we’re in fora where we can speak about true ethics and not about the slaughtered or butchered conception of ethics in industry. So that kind of foreshadows a little bit also some of the remarks I’m going to make. So with respect to the role that ethics should play, when you were talking about UNESCO and the role of ethics and all the initiatives you’re having, you said it and I couldn’t agree more, but ethics should be foundational. In a way, to me, it is hard to understand how we could possibly develop anything without having ethics first. And I think it is more that the way that then institutionally ethics is becoming an afterthought. So in terms of the should be, it’s very, very clear. It has to be because in a way, it’s hard. How can we have a motivation without having sort of guiding principles? So if we don’t think kind of consequentialist, but more deontologist, we need guiding principles. That’s ethics. And so we need to find them before we even start. And I would argue that implicitly the tech sector does that by kind of defining what do they want to do, what is kind of the solution they want to provide. And in answering those questions, they’re all ethical. In a way, they’re all normative ethical answers. The question I think then is how do we bring in, in a way, I guess, good ethics or the right principles into these decisions? How do we ensure that it’s not in a way the sort of purely profit driven principles, but as principles that are, since we’re at the AI for good and in the context of the SDGs, but are driven by principles that are for humanity and also that are realizing that doing something for society benefit does not have to be in contrast to economic benefit. And I think that is something. we’ve been saying for a good 10 years, probably even longer, but something we still haven’t figured out how to really convince the private sector that this can be done. And I think we’re lacking actually good models. And we’re hearing of examples of companies that used to have that as their common goal. I think you all know what I’m gesturing at, and are changing at the moment that a lot of dollars are flowing in, flying in. So I think, unfortunately, the answer in principle is very clear. It should be foundational, the question of how do we resist the economic pressures and also the institutional pressures to ensure that good principles remain at the foundation of motivation. That is the challenge. And unfortunately, I think it’s the discussion we need to have. How do we ensure that? But I wanted to also comment on what works in the sense of starting to a process that I started to see how we could instill kind of ethics from the start of the development of a technology. And I know with AI, I personally came in too late. So by the time I came in, AI was already kind of in full flux, and the discussions of ethics had to be after ethics. But with quantum computing, we started this very early. And so I used to work at IBM Quantum, who are one of the leading quantum computing companies. And it doesn’t really matter if you’re not familiar with quantum computing, it doesn’t really matter, novel computing technology. But basically, they’re developing it, and they weren’t thinking about ethics. But IBM tried to say, well, we’re a global citizen, we’re trying to be good. And IBM tries to kind of also say, long standing tech. So in a way, I tried to use that motivation and said, well, okay, if you’re serious about that, and if you’re serious about now doing this truly for society, and you’re telling all of us you’re developing quantum computers for society, well, then embed ethics from the start. And so they allowed me to found a research group on quantum ethics. So I called it responsible quantum computing. And what I did is I thought, okay, the wrongest thing I could do is now come in as the philosopher and tell my colleagues, the physicists who haven’t thought about ethics and who are not trained to think about ethics, to tell them this is what you should do. Because then it’ll be the typical alienation of, oh, these are the ethical principles, they’re not embedded in my thinking, and this is what this philosopher told me, and that wouldn’t work. So instead, what I did is that I did a one-year process of interviewing my colleagues who were working on quantum, and I asked them, what is your motivation? And this goes back to what I said at the beginning, the motivation. And I found that, and it was one-on-one confidential interviews, but I can abstract from this. I found that all of them said they work on quantum computing because they’re seeing that there are challenges in the world that cannot be solved with classical computing. So among the simulation of nature, you can’t do this well with classical computing. And if we could simulate nature, we could get better, potentially better materials for carbon capture or develop drugs much faster. So this was at the heart of their motivation. They’re spending too much time in the labs. They’re spending all their leisure time in the labs. And so they very clearly said, this is why we work in quantum computing. This is why we’re doing this. We see that at the core. And so it was really across the board. Even the business developers would tell me, this is why I’m in this business, why I want to do it. And then it’s interesting that once you get to the more institutional level, and so once the individuals become the groups and the kind of institutional and power dynamics also come into play where suddenly this is a business and you have to sell, suddenly you have to tell your clients that you’re selling a machine that is in underdevelopment and you have to make promises as to what it can do, which it cannot do yet. So basically have to hype. Suddenly the same people that told me, no, we don’t want to overhype this machine. We don’t want to promise something that it cannot do. Suddenly I saw them in conferences with clients. I saw them telling clients, oh yes, you need to buy this machine because it can solve your problems now. So I think what I’m like, just for me, this was really, really insightful kind of acknowledging that as individuals. The sort of good motivations and ethical principles are there, but the kind of trick that happens once power dynamics of who someone is in a team, how much power they have in a team, the pressures of a corporate having to sell, having to make profit, once those come into play, they very clearly fade. And I think so the trick is in a way, how can we instill, it’s been said before a lot, but on the one hand, how can we instill that culture? But for me, the point is really, how can we put an ROI, return on invest, onto ethics? So I’ll stop with that open question on kind of how can we in a world that clearly is so driven by the private industry, how can we put this return on invest on ethics? Yeah, that’s the question that I haven’t figured out.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you. Thank you very much. I think you really put the light where it has to be, but I don’t want to take more time. Maybe we continue with Ryota because you also have these two halves of academia and private sector.

Ryota Kanai: OK, yeah, so my background is neuroscience. I used to be teaching at the university and doing research on how the brain works. But then I started my company about 10 years ago because I wanted to sort of demonstrate that the kind of research I was doing is actually useful in society. So that’s how I started my company. So my company is focusing on the combination of AI and neurotechnology. So we use AI to decode what people want to say from brain activity. And we also try to sort of help people with disability by creating brain computer interface so that to help them with some sort of physical immobility. things like that. But also in this space, there’s a lot of concerns, which is the kind of general trust in science and technology. So as part of my work, I also lead a large research grant program. And in that program, we encourage researchers to translate their research in neuroscience to real-world applications. But that made the public kind of worried because, you know, laypeople don’t know what’s currently possible. So they were worried that, you know, we may implant electrodes in everyone and then control their thoughts and things like that. So I think there’s a general concern in the public about how technology might be used. And so I think in that sense, it’s very important to communicate that experts have good intention about how we want to apply our knowledge and technologies. But also, especially, I think in general, people have good intention. So there might be good, bad people, but I believe most people are good people. And but I think the tricky thing starts when there’s some sort of conflict. So especially in the commercial setting, there’s a strong demand to make profit. So I’m running a company and then I get investment. So investors push us to make money. I think that’s how our current economic system works. But because of this, as a scientist, I felt some companies are trying to sell neurotechnology products that are not scientifically validated. So that made me really worried because, as I said, I think trusting science and technology is very important. Otherwise, people may not accept new technologies. Maybe partly this kind of thing might be also related to individuals’ personality. But for example, you might see many people who are against vaccination, even if it’s reasonably validated and safety has been tested. But still, I think that kind of concern comes from the lack of trust. Personally, I really want to promote neurotechnology and AI because I think they can be beneficial for many people. But at the same time, I think it’s very important that experts and also international organizations like UNESCO and others lead discussions on ethical implications of neurotechnology. And especially when new technologies emerge, there are some gray zones. I think for most things, we can judge whether certain things are good or bad. But in certain areas, there are new kinds of uncertainties. So for example, data sharing was not even a concept maybe a hundred years ago, but now we know the benefit of sharing data, but at the same time that generate concerns and about privacy and other things. Yeah, and that’s particularly true for neurotechnology in my case, because it’s very personal. And of course, we don’t know how much information we can extract from neural signals, but it seems like, especially in combination with AI, it’s becoming more and more feasible to extract personal information from brain activities. So in that sense, there’s a lot of uncertainties. And then although the field is developing very fast, I think ethics is a kind of very fundamental thing which stays the same over time. So in that sense, like maybe we should sort of discuss the high level ethics first, and then break it down to more practical things. And then that part could be changing faster. So in that sense, yeah. So I think it’s very important to consolidate ethical foundation first.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I will not be doing any comments. We just go, I think, for more probably institutional point of view.

Chaichana Mitrpant: Good morning. Good morning. My name is Chai. I’m currently the executive director of ECTA. Electronic Transactions Development Agency, which is an organization under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society. We really commend UNESCO and UNESCO member states to really adopt the ethics of AI since 2021. I think it’s very important and the process is multi-stakeholder and engage all the parties involved into creating this framework. I think it’s very clear and give out almost instruction of what to do. But we still find difficulties of applying it to our environment because I think we have to really adapt the principle into the context of our own countries. So we are now working very hard to understand how to implement all the recommendations by UNESCO. What is good is the values, the principles and the policy areas specified in the recommendation that would serve as a tool for guiding us to make implementing decision of what we can do within that framework. So based on our belief that this is our guiding tool for Thailand to navigate through AI adoption and maybe regulation creation, we try to really make it happen. So we have a national AI committee as a body that is responsible for developing our national strategy. One pillar of the strategy is the ethics and standards. and laws and regulations. We believe that that’s based for the AI development, adoptions, deployment and use. We decided to study AI laws and regulations more than two years ago. We actually drafted our AI bill two years ago, but there were conflicting opinions of how Thailand should navigate through AI regulations at that time. People facing fraud, defect issues were supporting the law while the developers in Thailand were kind of opposing and asked a lot of questions. Why imposing duties for them? Because we are quite new in Thailand, AI developers and imposing laws and regulation would impose the cost into their activities. So we decided that to wait and see. At that time, EU AI Act was not yet in effect, but we really need a tool to monitor the risk and possibly find something that can control the risk. So we set up AI governance center to monitor the AI risk in Thailand. But at that time we did not have like a complete global understanding of AI risk landscape. So we engaged international experts and created international policy advisory panel by drawing several areas of expertise. For example, legal expertise, business expertise, technical expertise, political science, medical. healthcare. These are just examples of expertise that we try to curate to create our panel. So that serves as our advisor to navigate Thailand through different issues coming up as we adopted AI technologies. I think that works for us. It helps us understand the risk and it helps us create tools to try to control the risk. So we published AI Governance Framework and Generative AI Governance Framework at a later stage as a tool for accomplishing the ethical values specified by the recommendations. So how do we implement that? So we need to really engage different stakeholders with different mechanisms. For government agencies, we have to use enforcement because the cabinet can order government agencies to do things. So we use kind of enforcing by the government. So we proposed the AI governance guideline to the cabinet to be adopted for government agencies. That’s the work that’s still ongoing. But for private sector, that’s a bit more difficult. So we really try to break down our work into several parts. For private sectors that have regulators, we try to work with regulators to understand and adopt the AI recommendations on the ethics that UNESCO published and see how that can be implemented. customized into the context. So, with the strong belief that the recommendation should be localized, customized, but not compromised. So, we really stress on the values and the principles and see what risk is foreseen by the regulator. And then we try to propose, make sure that control the risk at the proportionate level. And that’s still ongoing. So, now our central bank is drafting AI governance guideline for the banks in Thailand. And that is based on our guidelines as well. That’s for private sectors that have regulators. So, we work with regulators. We can never imagine working alone. And I think that would not work if we think that we are responsible for AI development, AI adoption, and so on. And we try to work on that ourselves. We don’t have expertise, especially sectoral expertise in medical services, in energy sector, in banking sector. We don’t know we are not the domain expert. So, we really need to work with the domain expert in defining what are the dos and the don’ts in the particular domains. So, we facilitate the development of these localized into the sector, customized into the sectoral guideline. And that’s for the private sector with regulators. But for SMEs, we don’t have regulators for that. We have to promote them. Right. So, how can we… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Taking more time. So, for SME, we created tools for the adoption with good governance, we organized workshops for them, and then for the general citizens, we try to educate and make awareness happen within the citizens so that we can raise the bar, because the weakest link for the AI adoption that would cause the collapse of the whole system. Thank you.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you. Maybe what we can do is do the second round, but I will ask you to really stick to three minutes each. Like this, we can open the floor because we promised to open the floor for questions, and then before we close, I will ask you after the questions to go with a takeaway message, if that is okay. So, I think for the second question, I would like to say, well, thank you very much first for this very important inputs already and insights on the first, but so we have been listening a lot about the challenges of integrating into the policies, how to, the institutional and economical pressures and how to make sure that the right values are in the right place, because there are good intentions. But then, so my question would be how this governance can keep also paced, also with the rapid development of technologies, because this is also something that we have to face. And there are many areas, neurotech, quantum, synthetic biology, and these intersections. So, is there any kind of governance models that you think that can ensure coherence across all these converging domains? Do we really need to have one specific model for each of the new technologies, or is there anything that can… across all of them and then just some specifics. Maybe I will do the same order then.

Mira Wolf-Bauwens: I think the keeping pace is a matter also of being anticipatory. So I think what I’ve seen in particular in the tech sector is an unwillingness to anticipate the negative. And I think that is something that sort of is on all of us and not in the tech sector to put more pressure on anticipating the potential negative outcomes and unintended outcomes. And so to do that, I think that’s a good start because that way also when we put timelines to that, that way we are kind of almost by the timelines by having that. Ideally, if we can put evidence to that even better, that way we have a timeline and that way kind of the governance also sees that it needs to act and that kind of puts kind of, it’s almost by having those insights, you put the top-down pressure then on regulators also to act because otherwise I think what is currently happening is that a lot of these technological developments, they appear so far away and this is why it appears as if governance wasn’t agile enough. But I think it’s more a matter of not having communicated early enough that no, it’s actually not far away and that actually you need to put this on a priority list now. And then there is the structure. So initially I came to this and I thought, yes, we need to change the structures, but now I’m more and well, I think it’s harder to change all the governance structures. So let’s work with what we have in terms and because they are effective, I think what the benefit of these, what is often criticized as being time-lagging structures is that they’re inclusive and that they’re democratic. And so I’ve seen processes as well that are not democratic, that then put out governance principles that are not at all inclusive, that were done by a round of 20 people from sort of different sectors, but that were part of a members club. And so, yeah, I would say rather let’s kind of make sure we communicate the timelines well, the kind of unintended effects, and we put that on the priority list and then we govern for that. And I think regarding the cross-cutting or not, you mentioned, I really liked you mentioned that in Thailand you’re working on a localized customized but not compromised. And I’m wondering whether that slogan can in a way also be adopted for ethics principles. So in a way that we have, I think we need kind of tech ethics principles that are overarching because there’s a lot of commonalities. But then with regard to certain specificities of certain technologies, they need to be localized and customized to use that slogan adopted, but not everything needs to be reinvented. So issues that you mentioned, like justice, inclusivity, and so forth, accessibility, they’re cross-cutting. And then for technologies like quantum computing, there might then have to be a bit more focus on access to knowledge about quantum computing versus access to the extra hardware. The hardware question is not as predominant with AI, for instance. So I think that’s kind of, that would be an approach. And I think having that approach would also preempt us from doing, there’s a lot of work in doing all of these principles all over again. So if we could come to kind of, okay, we agree on this basic set. And you mentioned that as well, that these don’t change, right? And then we can adopt them for the specific technologies. But then also, I think the ethics gets better for the specific technologies because they have a foundation and an overarching model. So, and I think that’s what you’re doing also. You’re having the, at UNESCO, you’re having the ethics principles and the rest in a way, at least that’s chronological. It follows and it uses the insights from the processes as well. I think that’s a way forward. So I’ll stop there.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you. And apologies for being nasty. I hate that part of being a moderator. I really hate it.

Ryota Kanai: Okay. I tried to be quick. Three minutes. All right. Yeah. About keeping pace. Yeah, I think, as Mira said, anticipation is important. So we cannot keep pace with the speed of development of technology if we just react to what’s happening now. But we need to imagine what might happen in the next two years, five years, 10 years. So I think it’s particularly important to consider also remote possibilities. So a lot of times when you ask experts, actually, they might give you some conservative estimation. For example, maybe 10 years ago, if we talk about the possibility of AGI in AI governance kind of meetings, people didn’t take you seriously. But now it seems like it’s becoming a possibility now. So in that sense, sometimes some possible consequences of new technology may feel like science fiction. But I think it also includes such considerations, but we need to make sure that we have some agreement about where we are now. But I think it’s useful to have a portfolio of different future scenarios. And so I think that way we can be prepared and keep pace with technology. Do you think for the second part, do you think that we will need kind of different ethical scenarios or, I mean, ethical backgrounds or, like Meera said, there is something like cross-cutting and then there are some specificities? Because you know now we had for AI, now for neural networks. technology? Do we have to have one for Symbio and another one for what? Yeah, I think for different scenarios, I think we might have like specific ones, but I think it’s kind of more important to have kind of more combined expertise. So, for example, like, you know, I practice with my colleagues about, you know, kind of futuristic scenarios of, applications, new technology, but often, but they are like new technology experts, and then they don’t have like a projection of how AI might develop at the same time. So, but yeah, so, so we need to think about, you know, future scenarios by combining different technologies, because they all develop fast at the same time. Thank you.

Chaichana Mitrpant: Try to compensate to what I took. Almost three minutes. Well, I would like to build on top of Mia has said is, and anticipatory is quite important. But I would like to maybe enrich some concepts based on that. First, I think we need to stick to the basic values and the principles as our guiding light. And then we need to hear voices. So, platforms that encourage dialogues are important for us to capture signal, what is what AI is going in which direction. So, we have information to adjust and to adopt tools that is necessary. The third one is, we should have knowledge and expertise, because AI is quite deep, and require good understanding to make sensible measures. So network of experts. can be helpful to share knowledge. Fourth is working in a friendly, trustworthy, multi-stakeholder environment. Work with private sector, government organization, the consumers organization, human rights, NGOs. I think we need to work with all these different stakeholders to understand the whole aspect, every aspect of the landscape.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you very much. So now as promised, which because I think we are already late, but I think we can take at least two questions, one question, or two, can I take two? Yes, please. Can you introduce yourself, please? Thank you. Repeat with the microphone?

Audience: Yeah, yeah. The question was about, do you all call for risk management to be done during the development and the life cycle of the systems, quantum neural AI? Thank you.

Mira Wolf-Bauwens: Yes, but more than that. So risk management is kind of mitigating the unintended consequences, but I think to embed ethics, it’s also to go back then to being anticipatory also of the desired kind of goals we have with that. So on the one hand, it’s this risk management, which is really kind of on the, but it’s also, it’s bringing sort of the positive and the negative into anticipation. So yes, but more. It’s the short answer.

Ryota Kanai: I don’t have a clear answer, but I think in practice, probably we should be able to anticipate potential risk at the early phase of development. So I think that when you start developing a new product or starting a new kind of development, yeah, that may be the point where it’s good to think about potential risks. I think in research, especially in human research, it’s kind of common to have this consideration at the beginning. And sometimes for human experiment, we have ethics committee to assess potential risks and whether it’s ethical to actually carry out that research. So I think that kind of practice could be done in other domains as well.

Chaichana Mitrpant: Only a few words. Risk management assessment are very important, but that should not put too much burdens on some particular stakeholders. So we should try to synergize. For example, at a global level, we can observe threats and vulnerabilities to identify all these emerging threats. And then that can cascade down to structure way to developers or users so that not all the SME and developers have to do the risk assessment themselves.

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you very much. I will take one on this side.

Audience: If I might. Sorry, Philip Marnik. We talked about regulators do guidelines and regulations. And we talked about building ethics into the way people think and the way they do things, which is very different. regulations and laws. What do you feel is the difference between ethics and regulation as proposed from one side to the other side of the panel?

Chaichana Mitrpant: Well, ethics, as Daphna said, it has to be understood at all levels, you know, by everybody. And that’s, I think, provide vaccine to different persons, national persons or even legal persons. That’s raising, I think, the bar. If you are all vaccinated, then we are immune to all different threats. But laws are like something that require people to do vaccination because law, after all the stakeholder process, that’s already agreeable within the country. What should be the minimum practice of the ethical concepts?

Dafna Feinholz: Thank you for the question, by the way. I love it.

Mira Wolf-Bauwens: I can quickly go next. So, for me, there’s different answers to this. But in the tech sector, importantly, the difference between true ethics and the law is that ethics is much wider and that the law often is this kind of, that’s what we discussed, is the one that is sort of lacking behind and that is not capturing a lot. So, for instance, even if you hear, and I mentioned that earlier to you, in a tech sector, when you hear ethics, it is not ethics, it is compliance. And so it’s looking into complying with the existing law. And so, for instance, quantum ethics, that’s why I’d never called it quantum ethics, can’t exist because there’s no regulation around quantum. Or, I mean, it could exist, but then it means you can do whatever you want. And so I think ethics, and we need to kind of uphold an understanding of ethics that is importantly what Daphna also said at the beginning, the soft governance, and that can be more agile in that sense, that is individualized, that I think as individuals we can all relate to, and often is more broader. And I don’t think everything that is ethics needs to be law. And I think that is important that, so for instance, law typically, and this is because I’m not a lawyer, but I also think of law as disallowing us and telling us what not to do, whereas ethics often is also about the motivations and what is allowed to do, and I don’t think we need to put all the motivations into law. So that’s how I differentiate.

Ryota Kanai: Okay, yeah, so this is a very difficult question. So yeah, I think, so I’m sure that there’s a lot of theory about legal systems, but my take is ethics is a very high level thing, and then laws are one specific implementation of that ideal. And so I think in that sense, you know, laws are more practical sort of implementation of ethics. But on the other hand, I also, you know, on one hand, it’s very difficult to capture all the important aspects of ethics, because laws can be really prohibiting all kinds of freedom. So in that sense, maybe laws are not sufficient, because as a company or a private person, I feel like if something is not forbidden by the law, I should be free to do them. But on the other hand, you know, those actions can be unethical so yeah so in that sense there’s some sort of dilemma you know we can never have perfect laws but I think it’s good to have ethical principles.

Dafna Feinholz: And if I may just add to what Mira said and my colleagues, laws indeed will tell us what to do what not to do but the ethics will always be there to reflect and the answers will never be always in the law and so they will always be dilemmas and we will so we won’t have time for the for the wrapping up but so I just want to thank you so so much and can you please say join me in giving a round of applause to the speakers thank you thank you very much

Agreement points

Ethics should be foundational and embedded from the beginning of technology development

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Dafna Feinholz

Arguments

Ethics should be foundational and embedded from the beginning, not an afterthought

UNESCO promotes ethics at the center of science and technology development to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms

Summary

Both speakers strongly advocate that ethics must be integrated from the very start of technology development rather than being added as an afterthought. They emphasize that ethical considerations should guide the entire development process.

Topics

Human rights principles | Legal and regulatory

Anticipatory governance is essential for keeping pace with rapidly evolving technologies

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Ryota Kanai

Arguments

Anticipatory governance is crucial – need to imagine potential consequences 2-10 years ahead rather than just reacting

Portfolio of different future scenarios needed to prepare for various technological developments

Summary

Both speakers agree that governance cannot simply react to technological developments but must anticipate future scenarios and potential consequences years in advance to be effective.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Economic pressures compromise ethical principles in commercial settings

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Ryota Kanai

Arguments

Individual researchers have good ethical motivations, but institutional and economic pressures can compromise these principles

Economic pressures and profit demands can override ethical considerations in commercial settings

Summary

Both speakers identify a common pattern where individuals have good ethical intentions, but institutional and economic pressures, particularly the need to generate profit, can override these ethical considerations.

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

Risk management should occur early in development phases

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Ryota Kanai
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Risk management should occur throughout the entire lifecycle of technology development

Risk assessment should happen at early phases of development, similar to ethics committees for human research

Risk management should not place excessive burdens on individual stakeholders – global threat observation can cascade down to developers

Summary

All three speakers agree that risk management is crucial and should begin early in the development process, though they offer different perspectives on implementation approaches.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Ethics is broader and more fundamental than legal regulation

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Ryota Kanai
– Dafna Feinholz

Arguments

Ethics is broader and more agile than law, addressing motivations and positive actions, not just prohibitions

Laws are specific implementations of ethical ideals but cannot capture all important aspects of ethics

Laws are specific implementations of ethical ideals but cannot capture all important aspects of ethics

Summary

All speakers agree that ethics encompasses broader principles and motivations than what can be captured in legal frameworks, with laws being specific implementations that cannot address all ethical considerations.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for a framework approach where core ethical principles remain consistent but are adapted to specific technologies and local contexts without compromising fundamental values.

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Cross-cutting ethical principles should be established with technology-specific customizations rather than reinventing everything

Principles should be ‘localized, customized, but not compromised’ when adapting to different contexts

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Both speakers emphasize the importance of building and maintaining public trust through transparent communication and inclusive engagement with diverse stakeholders.

Speakers

– Ryota Kanai
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Trust in science and technology is crucial for public acceptance, requiring transparent communication about expert intentions

Multi-stakeholder engagement is essential but complex, requiring diverse expertise and perspectives

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers demonstrate the practical value of non-binding international frameworks that can be adapted to local contexts while maintaining core ethical principles.

Speakers

– Dafna Feinholz
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Non-binding normative instruments can be very useful and allow adaptation by different member states and stakeholders

Thailand uses UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations as a guiding framework, adapting principles to local context while maintaining core values

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles

Unexpected consensus

The effectiveness of non-binding ethical frameworks over rigid legal requirements

Speakers

– Dafna Feinholz
– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Non-binding normative instruments can be very useful and allow adaptation by different member states and stakeholders

Ethics is broader and more agile than law, addressing motivations and positive actions, not just prohibitions

Thailand uses UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations as a guiding framework, adapting principles to local context while maintaining core values

Explanation

It’s unexpected that speakers from both international organizations and national implementation perspectives would so strongly favor flexible, non-binding approaches over traditional regulatory frameworks. This consensus suggests a shift toward more adaptive governance models.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles

The challenge of making ethics economically viable in private sector contexts

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Ryota Kanai

Arguments

The challenge is putting a return on investment (ROI) on ethics to make it economically viable

Economic pressures and profit demands can override ethical considerations in commercial settings

Explanation

Both speakers, despite coming from different backgrounds (philosophy/policy and neuroscience/business), independently identified the same core challenge of aligning ethical principles with economic incentives, suggesting this is a fundamental systemic issue.

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on foundational principles: ethics must be embedded from the beginning of technology development, anticipatory governance is essential, economic pressures pose significant challenges to ethical implementation, and flexible frameworks are more effective than rigid regulations. They also agreed on the need for multi-stakeholder engagement and the importance of building public trust.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary perspectives rather than conflicting viewpoints. The speakers approached the same issues from different angles (international policy, academic research, national implementation, and private sector experience) but arrived at remarkably similar conclusions. This strong alignment suggests these principles represent well-established best practices in technology ethics governance, with significant implications for developing more effective and widely adoptable ethical frameworks for emerging technologies.

Different viewpoints

Approach to changing governance structures vs. working within existing systems

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Arguments

Anticipatory governance is crucial – need to imagine potential consequences 2-10 years ahead rather than just reacting

Summary

Wolf-Bauwens initially thought governance structures needed to be changed but now believes it’s harder to change all governance structures, so advocates working with existing democratic and inclusive structures despite their time-lagging nature. Other speakers don’t explicitly address this structural reform question.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected differences

Scope of risk management implementation

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Risk management should occur throughout the entire lifecycle of technology development

Risk management should not place excessive burdens on individual stakeholders – global threat observation can cascade down to developers

Explanation

While both support risk management, they have different views on implementation burden. Wolf-Bauwens advocates for comprehensive lifecycle risk management, while Mitrpant is concerned about not overburdening individual stakeholders and suggests a more distributed approach. This disagreement is unexpected because both are generally aligned on the importance of risk management.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers show remarkable consensus on fundamental principles but differ on implementation approaches and emphasis

Disagreement level

Low level of fundamental disagreement with moderate differences in implementation strategies. The speakers largely agree on core issues like the importance of ethics being foundational, the challenges of economic pressures, and the need for anticipatory governance. Their differences lie primarily in tactical approaches rather than strategic goals, which suggests a strong foundation for collaborative policy development while allowing for diverse implementation pathways.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for a framework approach where core ethical principles remain consistent but are adapted to specific technologies and local contexts without compromising fundamental values.

Speakers

– Mira Wolf-Bauwens
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Cross-cutting ethical principles should be established with technology-specific customizations rather than reinventing everything

Principles should be ‘localized, customized, but not compromised’ when adapting to different contexts

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Both speakers emphasize the importance of building and maintaining public trust through transparent communication and inclusive engagement with diverse stakeholders.

Speakers

– Ryota Kanai
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Trust in science and technology is crucial for public acceptance, requiring transparent communication about expert intentions

Multi-stakeholder engagement is essential but complex, requiring diverse expertise and perspectives

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers demonstrate the practical value of non-binding international frameworks that can be adapted to local contexts while maintaining core ethical principles.

Speakers

– Dafna Feinholz
– Chaichana Mitrpant

Arguments

Non-binding normative instruments can be very useful and allow adaptation by different member states and stakeholders

Thailand uses UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations as a guiding framework, adapting principles to local context while maintaining core values

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles

Key takeaways

Ethics must be foundational and embedded from the beginning of technology development, not treated as an afterthought

Individual researchers and developers generally have good ethical motivations, but institutional and economic pressures often compromise these principles in practice

Non-binding normative instruments like UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendations can be highly effective when adapted to local contexts while maintaining core values

Anticipatory governance is essential – stakeholders must imagine potential consequences 2-10 years ahead rather than merely reacting to current developments

Cross-cutting ethical principles should be established with technology-specific customizations rather than creating entirely new frameworks for each emerging technology

Multi-stakeholder engagement is crucial but requires different approaches for different groups (enforcement for government, collaboration with regulators for private sector, education for SMEs and citizens)

Trust in science and technology is fundamental for public acceptance and requires transparent communication about expert intentions and scientific validation

Ethics is broader and more agile than regulation – it addresses motivations and positive actions while laws typically focus on prohibitions and minimum standards

The challenge of putting a return on investment (ROI) on ethics remains a critical unresolved issue for making ethical practices economically viable

Resolutions and action items

Continue developing technology-specific ethical frameworks (neurotechnology, quantum computing) building on established cross-cutting principles

Maintain multi-stakeholder dialogue platforms to capture signals about AI development directions

Develop networks of experts to share knowledge across different technological domains

Implement risk assessment processes at early phases of technology development, similar to ethics committees for human research

Create tools and educational programs for SMEs and citizens to promote ethical AI adoption

Work with sectoral regulators to customize ethical guidelines for specific industries while maintaining core principles

Unresolved issues

How to put a return on investment (ROI) on ethics to make it economically viable in profit-driven environments

How to resist economic and institutional pressures that compromise ethical principles when significant funding is involved

How to balance the need for democratic, inclusive governance processes with the speed required to keep pace with rapid technological development

How to effectively anticipate and prepare for remote possibilities and science fiction-like scenarios that experts may dismiss as unrealistic

How to ensure risk management doesn’t place excessive burdens on smaller stakeholders while maintaining effective oversight

How to maintain public trust when some commercial products lack proper scientific validation

How to effectively combine expertise across multiple rapidly developing technologies (AI, neurotechnology, quantum computing, etc.)

Suggested compromises

Adopt the approach of ‘localized, customized, but not compromised’ – adapting ethical principles to specific contexts and technologies while maintaining core values

Use existing democratic governance structures rather than trying to change them entirely, but improve communication of timelines and priorities

Implement a portfolio approach with different future scenarios to prepare for various technological developments rather than trying to predict one specific outcome

Establish global-level threat and vulnerability observation that can cascade down to developers and users, reducing individual assessment burdens

Focus on cross-cutting ethical principles (justice, inclusivity, accessibility) with technology-specific adaptations rather than creating entirely separate frameworks

Balance individual ethical motivations with institutional mechanisms that can withstand economic pressures

So I think what I’m like, just for me, this was really, really insightful kind of acknowledging that as individuals. The sort of good motivations and ethical principles are there, but the kind of trick that happens once power dynamics of who someone is in a team, how much power they have in a team, the pressures of a corporate having to sell, having to make profit, once those come into play, they very clearly fade. And I think so the trick is in a way, how can we instill, it’s been said before a lot, but on the one hand, how can we instill that culture? But for me, the point is really, how can we put an ROI, return on invest, onto ethics?

Speaker

Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Reason

This comment is deeply insightful because it identifies the core paradox in tech ethics: individual good intentions systematically fail when institutional pressures emerge. Her concrete example from quantum computing research demonstrates how the same people who privately express ethical motivations publicly compromise those values under business pressures. The ROI question reframes ethics from a philosophical ideal to a practical business challenge.

Impact

This comment fundamentally shifted the discussion from theoretical ethics to practical implementation challenges. It introduced the critical tension between individual values and institutional pressures, which became a recurring theme. Both subsequent speakers (Ryota and Chaichana) built upon this insight, with Ryota acknowledging similar pressures in his company and Chaichana addressing how Thailand tries to balance regulatory enforcement with business concerns.

But I think the tricky thing starts when there’s some sort of conflict. So especially in the commercial setting, there’s a strong demand to make profit. So I’m running a company and then I get investment. So investors push us to make money. I think that’s how our current economic system works. But because of this, as a scientist, I felt some companies are trying to sell neurotechnology products that are not scientifically validated.

Speaker

Ryota Kanai

Reason

This comment is particularly powerful because it comes from someone living the dual reality of scientist and entrepreneur. He articulates the specific mechanism by which ethical compromises occur – investor pressure leading to premature or unvalidated product claims. His concern about trust in science adds another layer, showing how individual ethical failures can undermine entire fields.

Impact

This comment validated and deepened Mira’s earlier observation about institutional pressures, but added the crucial dimension of scientific integrity. It shifted the conversation toward the specific challenge of maintaining scientific rigor under commercial pressure, and introduced the concept that ethical failures can erode public trust in entire technological domains.

So based on our belief that this is our guiding tool for Thailand to navigate through AI adoption and maybe regulation creation, we try to really make it happen… We decided to study AI laws and regulations more than two years ago. We actually drafted our AI bill two years ago, but there were conflicting opinions of how Thailand should navigate through AI regulations at that time. People facing fraud, defect issues were supporting the law while the developers in Thailand were kind of opposing and asked a lot of questions.

Speaker

Chaichana Mitrpant

Reason

This comment provides crucial real-world evidence of the implementation challenges discussed theoretically by the other speakers. It shows how even well-intentioned government efforts face the exact stakeholder conflicts that Mira and Ryota identified – those experiencing harms want regulation while developers resist it due to cost concerns.

Impact

This comment grounded the entire discussion in practical governance reality. It demonstrated that the theoretical tensions between ethics and economics play out even at the national policy level, and introduced the concept of ‘localized, customized, but not compromised’ implementation, which became a key framework referenced by other speakers.

So, for me, there’s different answers to this. But in the tech sector, importantly, the difference between true ethics and the law is that ethics is much wider and that the law often is this kind of, that’s what we discussed, is the one that is sort of lacking behind and that is not capturing a lot. So, for instance, even if you hear, and I mentioned that earlier to you, in a tech sector, when you hear ethics, it is not ethics, it is compliance.

Speaker

Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Reason

This comment is intellectually provocative because it challenges the entire premise of how ethics is understood in the technology sector. By distinguishing ‘true ethics’ from compliance-based pseudo-ethics, she exposes how the term ‘ethics’ itself has been co-opted and diluted. This reframing is crucial for understanding why many corporate ‘ethics’ initiatives fail to address real ethical concerns.

Impact

This comment elevated the entire discussion by introducing a meta-level critique of how ethics discourse itself has been corrupted. It provided a framework for understanding why many well-intentioned ethics initiatives fail – they’re actually compliance exercises rather than genuine ethical reflection. This insight influenced the final exchanges about the relationship between ethics and regulation.

Overall assessment

These key comments transformed what could have been a theoretical discussion about ethics principles into a nuanced examination of the systemic barriers to ethical technology development. Mira’s insights about institutional pressure and the corruption of ethics discourse provided the analytical framework, while Ryota’s personal experience as a scientist-entrepreneur validated these observations with concrete examples. Chaichana’s policy implementation experiences demonstrated that these challenges exist at every level, from individual companies to national governments. Together, these comments created a progression from identifying the problem (good intentions undermined by institutional pressures) to understanding its mechanisms (investor demands, regulatory conflicts) to exploring potential solutions (anticipatory governance, multi-stakeholder engagement). The discussion evolved from abstract principles to practical implementation challenges, ultimately revealing that the central question isn’t what ethical principles to adopt, but how to create systems that can maintain ethical commitments under economic and institutional pressure.

How can we put a return on investment (ROI) on ethics in a world driven by private industry?

Speaker

Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of making ethics economically viable and attractive to profit-driven organizations, which is crucial for embedding ethics from the start of technology development.

How can we resist economic pressures and institutional pressures to ensure that good principles remain at the foundation of motivation?

Speaker

Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Explanation

This explores the systemic challenges that cause individuals with good ethical intentions to compromise when faced with corporate and financial pressures.

How much information can we extract from neural signals, especially in combination with AI?

Speaker

Ryota Kanai

Explanation

This is a critical research area for neurotechnology ethics, as the extent of information extraction capabilities directly impacts privacy concerns and regulatory needs.

How can we better anticipate remote possibilities and future scenarios in technology development?

Speaker

Ryota Kanai

Explanation

This addresses the need for more sophisticated forecasting methods to keep governance pace with rapid technological development, particularly for scenarios that may seem like science fiction but could become reality.

How can we create effective governance models that work across converging technologies while maintaining local customization?

Speaker

Implied by discussion between all speakers

Explanation

This explores whether separate ethical frameworks are needed for each technology or if cross-cutting principles can be adapted, which is important for efficient and coherent governance.

How can we better capture signals about AI development direction through dialogue platforms?

Speaker

Chaichana Mitrpant

Explanation

This addresses the need for systematic monitoring and early warning systems to track technological developments and adjust governance measures accordingly.

How can risk management be distributed fairly without placing excessive burdens on particular stakeholders like SMEs?

Speaker

Chaichana Mitrpant

Explanation

This explores how to create equitable risk assessment frameworks that don’t disadvantage smaller players while maintaining effective oversight.

What are effective models for companies that balance societal benefit with economic benefit?

Speaker

Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Explanation

This addresses the lack of successful business models that demonstrate how ethical principles can coexist with profitability, which is needed to convince the private sector.

Summary

This Leaders’ Talk focused on cybersecurity and collaborative strategies to strengthen digital trust and cyber resilience in our connected world. The discussion, moderated by Lucien Castex, brought together government officials and cybersecurity experts from multiple countries to share best practices and concrete solutions for enhancing online safety.

Malaysia’s Minister Fahmi Fadzil highlighted ASEAN’s collaborative approach to developing guidelines for safe and responsible social media use, emphasizing that “Big Tech is not bigger than our laws” and that sovereign nations must enforce their regulations. Greece’s representative discussed the implementation of the NIS2 Directive, noting Greece’s maximum score of 20 points in the ITU Global Cybersecurity Index and their comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy that supports SMEs through tailored compliance guidance.

India’s Anil Kumar Lahoti explained their cross-sectoral cooperation model, describing how the National Cyber Security Coordination Center (NCCC) works with various sectors to share threat intelligence and coordinate responses. Lithuania’s Jurate Soviene presented two successful initiatives: the “No One Is Left Behind” digital skills project for seniors and a collaborative anti-scam effort involving telecom operators, police, and financial institutions.

Thailand’s representative outlined their regulatory sandbox approach and public-private partnerships in healthcare and digital identity, while Spain’s virtual participant described their holistic cybersecurity model and international cooperation programs, including cybersecurity training camps that have reached over 20,000 students. The Internet Society’s Sally Wentworth emphasized that no single actor can secure the internet alone, highlighting the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration involving education, standards development, and civil society support.

The session concluded with Trust Valley’s Lennig Pedron discussing public-private partnerships and their work supporting over 250 innovative companies in digital trust and cybersecurity. The discussion demonstrated that effective cybersecurity requires coordinated efforts across sectors, borders, and stakeholder groups to build a safer digital future for all.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Digital Sovereignty and Regulatory Frameworks**: Multiple speakers emphasized the importance of national laws governing big tech companies, with Malaysia’s Minister Fadzil stating “Big Tech is not bigger than our laws” and discussing ASEAN’s collaborative approach to social media guidelines. Greece detailed their implementation of the NIS2 Directive as part of EU-wide cybersecurity coordination.

– **Cross-Sector Collaboration and Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation**: India presented concrete examples of inter-sectoral coordination through their National Cyber Security Coordination Center (NCCC), while speakers consistently emphasized that no single actor can secure the internet alone – requiring cooperation between government, private sector, academia, and civil society.

– **Inclusive Digital Development and Protecting Vulnerable Groups**: Lithuania shared their “No One Is Left Behind” project targeting seniors, while Thailand discussed regulatory sandboxes and public-private partnerships. The focus was on ensuring cybersecurity measures don’t exclude vulnerable populations from digital participation.

– **Practical Implementation Strategies and Concrete Use Cases**: Speakers provided specific examples of successful initiatives, from Spain’s international cooperation programs training over 20,000 students, to Trust Valley’s support of 250+ innovative companies, to Thailand’s MobileID platform for secure digital identity.

– **International Cooperation and Capacity Building**: The discussion highlighted various international partnerships, from Spain’s work with the Organization of American States to ASEAN’s collective approach, emphasizing that cybersecurity threats require coordinated global responses.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aimed to explore collaborative strategies for strengthening digital trust and cyber resilience globally, sharing best practices and concrete solutions among international stakeholders as part of the WSIS+20 review process.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone was consistently professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented throughout. Speakers maintained an optimistic yet realistic approach, acknowledging challenges while emphasizing successful examples and the importance of working together. The moderator’s closing remarks reinforced this constructive tone by encouraging bold ideas and concrete action, referencing Jules Verne’s quote about imagination and implementation.

Speakers

– **Introduction**: Role/Title: Not specified, Area of expertise: Event coordination/moderation

– **Lucien Castex**: Role/Title: Moderator for the Leaders’ Talks session, Area of expertise: Session moderation and cybersecurity discussions

– **Fahmi Fadzil**: Role/Title: Minister (Malaysia), Area of expertise: Social media regulation and ASEAN digital policy

– **Dimitris Papastergiou**: Role/Title: Minister (Greece), Area of expertise: Cybersecurity implementation and NIS2 Directive

– **Anil Kumar Lahoti**: Role/Title: Not specified (India representative), Area of expertise: Cyber resilience and cross-sector cooperation

– **Jurate Soviene**: Role/Title: Not specified (Lithuania representative), Area of expertise: Digital trust, cyber resilience, and digital inclusion

– **Trairat Viriyasirikul**: Role/Title: Representative of telecommunications regulatory body (Thailand), Area of expertise: ICT development and public-private sector collaboration

– **Sally Wentworth**: Role/Title: Representative of Internet Society, Area of expertise: Internet safety, security, and global Internet governance

– **Lennig Pedron**: Role/Title: Representative of Trust Valley, Area of expertise: Digital trust, cybersecurity, and public-private partnerships

– **Matias Gonzalez**: Role/Title: H.E. Mr. (Spain representative), Area of expertise: Cybersecurity policy and international cooperation

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Comprehensive Report: Leaders’ Talk on Cybersecurity and Digital Trust

## Executive Summary

This Leaders’ Talk session, part of the WSIS+20 high-level event held at Palexpo in Geneva, was moderated by Lucien Castex and brought together government officials and cybersecurity experts from multiple countries to explore collaborative strategies for strengthening digital trust and cyber resilience. The discussion, conducted with interpretation in six languages, featured representatives from Malaysia, Greece, India, Lithuania, Thailand, Spain, the Internet Society, and Trust Valley, each sharing national approaches and best practices for enhancing online safety through multi-stakeholder cooperation.

The session maintained a collaborative tone throughout, with speakers presenting their respective countries’ and organizations’ approaches to cybersecurity challenges while emphasizing the importance of international cooperation and cross-sector collaboration.

## Key Themes and Major Discussion Points

### Digital Sovereignty and National Regulatory Frameworks

Malaysia’s Minister Fahmi Fadzil opened the substantive discussion by emphasizing national sovereignty in technology governance: “Big Tech is not bigger than our laws. Nations, sovereign nations, have laws and these laws need to be adhered. There are regulations that have been put in place for safety, for security, and Big Tech must listen to our laws.”

Minister Fadzil explained ASEAN’s collaborative approach to developing guidelines for safe and responsible social media use, noting that smaller countries like Malaysia (with 35 million people) compared to Indonesia (with over 300 million) can gain stronger negotiating power through regional cooperation. He highlighted the upcoming Kuala Lumpur declaration on social media guidelines, set to take effect at the 47th ASEAN Summit in October. He also referenced President Macron’s speech about algorithms choosing our future, emphasizing the need for human agency in digital governance.

Greece’s representative, Dimitris Papastergiou, described Greece’s comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, noting their achievement of the maximum score of 20 points in the ITU Global Cybersecurity Index. Greece’s strategy encompasses the implementation of the NIS2 Directive as part of EU-wide cybersecurity coordination, with particular attention to supporting small and medium enterprises through tailored compliance guidance.

“For us, cyber security is no longer just a technical matter. It is a strategic pillar of national resilience and digital sovereignty,” Papastergiou explained, connecting cybersecurity to broader democratic institutions, public safety, and social cohesion.

Spain’s virtual participant, Matias Gonzalez, described their holistic cybersecurity model that achieved Tier 1 status in the Global Cybersecurity Index through comprehensive legal, technical, organisational, and cooperation measures. He noted that Spain’s constitutional protection of communications dates back to 1978, providing a strong legal foundation for cybersecurity efforts. Spain’s approach includes extensive international cooperation programmes, such as the OAS Cybersecurity Summer Good Camp, which has reached over 20,000 students across nine editions.

Thailand’s representative, Trairat Viriyasirikul, presented their regulatory sandbox framework, which allows private sector testing of advanced technologies with regulatory support. This approach emphasises co-creation, shared responsibility, and public value through partnerships, particularly in healthcare and digital identity sectors. He specifically mentioned Thailand’s MobileID platform as a national digital identity solution.

### Cross-Sector Collaboration and Institutional Mechanisms

India’s representative, Anil Kumar Lahoti, provided detailed insights into their institutional mechanisms for managing cybersecurity across sectors. He explained how India’s National Cyber Security Coordination Center (NCCC) serves as the nodal agency for real-time situational awareness and coordination of cybersecurity incidents across all sectors and states. The NCCC works in conjunction with the Telecom Security Operations Center (TSOC), which focuses specifically on telecom infrastructure security.

“Cross-sectoral cooperation is essential for cyber resilience due to interconnected critical infrastructures and cascading effects of cyber attacks,” Lahoti emphasised, describing how cyber incidents in one sector can rapidly affect others due to the interconnected nature of modern digital infrastructure.

Lithuania’s representative, Jurate Soviene, provided practical insights into collaboration challenges: “But let’s be honest, saying let’s collaborate is easy, doing it is much harder. And someone has to take the first step and someone has to lead. And I believe this is exactly where regulators should step in.”

Soviene advocated for regulators to be “brave, creative and less bureaucratic” in driving meaningful collaboration, challenging traditional approaches to regulatory oversight.

### Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation and Global Perspectives

Sally Wentworth from the Internet Society provided a comprehensive systems-thinking perspective: “There’s no one actor in the ecosystem that can secure the internet for everyone. It’s not going to happen that way. We need technologists and experts. We need research. We need government commitment and strategies. We need industry investment. We need the voice of civil society.”

This multi-stakeholder framework was reinforced by Trust Valley’s Lennig Pedron, who described their organization as founded by the Geneva and Vaud states, bringing together over 400 global partners to support more than 250 innovative companies in digital trust and cybersecurity. Pedron emphasised the importance of neutral platforms that can effectively balance the interests of governments, private sector, and academia.

### Digital Inclusion and Protecting Vulnerable Populations

Lithuania presented their “No One Is Left Behind” project through a video presentation featuring AI-generated historical figures, demonstrating a national movement involving over 160 partners focused on helping seniors gain digital skills and confidence.

“We have created a national movement where we have more than 160 partners who are helping seniors to get digital skills, to get confidence, to get trust in digital solutions,” Soviene explained, demonstrating how cybersecurity initiatives can be designed to promote rather than hinder digital inclusion.

Lithuania also shared their collaborative approach to tackling scams, which involves telecom operators, police, prosecutors, cybersecurity agencies, and the national bank working together to protect citizens from digital fraud.

Sally Wentworth from the Internet Society reinforced this theme, explaining their focus on education for vulnerable populations and ensuring communities can come online safely. She highlighted the Internet Society’s co-fund initiative with the Global Cyber Alliance to support traditionally underfunded civil society groups that are integral to online safety and security.

### International Cooperation and Capacity Building

The discussion highlighted numerous examples of international partnerships and capacity-building initiatives. Spain’s work with the Organization of American States demonstrated how countries can extend their cybersecurity expertise globally, including a Women’s Cyber programme and cooperation with the Arab Academy.

ASEAN’s collective approach to social media guidelines, as described by Malaysia’s Minister Fadzil, exemplified how regional cooperation can strengthen individual countries’ negotiating positions with global technology companies.

Greece’s participation in EU-wide cybersecurity coordination through the NIS2 Directive showed how supranational frameworks can provide structure and standards whilst allowing for national implementation flexibility.

The Internet Society’s global perspective emphasised the importance of technical standards development through open processes and the robust adoption of security protocols like encryption and routing security.

## Areas of Consensus and Shared Approaches

The discussion revealed strong consensus on several fundamental principles. All speakers agreed that multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for cybersecurity and digital trust, with no single actor capable of securing the internet alone.

There was broad agreement on the importance of cross-sector coordination due to the interconnected nature of modern digital infrastructure. Speakers consistently emphasised that cyber attacks can have cascading effects across multiple domains, requiring coordinated responses.

International cooperation emerged as another area of strong consensus, with speakers recognising that cybersecurity threats require coordinated global responses through various regional cooperation initiatives, bilateral partnerships, and multilateral frameworks.

Public-private partnerships were consistently emphasised as crucial for fostering innovation whilst maintaining security and regulatory compliance.

## Practical Implementation Examples

Throughout the discussion, speakers provided specific examples of successful initiatives. Spain’s international cooperation programmes, including their cybersecurity training camps and the upcoming 10th edition of their Summer Good Camp, demonstrated sustained commitment to capacity building.

Trust Valley’s work with over 250 innovative companies through concrete programmes showed how intermediary organisations can provide sustained support for cybersecurity innovation through neutral platforms for public-private partnerships.

Greece’s implementation of the NIS2 Directive with tailored compliance guidance for SMEs provided a model for balancing comprehensive national cybersecurity standards with practical support for different types of organisations.

India’s systematic approach through the NCCC and TSOC demonstrated how countries can create formal institutional structures for ongoing collaboration rather than ad-hoc responses to cyber incidents.

## Key Takeaways and Ongoing Initiatives

The discussion highlighted several concrete ongoing initiatives. ASEAN’s Kuala Lumpur declaration on social media guidelines is set to take effect at the 47th ASEAN Summit in October. Greece continues implementing the NIS2 Directive with SME-focused compliance guidance. Spain is preparing their 10th Cybersecurity Summer Good Camp edition, demonstrating the sustainability of international capacity-building programmes.

Trust Valley continues supporting over 250 innovative companies through their network of 400+ global partners. Lithuania’s “No One Is Left Behind” national movement with over 160 partners demonstrates large-scale digital inclusion initiatives. The Internet Society’s co-fund initiative with the Global Cyber Alliance represents an innovative approach to supporting civil society cybersecurity groups.

## Conclusion

This Leaders’ Talk demonstrated the potential for collaborative solutions to cybersecurity challenges through practical examples and ongoing initiatives. The session’s strength lay in its combination of strategic thinking with concrete implementation models that other countries and organisations could adapt.

The discussion showed that effective cybersecurity requires coordinated efforts across sectors, borders, and stakeholder groups. The examples shared and commitments made suggest that collaborative approaches can produce meaningful progress towards enhanced digital trust and cyber resilience.

Moderator Lucien Castex concluded the session by referencing Jules Verne and “80 days around the world,” encouraging participants to maintain ambitious thinking whilst focusing on practical implementation. The session’s emphasis on multi-stakeholder collaboration, digital inclusion, and practical implementation provides a valuable foundation for ongoing efforts to address cybersecurity challenges in an increasingly connected world.

Introduction: Let’s move on to our next Leaders’ Talks about Cybersecurity and Towards a Safer Connected World, Collaborative Strategies to Strengthen Digital Trust and Cyber Resilience. We’ve been hearing about cyber resilience right from day one. We’d like to invite Lucien to please take the floor. He’s going to be the moderator for this Leaders’ Talks. Lucien, we invite you and the panelists to the stage, please. Over to you, Lucien.

Lucien Castex: Hi, everybody. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hello everyone. Bienvenue dans cette session. Excellence, chers collègues du monde entier. Welcome to this session, excellencies, dear colleagues from the rest of the world. My name is Lucien Castex. If you wonder, this session should have interpretation in the six languages. So if you need it, you can use the interpretation as well. I’m delighted to be hosting this session. With the review of the WSIS this year, let us try to draw here today from the Geneva spirit in Palexpo to collaborate towards a safe, open and innovative connected world. It is a perfect time indeed to be working together, all stakeholders in the diversity, to find ways and means. to find effective strategies and collaborative solutions to reinforce cyber resilience and trust in the information society from cables and wires to networks to Internet protocols and digital services. This is the aim of the session. From sharing of best practices, concrete use cases, this is essential. But first of all, having bold ideas as well. Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality. So first, in that discussion, I would like to turn to Malaysia. And I would like to ask Excellency Minister Fadzil, Malaysia is currently taking a leading role in the development of a guideline on the safe and responsible use of social media platforms for ASEAN. Could you possibly share what specific outcomes Malaysia hopes to achieve through this guideline and how you envision it contributing to the broader goal of building a more resilient and digitally responsible ASEAN community?

Fahmi Fadzil: Thank you. Assalamualaikum, good morning, bonjour. I was following very closely the speech given by President Emmanuel Macron in the Palace of Westminster yesterday, I think it was. And he was talking about if we do not choose, then our future will be chosen by those who choose the algorithms. There are many countries that are discussing the role and impact of social media, not only on our immediate societies, but also our futures. Unfortunately, many of our countries are, we’re not all the size of India, for example, where the girth and width and breadth of the population is something that all social media platforms will pay attention to. Some countries like Estonia, Singapore are not big in size. Malaysia is only 35 million people. Indonesia is more than 300 million. Within the context of ASEAN, particularly in Malaysia’s role as chairman of ASEAN this year, we have decided that we are stronger together, we will work better together, collaborating together. We have signed a declaration, a Kuala Lumpur declaration, which will take effect, God willing, during the 47th ASEAN Summit in October, where some of these principles for ASEAN countries to face the same direction and adopt perhaps similar ideas, strategies, given that ASEAN is polyglot. We are many different types of countries and we do not have a European Parliament per se. These guidelines will help to serve perhaps as a beacon in the dark for ASEAN nations in order to travel safely to where we need to go, respecting our respective sovereignty, but also the principle of ASEAN centrality. In that way, we hope that we will have a bigger voice, a stronger voice, a lot of big tech. Perhaps it is very interesting to say this here in this context. Big Tech is not bigger than our laws. Nations, sovereign nations, have laws and these laws need to be adhered. There are regulations that have been put in place for safety, for security, and Big Tech must listen to our laws. So these are my comments. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much, Excellency. Indeed, digital sovereignty is one of the key topics when we discuss digital technologies. In this session, we will travel around the world, literally a lot of miles going around, and so I would like to turn to Greece. Excellency Minister Demetrios Poulos, what do you consider the main challenge in implementing the NIS2 Directive in Greece, and how are you addressing it in Greece?

Dimitris Papastergiou: Thank you. Thank you for having me here, Your Excellency, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. For us, cyber security is no longer just a technical matter. It is a strategic pillar of national resilience and digital sovereignty. Cyber attacks impact not only the EU’s economy, but also democratic institutions and public safety and social cohesion. In Greece, as you already asked, we have made decisive strides to strengthen our cyber security posture across strategic, legislative, and operational fronts. According to the ITU Global Cyber Security Index, Greece scores the maximum of 20 points in pillars like legal measures, technical measures, and cooperation measures. This is a fact since our National Cyber Security Strategy 2020-2025 laid the groundwork for securing a cyber-resilient digital environment. National Risk Assessment Plan, and the National Response Plan for Large-scale Cyber Incidents. The National SHOC ensures real-time situation awareness, while the National SCIR early delivers rapid-response capabilities for critical sectors. Transposing NIS to International Law marks a significant milestone, broadening regulatory coverage, imposing stricter obligations, and enhancing oversight. A key challenge, however, lies in supporting a diverse range of newly-covered entities, particularly SMEs, which are vital to our economy. To assist them, the National Cyber Security Authority provides tailored compliance guidance, self-assessment tools, and gap analysis resources. We are also boosting our supervisory capacity and deepening public-private collaboration through regular webinars, engagement, and open communication channels. These actions are part of our horizontal, whole-of-government approach to cybersecurity governance. In parallel, EU-funded initiatives are helping strengthen cybersecurity in public administration, health and SMEs, and we aim to close this cybersecurity skills gap and build a national training ecosystem in synergy, of course, with EU efforts. Finally, our overarching goal goes beyond compliance. More specifically, we strive to foster a culture of cybersecurity awareness, shared responsibility and digital trust across our society. Greece remains firmly committed to the EU-wide coordination on threat detection, crisis response and trusted digital supply chains. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much, Excellency. Indeed, the EU cybersecurity strategy and framework in the making, and a number of EU countries are in the phase of implementing this too. In their respective countries, it is really important to think about collaborative cybersecurity across the continent and throughout the world to fight against threat emerging. I would like to move across the world to India. And to ask Mr. Laoti, cyber resilience can only be achieved through cross-sector cooperation and coordination. How true is it from India’s perspective?

Anil Kumar Lahoti: Thank you very much and good morning to all of you. The three R’s of cyber resilience include resist, recover and rebuild. Achieving cyber resilience is significantly dependent on cross-sectoral cooperation and coordination. Critical infrastructures like energy grids, Financial networks, transportation systems, etc. are all highly interconnected. Which means a cyber attack in one sector can quickly have cascading effects on others. Moreover, cross-sectoral collaboration allows for better threat intelligence sharing, enabling organizations to anticipate and respond to emerging threats more effectively. Sharing knowledge, tools and personnel can also be significantly used to enhance the cyber resilience. Cross-sectoral collaboration also facilitates the development and adoption of common standards and best practices for cyber security, making it easier for organizations to implement robust security measures. India has national cyber security policy to maintain operations and recover quickly after an incident. India has developed various institutional mechanisms for coordinated management of cyber security. The National Cyber Security Coordination Center or NCCC is a multi-organizational center which gets inputs from multiple sectors through sensors deployed therein. The results of analytics are shared with relevant sectors for proactive mitigation. The Telecom Security Operations Center or TSOC monitors the traffic in the telecom network and provides the information on breaches and threats to the affected entities in different sectors and also feeds into the NCCC for analysis and dissemination. The sectoral cyber security incident response teams or CCERT of say power sector gets feed from NCCC and TSOC for mitigation actions. It also feeds the threat intelligence to NCCC. So it is getting the feed as well as sharing its own intelligence. For example, if a smart grid communication network provided by a telecom service provider for power sector gets impacted by a cyber attack at a power distribution location, the communication network being monitored by TSOC captures the alarm and the incident is reported to NCCC, where the experts from various sectors analyze and feed into various CCERTs of the affected sectors for immediate action and future prevention. So these are the cross-sectoral measures which India is taking, but I think excellencies have already spoken. Beyond cross-sectoral, I think it is also important to have a multilateral collaboration also to ensure cyber resilience. I think that is another very important dimension which needs to be looked into. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much, Chairman. It is very interesting to have concrete use cases and concrete collaboration examples such as you highlighted. We will move back to Europe and to Lithuania and I would like to turn to Madame Soviene. From your perspective, what are the main factors of success in strengthening digital trust and cyber resilience, especially for vulnerable groups of society?

Jurate Soviene: Thank you. And I would like to answer by sharing two examples. And for the first one, may I ask you to play a very short video? No sound. Strange. Okay, thank you. So, you just saw a short video invitation to join a digital wave, one of our key events of our national digital skills project, No One Is Left Behind. And why this video is important? With the help of AI, we brought to life a more than 100 years old picture, a photo of the Lithuanian state restoration founders, the first president and parliament members. And it is not just a simple symbol, it was a call to raise the digital wave together and across generations, both online and on site, on the same day, in all 60 Lithuanian municipalities. Because even with a strong digital infrastructure in Lithuania, many older people, they still feel left out. And that’s why we started our project, No One Is Left Behind, to help seniors gain the skills and confidence they need to feel safer online. And in just one year, it has become a national movement with more than 160 partners, volunteers, public and private sector institutions, libraries and municipalities and local media. And another great example of collaboration is how we tackle scams. Instead of fighting alone, we team up with telecom operators, the police, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Cybersecurity Agency and the National Bank. And we meet regularly. Together, we identify patterns of scams, block fake calls and messages early and raise public awareness. But let’s be honest, saying let’s collaborate is easy, doing it is much harder. And someone has to take the first step and someone has to lead. And I believe this is exactly where regulators should step in. And in today’s fast-changing world, we can’t just stick to the old means of formal competence, all the limits of formal competence. And if we want to make a real change, we must dare to do things differently, must be brave, be creative and less bureaucratic. And because that’s how we build digital trust and that’s how we make sure that no one is left behind. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much. Indeed, someone has to take the first step. It’s a perfect place here in Geneva doing this with this plus 20 high-level event. I would like to move again across the world, this time to Thailand, and ask Mr. Trairat Viriyasirikul, as a telecommunications regulatory body in Thailand, what strategies or frameworks have proven most effective in fostering successful collaboration between the public and private sectors to drive inclusive and sustainable ICT development?

Trairat Viriyasirikul: In Thailand, collaborative innovation frameworks are essential to inclusive and sustainable ICT development. One of our most effective tools has been the Regulatory Sandbox, which allows private sectors to test advanced technology like 5G, AI, IoT in the real-world setting with regulatory support and flexibility. This creates a low-risk environment for innovation that gives us insight to refine our policies. We work closely with partners like industrial zones, state universities, and private firms to ensure these triumphant real societal needs. Another key area has been our investment in public-private pilot projects, particularly in healthcare. For example, we have funded smart hospitals and emergency systems using 5G and AI. We have developed projects with public hospitals, research bodies, and telecom providers. These efforts demonstrate how targeted collaboration can directly improve public services. We have also launched MobileID, a national digital identity platform that enables secure access to services across both the public and private sectors. From government officers to banks and e-commerce, it enhances trust, inclusion, and helps prevent the spread of COVID-19. In the area of AI governance, we partner with AI Governance Center under Electronic Transaction Development Agency to raise awareness and provide guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence technologies among personnel in the telecommunications sector. This collaboration includes joint efforts to study, develop, and establish a framework for the use of AI technology in telecommunications that align with Thailand’s context. International policy detects directions and relevant regulations. Clearly, a draft of the Act of Parliament and a draft of the Royal Decree in the regarding issues are in the process of public hearing. This ensures emerging technologies are not only effective, but also fair, transparent, and secure. Ultimately, our strategy is built on three pillars – co-creation, shared responsibility, and public value. We believe inclusive development happens when all stakeholders are part of both problem-solving and innovation process. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much, indeed. Today, in Geneva, we are trying to navigate the rough seas of the Internet of Digital Governance. To try to inform this discussion among stakeholders, so far quite interesting, digging into concrete use cases, examples, country policies, and I would like to turn to the Internet Society now and ask you, Ms. Sally Wentworth, how do we work together to ensure that people everywhere have an Internet experience that is safe, secure, and protects them online?

Sally Wentworth: Thank you very much, and it’s a pleasure to be here today. The Internet Society is a global organization dedicated to the vision that the Internet is for everyone. We are closely aligned with our partner, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and other colleagues across the Internet ecosystem that have worked tirelessly to ensure that the Internet reaches everybody, but also that the Internet is secure and trustworthy and that users can, in fact, ensure that their experience is safe and secure. As we developed our five-year strategy 2030 for the Internet Society, one of the areas that we committed to focusing on was this very question of ensuring that people everywhere have an Internet experience that’s safe, secure, and protects them online. We think that that is carried forward in a number of different ways for us. The first pillar is around education. We do a lot of work around the world to ensure that people can come online in an affordable, reliable way, but as we bring communities online, we need to ensure that these vulnerable populations have the tools to come online safely. And so, through training initiatives and partnerships with expert organizations on that topic, we are trying to ensure that the end user has the skills to operate online safely. The second important area for us, given our relationship with the Internet Engineering Task Force, is to ensure that the work on security in standards continues to move forward and that there’s robust adoption of strong and security-related protocols, such as encryption, things related to routing security, and other components that ensure that the traffic flows safely and securely, that we can rely, that the websites that we visit are, in fact, what we expect to see. And all of that depends upon protocols and standards. And those protocols and standards are developed within the Internet Engineering Task Force in an open way. Everyone can participate. There’s a lot of participation from industry, of course, but also academia, civil society, and governments. So, it’s really important that there’s robust participation in the standards development process, but also that the policy environments exist for those standards to roll out. And then finally, there’s a whole body of civil society groups that are integral to our online safety and security that are traditionally underfunded but which we depend upon. And recently we launched a co-fund initiative with our partners in the Global Cyber Alliance with support from the U.K. and Canadian governments to build a fund to support cyber security initiatives that protect civil society or that are driven by civil society groups around the world. We depend upon those technologies and many of us don’t even realize it and it’s really important for our collective security that this work is sustainable and well-resourced. So there’s a lot of different things that we need to do and I think the last thing that I would leave you with is there’s no one actor in the ecosystem that can secure the internet for everyone. It’s not going to happen that way. We need technologists and experts. We need research. We need government commitment and strategies. We need industry investment. We need the voice of civil society to ensure that what we do on security allows us to keep speaking freely and access information. So it’s really important that this is a collaborative effort and that’s the approach that we use to ensure that people can communicate safely and securely online.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much indeed and thank you for highlighting the importance of the multi-stakeholder model and of collaborative solutions to be found with civil society, the technical community, academia, the private sector and governments, each playing its part in making the online world safer. I would like to keep digging towards solutions and turn to Madame Pedron of Trust Valley. What is your view on the importance and relevance of public-private partnerships like Trust Valley? for enhancing trust and security in the digital society.

Lennig Pedron: Thank you, Professor Castex. Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, it’s really an honour for me to be here today with you. At Trust Valley, we strongly believe that multi-stakeholder cooperation is essential, is really crucial to securing our digital future. The question of PPP, so public-private partnership, is at the heart of what we are doing in the Trust Valley. We were created, funded by the state of Geneva and the state of Vaud five years ago by the Department of Economy. We are a centre of excellence in digital trust and cyber security, because for us cyber security is basic and this is the base of the pyramid, but we are working on whole emerging technologies. And our mission is really to ensure a safe, secure and more responsible digital economy. We bring together more than 400 partners at a global level right now. So we were founded at the original level, but we work globally. As you know, we are at the heart of Europe, in the centre of Europe, and we are a very small country. So we always work with a lot of partners at a worldwide level. And over the past five years, we supported more than 250 innovative companies. So it’s a start-up, scale-up, sometimes it’s SMB-SMEs, because sometimes we forgot that SMB-SMEs have a very good part in what they are doing. And this is also one example that I want to give to you. We created some programs. What we really want to do is to have all our partners, governments, also private sector and academia on board. And it’s really difficult to find a way on the best interest of this kind of actor. So what we are doing is we created a neutral platform and with this neutral platform we created some program, very concrete action. One is for SMB-SMEs and what we have done with this program is really to secure, to raise the quality on what we are doing with all about cyber security. This is really a pledge about cyber attack and all the people right now have the same program. All the governments have the same problem. So we really work on this challenge. And the second example that I want to share with you is what we created this year with the World Bank and the SECO, the Department of Economy at the National level of Switzerland. We created an innovation challenge for governmental technology, so for GovTech. And this is really that right now, we work a lot on B2G, so business-to-government to push all what we are doing here. So for us, joint pilot project, flexible financing mechanism and simplify a legal administrative procedure to support real partnership, this is really what we are doing together. Thank you.

Lucien Castex: Thank you very much for concrete use cases and examples. So now, in the few minutes that we have, we will move online and I would like to give the floor to Spain, Excellency H.E. Mr. Matías González. What key measures has Spain implemented to become a Tier 1 country in the 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index?

Matias Gonzalez: Thank you, Lucien, and good morning Excellencies in the panel and the rest of participants in the event. It’s a pleasure to be here and a pity not having been able to join you in person in Geneva. In Spain, we are very proud of our work in Spain regarding cyber security. We’ve been working hard on this topic since the beginning, since the origin of the Information Society. Our own constitution, which is dated in 1978, establishes the protection of communications as one of the first rights of Spanish citizens. This is why we consider security as a holistic question that includes technology, government, companies and citizens. Cyber security should be tackled from a holistic point of view, taking into account both internal actors as well as external ones. This index, of which you were referring to in your question, measures different areas regarding cyber security. Spain gets a very impressive score thanks to our legal, technical, organizational and cooperation measures. I would like to focus now on our international aspects. The cooperation to say that Spain is committed to spread its security model to other countries. We are convinced that cooperation is key for a safer future for all. In this regard, one of the most important projects that we are now doing is with the Organization of American States. This cooperation began in 2016. is promoting joint initiatives for the generation and strengthening of capacities through different actions. Maybe the most important action is the Cybersecurity Summer Good Camp. And besides the creation of a network of experts, the Summer Good Camp has been in action for nine editions now. The 10th is about to start and more than 20,000 students have been attending this international program. We also have other programs like Women’s Cyber focusing on attracting women to the cybersecurity world. Another important highlight aspect of our international cooperation is the signature of an MOU with the cooperation of the University of Salamanca and the Arabian Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport. Our university, which is funded by the Arab League in Egypt and with 29 countries of the coalition. Let me conclude by reiterating the commitment of Spain with the ITU in Action Line C5 on cybersecurity and the World Summit on the WSIS, the Spanish Vice Presidency on the Advisory Group on Telecommunication and our active participation in the cyber drills is a clear example of our commitment to cooperate in the development of capacities in order to improve resilience of the digital world. Thank you very much for your question and for the opportunity to participate in this panel.

Lucien Castex: Muchas gracias para esos ejemplos concretos de colaboración. Thank you very much for these clear concrete examples of cooperation. There is an inspiring discussion in the 30 minutes or so that we had today. Imagine what we could do with one hour a day or a week of concrete use cases that we could find, inspire from, to dig in concrete solutions with just one thing in mind. Have bold ideas because anything one man can imagine other men can make real. That was from Jules Verne, Aurent Award, in 80 days. Thank you very much.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for cybersecurity and digital trust

Speakers

– Sally Wentworth
– Lennig Pedron
– Lucien Castex
– Jurate Soviene

Arguments

No single actor can secure the internet – requires collaboration between technologists, government, industry and civil society

Multi-stakeholder cooperation is crucial for securing digital future, requiring neutral platforms and concrete programs

Multi-stakeholder model requires each sector – civil society, technical community, academia, private sector and governments – to play their part

Regulators must take the first step and lead collaboration efforts, being brave, creative and less bureaucratic

Summary

All speakers agree that securing the digital future requires collaborative efforts across multiple stakeholders including government, private sector, civil society, technical community, and academia, with no single actor capable of addressing cybersecurity challenges alone.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory | Development

Cross-sector coordination is vital for cyber resilience due to interconnected systems

Speakers

– Anil Kumar Lahoti
– Dimitris Papastergiou
– Jurate Soviene

Arguments

Cross-sectoral cooperation is essential for cyber resilience due to interconnected critical infrastructures and cascading effects of cyber attacks

Greece has implemented comprehensive cybersecurity strategy with maximum ITU Global Cyber Security Index scores and NIS2 Directive transposition

Collaborative approach to tackle scams involves telecom operators, police, prosecutors, cybersecurity agencies and national bank

Summary

Speakers emphasize that modern digital infrastructure interconnectedness requires coordinated responses across different sectors, as cyber attacks can have cascading effects that span multiple domains.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

International cooperation strengthens cybersecurity capabilities

Speakers

– Fahmi Fadzil
– Matias Gonzalez
– Dimitris Papastergiou

Arguments

ASEAN countries are stronger together in facing big tech, and sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by technology companies

Spain promotes cybersecurity cooperation through programs like OAS Cybersecurity Summer Good Camp with 20,000+ students across 9 editions

Greece has implemented comprehensive cybersecurity strategy with maximum ITU Global Cyber Security Index scores and NIS2 Directive transposition

Summary

Countries recognize that international cooperation and regional frameworks enhance their ability to address cybersecurity challenges and negotiate with global technology companies more effectively.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory | Development

Public-private partnerships are crucial for digital innovation and security

Speakers

– Trairat Viriyasirikul
– Lennig Pedron
– Dimitris Papastergiou

Arguments

Thailand uses regulatory sandbox framework to allow private sector testing of advanced technologies with regulatory support

Public-private partnerships are essential for enhancing trust and security in digital society through joint pilot projects

Greece has implemented comprehensive cybersecurity strategy with maximum ITU Global Cyber Security Index scores and NIS2 Directive transposition

Summary

Speakers agree that effective public-private partnerships, including regulatory sandboxes and joint pilot projects, are essential for fostering innovation while maintaining security and regulatory compliance.

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical importance of digital inclusion and protecting vulnerable populations, particularly focusing on education and skills development to ensure safe online participation for groups like seniors and underserved communities.

Speakers

– Jurate Soviene
– Sally Wentworth

Arguments

Lithuania’s “No One Is Left Behind” project helps seniors gain digital skills and confidence through national movement with 160+ partners

Internet Society focuses on education for vulnerable populations and ensuring communities can come online safely

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sociocultural

Both speakers emphasize the importance of strong legal frameworks and sovereign authority in regulating technology companies and maintaining cybersecurity, with emphasis on comprehensive approaches that include legal measures.

Speakers

– Fahmi Fadzil
– Matias Gonzalez

Arguments

ASEAN countries are stronger together in facing big tech, and sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by technology companies

Spain has achieved Tier 1 status in Global Cybersecurity Index through holistic approach including legal, technical, organizational and cooperation measures

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for collaborative innovation platforms that bring together diverse stakeholders to create public value, emphasizing the importance of neutral platforms and shared responsibility in driving digital development.

Speakers

– Trairat Viriyasirikul
– Lennig Pedron

Arguments

Thailand’s strategy is built on co-creation, shared responsibility, and public value through partnerships in healthcare and digital identity

Trust Valley brings together 400+ global partners and supports innovative companies through neutral platform approach

Topics

Economic | Development | Infrastructure

Unexpected consensus

Regulatory leadership in driving collaboration

Speakers

– Jurate Soviene
– Trairat Viriyasirikul
– Lennig Pedron

Arguments

Regulators must take the first step and lead collaboration efforts, being brave, creative and less bureaucratic

Thailand uses regulatory sandbox framework to allow private sector testing of advanced technologies with regulatory support

Multi-stakeholder cooperation is crucial for securing digital future, requiring neutral platforms and concrete programs

Explanation

There is unexpected consensus that regulators should be proactive innovators rather than just rule enforcers, with speakers advocating for creative, less bureaucratic approaches and regulatory sandboxes that enable innovation while maintaining oversight.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Small and medium enterprises as crucial cybersecurity stakeholders

Speakers

– Dimitris Papastergiou
– Lennig Pedron

Arguments

Greece has implemented comprehensive cybersecurity strategy with maximum ITU Global Cyber Security Index scores and NIS2 Directive transposition

Trust Valley brings together 400+ global partners and supports innovative companies through neutral platform approach

Explanation

Both speakers unexpectedly emphasize the critical role of SMEs in cybersecurity ecosystems, recognizing them not just as vulnerable entities needing protection but as vital contributors to digital security and innovation.

Topics

Economic | Cybersecurity | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on the fundamental need for multi-stakeholder collaboration, cross-sector coordination, international cooperation, and public-private partnerships in addressing cybersecurity challenges. There was also agreement on the importance of digital inclusion and protecting vulnerable populations.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for cybersecurity governance. The agreement suggests a mature understanding that cybersecurity cannot be addressed through isolated efforts but requires coordinated, collaborative approaches across all sectors and stakeholders. This consensus provides a strong foundation for developing comprehensive cybersecurity strategies that are both effective and inclusive.

Different viewpoints

Approach to regulating big tech companies

Speakers

– Fahmi Fadzil
– Sally Wentworth

Arguments

ASEAN countries are stronger together in facing big tech, and sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by technology companies

No single actor can secure the internet – requires collaboration between technologists, government, industry and civil society

Summary

Malaysia advocates for a more assertive regulatory approach where sovereign nations enforce their laws on big tech companies through collective ASEAN action, while Internet Society emphasizes collaborative partnership approaches with industry participation in standards development and governance.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity | Economic

Unexpected differences

Role of government versus technical community in internet governance

Speakers

– Fahmi Fadzil
– Sally Wentworth

Arguments

ASEAN countries are stronger together in facing big tech, and sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by technology companies

Internet security depends on robust adoption of security protocols like encryption and routing security developed through open standards process

Explanation

This disagreement is unexpected because both speakers are addressing internet safety and security, but Malaysia emphasizes government sovereignty and legal enforcement while Internet Society emphasizes technical standards and open processes. The tension between regulatory control and technical openness represents a fundamental divide in internet governance approaches.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows relatively low levels of direct disagreement, with most speakers focusing on their national or organizational approaches rather than challenging others’ methods. The main tension exists between regulatory/sovereignty-focused approaches versus collaborative/technical community approaches to internet governance.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The implications suggest that while there is broad consensus on the need for cybersecurity and digital trust, there are fundamental differences in governance philosophy that could impact international cooperation on digital policy, particularly regarding the balance between national sovereignty and global technical coordination.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical importance of digital inclusion and protecting vulnerable populations, particularly focusing on education and skills development to ensure safe online participation for groups like seniors and underserved communities.

Speakers

– Jurate Soviene
– Sally Wentworth

Arguments

Lithuania’s “No One Is Left Behind” project helps seniors gain digital skills and confidence through national movement with 160+ partners

Internet Society focuses on education for vulnerable populations and ensuring communities can come online safely

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sociocultural

Both speakers emphasize the importance of strong legal frameworks and sovereign authority in regulating technology companies and maintaining cybersecurity, with emphasis on comprehensive approaches that include legal measures.

Speakers

– Fahmi Fadzil
– Matias Gonzalez

Arguments

ASEAN countries are stronger together in facing big tech, and sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by technology companies

Spain has achieved Tier 1 status in Global Cybersecurity Index through holistic approach including legal, technical, organizational and cooperation measures

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for collaborative innovation platforms that bring together diverse stakeholders to create public value, emphasizing the importance of neutral platforms and shared responsibility in driving digital development.

Speakers

– Trairat Viriyasirikul
– Lennig Pedron

Arguments

Thailand’s strategy is built on co-creation, shared responsibility, and public value through partnerships in healthcare and digital identity

Trust Valley brings together 400+ global partners and supports innovative companies through neutral platform approach

Topics

Economic | Development | Infrastructure

Key takeaways

Cybersecurity requires a multi-stakeholder approach involving governments, private sector, civil society, academia, and technical communities working together

Digital sovereignty is crucial – sovereign nations’ laws must be adhered to by big tech companies, and countries are stronger when collaborating regionally

Cross-sectoral cooperation is essential due to interconnected critical infrastructures where cyber attacks can have cascading effects across multiple sectors

Regulatory frameworks like NIS2 Directive, national cybersecurity strategies, and regulatory sandboxes are effective tools for strengthening cyber resilience

Digital inclusion must be prioritized, particularly for vulnerable groups like seniors, through targeted programs and capacity building initiatives

International cooperation and capacity building programs are vital for global cybersecurity, with successful examples like Spain’s OAS collaboration reaching 20,000+ students

Public-private partnerships through neutral platforms can effectively bridge different stakeholder interests and drive innovation in cybersecurity

Technical standards development through open processes and robust adoption of security protocols like encryption are fundamental to internet security

No single actor can secure the internet alone – collective responsibility and shared resources are necessary for effective cybersecurity

Resolutions and action items

ASEAN Kuala Lumpur declaration on social media guidelines to take effect at 47th ASEAN Summit in October

Greece continuing NIS2 Directive implementation with tailored compliance guidance for SMEs

Spain’s 10th Cybersecurity Summer Good Camp edition about to start as part of ongoing OAS cooperation

Trust Valley’s continued support for 250+ innovative companies through concrete programs

Lithuania’s ongoing ‘No One Is Left Behind’ national movement with 160+ partners

Internet Society’s co-fund initiative with Global Cyber Alliance to support civil society cybersecurity groups

Unresolved issues

How to effectively balance digital sovereignty with global internet governance and cross-border data flows

Specific mechanisms for ensuring big tech compliance with diverse national laws across different jurisdictions

Standardization of cybersecurity approaches across different regions while respecting national sovereignty

Sustainable funding models for civil society cybersecurity initiatives beyond current co-fund programs

Bridging the cybersecurity skills gap globally, particularly in developing countries

Concrete implementation details for many of the collaborative frameworks discussed

How to measure effectiveness of cross-sectoral cooperation initiatives

Suggested compromises

Regional cooperation through frameworks like ASEAN to give smaller countries stronger collective voice while respecting individual sovereignty

Regulatory sandbox approaches that allow innovation while maintaining security oversight

Neutral platform models like Trust Valley that balance public and private sector interests

Flexible compliance guidance for SMEs in cybersecurity regulations rather than one-size-fits-all approaches

Multi-stakeholder participation in technical standards development to ensure diverse perspectives are included

Graduated implementation of cybersecurity directives with support mechanisms for different entity types

Big Tech is not bigger than our laws. Nations, sovereign nations, have laws and these laws need to be adhered. There are regulations that have been put in place for safety, for security, and Big Tech must listen to our laws.

Speaker

Fahmi Fadzil (Malaysia)

Reason

This comment directly challenges the perceived dominance of technology companies over national sovereignty and establishes a clear power dynamic framework. It’s particularly insightful because it frames cybersecurity not just as a technical issue but as a matter of national sovereignty and democratic governance.

Impact

This comment established the theme of digital sovereignty that carried throughout the discussion. It shifted the conversation from purely technical cybersecurity measures to broader questions of governance and regulatory authority, influencing subsequent speakers to address how their countries balance innovation with regulatory control.

For us, cyber security is no longer just a technical matter. It is a strategic pillar of national resilience and digital sovereignty.

Speaker

Dimitris Papastergiou (Greece)

Reason

This reframes cybersecurity from a narrow IT concern to a comprehensive national security issue, connecting it to democratic institutions, public safety, and social cohesion. It elevates the discussion beyond technical solutions to strategic national planning.

Impact

This comment deepened the analytical framework of the discussion by connecting cybersecurity to broader societal outcomes. It influenced the flow by encouraging other speakers to discuss whole-of-government approaches and cross-sectoral coordination rather than isolated technical measures.

But let’s be honest, saying let’s collaborate is easy, doing it is much harder. And someone has to take the first step and someone has to lead. And I believe this is exactly where regulators should step in.

Speaker

Jurate Soviene (Lithuania)

Reason

This comment cuts through the typical diplomatic rhetoric about collaboration to address the practical challenges of implementation. It’s refreshingly honest about the gap between intention and execution, and provides a concrete solution by identifying regulators as natural leaders.

Impact

This comment served as a turning point that moved the discussion from theoretical frameworks to practical implementation challenges. It prompted more concrete examples and actionable strategies from subsequent speakers, shifting the tone from aspirational to pragmatic.

There’s no one actor in the ecosystem that can secure the internet for everyone. It’s not going to happen that way. We need technologists and experts. We need research. We need government commitment and strategies. We need industry investment. We need the voice of civil society.

Speaker

Sally Wentworth (Internet Society)

Reason

This comment provides a comprehensive systems-thinking perspective that acknowledges the complexity and interdependence required for internet security. It challenges any single-actor solutions and emphasizes the necessity of multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Impact

This comment reinforced and systematized the collaborative themes that had been emerging throughout the discussion. It provided a theoretical framework that validated the various national approaches described by previous speakers and emphasized the importance of the multi-stakeholder model being demonstrated in the session itself.

Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality… Have bold ideas because anything one man can imagine other men can make real.

Speaker

Lucien Castex (Moderator)

Reason

This philosophical framing elevates the discussion beyond current constraints to focus on transformative possibilities. By invoking Jules Verne, it connects technological innovation to human imagination and suggests that current limitations are temporary.

Impact

This comment, delivered at both the opening and closing, created a thematic framework that encouraged speakers to think beyond incremental improvements to transformative solutions. It set an aspirational tone that influenced speakers to share more innovative examples and ambitious collaborative initiatives.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by elevating it from a technical cybersecurity conversation to a comprehensive examination of digital governance, sovereignty, and collaborative innovation. The Malaysian minister’s assertion about Big Tech and national sovereignty established the power dynamics framework, while Greece’s strategic perspective broadened the scope to national resilience. Lithuania’s honest assessment of implementation challenges created a turning point toward practical solutions, and the Internet Society’s systems perspective provided theoretical grounding for multi-stakeholder approaches. The moderator’s philosophical framing encouraged bold thinking throughout. Together, these comments created a progression from sovereignty concerns through strategic frameworks to implementation realities and collaborative solutions, resulting in a rich, multi-dimensional discussion that connected technical cybersecurity measures to broader questions of democratic governance, international cooperation, and societal resilience.

How can smaller countries like Estonia, Singapore, and Malaysia (35 million people) effectively negotiate with Big Tech platforms when they lack the population size leverage of countries like India or Indonesia?

Speaker

Fahmi Fadzil

Explanation

This highlights the challenge of digital sovereignty for smaller nations and the need for collaborative approaches like ASEAN’s collective strategy to have stronger negotiating power with technology giants.

How can the cybersecurity skills gap be effectively closed and what specific training ecosystems need to be developed?

Speaker

Dimitris Papastergiou

Explanation

Greece identified this as a key challenge in implementing cybersecurity measures, particularly for supporting SMEs, and mentioned working on building a national training ecosystem in synergy with EU efforts.

What are the most effective mechanisms for multilateral collaboration in cybersecurity beyond cross-sectoral cooperation?

Speaker

Anil Kumar Lahoti

Explanation

While India has strong cross-sectoral mechanisms, the speaker emphasized that multilateral collaboration is another very important dimension that needs to be looked into for ensuring cyber resilience.

How can regulators overcome formal competence limits and bureaucratic constraints to drive meaningful cybersecurity collaboration?

Speaker

Jurate Soviene

Explanation

Lithuania’s representative emphasized that while collaboration is easy to talk about, it’s much harder to implement, and regulators need to be brave, creative, and less bureaucratic to make real change.

How can sustainable funding be ensured for civil society cybersecurity initiatives that protect vulnerable populations?

Speaker

Sally Wentworth

Explanation

The Internet Society highlighted that civil society groups integral to online safety and security are traditionally underfunded, yet we depend upon their work for collective security.

What are the best practices for creating neutral platforms that can effectively balance the interests of governments, private sector, and academia in cybersecurity initiatives?

Speaker

Lennig Pedron

Explanation

Trust Valley’s experience shows it’s difficult to find approaches that serve the best interests of different types of actors, requiring neutral platforms and concrete programs to bridge these gaps.

Summary

This discussion featured four International Labour Organization (ILO) representatives presenting their work on artificial intelligence and skills development in the context of the world of work. Juan Ivan Martin Lataix opened by highlighting the persistent global digital divide, with 2.6 billion people still lacking internet access, which creates fundamental challenges for digital skills training. He emphasized that while technology adoption happens rapidly—citing ChatGPT’s quick reach of 100 million users—the speed of technological change far outpaces the ability to retrain workers, with UNESCO estimating that 9 out of 10 jobs will need reskilling by 2030.

The ILO’s research suggests that rather than causing mass job displacement, AI will primarily augment workers, particularly in managerial roles, while automation will mainly affect clerical positions, disproportionately impacting women. Manal Azzi discussed occupational safety and health implications, noting that while AI technologies like robotics and smart monitoring systems can remove workers from hazardous situations and predict workplace risks, they also introduce new concerns around human-robot interaction, privacy, and over-reliance on automated systems. She stressed the importance of considering the entire AI supply chain, including data annotators, content moderators, and electronic waste workers who face their own safety challenges.

Sher Verick presented findings from the ILO’s AI Observatory, indicating that while one in four jobs globally may be exposed to AI, only 3.3% face automation risk, with the impact concentrated in high-income countries and knowledge work sectors. Tom Wambeke from the ITC-ILO emphasized the need to move beyond simply digitizing existing processes to fundamentally transforming learning and training approaches. The discussion concluded with audience questions about AI’s role in diplomacy, universal basic income, regulation challenges, and youth unemployment in developing countries, with presenters advocating for human-centered approaches to AI adoption and comprehensive social protection systems.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital Skills and the Global Digital Divide**: The discussion highlighted that 2.6 billion people still lack internet access, creating a massive challenge for digital skills development. The ILO advocates for three levels of digital skills: basic literacy for all, intermediate skills for specific industries, and advanced STEM skills for specialized roles.

– **AI’s Impact on Jobs – Augmentation vs. Automation**: Research shows that while AI will affect many jobs, most impacts will involve augmentation (workers using AI to do jobs better) rather than complete automation. Only 3.3% of global employment faces automation risk, though this still represents 130 million jobs worldwide, with women and clerical workers disproportionately affected.

– **Workplace Safety and Health in the AI Era**: AI and automation technologies offer significant benefits for worker safety by removing humans from hazardous environments and enabling predictive risk management. However, they also introduce new risks including human-robot interaction dangers, privacy concerns from monitoring systems, and the dehumanization of work through algorithmic management.

– **Institutional Capacity Building and AI Literacy**: Beyond individual training, there’s a critical need for institutional transformation in how organizations adopt AI. This includes debunking AI myths, asking better questions about implementation, and viewing AI as part of a broader technological ecosystem rather than an isolated solution.

– **Regulatory Challenges and the Future of Work**: The ILO is working on new international standards for platform economy work and addressing concerns about algorithmic management, bias in AI systems, and the need for human-centered approaches to technology adoption in the workplace.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to present the International Labour Organization’s comprehensive approach to AI and skills development, covering research findings, policy recommendations, and practical implementation strategies for managing AI’s impact on the world of work while promoting decent work standards globally.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was professional and informative, with speakers presenting evidence-based research while acknowledging both opportunities and challenges. The discussion maintained a balanced, cautiously optimistic perspective throughout – neither dismissing AI’s transformative potential nor succumbing to apocalyptic predictions about job displacement. The interactive Q&A session at the end introduced more practical concerns from the audience, but the overall tone remained constructive and solution-oriented.

Speakers

– **Juan Ivan Martin Lataix**: Works on digital skills at the International Labor Organization (ILO)

– **Manal Azzi**: Works at the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the occupational safety and health branch, focusing on protection of workers from exposure to hazards

– **Sher Verick**: Advisor to the Deputy Director General of the ILO, speaks about the ILO’s AI Observatory that conducts research on AI in the world of work

– **Tom Wambeke**: Chief Innovation Officer at the ITC-ILO (International Training Centre of the ILO), leads the learning innovation lab in Turin

– **Audience**: Multiple audience members who asked questions during the session, including:

– Melissa from CDBTO in Vienna (part of UN system)

– Representative from One Goal initiative for governance

– Someone asking about youth unemployment in developing countries

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond those in the speakers names list.

# Comprehensive Discussion Report: AI and the Future of Work – International Labour Organization Perspectives

## Executive Summary

This discussion featured four representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO) presenting comprehensive research and policy perspectives on artificial intelligence’s impact on the world of work. The session addressed critical challenges including the persistent global digital divide, AI’s transformative rather than replacement effects on employment, workplace safety implications, and the need for fundamental transformation in learning and training approaches. The speakers presented complementary perspectives while acknowledging the massive scale of workforce transformation required, with UNESCO estimating that 9 out of 10 jobs will need reskilling by 2030.

## Opening Context: The Scale of the Digital Challenge

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix, working on digital skills at the ILO, opened the discussion by establishing the fundamental context of global digital inequality. He highlighted that 2.6 billion people worldwide still lack internet access, with India alone having 900 million people in rural areas without Internet access. This digital divide represents a critical challenge as technology adoption accelerates rapidly—ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just a couple of months—whilst the capacity for retraining workers lags significantly behind.

Lataix noted the complexity of measuring digital access, pointing out challenges with double-counting in phone and SIM card statistics due to multiple devices per person. He also referenced discussions with colleagues from Microsoft and Google about the intense competition for AI talent, illustrating the uneven distribution of AI expertise.

The magnitude of the skills challenge is substantial. According to UNESCO research cited by Lataix, 9 out of 10 jobs will require reskilling by 2030, affecting billions of people globally. This statistic reframes the AI discussion from a technical implementation issue to a massive human development challenge requiring coordinated response.

## AI’s Impact on Employment: Augmentation Over Automation

Sher Verick, advisor to the ILO’s Deputy Director General and representative of the AI Observatory, presented research findings published in late 2023 and May that challenge common narratives about AI-driven job displacement. The ILO’s analysis indicates that whilst one in four jobs globally may be exposed to AI, only 3.3% face genuine automation risk. This represents approximately 130 million jobs worldwide—a significant number, but far from the “job apocalypse” often predicted.

The research reveals that AI’s primary impact will be augmentation rather than replacement, particularly affecting managerial roles where AI can enhance decision-making capabilities. However, the impact is not evenly distributed. Clerical positions face higher automation risk, and there is a correlation between these roles and women workers, creating particular challenges for female employment. Additionally, the effects are concentrated in high-income countries and knowledge work sectors, creating uneven global impacts.

Verick emphasised that the benefits of AI adoption are similarly unequal, with the global north positioned to capture more advantages whilst the global south faces different challenges. This geographical disparity in both risks and benefits represents a critical policy consideration for international organisations.

## Workplace Safety and Health: Opportunities and New Risks

Manal Azzi, representing the ILO’s occupational safety and health branch, provided a nuanced analysis of AI’s implications for worker protection. She highlighted significant opportunities for improving workplace safety through AI and robotics technologies, which can remove workers from hazardous environments and enable predictive risk management. Smart monitoring systems can anticipate workplace dangers before they materialise, potentially preventing injuries and fatalities.

However, Azzi also identified emerging risks that require careful consideration. Human-robot interaction introduces new safety challenges, whilst algorithmic management systems raise concerns about worker autonomy and the dehumanisation of work processes. She provided a stark example of algorithmic management’s potential for dehumanisation: an Uber driver being fired while in an ambulance, illustrating how automated systems can lack human judgement and compassion.

Privacy concerns arise as AI systems collect extensive personal and professional data, and there are risks of over-reliance on automated systems that may fail or make errors. Azzi referenced the ILO’s Violence Harassment Convention as part of the broader framework for worker protection in the digital age.

Crucially, Azzi expanded the discussion beyond end-users to consider the entire AI supply chain. She noted that workers throughout this chain face their own safety and health challenges, including miners extracting critical minerals, factory workers assembling technology, data annotators processing content, content moderators exposed to harmful material, and electronic waste workers handling toxic substances. This comprehensive view reveals the human costs throughout the AI production process.

## Transforming Learning and Training Approaches

Tom Wambeke, Chief Innovation Officer at the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin, brought a critical perspective to current AI adoption in educational settings. Having attended an “AI Skills Coalition” session earlier, he argued that much of what passes for AI innovation in training represents “old stuff in new jackets”—superficial digitisation of existing processes rather than genuine transformation. He specifically criticised current applications like “automated grading” and “AI chatbots” as examples of this superficial approach.

Wambeke noted that colleagues often immediately ask for chatbots without proper reflection on whether this represents meaningful innovation. He referenced Stephen Hawking’s definition and proposed redefining intelligence as “the ability to adapt to change,” suggesting this should also define effective learning. He warned using an organizational change management principle that when the rate of change outside an organisation exceeds the rate of change inside, “the end is near.”

Rather than using AI to provide ready answers, Wambeke advocated for using AI to ask better questions. He emphasised that effective teaching involves “the art of assisting discovery” rather than information transmission, highlighting irreplaceable human skills in educational processes. He used a specific example from Belgium/Antwerp with a building sign to illustrate his points about learning and discovery.

Wambeke warned that the biggest risk of AI is automating ineffective practices, noting that “feeding an AI the entire internet does not make you a teacher.” He also referenced “Sophia,” the humanoid robot from Saudi Arabia, as part of his discussion about the limitations of current AI applications.

## Skills Development Framework and Implementation Challenges

Lataix outlined a three-tier framework for digital skills development that addresses different levels of need across the workforce. The first tier involves basic digital literacy for all workers, enabling fundamental interaction with digital systems. The second tier focuses on intermediate skills tailored to specific industries and roles. The third tier encompasses advanced STEM skills for specialised positions requiring deep technical expertise.

However, implementing this framework faces significant challenges. Training institutions struggle with the speed of curriculum development, which typically takes years whilst technology evolves in months. The gap between technological advancement and educational adaptation creates ongoing difficulties in maintaining relevant skills training programmes. Lataix emphasised that training institutions themselves need digital transformation to effectively deliver these programmes.

Furthermore, Lataix highlighted that AI models contain inherent bias due to training data predominantly sourced from the global north and historical records dating back centuries. This bias affects AI system outputs and recommendations, potentially perpetuating existing inequalities and limiting effectiveness in diverse global contexts.

## Regulatory and Governance Responses

The ILO is actively developing new international standards to address AI-related workplace challenges. Azzi reported that the organisation is working on labour standards for the platform economy, with constituent discussions ongoing and a final draft scheduled for discussion in June 2026. These standards will address algorithmic management, worker classification, and protection measures for platform workers.

The AI Observatory, part of the ILO’s research department, continues research on critical areas including algorithmic management practices, digital labour platforms, data governance frameworks, and AI-enabled skills matching systems. This research informs policy development and provides evidence-based guidance for member states and social partners.

However, significant regulatory challenges remain unresolved. Balancing innovation with worker protection, addressing AI model bias, managing privacy concerns, and ensuring quality in partially automated systems all require ongoing attention and international cooperation.

## Audience Engagement and Practical Applications

The discussion, which included both in-person and online participants, concluded with extensive audience participation revealing practical concerns about AI implementation across various sectors. Melissa from the CDBTO (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization) in Vienna inquired about AI’s role in diplomacy, particularly its potential for pattern recognition in speeches and anticipating delegate questions. The speakers acknowledged AI’s capabilities in these areas whilst emphasising the continued importance of human judgement in diplomatic processes.

Questions about Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a response to AI-driven job displacement, including specific questions about UBI management, prompted discussion of alternative approaches. Verick advocated for universal social protection systems rather than UBI, arguing for comprehensive safety nets that address various forms of economic insecurity rather than focusing solely on income replacement.

A particularly significant question addressed youth unemployment in developing countries, where rates can reach around 40%. The speakers acknowledged that AI alone cannot solve these structural economic challenges, emphasising the need for broader economic policies and development strategies that create employment opportunities for young people.

## Different Perspectives and Approaches

The speakers presented complementary but distinct perspectives reflecting their different areas of expertise. Wambeke’s critique of current AI adoption as superficial contrasted with Lataix’s more structured, tiered approach to digital skills development. While both recognised the need for transformation, they differed on implementation strategies and the pace of change.

Azzi’s focus on practical safety applications and comprehensive supply chain considerations provided a different lens from Wambeke’s emphasis on AI’s potential for transformative learning and questioning. These differences reflect the complexity of AI implementation across different domains while maintaining shared commitment to worker-centred approaches.

Verick’s research-based perspective on employment impacts offered empirical grounding to complement the more operational and policy-focused presentations from his colleagues.

## Unresolved Challenges and Future Directions

Several critical issues remain unresolved and require ongoing attention. The fundamental challenge of AI model bias persists, particularly when training data from diverse regions remains limited or non-digitised. Balancing the speed of technological change with the time needed for quality skills development and institutional adaptation continues to challenge policymakers and practitioners.

Questions about maintaining human agency in increasingly automated workplaces, ensuring quality in AI-enhanced educational systems, and addressing the global inequality in AI benefits and risks all require sustained international cooperation and innovative policy solutions.

## Implications for International Labour Policy

This discussion reveals the ILO’s comprehensive approach to AI governance, combining research, standard-setting, and capacity-building activities. The organisation’s focus on human-centred AI development, attention to supply chain impacts, and commitment to addressing global inequalities positions it as a crucial actor in shaping the future of work in the AI era.

The speakers’ emphasis on transformation over replacement, augmentation over automation, and adaptation over resistance provides a balanced framework for approaching AI adoption in workplace contexts. Their recognition of both opportunities and risks, combined with practical policy recommendations, offers valuable guidance for member states and social partners navigating AI implementation.

The discussion demonstrates that whilst AI presents significant challenges for the world of work, thoughtful policy responses, comprehensive skills development, and sustained commitment to human dignity can help ensure that technological advancement serves human flourishing. The ILO’s multifaceted approach, including resources available at their conference stand, provides a model for international cooperation in addressing one of the defining challenges of the 21st century.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: There are people online too. It’s open. We are conducting this session among the many others that are concurring at the same time. Can I ask how many of you were in the sessions this morning with ITU and ILO? Okay, some of you. Okay, right, right. Okay, so this session is about the ILO, so the International Labor Organization, and what are we doing surrounding AI and skills, right? So we have four colleagues here today. Myself, Juan Martín, I will talk about digital skills. We have Manal Azzi that will talk about OSH and the latest report they just have published. Then we’ll have Sher Verick, he’s an advisor to our DDG, and he will be talking about the AI Observatory that is doing research in the world of work around AI. And last but not least, we’ll have Tom Wambeke, that is the Chief Innovation Officer at the ITC-ILO. We would like to make it as dynamic as we can. This is a small gathering, so I think it’s good. So we’ll start with the presentations. We have like 15 minutes per presentation, but at the end of each one of them, you can shoot some questions. At the end, if you want to add questions to any of us, we’ll be happy to take them. All right, so first of all, in this event, you’ve probably heard a lot of data and a lot of numbers. So I took some from ITU from end of last year. There is still a very big digital divide in the world, right? And this is a very important starting point for us because when it comes to skilling people and skilling them digitally, they need to have access, right? So I think this number is enhancing. There is more and more people having a global Internet, but still there is 2.6 billion people without access. In the previous session, we had a speaker from India saying that in India, there is 900 million in the rural areas of people without Internet access. And he said this is more than all the population of Europe and the U.S. together. So, you know, we always kind of forget about the dimensions of this. Similarly, with phone numbers of phone devices, this is enhancing, but still it’s far. And also there is a lot of double counting because, you know, in many parts of the world, people don’t have one phone, but they have two or a connected watch or whatever. So the SIM cards are sometimes more than one per person in some countries. Therefore, this number is very slow. And last but not least, the speed. The speed dimension is also a big challenge for us in skills because it takes time to train people, to upskill them or re-skill them. But technology goes so fast that it’s very difficult to catch up. So one of the examples is chat GPT adoption that in just a couple of months reached 100 million users and now many more, right? So this is something that we try to keep in mind when it goes about upskilling people around the world. The UNESCO did a report end of 2023 saying that out of 10 jobs, 9 will need to be re-skilled by 2030. This is billions of people. So the size of these challenges is enormous. We work with governments and we work with training institutions around the world and they’re trying to see how they can cope with this very fast speed of change and how they can have their populations. And also in all those presentations, should we have digital literacy for all? Or should we do more the STEM? Should we take care of minorities? What happens with elderly people, with women, with people? So it is very difficult to really tackle this challenge. This is from a report the ILO published also last year, well, end of 2023. That was very interesting because it was looking at what is the impact of AI in jobs. And they really looked into all the ranges of jobs during ISCO, right? So it’s really the taxonomy that ranges all the jobs that there are. And the finding was pretty positive that a lot of people will be impacted by AI but most of the impacts will be people being augmented. Augmented meaning that we will upskill to use AI to do our jobs better or differently. And this is mostly managerial jobs. But on the other hand, there will be a lot of people that will see their jobs disappearing. And you have a full list of jobs here but mostly it’s clerical jobs. So people doing data entry, people doing things that are prone to automation of sorts. And that raised a number of concerns because typically there is a correlation between these type of jobs and women. So therefore AI will come as an imbalance, having even more women, let’s say, losing jobs or not having a proper job due to the adoption of this technology. The other finding is that AI alone is impacting mostly the global north. And it’s impacting mostly knowledge works. People that are kind of more in the white collar kind of jobs. Whereas the global south and blue collar are not that impacted. At least with AI in isolation. If you combine it with robotics and other things then maybe the picture is different. So areas of concern that we looked from the world of work. First, bias and discrimination. So there is a big concern that a lot of the models that are being used today have been trained with the data available. The data available is mostly emanating from the global north, from the white man pen. And it’s emanating since the 600s when Gutenberg invented the press. So this is the data that is being used to train the models. It’s very difficult to have a model that is being trained with the data of specific regions or countries. The data is not there or it’s not digitalized. So it is a big challenge and it will take a lot of time and a lot of millions of years to build models that are not biased. So today most of the models that are used around the world are fairly biased and they are dominated by a few companies from the global north. There is a risk of unfair treatment based on these characteristics, of course. And then this could have systemic problems in the world of work. So we are working on the platform economy. There is an ongoing exercise with our constituents to create a standard. And there is a lot of concern about using algorithmic management so that the computers are making decisions on behalf of companies or people and that this could also lead to biases and problems. So we believe this needs to be regulated to a certain extent. Secondly, privacy and data. So these things are consuming data. And all of us, we use it daily. A lot of people say, no, I use ChatGPT daily. Great. But at the same time, at some point, ChatGPT knows much more about you than your family. Because not only do you use it for private things, but for personal and corporate things. So you start thinking, oh, I have a daughter that has this age, that has this problem, what do you think I should do? People use it for all kinds of things. And sometimes maybe not very consciously knowing that they are exposing to private companies a lot of personal information. So it’s great. Maybe the answer is very accurate. Maybe it kind of connects the dots that you asked me something similar six months ago. But at the end of the day, we’re exposing a lot of private data. And we believe, again, this will require some regulation. And then, yes, lack of human touch. So we all have seen all the issues, again, with the platform economy, the Uber driver that had an accident, and while he was going to the hospital in the ambulance, he was fired because he didn’t deliver the pizza on time. So how dehumanizing is this? We’re going towards models that are just driven by algorithms, driven by productivity, and driven by numbers, and not driven by what makes us human. And I think this is another area of big concern for us. So very quickly, for us, we are advocating towards having digital skills at different levels across the world. The more basic ones, anyone should have them. So this is agnostic of what type of job you do and what type of industry you’re in. Everybody should have this basic literacy, know how to browse the Internet, to send an email, etc. So we believe that this should happen. A lot of governments around the world are doing big campaigns so that this happens. Then there is a second level, more intermediate digital skills. And this, we’re seeing that more and more industries are asking for this. So not only do they want you to send emails, but they would like you to be able to use it to do some digital marketing, or to use some more social media. So this is something that we’re seeing in certain industries is being asked more and more. And then the third part, which is more the advanced digital skills. So this is the STEM part of things. We’re here. There is a lot of competition. We had a conversation with our colleagues from Microsoft and Google, etc., that are here. They are paying more and more to data scientists, to experts in artificial intelligence. So the tip of the pyramid is just incredible how this is going. But there is a big lack of sufficient persons that are trained to that level. So it is a very big issue at the three levels today to tackle. And just for you to know, when we work with training institutions and when we work with governments, what are the biggest challenges? So for training institutions, the speed, right? So every time we talk to them, say, yeah, it took us three years to put together this new program, and now that it’s in the market, it’s too late because it’s already old. So speed is of the essence, and it’s a big challenge. Secondly, the demand. So it’s both sides. So they work with the private sector, and the private sector is the one demanding and giving feedback. Say, we received your last cohort of students that are great in this, but they are not great on that. So you should have. So that also is adding to the complexity and having the things in the market on time. Then themselves, they are undergoing digital transformation. So not only they are skilling people in digital skills, but themselves, they need to go through the digital transformation. So how do they invest in AI, VR, 3D printing, whatever it is, so that they can train more people? And this is very important, because if you continue training people on a face-to-face instructor-led kind of fashion offline, there is so much you can do. You will never be able to upskill and reskill the millions of people that we saw before. The only way is through technology, where people with their mobile, while they are commuting, they can do bite-sized training in five minutes, get something. And that will require a digital transformation. And then, well, apprenticeships is an area very interesting for the ILO, where we are pushing for changes also in regulations. And then for governments. So governments need to make sure that they regulate in an equanimous manner, so that people have a fair chance at all levels of the society. They need to promote lifelong learning. So this is not about creating people that have a certain skill, and then they have it for life. You need to continue maintaining and re-educating yourself as you go. Developing the relevant digital skills. So sometimes the governments don’t necessarily have a long-term strategy. So that is linked to their skill strategy. So it is important to know, how do you see your country in 20 years’ time? How many doctors, lawyers, et cetera, data scientists do you need? So that then you can go for that. And that often we see it is a challenge to really foresee what is coming. Again, the speed. And then the last one, ensuring the quality of learning. This is a big area of concern. Typically, governments don’t have sufficient capacity. So they do RFPs, RFQs, et cetera, and they hire companies. But it’s very difficult for them to kind of make sure that the quality is there. So this is in a nutshell what we’ll do from the ILO skills. With that, I’m going to hand over to my colleague, Manon. Thank you very much.

Manal Azzi: Thank you. Unless there are any pressing questions later. Thank you. Good morning, again. Good afternoon, everyone. So I also work in the International Labor Organization based here in Geneva. We have a branch on occupational safety and health, protection of workers from exposure to hazards. And we work on a variety of issues, of course, at work. Biological risks, chemical risks, psychosocial risks at work, ergonomics, and physical risks. And recently this year, we published our new report on robotics, automation, digitalization, and AI, and how it’s had an impact on the discipline of safety and health. How it’s helped improve some of the very hazardous situations that workers find themselves in. But of course, it doesn’t come with other risks that we can be prone to once we start introducing some of these technologies. What we looked at were five different major areas, if we were to group them. The first one is automation and advanced robotics, which is used a lot in many sectors. What we’ve seen is, and these are not new, of course, I mean, automation has been around for more than decades, the move towards more automated work, the introduction of different machines to do certain tasks. And the use of robotics, it could be robotic arms, complete robotics, half robots. So they’ve been used in a lot of industries. And the positive impact has been that workers have been removed from highly hazardous jobs. And so where we work, for example, in high temperatures, where we’re melting metal, it’s robotic arms that’s doing that. It’s no longer a human exposed to such high temperatures. Even using drones to enter into confined spaces where we need to be, or drones that actually spray pesticide in big agricultural fields instead of exposing workers to these hazardous substances. Also, a lot of the repetitive movements that cause a lot of strain on humans are now being done in operation processes with robots. So we do need to acknowledge that some of these robots and the automation of some of our tasks is allowing workers to move on to more meaningful tasks, to do things that challenge them more, rather than doing monotonous or repetitive tasks. Recently, and if we’re talking from a psychosocial health perspective, it’s been seen that a mix of sort of more mundane tasks and challenging tasks is ideal for people, for their growth and identity at work, and for them to feel that they’re meeting a certain higher objective by going to work rather than just doing something very basic. So we see that for the safety and health of workers. If we look at smart tools and monitoring systems, before we used to know about some hazards in construction, in agriculture, but now we’re able to predict and take quick action when it comes to certain hazards. And that’s by, for example, workers that are able to wear smart wearables. They could be arm wristbands, they could be ear muffles. So many different detectors that actually help detect hazards. For example, in construction, you’ve got workers wearing certain sensor material that can detect the risk to fall from height, which is one of the biggest causes of death globally across many sectors. And so when it detects the fall from height, it could give a sign to the worker to prevent it. And not only that, it’s linked to medical teams that can come on site very quickly, as opposed to previously, phone calls. So it’s connected immediately, and this improves the outcome for survival for a lot of these workers as they’re doing these jobs.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: And so this idea that it can predict risk based on all of the algorithm systems and all the big data that we can now manage can increase the prospects of living and quality of life for a number of workers across many sectors. And virtual reality, for safety and health mostly, it’s been used to create environments that are very similar to the hazardous environments that they may face. The first thing that comes to mind would be firefighters. Instead of them training in real fires, being exposed to fumes and foams and heat, you can do that through virtual reality. And they can even wear the exact dress code that they need to wear to protect themselves while they’re doing the virtual reality practice. Without being exposed to the dangers that that would mean if they were to be practicing and training in the real environment. So it has helped a lot for the safety and health perspective. The increase used in algorithmic management of work, managing work through algorithms, if we look at the positive side, it has allowed us to make schedules more adapted to the needs of workers and also distribute different workloads evenly or in a more equal manner based on the data that we can get. And this improves, obviously, efficiency and it could also help identify where there’s a gap in certain skills. So it has worked positively in that sense. The last thing we looked at in the report is that thanks to a lot of these introduction of technology and digitalization, we’re able to have different forms of work and different forms of working away from the offices and design and designated workspaces. This has allowed, for example, people with disabilities or people with caregiving responsibilities, whether for elderly or younger, to be able to access the labor market. Otherwise they would not have been able to be part of the labor market. And of course, it reduces a lot of some of the risks from commuting and the time wasted and promotes this kind of inclusion. So there’s a lot of positives to expanding the labor market to include different kinds of work that have been allowed and possible due to the technologies that we’re talking about. But of course, all this does not come without new risks that could be introduced with these technologies that we need to manage, prevent, and also regulate. For automation, of course, when you’re working with robots, the human-robot interaction can be very risky. These are not necessarily reliable all the time. It really depends how we manage them. Also, for example, in the use of exoskeletons, when we’re designing them to protect workers from musculoskeletal disorders and other strains, they have to be designed according to the needs and shape of the worker. So they have to be tailored and personalized. We are having to shift, and when we see a lot of these technologies taking over some of the tasks we’ve done, we do sense that we are losing control of our workspace and our jobs and what we’re actually meant to be doing. So those are some of the risks, and these are physical risks, they’re organizational risks, and they’re psychosocial risks for workers. So it’s not just about the physical risks. And when we rely a lot on these smart tools and devices to detect hazards and sensors and monitor and give us different signs, we also are relying on malfunctions that could occur with these systems. And so we need to be careful of that. We need to make sure that the human being remains at the center of decision-making and not to rely on these short-term aids that we can have, but we still have to use our own sense of judgment when it comes to safety and health and not completely rely on them.

Manal Azzi: And to get all the information we need in these monitoring systems, we obviously may step on various privacy and ethical concerns, and we get access to data maybe that’s more than we need for safety and health concerns. And that’s one of the biggest problems, that the confidentiality and workers that feel that they don’t know what data are being gathered about them, and sometimes it starts off by being to protect your safety and health and ends up being just too much data that is not necessary to be shared. For virtual reality, of course, it’s not the most comfortable. I don’t know if you’ve tried wearing the – Tom’s not going to like it because our Turin Center, a lot of our trainings now are happening through these virtual systems and goggles that you wear where you’re really not really aware of the space you’re in, and it could create more physical hazards and dangers and loss of balance, et cetera. So it’s something you need to get used to. You need to only use for a certain point of time. But, yeah, so it has its own challenges to work with virtual reality and rely on that. For algorithmic management, obviously, like the example, Ivan, you know, you just mentioned, is that we’re dealing with systems and we’re no longer dealing with people, and so there isn’t that flexibility to understand what’s behind the number or the digit that you’re receiving that can advise you on scheduling preferences, et cetera, but it may not take into account other nuances that we would only understand if we know the person and the human being. But, of course, another positive part, like I said earlier, is we are relieving workers from some tedious tasks, like even when we’re talking about the healthcare sector, and if we are able – robots are able to take vital signs and do some of the basic diagnostic testing for COVID or other, then the healthcare workers can give more time to understand and talk more meaningfully to the patient or understand other issues. So they just need to be used smartly, obviously, and they can be used to our advantage. The last one about changing work arrangements, of course, it brings the positives that we discussed, but it also blurs the line between what is work and what is our life and personal and private life. When do we start work? When do we stop work? Do we have the safety and health organization and set up and the ergonomic and environmental set up wherever we decide to work in different workspaces? There’s less control from, let’s say, an employer or the safety and health experts on where we are working and what we are doing, what we’re exposed to, not to mention cyberbullying, the increased reliance on Internet and access and pushing everyone to be fully connected. We are increasing and exposing ourselves to even more different types of harassment and cyberbullying online. These are just a few key points. Of course, the report goes through a lot of details of what that means. Another thing I always like to mention, and sometimes it’s forgotten. So when we’re talking about this whole chain, the digitalization chain, of course, there are persons that are powering, the people powering AI have their own safety and health concerns. So we’re talking about data annotators, those people that actually prepare the data for the AI models that we rely on. They perform very repetitive tasks. They’re sometimes exposed to toxic material, invasive material over long periods of time, and they’re not protected or provided with psychosocial support that is necessary. Same with content moderators that actually analyze huge amounts of data, machine learning engineers that actually develop the AI systems using these large databases that are very complex and require the management of complex volumes of data, not to mention the big data analysts that actually use AI and machine learning to actually extract summaries and insights to advise our policymaking and other areas. So these are the people powering AI that have their own safety and health concerns. The other workers along the chain are those miners excavating critical minerals to allow us to use some of our computers and other tools. So you have miners, what you need is cobalt, lithium, and copper. And some of these workers are working in very dangerous conditions, sometimes not having the right protections in their countries. And factory workers that actually assemble all this technology, and in the end you’ve got the electronic waste, the business of electronic waste, where most of the time it’s in the informal economy, it is not regulated in any sense, and people are exposed to all the chemical substances that are oozing out of these electronics that are thrown in huge, not even landfills, like huge areas, and they’re exposed to mercury and so many different other substances as they’re dealing with what’s left from these digital equipment and technologies. So it’s important to consider the whole supply chain. Here are just the final parts. I just want to emphasize some of the responses that already exist, including international standards, where we do recognize the necessity of employers to ensure that all equipment is safe for use of workers. We also need to make sure that when something’s introduced in our workplace, workers are involved in understanding why is it introduced. We shouldn’t be introducing technologies because it exists. It needs to be fit for purpose, it needs to be explained as to why it will help or support a worker, and then you get more compliance and more collaboration in using and implementing these different equipment. We have other instruments, of course, our Violence Harassment Convention that aims to protect from violence and harassment in different workplaces, including those that occur in a digital mode, like cyberbullying. We are currently at the ILO. We just started this international labor conference in June, and there’s a second discussion next June, working on potentially a new instrument to promote decent work in the platform economy. It’s been quite an exciting discussion these couple of years that hopefully will end in the development or adoption of binding, hopefully, instruments around managing and promoting decent work in the platform economy. And we have the ILO Observatory at the ILO that Sher Verick, my colleague, will be speaking to in a minute. And of course, a lot of countries, in the report you will see there are so many examples, and from our constituents, worker, employer, organizations and governments, mainly ministries of labor, they’re very interested in the list that we’ve been able to compile on what are countries doing, what examples can we learn from, what is applicable in my country, in my sector, what priorities we can learn from. Here are some examples, I won’t go through them. Also, some that clearly regulate automation, advanced robotics, some that regulate the right to disconnect. What does it mean today for workers? Is a job 9 to 5? Is it better to just give flexibility when, for example, parents need to step out two, three hours during the day to take care of different needs, but may be able to connect again in the evening to finish their jobs? What kind of, what does a job look like when there is connection and disconnection to the Internet and when that is involved and our job relies on it? In addition to regulating the remote work, telework, and the digital platforms, because, you know, they’re quite different things with different needs as well. And here are some collective bargaining agreements where regulation is not up to speed or where you really need some specific agreements. Here are some examples in some countries where they’ve been able to ensure more rights to workers through these collective agreements. They’ve negotiated these agreements. And, of course, for example, if you think of the arm of compliance and enforcement in ministries of labor, labor inspectors have been using some of this technology to their advantage in trying to predict, you know, where accidents can happen, which sectors are going to be more prone by using existing data to make such predictions and make more proactive investigations. Everybody used to looking in more detail about technology and the risks that come with it. And this is, I think, my last slide, at the workplace level, so we talked a lot about the national and the national framework and the regulation but even at the workplace level, if you have any safety and health background, you know that we work by hierarchy. If you are exposed to something that’s dangerous, we try to eliminate it, if not we substitute it, if not we do engineering controls, admin controls or we provide people with personal protective equipment and this is how this is translated for the area of AI and technology, what it means to eliminate a hazard, what does that mean, so you actually replace physical entry with drones or robotic crawlers if it’s really hazardous, so it’s how do you use the technology to eliminate, how do you substitute so you don’t expose them to unnecessary dangers, you use virtual reality for training when you can, etc. Engineering controls, some examples, and today it’s normally we say that there’s a hierarchy of importance, right, and the last thing you should do is give people personal protective equipment, you have to do the others, but now with technology, personal protective equipment have a dual role, they are also sensors, they’re also detectors, so they are preventative and not just protective in a sense, so it’s just evolution of the science of safety and health that’s become interesting with the support and help of these technologies, this is just some key takeaways, what we need at the end is we need a little bit more research, it was very difficult to find data on how many people or injuries or accidents that have been prevented or saved or decreased because of the introduction of technology or the other way around, so we don’t have a lot of inputs globally on this and we need to make sure we personalize, adapt everything we’re using to the workers needs and specific characteristics, those are sort of the two key takeaways on our end.

Sher Verick: Well, good afternoon, you’ve been hearing a lot from the ILO so far and I’m going to continue, and my name is Sher Verek, I’m advisor to the Deputy Director General of the ILO and I’ve been asked to speak about the ILO’s observatory on AI in the world and work in the digital economy, but I will just cover a few of those issues that have already been highlighted before coming to what we’re doing on the observatory. I think what is happening with AI doesn’t need any introduction in this room, everyone here gets it, is looking at it, is part of this whole process of developing new tools and how that’s impacting the world of work is the issues that we are looking at, as you’ve already heard from Juan Ivan and Manal, and so you know when we look at these tools like this is mid-journey generating an image of Harry Potter, what does that mean for the labour market? Is this taking a job? So let me ask this question, in fact I wanted to ask you a question instead of just us talking to you, I want to ask you a question, how many of you think your job can be automated through AI? Completely. How many think some of your tasks can be automated? I think we all can think that and we are already using AI for certain tasks, right? Meeting notes even, simple things like that or creating images. My brother works in the design area, he has also an AI start-up and I was saying what does this mean for jobs in your industry? And he was saying, okay you know you used to employ an illustrator to produce an image, take a few days, now of course you expect that to be done in a couple of hours, still there’s an illustrator who’s using such a tool as mid-journey but is working with AI to develop that image, right? So that’s a real key issue and for those who know that whole approach of looking at what does technology mean for jobs, it’s about tasks. Tasks, we are bundles of tasks, right? Occupations are made up of tasks and so this looks suddenly very scientific, I’m not going to go into the details, it’s on the Observatory website, I’ll come back to that but the bottom line is and Juan Ivan talked about some of that research that we’ve been doing from our research department that’s on the Observatory, this is even more recent data and it’s in a study by our colleagues Pavel Gimerick and others and don’t worry you’ll get to see the link as well at the end, have done is looked at occupations in terms of their tasks and there’s a complex way of looking at their exposure of all those tasks to AI, how easy is it to automate those tasks, it’s been a very thorough process to identify that and then looking at how variable those tasks are within occupation. So the bottom line is without going into all those details, you have occupations up here which have the highest exposure and the lowest task variability. These are as Juan Ivan talked about administrative jobs, clerical roles, where you have a lot of tasks that can be automated and the same way we have other occupations where you have some tasks like we just discussed, some of our tasks can be automated but not all of them, so the heterogeneity of our tasks are still much greater for some of these other occupations that further down here and that has a fundamental issue for skilling, right? So if you’re here, you’re in an administrative role, increasingly some of other roles like web development etc which now is being done with AI, you’re going to need to think about other occupations shifting your job. If you’re in some of these other occupations, well then it’s about the opportunity to be augmented by AI, right? To be transformed by AI and then of course an issue from the skilling perspective is how to ensure that we have those skills in order to be transformed by AI. So there’s going to be both transformation and some automation but this translates into bigger figures for us at the ILO, the research that we’ve done, it’s on the observatory and that bottom line is that we, based on our own estimates that have come out including this year in May, a jobs apocalypse is unlikely, right? So just based on that story of automation versus augmentation that I just explained. If you look, it’s a bit hard for everyone to see I know, at the top is the figures for the world that we have which basically tell us that one in four jobs are potentially exposed to AI but that includes those that are not only going to be at risk of automation but also augmentation because in fact the transformation part, that augmentation part is far greater than those who are at risk of automation that I’ve been explaining and that share is just 3.3% of global employment according to our latest estimates that came out in May. However of course 3.3% of global employment still means around 130 million jobs around the world so it’s not, we can’t just dismiss that and say it’s nothing but it is in compared, a smaller share compared to that part, the darker blue parts that are up there and of course this is much higher in high-income countries as already mentioned as opposed to low-income countries that reflects the structures of economies of course. If you’re in agriculture, you’re not going to be automated, right? I mean you may use AI tools as a farmer but the basic functions of farming or cutting wood, there are certain tasks that are not going to be automated, right? Through AI, it can be other technologies in agriculture of course and as already mentioned, it also leaves women more vulnerable to this process particularly because they are more over-represented in admin roles. Now I won’t go into any more details, don’t have time and we’re running out of time as I can see already but I think really important message from the ILO is first is that we don’t expect a job apocalypse, we think the transformation part is going to be greater but second, we need to look at the implications for job quality. This has really come up in both what Manal and Juan Ivan talked about and this is about issues around wages and really that’s where you see the action about what happens on the demand and supply side. The ones with the stronger demand, top-end jobs, you talked about Google, Microsoft, wages are going up. Those who are in less demand or those are being automated or at least a number of their tasks have been automated, they don’t necessarily lose their jobs but their wages will be maybe flatlining or falling in real terms but a really important part as Manal said is about the algorithmic management. It’s ready in the workplace, what are those implications? I won’t repeat those and of course we have this issue of new jobs and again it’s been mentioned, you have the machine learning specialists but you have the content moderation and the supply chains that was also highlighted. So as you would have heard of course throughout this week, it’s about the digital divide as well. At the ILO, yes obviously these are driven by big forces in the world in terms of technological change but they are posing both opportunities and challenges and ultimately it also will depend on how tech is adopted and what it is used for and this will also be influenced by policy choices including on skills. Obviously it’s not all about policy or all about regulation but of course there is an opportunity here to promote those opportunities and respond to those challenges. So I’m going to keep this very short because we’ve still got one more presentation. So that is just a snapshot of the really key part of the research we’re doing in the ILO observatory on AI and work in the digital economy. website, you’ll see a lot of our material there. And what we are focusing on in the ILO is the following. Thematically, a lot of work has gone with the AI side, as you’ve heard. We’re also on algorithmic management. It’s a critical area when it comes to its impact in the workplace, and there’s a lot of country-level work as well that’s going on in that area. Digital labor platforms, you heard about the platform standard-setting process that is there, trying to look at how we can have a new labor standard that responds to those new challenges. Data is an area that we’re increasingly getting back into a focus on that as something that is an emerging area, and skills. Now, of course, this whole thing today and this session is about skills, and really Juan Iván has given you really a good overview of that. But for the ILO, we look at all of this and how this fits together, not only from a supply side but a demand side, how that matches the implications not only for job quantity but job quality. So let me stop there. It’s not just about a job apocalypse. It’s about transformation. But we need to keep an eye on job quality, not just the quantity side, and think about different entry points, which are not always obvious. It’s not just about jobs being lost, et cetera. It’s about what’s happening in the workplace. It’s what’s happening in the supply chains, as mentioned. And this is what we hope to do with the observatory as well. Thank you.

Tom Wambeke: Good afternoon. This is the last input before we can go a little bit more interactive. As you see from the title, one of my hobbies is finding new abbreviations for AI, becoming moving beyond artificial ignorance. So I’m Tom Wambeck, the chief of the learning innovation lab in Turin, which is the international training center of the ILO, which is the capacity building arm. And that’s where my reflections will come from today. What I’m doing there is leading a lab, an innovation lab. It might be important to mention it, because we are creating in Turin, in the north of Italy, a kind of a safe experimentation zone. It’s a zone of learning. I was in a session before on the AI skills coalition, and they were showing some survey results. And for example, for needs that were detected by leaders, policy makers, they said one of these major needs there from leaders was having a kind of a safe space where they can learn about AI without immediately being perceived as asking a dumb question. So what I’m saying is from the safe experimentation zone out there. A second element that I wanted to mention here is there are a lot of different things that I would like to mention in this presentation. I’m going to focus on three specific ideas in the area of AI upscaling. One element is in a training center, you would think that we are training individuals. We are training ILO constituents, employers, governments, and workers, also beyond that. But it’s not just about, let’s say, individual upscaling. Also, I want to make the link with the previous session that we were in. They said, well, we are now in an area where everybody’s doing, let’s say, pilots, but having issues to basically come up at scaling up, let’s say, these levels. And that’s why I would like to jump from, let’s say, the individual training level towards the more institutional training level. So what the center is trying to do also in the area of AI is providing institutional capacity development opportunities. And when we look at that curriculum, it’s much more than just, you know, individual upskilling from some specific target audiences. It has to do with a much broader angle than just, let’s say, technological change. It’s almost organizational change management. And that’s an important reflection also if we are going to look into our AI curriculum. So a little bit the overview of what we do at individual capacity towards institutional capacity, also with the hope that we can give a contribution to more system capacity development. But that’s just the background. Let me come back to the topic of today, because one of the big things that is mentioned, as I said, we have a mandate. If I look at our organization in terms of AI adoption, I think we have really a mandate to innovate. There’s really an active mandate. And also if I would look at the culture in a training center, it’s rather an agile, let’s say, culture where innovation is absent. And so what we’re trying to do is basically jump from, let’s say, casual experiments towards more systemic innovation out there by launching a whole bunch of different AI projects. One of the things that we have seen, everybody is talking about AI, but nobody’s doing it, so that we really started to start with projects. So what can we learn from these AI projects within institutions? And that’s also a little bit the entry point. By the way, at the ILO stand, you will find different courses and programs that we are organizing. And one of them is called the AI Forum, where we also help organizations on how to deploy AI at a systemic level. The first thing that we have to do in a training center is basically, I would say, upskilling in terms of AI literacy. Actually, I took this picture from many years ago here at the AI for Good seminar. You remember this, how would I say, this humanoid lady? You remember her, Sophia? When I walk now at the AI for Good, it’s still full of robots. But almost 10 years ago, there was already a pledge. In training, there will be some space for these kind of humanoid robots. So in a way, I’m trying to, much of our work is actually to do on debunking myths, where I would say that Sophie, who’s actually also an official resident from Saudi Arabia, is not yet ready in the classroom. If you look at the whole skills portfolio that we are having, actually, I took a picture in Belgium, this one. It’s kind of an interesting one. It’s in Antwerp. Hey, Chachoupi, finish this building. Your skills are irreplaceable. But it’s a lot of different, let’s say, narratives that we’re trying to build in. Okay, what do you want to achieve with this kind of AI upskilling or retraining? And these are, let’s say, the five myths that we are actually encountering all the time when we actually are talking about AI adoption. It’s a little bit similar with what Sher Verick was saying. It’s not the kind of replacement for it’s going to replace shop. It’s no. There’s also AI is not going to replace face-to-face training. It’s a bit more of a kind of a nuanced view that we need to have. So our initial, let’s say, initiatives are all about debunking AI myths. But then once you have done that, once you have a bit more of a realistic view on what can AI mean for capacity building, then there’s a whole field of, let’s say, learning opportunities coming out. And there are many of them. As I said, I only have 10 minutes. I’m not going to go through all the different sections here. That’s why I’m going to focus on three specific ideas. And they can be linked to any of the different topics out here. I will share these slides also afterwards. So my first idea is actually also inspired by maybe a different notion on what it means to be intelligent. I always like to refer to Stephen Hawking’s, let’s say, non-readable language, but you can understand it. He defines intelligence as the ability to adapt to change. For me, that’s also actually an excellent definition what learning should be. Learning is also adapting to change. And what happens if this kind of inspiration at the individual level, if you would take that also up to the organizational level, you come at another old quote, which is basically when the rate of change outside an organization is greater than the rate of change inside, the end is near. And that’s where I want to focus my three ideas on. It’s rather in function of a larger view on how AI can be deployed at an organizational setting rather than introducing some technologies. And specifically in capacity development. Here’s my first idea. It’s also at a foresight angle. And it’s also related to change management. This is a famous foresight person. If we always do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got. And if I look in how AI is being deployed in training, then I would expect new things. I would expect all kinds of new innovations. I would expect new curricula, new organizations, new architecture, new methods, new whatever, new connections, new administrative procedures, many other elements. But that’s not what I currently see when I look a little bit at the current AI initiatives. What I currently see is basically new stuff or old stuff in new jackets in one way or another. That’s how I actually could call it. And maybe to give you a few examples to look at some of these things in training. I see AI power things. I see automated grading. I see AI chatbots all over the place. They have, of course, a value. They are digitized. They create some practical add-ons in my curriculum. But do they really change something in my whole educational setup? That’s a bigger question that I would like to ask to you. So my question is, how can we really transform learning and training that we are creating an added value? And not just, let’s say, substituted by a new technology or augmented a little bit. But where can we do new stuff in new ways? And that requires a little bit more of a radical approach, which is not always obvious in education and training, which also, let’s say, changes very slowly. That’s the first idea of adding value. Second idea that I would like to share is the following, is like, again, with a foresight angle. Foresight is also one of Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous. What do I mean with that? If I rewind with 60 years ago, then I could show you this picture. This is from Sir William Preece, he’s Chief Engineer of the British Post Office. And he says, the Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys. If you surf the internet, it’s full of these kind of statements. And I would like to ask you the question, the same. We’re now confronted with AI, we all want to use it. What would be your intelligent what-if question for the next 50 years? Anyone wants to give it a try? What if? I’ll leave it silent, just think about it. But I think that’s a fundamental question to ask. Because with AI, it actually allows us to ask a whole bunch of new questions that maybe previously we did not ask ourselves. Some of these questions might sound a little bit more, let’s say, existential or philosophical. What can we learn from AI about human learning is one question. Or with machine-human interaction, who are the new actors and partners in AI learning and training? These are a few that you say, yes, very nice, you have time for philosophical questions. But if I would put it back on curriculum development, there’s a whole bunch of very concrete questions that we need to ask ourselves these days when AI gets infused into a training institute. Maybe I read one or two, how do we quality-assure partially automated teaching and assessment, just as one single question, or give me another one, on how do we curate and share knowledge to build the right and responsible AI. So there’s a whole bunch of new questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to innovate. And that’s actually my favorite what-if questions. What if we would use AI to ask better questions? It’s a question that I always share with my colleagues before we start a discussion. And then I have the last idea. And that idea is a bit of a criticism that we treat AI always a little bit, how would I say, isolated. While if you would use it or you would see it in daily practice, it’s completely embedded into a larger system. What do I mean with that when we’re going to look at the future of AI? That it will be a kind of any Cambrian explosion of AI offspring will occur, according to me, at the intersection with other technologies and systems. When we use AI in training, for example, it’s a combination of AI and VR in the rollout of, for example, soft skills training. It’s not just AI on itself. It’s really at the intersection of many other things. And therefore, we need the kind of a more, let’s say, ecological approach, an intersectional approach to assess not only the opportunities, but also to mitigate the many risks that are connected with it. And when I say other technologies, I think it was already mentioned, not only immersive technologies, but we have to go much broader. If I would look into the upcoming wave, it’s not only about immersive technologies, it’s about artificial intelligence, it’s about quantum computing, it’s about neurotechnology. There are many other angles out there that we also should bring into our reflections out there. So when I talk about AI, it’s part of a broader network, where I can ask them actually a lot of different questions than before. I think I’m almost at the time where it needs to be. Maybe one final reflection before we basically stop. Often when my colleagues said, okay, we need to start with AI and learning, the first initial reason that they said we’re going to do it faster, stronger, and better. It’s like a popular song of Daft Punk. But it reminds me that a lot of these questions are always linked to efficiencies, productivity in one way or another. And I think that, and also I’ve seen in the many conversations already this morning, that we need to go beyond that. More is not always better, I would mention it. And then maybe also with a second critical reflection is, progress is not about size or speed as much as it is about direction. And specifically within educational technology, I see too many projects starting not from a vision or from a reflection. I had a discussion with Juan, I remember. Everybody comes immediately, I need a chat bot. That’s the first thing that they said without having to ask, what do you really need? Have you had a more broader reflection about that? And that’s dangerous, because if you don’t have that right question, if you don’t have that vision, we go into the wrong direction. And what happens if you go into the wrong direction? Technology will get you there faster. So if that would lead to, for example, one of my favorite quotes, I know I use it a lot, but the biggest risk of AI is that it would automate ineffective practice out there. A quote from Professor Dan Schwartz. Because I think learning and training is much more than just integrating a few chat bots here and there. I think it’s about, yeah, if you have to come up with a definition, maybe according to your tasks of a teacher, well, feeding an AI the entire internet does not make you a teacher. And I can maybe also say that of a lot of other professions. Teaching or training is something much more complex and that won’t be replaced as such. For me, teaching or training is almost the art of, teaching is the art of assisting discovery. And that’s very difficult to capture into one task definition out there. But having said that, these were three ideas to reflect upon and maybe to feed in also in the three conversations that we have had already. So I’ll give it back to you, Juan.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you very much, Tom. So we are almost at time, but there is no another session right after, so we might spend another 10 minutes for those of you that so wish to take your questions. Thank you very much.

Audience: Yes. Hello, my name is Melissa. I work in Vienna with the CDBTO, which is part of the UN system. And thank you so much for this very, very interesting and thought-provoking presentation. I actually have two questions. And I find it very interesting. I’m taking notes of what I’m always doing as an observer and where things are heading and they are moving fast. But how do you see that AI can influence the UN in the area of diplomacy? Because as I was thinking, we are talking about some of the clerk tasks that maybe can be automated, of course, in the UN as well. But when you have been in the UN for many years, and you listen to some of the speeches, and you start realizing there’s kind of a pattern of repetition, and you can go into chat GPT and say, you know, this is the question that these delegates, this is the topic. What do you think are the questions that are going to be answered? And what do you suggest that should be in my presentation? And you can anticipate when you’re ahead based on the projects that you are doing, what could be asked. So this is one of my questions, is AI and diplomacy. And the other is, how do you see the needs to, and I think it links also to this, we don’t need to do more. We have to be working on the right things. But how do you see the needs of, because I feel there is a lot of pressure to catching up with AI, and there is maybe a bit of imposter syndrome that we are, you know, there is so much to learn, and we don’t have enough hours in the day to learn all of that. But where do you see the other stream of, let’s focus on being better humans, rather than just being very good with AI and maybe coding or not. So how do you see the role of ILO and the UN in general in supporting like a human approach to the AI investments? Thank you.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Thank you very much. We’re going to take two or three questions, and then we’ll try to answer them. I love mine of the One Goal initiative for governance.

Audience: This is a question to all of the presenters. How do you see the role of AI in UBI management? Yes. And maybe if the job market is not supposed to be a market anymore, about the management of who does what then, you know.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Good question. Anyone? Here.

Audience: Thank you. My question is about the role of the ILO in all that. Ms. Atzi mentioned that there will be soon a conference in which you will try to address how to regulate this. Do you expect that you can do something? Because the problem is not anymore a problem that can be regulated between negotiation, between labor organization and counterparts, but there is a third actor in the process, government and global governance. So it’s more complex adventure that you have done until now.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Thank you very much. Another one here. Thank you.

Audience: For me, it’s just the challenge that we face lately of high unemployment, especially in the developing countries. Where I come from, youth unemployment, it’s somewhere around 40% right now. And now the question is how then do we embrace AI in also combating unemployment in the midst of AI era? How do we ensure that we bridge the gap between unemployment if we do acknowledge that within this era there will be a bit of job losses, there will be a bit of some repetitive things that we need to get rid of?

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Thank you. Let’s take these four questions already because we need to remember them and then we’ll take three or four more. And we will check also online. Yes, thank you for breaking the digital divide. The first one was more about diplomacy and AI. Maybe, Sher Verick, since you have this diplomatic role. and Dr. Sher Verick, Ms. Manal Azzi, Dr. Sher Verick, Ms. Manal Azzi, Dr. Sher Verick, Ms.

Sher Verick: But there is some interesting issues that have been discussed. I’ve heard from ITU on the use of AI in diplomacy. I would refer to our ITU colleagues there. But I think, indeed, we are not racing to embrace AI to replace a human-centered approach. I think it wouldn’t make any sense. We wouldn’t have a clear justification for that as well. Do you want me to stop at that question? There are others there. The second one was about universal basic income. Do you want me to answer that one as well? The ILO advocates for universal social protection. We don’t advocate for universal basic income specifically, but we advocate for universal social protection from childhood up to old-age pension. Of course, this is an ongoing debate. This has happened for a couple of decades, particularly during that robotic period, discussions back 10, 15 years. Do we need UBI because people are going to lose jobs and they don’t have anything else to do? Well, the fact is we’re not seeing that happen, right? So we still very much focus on what’s happening in the labor market, how social protection can then support workers and their families around that. It’s a long story behind that, but in short, that’s our focus, social protection, how do you get workers into decent work, how do you support them and their families?

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: If I can build on this one. No, no, no, thank you. Very good question. I mean, for me, the ILO started more than 100 years ago, and one of the first regulations that emanated was to reduce the labor from seven days a week to six days, and then we went down to five. So maybe, yeah, AI for good, if we do it properly and the quality side, as we said before, maybe we end up as humans, as an entire planet, needing to work less to survive. Maybe the machines and the algorithms will do a lot of the things, and if that is true, then maybe this is conducive to working four days a week. So we don’t know. There is a lot of people and movies talking about dystopian futures, but maybe there is also a positive outcome, so maybe that will go in this direction. Then we have the question about the role of the ILO, and then the question about developing countries and the impact on people unemployed.

Manal Azzi: Yeah, I could talk about the role of the ILO, but maybe also just back to question one, because it’s focused on diplomacy, your question, but it also goes to a lot of public administration and public organizations and the way they’re working, and it’s important not to confuse also or blame AI for a lot of the changes, because we are facing a lot of restructuring and depletion of resources across a lot of these organizations, and tasks have been changing, and we can see internally in the ILO that the need for admin roles and tasks and staff has decreased as people are doing their own admin management. So there’s been that shift, and it’s happening, and it will reflect and be reflected on a lot of the work we do, but also in, again, as we said, while we can assume what the discussions, the questions and answers will be a year from now from some of our delegates, that we can’t forget the role of the humans and the ability to change and be agile and to change their perspectives and changes as we see the world, even politically. The world, as we know, can change overnight in a number of countries globally, so we need to keep up to date, and our trust and self-sense of responsibility needs to apply, even in the diplomatic world. The second point, can the ILO achieve, you asked, this dream of decent work in the platform economy? At least we know we have the mechanism for it. So it is a process, and it’s a process where we give the floor to worker organizations, their representatives, to the employers, but as you said, governments play an important role, mainly ministries of labor. These are the people that come around the table, and we give them the time to do so, and the research and evidence to inform the decisions that they’re making. So over the course of at least two years, even more, for preparation, we provide that platform and the necessary information to at least come up with something that could be a compromise, not the best standard sometimes, but it’s a compromise of what could work and could appeal to the implementation process and policy changes that we want to see at the workplace level and national level. I think the ILO is the right mechanism to do it. Can it achieve its ultimate goal? It’s something that we are observing as we go. Yes, the draft is already there, and so it was discussed in June, and now there’s more questionnaires that will go out to our constituency, and then a final draft will be discussed in June 2026.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Tom, do you want to take the last one?

Tom Wambeke: There are a few questions on there, and I’ll combine it also with I feel empathy for the imposter syndrome, because even being a specialist, there are too many tools, too many information. I’m also being overwhelmed with it, and that brings me to the question, maybe we have to focus on some of the essentials. I get a lot of critique of colleagues that say that chat GPT and other generative AI tools are basically easing up the whole learning process, and people, you know, copy-paste ready-made answers and whatever they need to do. But if we bring back to learn, what is learning? Learning is friction, learning is suffering, learning is basically having different viewpoints, and if you look into the field of AI, there are some super interesting tools that can help you to reach that. I’m thinking about the whole emerging field of antagonistic AI, where basically the AI does not give you the answer, but the AI basically questions yourself, and thinking about the kind of a digital queen that basically critically questions everything what you said, that’s actually a perfect learning tool. And that’s why I said go back to the essentials of learning, which could be also teaching, which could be asking questions and see what kind of AI-related tools could help you to augment, accelerate the objectives that you’re trying to achieve, and then bit by bit the imposter syndrome will fade away. Excellent, thank you. Let me try to take a couple of the questions online, and for those of you that need to go, please feel free. I’m sorry. Okay, okay. So, what has been some success stories in capacity building, particularly around AI literacy, any lessons and challenges from member states? Okay, I don’t know if from the experience with the governments, any capacity building around AI literacy and lessons learned? Yeah, but translate theory and practice, what I see now that people, and there’s a whole field of growing use cases in there, I think that’s where we basically need to go through, because as I mentioned already in my presentation, everybody talks about AI, but nobody’s doing it. So, in a way, what are the things that have been tested out? And what you see there is, I’m going to give you one specific example. We were working with the colleagues at the ILO of norms. We had a kind of an idea to use a kind of an AI tool on some very complicated legislative type of issues. And people were immediately thinking, oh, that’s just, let’s say you do the requirements and then you translate it into a chatbot that functions. But bit by bit, we started to see what are the complexities, what are the difficulties out there. And that was a whole dialogue which led to increased, let’s say, AI literacy, but not necessarily led to a kind of an AI solution. But the fact that a whole group of people from different angles, from legal experts to IT experts, started to address in a joint language of what they wanted to achieve. That, according to me, is successful AI, let’s say, improvements rather than, you know, showcasing the newest chatbot that is out there or any other elements. It’s a kind of, you know, gradual process. And definitely with the whole exponential change of the technologies that are out there that we need to continue that kind of more interdisciplinary dialogue among, let’s say, the different stakeholders that are out there. That would be for me, let’s say, a very modest definition of success.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Okay. Thank you. Would you like to take a – we have to go. So thank you very much, everybody. We will be happy to take more questions in the coffee break. Thank you.

Sher Verick: Yeah, sorry, because this is a very important question. And I think bottom line is AI is neither, you know, the biggest challenge or the biggest solution for youth unemployment in the African region, right? I mean, there are other critical factors in terms of investment, trade. They’re going to drive job creation. Then the question is about the quality of jobs, et cetera. But really, you know, so I wouldn’t want to say that AI is going to change that. I mean, the solutions will need to come from a broader macro industrial sectoral perspective. But what is true is that we need to look at how the development of AI can benefit the region, not just from the global north. And where, for example, in Kenya, one of the countries that have been very active, Rwanda, others who have been very active trying to develop their own digital industry. So, yes, look at how the region can benefit from it. But it’s not going to be either the biggest challenge or the solution to those, you know, youth unemployment rates that you see in the region. That requires investment, requires job creation and broader set of policies would be my response. Thank you.

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Agreement points

Human-centered approach to AI adoption

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Sher Verick
– Manal Azzi
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Algorithmic management risks dehumanizing work and removing human flexibility in decision-making

Need to maintain human-centered approach rather than racing to embrace AI for efficiency alone

Workers throughout the AI supply chain face safety and health challenges, from data annotators to electronic waste handlers

Individual upskilling must be complemented by institutional capacity development and organizational change management

Summary

All speakers emphasized the importance of keeping humans at the center of AI development and implementation, warning against purely efficiency-driven approaches that could dehumanize work or ignore worker welfare

Topics

Human rights | Economic | Development

Need for comprehensive regulatory frameworks

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Manal Azzi

Arguments

AI models are biased due to training data predominantly from global north and historical sources

Privacy concerns arise as AI systems collect extensive personal and professional data

ILO is developing new labor standards for platform economy and algorithmic management

Summary

Both speakers agreed that current AI systems require regulation to address bias, privacy concerns, and workplace management issues, with the ILO actively working on new standards

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Transformation over replacement in AI impact

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Sher Verick
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Most jobs will require reskilling by 2030, affecting billions of people worldwide

AI will primarily augment jobs rather than replace them, with only 3.3% of global employment at risk of automation

Current AI adoption in training often represents ‘old stuff in new jackets’ rather than true transformation

Summary

Speakers agreed that AI’s primary impact will be transformative rather than replacement-based, requiring massive reskilling efforts but not leading to widespread job displacement

Topics

Economic | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the challenge of educational institutions keeping pace with rapid technological change, with curriculum development taking years while technology evolves in months

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Technology adoption speed outpaces training capacity, making it difficult for skills development to keep up

Training institutions struggle with speed of curriculum development and digital transformation requirements

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognized that AI and automation create disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups, particularly women, and introduce new forms of workplace risks

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Manal Azzi

Arguments

Women face disproportionate risk as they are overrepresented in clerical jobs prone to automation

New risks emerge from human-robot interaction, algorithmic management, and privacy concerns

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both speakers emphasized that AI adoption should focus on enhancing human capabilities and learning rather than simply pursuing efficiency or automation

Speakers

– Sher Verick
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Need to maintain human-centered approach rather than racing to embrace AI for efficiency alone

AI should be used to ask better questions and enable new forms of learning rather than just automate existing processes

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Development

Unexpected consensus

Positive potential of AI for workplace safety

Speakers

– Manal Azzi
– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Arguments

AI and robotics remove workers from hazardous environments and enable predictive safety measures

Three-tier digital skills approach needed: basic literacy for all, intermediate skills for specific industries, and advanced STEM skills

Explanation

Despite focusing on risks and challenges, there was unexpected consensus on AI’s positive potential for improving workplace safety and the structured approach needed for skills development, showing balanced perspective rather than purely cautionary stance

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Global inequality in AI impact and benefits

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Sher Verick
– Manal Azzi

Arguments

Global north benefits more from AI while global south faces different challenges

AI alone won’t solve youth unemployment in developing countries – broader economic policies are needed

Workers throughout the AI supply chain face safety and health challenges, from data annotators to electronic waste handlers

Explanation

All speakers unexpectedly converged on recognizing that AI’s benefits and risks are unevenly distributed globally, with developing countries facing different challenges and often bearing hidden costs in the AI supply chain

Topics

Development | Human rights | Economic

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on maintaining human-centered approaches to AI, the need for comprehensive regulation, and the transformative rather than replacement nature of AI’s impact on work. They agreed on the challenges of keeping skills development pace with technological change and the unequal global distribution of AI’s benefits and risks.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among ILO speakers on core principles and challenges, with complementary expertise areas reinforcing shared institutional perspective. This strong alignment suggests coordinated organizational approach to AI governance and indicates potential for effective policy development and implementation in the international labor context.

Different viewpoints

Approach to AI adoption in training and education

Speakers

– Tom Wambeke
– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Arguments

Current AI adoption in training often represents ‘old stuff in new jackets’ rather than true transformation

Three-tier digital skills approach needed: basic literacy for all, intermediate skills for specific industries, and advanced STEM skills

Summary

Tom Wambeke criticizes current AI implementations as superficial automation of existing processes, advocating for genuine transformation, while Juan Ivan Martin Lataix presents a structured, tiered approach to digital skills development that could be seen as more conventional

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Primary focus of AI implementation

Speakers

– Tom Wambeke
– Manal Azzi

Arguments

AI should be used to ask better questions and enable new forms of learning rather than just automate existing processes

AI and robotics remove workers from hazardous environments and enable predictive safety measures

Summary

Tom emphasizes AI’s potential for transformative learning and questioning, while Manal focuses on practical safety applications and risk mitigation in workplace settings

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Unexpected differences

Role of efficiency in AI adoption

Speakers

– Tom Wambeke
– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Arguments

AI should be used to ask better questions and enable new forms of learning rather than just automate existing processes

Technology adoption speed outpaces training capacity, making it difficult for skills development to keep up

Explanation

While both work for ILO training institutions, Tom explicitly criticizes efficiency-focused AI adoption (‘faster, stronger, better’ approach) while Juan’s presentation implicitly accepts the need to keep up with technological speed, creating an unexpected philosophical divide within the same organization

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers show broad consensus on AI’s transformative impact on work and the need for comprehensive responses, but differ on implementation approaches and priorities

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers are largely aligned on fundamental issues but show nuanced differences in emphasis and methodology. The disagreements are more about approach and priorities rather than fundamental opposition, which is typical for colleagues from the same organization working on related but distinct aspects of AI and work policy.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the challenge of educational institutions keeping pace with rapid technological change, with curriculum development taking years while technology evolves in months

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Technology adoption speed outpaces training capacity, making it difficult for skills development to keep up

Training institutions struggle with speed of curriculum development and digital transformation requirements

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognized that AI and automation create disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups, particularly women, and introduce new forms of workplace risks

Speakers

– Juan Ivan Martin Lataix
– Manal Azzi

Arguments

Women face disproportionate risk as they are overrepresented in clerical jobs prone to automation

New risks emerge from human-robot interaction, algorithmic management, and privacy concerns

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both speakers emphasized that AI adoption should focus on enhancing human capabilities and learning rather than simply pursuing efficiency or automation

Speakers

– Sher Verick
– Tom Wambeke

Arguments

Need to maintain human-centered approach rather than racing to embrace AI for efficiency alone

AI should be used to ask better questions and enable new forms of learning rather than just automate existing processes

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Development

Key takeaways

AI will primarily augment jobs rather than replace them, with only 3.3% of global employment at risk of automation, contradicting fears of a ‘job apocalypse’

A three-tier digital skills framework is needed: basic digital literacy for all, intermediate skills for specific industries, and advanced STEM skills for specialized roles

The digital divide remains a fundamental barrier, with 2.6 billion people lacking internet access, creating inequitable access to AI benefits

Women face disproportionate risk from AI automation as they are overrepresented in clerical jobs prone to automation

AI models contain inherent bias due to training data predominantly from the global north and historical sources dating back centuries

Current AI adoption in training often represents incremental improvements rather than transformational change

Workplace safety can be enhanced through AI and robotics removing workers from hazardous environments, but new risks emerge from human-robot interaction and algorithmic management

The entire AI supply chain involves workers facing safety and health challenges, from data annotators to electronic waste handlers

Speed of technological change outpaces institutional capacity for curriculum development and skills training

AI should be integrated with other technologies in an ecological approach rather than implemented in isolation

Resolutions and action items

ILO is developing new labor standards for platform economy through ongoing constituent discussions, with final draft to be discussed in June 2026

ILO Observatory on AI and Work will continue research on algorithmic management, digital labor platforms, data governance, and skills matching

Training institutions need to undergo digital transformation to scale up reskilling efforts for millions of workers

Governments should develop long-term strategies linking skills development to economic planning and promote lifelong learning

Organizations should create safe experimentation zones for AI learning without fear of asking ‘dumb questions’

Focus on using AI to ask better questions and enable new forms of learning rather than just automating existing processes

Unresolved issues

How to effectively regulate algorithmic management while maintaining workplace flexibility and human decision-making

How to address the fundamental challenge of AI model bias when training data from diverse regions is limited or non-digitized

How to balance the speed of technological change with the time needed for quality skills development and institutional adaptation

How to ensure quality assurance in partially automated teaching and assessment systems

How to manage privacy concerns as AI systems collect extensive personal and professional data

How to prevent AI from automating ineffective practices rather than transforming them

How to address youth unemployment in developing countries where AI impact may be limited compared to broader economic factors

How to maintain human-centered approaches in diplomacy and public administration while leveraging AI capabilities

How to scale individual AI literacy training to institutional and systemic capacity development

Suggested compromises

Universal social protection rather than universal basic income as a response to AI-driven job displacement

Gradual implementation of AI in workplace safety with humans remaining at the center of decision-making rather than complete automation

Balanced approach between efficiency gains and maintaining human touch in work processes

Interdisciplinary dialogue among different stakeholders (legal experts, IT experts, workers, employers) to develop AI solutions rather than top-down implementation

Focus on augmentation and transformation of existing roles rather than wholesale job replacement

Combination of face-to-face and AI-enhanced training methods rather than complete digitalization

Regulation that allows innovation while protecting worker rights and privacy

Emphasis on asking better questions with AI assistance rather than seeking ready-made answers that bypass learning friction

The UNESCO did a report end of 2023 saying that out of 10 jobs, 9 will need to be re-skilled by 2030. This is billions of people. So the size of these challenges is enormous.

Speaker

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Reason

This statistic reframes the AI skills challenge from a technical problem to a massive human development crisis, highlighting the unprecedented scale of transformation needed across the global workforce.

Impact

This comment established the foundational urgency for the entire discussion, setting the tone that this isn’t just about technology adoption but about a fundamental restructuring of human capabilities on a global scale. It influenced subsequent speakers to address systemic rather than incremental solutions.

At some point, ChatGPT knows much more about you than your family. Because not only do you use it for private things, but for personal and corporate things… People use it for all kinds of things. And sometimes maybe not very consciously knowing that they are exposing to private companies a lot of personal information.

Speaker

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Reason

This observation cuts through technical discussions to reveal the intimate and unconscious nature of AI integration into personal lives, highlighting how users may be unknowingly surrendering unprecedented levels of personal data.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from viewing AI as an external tool to recognizing it as an entity that develops intimate knowledge of users, leading to deeper considerations about privacy, regulation, and the human-AI relationship throughout the session.

We are having to shift, and when we see a lot of these technologies taking over some of the tasks we’ve done, we do sense that we are losing control of our workspace and our jobs and what we’re actually meant to be doing.

Speaker

Manal Azzi

Reason

This comment captures the psychological and existential dimension of AI adoption – the loss of agency and identity that workers experience, moving beyond technical capabilities to human meaning and purpose.

Impact

This insight introduced the critical theme of human agency and workplace identity, influencing the discussion to consider not just what AI can do, but what it means for human dignity and self-determination in work environments.

It’s important to consider the whole supply chain. Here are just the final parts… those miners excavating critical minerals… factory workers that actually assemble all this technology… the electronic waste, the business of electronic waste… people are exposed to mercury and so many different other substances.

Speaker

Manal Azzi

Reason

This comment dramatically expanded the scope of AI’s impact by revealing the hidden human costs in the supply chain, challenging the clean, digital narrative of AI with the reality of environmental and labor exploitation.

Impact

This observation fundamentally broadened the discussion from AI’s impact on knowledge workers to include global supply chains and environmental justice, forcing participants to consider AI’s full lifecycle impact on human welfare.

Intelligence as the ability to adapt to change. For me, that’s also actually an excellent definition what learning should be. Learning is also adapting to change… when the rate of change outside an organization is greater than the rate of change inside, the end is near.

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Reason

This redefinition of intelligence and learning reframes the entire AI skills challenge from acquiring specific technical skills to developing adaptive capacity, offering a more fundamental approach to preparing for technological change.

Impact

This philosophical reframing influenced the discussion to move beyond specific AI tools toward developing organizational and individual adaptability, shifting focus from ‘what to learn’ to ‘how to keep learning.’

What I currently see is basically new stuff or old stuff in new jackets… But do they really change something in my whole educational setup? How can we really transform learning and training that we are creating an added value? And not just, let’s say, substituted by a new technology or augmented a little bit.

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Reason

This critique challenges the assumption that technological adoption equals innovation, demanding deeper transformation rather than superficial digitization of existing practices.

Impact

This comment prompted critical reflection on whether current AI initiatives represent genuine transformation or merely technological substitution, elevating the discussion from implementation tactics to fundamental questions about educational innovation.

What if we would use AI to ask better questions? It’s a question that I always share with my colleagues before we start a discussion.

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Reason

This reframes AI’s role from providing answers to enhancing human inquiry, suggesting a more collaborative and intellectually stimulating relationship between humans and AI systems.

Impact

This insight shifted the conversation from AI as a replacement tool to AI as an intellectual partner, influencing how participants considered the future of human-AI collaboration in learning and problem-solving.

The biggest risk of AI is that it would automate ineffective practice… feeding an AI the entire internet does not make you a teacher. Teaching or training is almost the art of assisting discovery.

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Reason

This comment distinguishes between information processing and genuine human expertise, highlighting that effective teaching involves complex human skills that cannot be replicated through data processing alone.

Impact

This observation grounded the discussion in the irreplaceable value of human expertise and relationship-building, countering technological determinism and emphasizing the continued centrality of human skills in education and development.

Overall assessment

These key comments collectively transformed what could have been a technical discussion about AI implementation into a profound examination of human adaptation, dignity, and purpose in the age of artificial intelligence. The speakers moved the conversation through multiple levels – from individual skills to systemic transformation, from technical capabilities to human meaning, and from local implementation to global supply chains. The most impactful comments challenged participants to think beyond immediate technological solutions toward fundamental questions about human agency, organizational transformation, and the kind of future we want to create with AI. The discussion evolved from ‘How do we use AI?’ to ‘How do we remain human while working with AI?’ – a much more sophisticated and necessary conversation for policymakers and practitioners.

How do you see that AI can influence the UN in the area of diplomacy?

Speaker

Melissa (CDBTO Vienna)

Explanation

This explores the potential impact of AI on diplomatic processes, including pattern recognition in speeches and anticipating delegate questions, which could transform how diplomatic work is conducted.

How do you see the role of AI in UBI management?

Speaker

Audience member from One Goal initiative

Explanation

This addresses the intersection of AI automation and universal basic income policies, particularly relevant as job markets may be transformed by AI technologies.

How do we embrace AI in combating unemployment in developing countries with high youth unemployment rates?

Speaker

Audience member from developing country context

Explanation

This is critical for understanding how AI can be leveraged positively in regions with 40% youth unemployment rather than exacerbating job losses.

How do we quality-assure partially automated teaching and assessment?

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Explanation

This addresses a fundamental challenge in educational technology as AI becomes integrated into learning systems, requiring new frameworks for maintaining educational standards.

How do we curate and share knowledge to build the right and responsible AI?

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Explanation

This focuses on the ethical development and deployment of AI systems, particularly important for training institutions and capacity building organizations.

What would be your intelligent what-if question for the next 50 years regarding AI?

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Explanation

This encourages long-term strategic thinking about AI’s future impact, moving beyond current applications to anticipate transformational changes.

What can we learn from AI about human learning?

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Explanation

This explores the philosophical and practical implications of AI for understanding and improving human learning processes.

With machine-human interaction, who are the new actors and partners in AI learning and training?

Speaker

Tom Wambeke

Explanation

This addresses the changing ecosystem of educational stakeholders as AI becomes integrated into learning environments.

Need for more research on quantifying injuries/accidents prevented or caused by technology introduction

Speaker

Manal Azzi

Explanation

There is insufficient global data on the safety impact of AI and automation technologies, making it difficult to assess their true occupational health effects.

How to develop AI models that are not biased, particularly for regions outside the global north

Speaker

Juan Ivan Martin Lataix

Explanation

Current AI models are trained primarily on data from the global north, creating bias issues that will take significant time and resources to address.

How to balance human-centered approaches with AI adoption pressures

Speaker

Melissa (CDBTO Vienna)

Explanation

This addresses the tension between rapid AI adoption and maintaining human-focused approaches in work and learning environments.

Success stories in capacity building around AI literacy and lessons learned from member states

Speaker

Online participant

Explanation

This seeks practical examples and best practices for implementing AI literacy programs at national and organizational levels.

Summary

The discussion focused on “Partnership Pivot: Rethinking Cooperation in the Digital Era” as part of the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) framework, featuring government officials and industry representatives from multiple countries. The panel explored how nations and organizations are adapting their digital cooperation strategies to address emerging challenges and opportunities in an increasingly connected world.

Representatives from developing nations emphasized infrastructure development as a critical priority. Burkina Faso highlighted projects to strengthen connectivity through fiber optic networks and national data centers, while focusing on digital literacy and AI implementation despite security challenges. Senegal presented its ambitious “New Technology Deal” strategy aimed at becoming a digital society by 2050, emphasizing the need for strategic partnerships and universal connectivity access across Africa. Albania shared its success story of achieving 95% online public services through sustained political commitment and both internal and external cooperation since 2003.

Technical experts discussed the evolution of artificial intelligence, with Hungary’s representative noting the progression from current agentic AI toward future general AI and autonomous systems. Malaysia emphasized ecosystem-based collaborations that unite government, industry, academia, and civil society, citing their Jendela network rollout as a successful multi-stakeholder initiative. Bahrain’s telecommunications authority stressed the importance of flexible regulatory frameworks that can adapt to rapidly evolving technology while ensuring seamless international connectivity.

Denmark’s tech ambassador addressed the paradox of increased geopolitical fragmentation occurring alongside unprecedented need for collaboration, advocating for business-focused partnerships rather than aid-based approaches. The US Council for International Business concluded by highlighting how multi-stakeholder cooperation has strengthened private sector partnerships and emphasized the continued importance of trust-building and inclusive dialogue. The session ultimately called for recommitment to existing partnership frameworks like WSIS and IGF to advance digital cooperation globally.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital Infrastructure Development and Connectivity**: Multiple speakers emphasized the critical need for robust digital infrastructure, including fiber optic networks, 5G coverage, data centers, and universal connectivity. Countries like Burkina Faso discussed extending national backbone infrastructure, while Malaysia highlighted ecosystem-based collaborations for network rollout, and Bahrain noted achieving 100% 5G coverage.

– **Artificial Intelligence Development and Future Trends**: Hungary’s representative provided insights into AI evolution, discussing the progression from current agentic AI toward general AI and superintelligence, with practical applications like autonomous vehicles already being implemented at various levels.

– **International Cooperation and Strategic Partnerships**: A central theme throughout the discussion was the necessity of strengthening international partnerships for digital transformation. Senegal specifically called for strategic partnerships with countries having advanced technologies, while Albania emphasized both internal and external cooperation for successful digitalization.

– **Regulatory Frameworks and Multi-stakeholder Approaches**: Several speakers addressed the need for adaptive, flexible regulatory frameworks that can accommodate rapid technological change. The discussion emphasized multi-stakeholder cooperation involving government, private sector, academia, and civil society to ensure inclusive and sustainable digital development.

– **Bridging the Digital Divide and Ensuring Inclusivity**: Speakers consistently highlighted the importance of making digital technologies accessible to all populations, particularly focusing on rural areas, women, and youth. The discussion addressed the 2.6 billion people still offline and the need for meaningful technology solutions that address local problems.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how cooperation models need to evolve in the digital era, specifically focusing on rethinking partnerships between governments, private sector, and international organizations to achieve inclusive, sustainable digital transformation that serves all populations while addressing emerging challenges and opportunities.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional, collaborative, and forward-looking tone throughout. Despite the moderator’s acknowledgment of it being the final session of a long day, participants remained engaged and optimistic about digital cooperation possibilities. The tone was pragmatic yet aspirational, with speakers sharing both challenges and successes while emphasizing the urgent need for enhanced collaboration. The moderator’s closing remarks shifted toward a more inspirational tone, calling for recommitment to existing frameworks and continued dialogue.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Introduction**: Role/Title: Not specified, Area of expertise: Not specified

– **Lori Schulman**: Role/Title: High-level track facilitator for the session, Area of expertise: Session moderation and facilitation

– **Aminata Zerbo Sabane**: Role/Title: Her Excellency Dr., representing Burkina Faso, Area of expertise: Digital development and Information Society projects

– **Laszlo Palkovics**: Role/Title: His Excellency Prof., Government Commissioner for the AI Ministry of Energy, Hungary, Area of expertise: Artificial intelligence, engineering, autonomous vehicles

– **Alioune Sall**: Role/Title: His Excellency, Minister of Communication and Digital, Senegal, Area of expertise: Digital strategy and international cooperation

– **Enkelejda Mucaj**: Role/Title: Her Excellency Ms., representing Albania, Area of expertise: Digital transformation and public service digitalization

– **Eneng Faridah**: Role/Title: Chief Enforcement Officer, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Malaysia, Area of expertise: Telecommunications regulation and digital cooperation

– **Philip Marnick**: Role/Title: General Director, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Bahrain, Area of expertise: Digital infrastructure and telecommunications regulation

– **Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard**: Role/Title: Technical Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, Area of expertise: Technology diplomacy and digital divide solutions

– **Whitney Baird**: Role/Title: President and CEO, United States Council of International Business, Area of expertise: Private sector digital cooperation and multi-stakeholder approaches

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Partnership Pivot: Rethinking Cooperation in the Digital Era – Discussion Summary

## Introduction and Session Context

The discussion on “Partnership Pivot: Rethinking Cooperation in the Digital Era” took place as part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) framework. Facilitated by Lori Schulman, the session brought together government officials, regulatory authorities, and industry representatives from multiple countries to explore digital cooperation strategies. The session maintained an informal, collaborative atmosphere, with Schulman noting it was the final session before cocktails and dinner, and referencing the AI for Good exhibition featuring a robot named Euclid.

## Country Presentations and National Strategies

### Burkina Faso – Infrastructure and Digital Services

Her Excellency Dr. Aminata Zerbo Sabane outlined Burkina Faso’s comprehensive digital development strategy focused on achieving zero white areas (areas without connectivity) by 2027. The country is extending its fiber optic backbone network to reach neighboring country borders to increase system resilience and regional integration.

Key initiatives include establishing national data centers, implementing paperless public policies through digital platforms, and creating citizenship houses in rural areas to provide digital service access points. Dr. Zerbo Sabane emphasized data valorization as a foundation for AI implementation, including language translation tools for multilingual communication and health smart centers utilizing AI for improved medical services.

The country has also established centers of excellence in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within academic institutions and implemented digital literacy programs targeting youth and women in rural areas.

### Hungary – Artificial Intelligence Development

His Excellency Prof. László Palkovics, Government Commissioner for the AI Ministry of Energy, provided insights into AI evolution, emphasizing that current development remains in early stages. He identified agentic AI as the current highlight, while general AI and superintelligence remain future aspirations that “even engineers struggle to define precisely.”

Palkovics highlighted autonomous machines and vehicles as the next logical step, noting that Hungary has already implemented level 4 autonomous vehicles on public roads “without any time and any limitation.” He emphasized that practical AI implementation focuses on specific, measurable applications rather than abstract concepts of general intelligence.

### Senegal – Digital Society Transformation

His Excellency Alioune Sall presented Senegal’s “New Technology Deal” strategy, designed to transform the country into a digital society by 2050. With a population of 18 million, half of whom are 19 years old, Sall emphasized that the fourth industrial revolution should provide equal starting points for all nations, particularly regarding 5G infrastructure.

The strategy requires strategic partnerships with countries possessing advanced technological capabilities and substantial financial resources. Sall stressed the need for international collaboration to mobilize resources for populations currently unable to access basic digital services.

### Albania – Digital Government Success

Her Excellency Ms. Enkelejda Mucaj presented Albania’s achievement of offering 95% of public services exclusively online, resulting from sustained political commitment and systematic digitization approaches implemented consistently since 2003. She emphasized that successful digitization requires both internal cooperation between institutions, academia, and private sector partners, as well as strategic international cooperation.

Mucaj noted that comprehensive digital transformation is “not an easy task for a country without significant means,” highlighting the importance of sustained commitment and strategic resource allocation. She specifically referenced WSIS+20 objectives and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in discussing Albania’s progress.

### Malaysia – Ecosystem-Based Collaboration

Eneng Faridah from Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission highlighted ecosystem-based collaborations uniting government, industry, academia, and civil society. The Malaysian Jendela network rollout exemplifies this approach, requiring coordination with local councils, state governments, industry partners, and environmental authorities.

Faridah noted that Malaysia recently amended telecommunications legislation after “probably 26 years” to ensure future-proofing, while acknowledging ongoing challenges in determining optimal stakeholder engagement scope and keeping rural internet centers operational and serving community needs.

### Bahrain – Advanced Digital Infrastructure

Philip Marnick, General Director of Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, reported that Bahrain has achieved 100% 5G coverage from all networks and ubiquitous fiber systems. He emphasized that infrastructure investments must be inclusive and future-proof, requiring sustained collaboration between private sector partners and international stakeholders.

Marnick advocated for regulatory approaches that avoid predicting specific technological outcomes while maintaining frameworks that enable innovation. He noted challenges with digital services changing functionality and cost when users travel internationally, suggesting current frameworks inadequately address cross-border digital service delivery.

### Denmark – Local Solutions and Structural Challenges

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard, Technical Ambassador from Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, advocated for meaningful technology solutions that address local problems rather than universal approaches. She emphasized harmonizing public interest with private innovation, noting this alignment “seems almost impossible” but remains essential.

Meldgaard highlighted structural barriers including a 50% decline in African venture capital funding from 2022 to 2024 and 30-40% higher cloud access costs in Africa compared to Europe. She advocated for business-focused partnerships rather than traditional aid-based approaches.

### United States – Private Sector Perspective

Whitney Baird, President and CEO of the United States Council of International Business, emphasized how multi-stakeholder approaches strengthen business ability to partner with governments while enhancing private sector understanding of local concerns through civil society input. She referenced the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as a framework for business engagement.

Baird highlighted the persistent challenge of 2.6 billion people remaining offline, alongside increasing access gaps from growing electricity demands for AI technologies and rising cyber security threats. She noted the challenge of ensuring larger firms effectively represent small business voices in policy consultations.

## Key Themes and Discussions

### Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation

Throughout the discussion, speakers consistently emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation involving government, private sector, academia, and civil society. This approach was highlighted as essential for successful digital infrastructure deployment, regulatory development, and service delivery.

### Infrastructure Development Priorities

Representatives from developing nations emphasized infrastructure development as their most critical priority, with particular focus on achieving universal connectivity and regional integration. The discussion revealed different national circumstances requiring diverse approaches to international cooperation.

### Regulatory Adaptation

Regulatory authorities from Malaysia and Bahrain emphasized the necessity of flexible, adaptive frameworks that can accommodate technological uncertainty while enabling innovation. Both stressed the importance of wide stakeholder engagement in policy development.

### Digital Inclusion Challenges

Speakers identified ongoing challenges in digital inclusion, particularly regarding sustainability of rural access points and addressing structural economic barriers that affect developing countries disproportionately.

## Moderator’s Concluding Remarks

Facilitator Lori Schulman reframed the discussion by suggesting that effective digital cooperation requires recommitment to existing frameworks rather than fundamental rethinking of partnership approaches. She emphasized that WSIS and Internet Governance Forum (IGF) multi-stakeholder systems provide proven mechanisms for international digital cooperation.

Schulman used a tennis analogy to illustrate the importance of continued engagement, noting that “you have to keep hitting the ball back” to maintain effective dialogue. She emphasized the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a foundational framework for digital cooperation efforts.

## Key Takeaways

The session demonstrated broad agreement on the fundamental importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation for digital development across diverse geographical and institutional perspectives. While countries face different challenges and have varying capabilities, there was consensus on the need for:

– Sustained commitment to collaborative governance models

– Flexible regulatory frameworks that can adapt to technological change

– Strategic partnerships that balance national autonomy with international cooperation

– Continued dialogue and trust-building across stakeholder groups

– Integration of technical capabilities with social objectives

The discussion ultimately reinforced the importance of existing international frameworks while acknowledging the need for enhanced commitment and implementation rather than wholesale rethinking of cooperation approaches.

Introduction: For today, Partnership Pivot, Rethinking Cooperation in the Digital Era. I would like to invite to the stage Ms. Lori Schulman, who is our high-level track facilitator for this session.

Lori Schulman: ♪ ♪ Welcome, everybody. Hello. Thank you for toughing it out until the last session. I really appreciate you. We really appreciate your diligence. I’m going to call the speakers to the stage. Burkina Faso, Her Excellency Dr. Aminata Zerbo Sabane, will you kindly take the stage? And from Hungary, His Excellency Prof. László Palkovics, the Government Commissioner for the AI Ministry of Energy. Our speaker from Senegal, I believe, is not here, but when he comes, it is His Excellency Alouine Sall, the Minister. Oh, he is here. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. From Albania, Her Excellency Ms. Nkulyayda Mukache, kindly take the stage. We have a really large panel today. It’s great. From Malaysia, we became good friends at lunch today, Ms. Enig Farida. She is the Chief Enforcement Officer for the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. And from Bahrain, Mr. Philip Marnik, the General Director of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. And from Denmark, Ms. Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard. She’s the Technical Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And finally, last but not least, Ms. Whitney Baird. She is from the United States Council of International Business. I want to welcome you all. We know we’re last, so I’m going to get started so we all can get to cocktails and dinner and a little bit of sunshine that’s left. So I’m going to go straight into the questions and start with Burkina Faso. And you had asked for the question to be read in French, and I apologize, but my French is not fluent. Okay, so I will read the question translated into English. What are the main projects that your agency is undertaking to harness the benefits of the Information Society? Thanks.

Aminata Zerbo Sabane: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. I’m very happy to share this panel with the other panelists. In spite of the specific security context in Burkina Faso, there is a strong willingness from the authorities to develop actions in all sectors to meet those challenges. We believe it is the best answer to the security challenge that we face. The digital sector is also being dealt with. There are many projects in order to consolidate the different results and to take on all the challenges that are very complex with the emergence of artificial intelligence. Our projects are mostly related to strengthening connectivity infrastructure with the extension of the national backbone in fiber optic in order to reach out the borders with neighboring countries and increase the country’s resilience. Strengthening as well of the hosting infrastructures with the implementation of national data centers in order to facilitate a policy on data. Speeding up the paper-free public policies with the implementation of platforms. Strengthening of skills with two aspects. First of all, the creation of local expertise with IT people with the diversification of different sectors, implementation of centers of excellence in IOTs, in our academies, and also digital illiteracy amongst the population to reach out to all types of populations, placing emphasis on young people and women in rural areas. Also, tapping on the potential of artificial intelligence with a clear national vision and valuing data with the creation of tools, notably in order to translate our languages and implementation of a health smart center and implementation of initiatives in order to reinforce inclusivity. There are three main initiatives here. The first one is related to the coverage of white areas. We have zero white areas in 2027. Number two, implementation of citizenship houses to help people to access paper-free actions and also implementation of terminals to ease access in rural areas. Thank you for your attention.

Lori Schulman: Now I turn to His Excellency from Hungary and ask you what technological trends do you see in the development of artificial intelligence in the coming years, particularly after agentic AI?

Laszlo Palkovics: Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation. It’s a very interesting question. I’m an engineer, so I’m sort of a scientist in that field. We are still at the beginning of artificial intelligence. Whatever it means, it’s a very much loaded expression. I wrote the first article in 1993 already, artificial neural networks for sort of a vehicle. So many things. Currently, you’re right, the agentic AI is one of the highlights because we have reached this level so far. But if you look at the future, what is going to come in the far future, we started to talk about the general AI. General AI means some superintelligence, which is going to make decisions and operate many things. It started to build up what that exactly means, and we engineers are not really able to answer that question. Mostly we talk to mathematicians. We talk to other scientists who are able to talk about it. But there is some interim step that I would see as the next logical step. We really see that artificial intelligence is just in the vicinity. We talk about mostly autonomous machines, machines who are perceiving the environment or acting like we can act in that given environment. One very much typical example is the autonomous vehicle. We are very close to that technology for autonomous cars. It’s already there. There are countries in Europe and other parts of the world as well. There is legislation that allows to use level 4, mostly level 3 and level 4 vehicles. Level 5 is still a bit young. Hungary was quite early with level 16. We made it possible that on the Hungarian roads without any time and any limitation we can put a level 4 vehicle.

Lori Schulman: Thank you for stopping exactly when you were supposed to because this is a conversation that could go over for three hours, at least, I know. But I want to do a pitch for AI for Good. If you go over to the AI for Good exhibition, you can see those robots. There’s one elderly robot over there named Euclid, who I have fallen in love with. My husband’s in the audience. I’m sorry, honey, but Euclid has stolen my heart. So please, if you’re interested in where we are with robotics, please go and check out AI for Good. And with that, I’m going to turn to Senegal. And I’m going to ask you, how does Senegal plan to reposition its digital cooperation with international partners through your new digital strategy, new deal technology, or new technology deal? And I have to say, I kind of love that you’ve taken it from the new deal of 80 years ago. And perhaps there’s a new deal, a new new

Alioune Sall: deal now. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Alun Sol. I am the Ministry of Communication and Digital in Senegal. For those of you who are not familiar with where Senegal is, it is the most advanced tip of Western Africa. So we are a natural technological hub. We’ve launched a digital action. So we want to be a digital society in 2050. It’s an ambitious strategy, but we need to make partnerships. We need to make strategic partnerships. That new deal will require a strengthened cooperation and some strategic partnerships with some expertise and strong financial capabilities. In Africa, in Senegal, which has a population of 18 million people, half of them are 19 years old, they have a great appetite for ICTs. We have many talents, but we need to make strategic partnerships in the field of infrastructure first. I was pleading previously saying that funds that are being mobilized by organizations like YCIS should enable populations that cannot have access to universal connectivity. I think this should be the case for Africa. That’s my plea. So that fourth revolution that we believe should be the starting point for everybody. We think everybody should be on the same level, on the same starting point for 5G. We talk about technologies related to artificial intelligence. We need computing power. And so I’m here in order to make strategic partnerships. And this is going to help us to acquire the technologies that we don’t have today, and to see with countries that have those technologies to share this experience, that exchange of soft skills, so we can be on the same starting point. So we’re talking about a technological reinforcement, a financial reinforcement. We want to put in place development funds. So it’s going to help the Senegalese ecosystem to have start-uppers that have competencies to be able to assist them to give them that technology to help them to thrive and to conquer Africa and the rest of the world. Thank you very much. So easy. Thank you.

Lori Schulman: Now we turn to Her Excellency from Albania. And your question is, what do you consider behind your success so far, and how it is linked with cooperation in national and international levels? How do you view the role of cooperation? In advancing WSIS plus 20 objectives and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, as we affectionately call them. An excellent question.

Enkelejda Mucaj: Very much, really, dear moderator, your excellencies and colleagues, and especially your esteemed participants in this meeting for Albania. We would like to share a narrative, which may be complicated, but it’s simple too. But what we have envisaged, especially in terms of being a small country, coming from a very complicated past and dealing with democracy, with all the opportunities that democracy is giving, but also challenges it is bringing home. And also very firm and determined solution in trying to bring home a value which is coming from digitalization. We have already made this decision very soon, since year 2003, exactly from the first days the WSIS has been set into the market and started this journey. Albania approved its digital strategy, the first one. So from that date until today, we may share with you that, let’s say, the journey has not been simple. But we have been very clear in setting the pace, especially for what the government, in my case, should have been proven to the people. So doing the first and being the first party to make that transformation in its own administration and innovation perspective, but also deploying digital means for the provision of electronic services. And today Albania is offering 95 percent of its public services exclusively online. And what it has shown to, let’s say, and trust us, it is not an easy task for a country without our means. Let’s say, what it shows in terms of what you can do is, first of all, that you set the base because you have a vision and you have a clear objective. And under that perspective, the political wealth, in order to gain momentum, acquire that, let’s say, that sort of objective that we had in mind to bring to the Albanian people the possibility to gain from the digital, let’s say, digitalization of its sectors, of which is already there. And on the other side, we have learned it, not always in good terms, the fact that without the cooperation with all the friends, with all those partners that you foresee your future, you cannot build a system which is secure, which is sustainable, and which is resilient towards a lot of concerns which are surrounding us. And geopolitically speaking, our region also has its own, let’s say, difficulties. So, in terms of deploying digitalization in our systems, but especially digitalizing our sectors, we may assure you that not only even international cooperation, for which we are very proud and work very intensively, but especially internal cooperation in institutions, academia and private sector, is already becoming a reality. And I’m not going further because I’m not able to break that wonderful achievement of this work.

Lori Schulman: Thank you. And I think you make some really excellent points about internal cooperation as well as external cooperation. It flows in and out. So, I think that’s a very good takeaway from the session. I’m going to turn to this slide now. And we became good friends at lunch, I have to say. So, Ms. Faridah from Malaysia, in this era where digital technologies are rapidly transforming societies and economies, how should we pivot our partnership models to ensure that cooperation remains impactful, inclusive and future ready? Specifically, what new approaches or frameworks, are you ready? Yeah, okay. Do you envision for rethinking cooperation to address emerging challenges and opportunities in the digital era?

Eneng Faridah: Thanks, Lorrie, for that question. Generally, MCMC, or the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, recognizes that rethinking cooperation in the digital era requires purposeful, inclusive and future-oriented partnerships. Increasingly, we are pivoting towards ecosystem-based collaborations. That’s what we’re seeing. That basically unites government, industry, academia, civil society and communities, even alongside cross-sectoral cooperation to integrate digital solutions and adoption. Jendela, for example, exemplifies this ecosystem-based cooperation. Because obviously, when you roll out networks, you know, the collaboration with local councils, state, government, even infrastructure for sharing with industry, as well as environmental authorities for compliance, you know, that’s really important. But what’s more important is to engage them at the outset. And I think, you know, Jendela itself was conceptualized and developed through multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral labs. So we had a lab and we locked everybody up in a room and sort of, you know, give them an assignment and develop our own true north, if you like. So basically, all of us are aligned towards achieving specific objectives. And more or less, most of our other engagement has followed the same format. And we are looking at venturing even into, you know, working with the healthcare communities in order to integrate next generation health technologies with telecommunications. So this is very important as our agenda in increasing medical tourism, for example. So, you know, and even in smart city developments, you know, we’ve inked several agreements with state governments to facilitate. And perhaps as technical advisors or even, you know, bringing people from other industries to create solutions together. So the challenge is sometimes, especially as a regulator, when you’re trying to draft laws, is how wide do you want to cast your net? You know, because there’s always going to be people who say, you know, you didn’t engage me enough. So, you know, that’s one of the challenges if I can share in terms of how we are approaching perhaps law reforms and things like that. And another thing is about sustainability of initiatives, particularly in our Internet centers or NADI, we call it. And to keep it alive means engaging with you to find out what their needs are and how are we serving those needs. So it’s very important also that regulatory frameworks itself are agile and adaptive. And we have just amended the law after probably 26 years to precisely to ensure that it’s future proof. And one last point about regional and global engagement. You know, we’ve been very visible this year and I think we intend to continue to be so in the future. So we are organizing the GSMA, the Digital Nation Summit in Kuala Lumpur in September. And I’d like to welcome everybody to it. Thank you very much, Lauren.

Lori Schulman: Thank you so much. Kuala Lumpur is beautiful, hot, yet beautiful. And we look forward to that. Thank you. Now, I’m going to turn this way, folks. This is this is kind of like tennis in a way. From Bajran, Mr. Philip Marnik, he’s the general director of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. And I want to ask you, in your view, what role should regulators play in ensuring that digital infrastructure investments are inclusive and future proof, especially in collaboration with the private sector and international partners?

Philip Marnick: Thank you. I won’t give a tennis score, but thank you very much. And thank you for inviting me to talk. We live in a world where technology is evolving at probably one of the fastest rates ever. We live in a digital world. Digital is everywhere. It’s no longer something that says, should I be online or should I not be online? It just is. For us, therefore, the technology needs to be something that not just supports today, but supports tomorrow in a world where we’ve no idea what tomorrow will bring. And I saw the forecast of robots and everything else. And someone will say it will turn up in some places. It won’t turn up, but they’ll need to be able to communicate and people need to do it. I live in a regime where luckily through our regulatory regime, we try to be immensely flexible. We don’t pretend we know tomorrow. We don’t pretend that we say that this is where the regulation is. We’ve got a framework in that enables people to deploy technology, but makes sure that the technology can be the technology, not just today, but tomorrow. I’m quite lucky. We live in the warm parts of the world. We already have 100% 5G coverage from all our networks. We have fibre ubiquitous and we have the fibre systems which actually give us bedrock will go there. But we also, to make this work, need the digital infrastructure that has the data centres and we need data centres close. We also need international connectivity because the world needs to be able to communicate with everybody else to make sure the data can come from everywhere to enable us to get there. All of this requires not just regulators engaging with each other to understand what others are doing, but actually making sure that the frameworks we have in place, both nationally and internationally, enable data to flow, enable the international networks to connect. And one of the things I often say to people is, when I travel with my mobile device, somehow the digital services I use in one country certainly change, not because the service changes, but the cost model of how people roam from different parts of the world causes it to change. And I think as regulators, we need to start thinking about not just how we get the technology to make sure everyone’s connected in our own territory, but how we make sure that when our people are moving and changing through the world, they still have access to all the digital services they want in a way they want to use it because you shouldn’t have to think about how you do things, you should just be able to do it. So for us, collaboration means talking to everybody, understanding what you need to do, making sure you think about the future but don’t believe it necessarily, but don’t close it off, making sure your regulation is open to enable new things, and making sure that the investment comes from the people who actually make the investment and are prepared to take the risk as their business case works. Thank you very much.

Lori Schulman: Thank you so much. And yes, I think this concept of seamless communication, borderless communication, is what we aim for in terms of inclusivity, access, and all of the principles that GLSIS stands for. So thank you so much. I’m going to turn the other way now. We’re going to hit the ball the other way. And here we are with Denmark, with Anne-Marie Enkhoff-Melgaard. I hope I pronounced that correctly. And your question is, from your perspective as a tech ambassador, how can governments and tech companies collaborate better towards closing the digital divide? Thank you so much, Laurie.

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard: Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here. collaborate better let me just a little bit of background to where we are now I think it’s gonna be a challenge of collaborating better in a world that is looking more difficult I think there’s a paradox geopolitically it’s a charged world it’s harder to find common ground you hear it in the hallways here there’s sort of an increased fragmentation the trust deficit I hear a lot of trust mistrust between governments between the private sector and the public sector too that’s on the one hand it’s not looking really optimistic and then on the other hand and that’s a paradox in it there’s never been a bigger moment for this collaboration all of the SDGs we are terribly behind on most of them and so the need for technology to deliver tangible results for people and planet advancing better health care better opportunity for our youth around the world thinking about meaningful opportunities just for a growing of young people around the world that’s really the paradox and so that is where even though as hard as it might seem to do these public-private collaborations really is now the time to do it and so I want to offer three ways that I think we can think about this from a business and government private collaboration one do business don’t just do handouts right now if you want to have access to cloud across the African continent because 30 40 percent more than it does in Europe why is that shouldn’t it be the other way around why is it that taking the African content again has a tiny tiny tiny percentage of overall venture capital funding it even fell 50% from 2022 to 2024 let’s do business and not just handouts and that means also engaging you think with the tech industry and saying we need to make infrastructure available we do business understand the incredible innovative capabilities we see in the global South do business with them trade with them have them part of your software updates of the incredible stack of companies that you’re working with that goes from my own continent as well in the new international strategy from European Union there’s what we call the EU tech business offer an unsexy name but for a really sexy idea which is to say we want to be trading more between tech companies opportunity the second one is to meaningful technology to really solve local problems maybe it’s not I used to live in California as you can probably hear in my accent and not everything in the world looks like California what might be some of the challenges locally that we with technology companies from the global arena can help solve some meaningful technology to really address relevant problems and then finally harmonize public interest with private innovation it seems that it’s almost impossible but I do not foresee a future that is relevant or necessarily very welcoming for my children if we do not start thinking about how to align public interest with private innovation so that we solve the big challenges of our time.

Lori Schulman: Thank you thank you so much and last but certainly not least the United States Chamber of International Business with Miss Whitney Baird she is their president and CEO and you get the final word today which is great of the whole day I believe so what role does business play in digital cooperation and how has the multi-stakeholder approach advanced businesses ability to build an open safe and secure people-centered information

Whitney Baird: society for all thank you Laurie really appreciate it the US Council for International Business represents the US private sector and a number of multilateral and international organizations and thus we represent companies that have a global presence and really do care about how this dialogue goes forward I would say the WSIS through its action lines aims to create a people-centered information society that is inclusive and provides positive opportunities for all no one can do this alone and business plays a key role in working alongside governments the technical community and civil society to ensure digital products and services enhance lives and that risks of harm are mitigated in order to achieve the digital future we want we need to work together to address to address underlying issues such as the 2.6 billion people who are still offline the increase in negative cyber activities that cause security breaches and victimized governments companies and individuals the increased need for dependable electricity to power AI and the resulting growth in the access gap us CIB firmly supports the multi-stakeholder approach to cooperation on digital issues because it is strengthened businesses ability to partner on key projects with governments it’s enhanced the private sectors understanding of local concerns through the inputs of civil society and enabled firms of all sizes and across all industries to collaborate directly with the technical community resulting in safer and more efficient products and services there are many examples of how multi-stakeholder collaboration has strengthened the private sectors ability to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts in the developments of new technologies on a global scale one area where this is evident is the way multi-stakeholder initiatives have helped organizations to collaborate for example on human rights issues a growing number of tech companies are publishing human rights policy commitments that specifically reference the UN guiding principles on business and human rights what we would consider to be absolutely bedrock principles additionally we’re seeing increased cooperation around sustainability efforts in the digital space as well as an entire new track focused on technology and sustainability at the IGF on multi-stakeholder cooperation we have to focus on how business can build trust I’ve heard the word trust a number of times over these last couple of days it’s absolutely essential how larger firms can bring the voice of small businesses and entrepreneurs into these policy consultations and how the private sector continued to provide governments with research and findings in the development of advanced technology for example the OECD’s work through the global partnership on AI or GPI and the AI observatory has facilitated a channel by which business can share best practices and new research in addition the IGF has served as a knowledge laboratory where governments from across the globe can have frank discussions with businesses on topics of concern and turn dialogue into action the private sector as a whole remains a committed partner to improve cooperation in order to build the information society that we want we need and we deserve USC IB in particular will continue to be a resource to all stakeholder groups as we navigate the digital transformation together.

Lori Schulman: Thank you Whitney I think that’s a fabulous end to the day because we’re going back to UN principles and I do want to pitch here when you talk about United Nations principles with its action lines multi-stakeholder systems that this can really all lead back and I’m going to pitch here for the UN Declaration of Human Rights that many believe and have written extensively on saying if we use the UD UN HDR I mean you in HRD I’m sorry it’s late that’s the answer you know sticking to their principles that the UN community has signed on to to ensure healthy productive respectful living and I’m gonna close with one final thought as I’ve listened to everybody here today and then I wonder to myself maybe the question is not how are we rethinking public-private partnerships but how are we recommitting to public-private partnerships and this is where multi-stakeholder systems through WSIS and other fora can really move us forward and the cost to act call to action is to recommit we commit to WSIS we commit to IGF let’s keep the conversation going and I want to wish you all a very good evening and thank you for sticking it out to the very bitter end

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder cooperation is essential for digital development

Speakers

– Enkelejda Mucaj
– Eneng Faridah
– Whitney Baird
– Philip Marnick

Arguments

Not only even international cooperation, for which we are very proud and work very intensively, but especially internal cooperation in institutions, academia and private sector, is already becoming a reality

Jendela, for example, exemplifies this ecosystem-based cooperation. Because obviously, when you roll out networks, you know, the collaboration with local councils, state, government, even infrastructure for sharing with industry, as well as environmental authorities for compliance

Multi-stakeholder approach to cooperation on digital issues because it is strengthened businesses ability to partner on key projects with governments it’s enhanced the private sectors understanding of local concerns through the inputs of civil society

Collaboration means talking to everybody, understanding what you need to do, making sure you think about the future but don’t believe it necessarily, but don’t close it off, making sure your regulation is open to enable new things

Summary

Multiple speakers emphasized that successful digital development requires collaboration between government, private sector, academia, civil society, and technical communities. This multi-stakeholder approach strengthens partnerships, enhances understanding of local concerns, and enables more effective policy development.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Economic

Strategic partnerships are crucial for digital infrastructure development

Speakers

– Aminata Zerbo Sabane
– Alioune Sall
– Eneng Faridah

Arguments

Extension of the national backbone in fiber optic in order to reach out the borders with neighboring countries

That new deal will require a strengthened cooperation and some strategic partnerships with some expertise and strong financial capabilities. Funds that are being mobilized by organizations like YCIS should enable populations that cannot have access to universal connectivity

Jendela, for example, exemplifies this ecosystem-based cooperation. Because obviously, when you roll out networks, you know, the collaboration with local councils, state, government, even infrastructure for sharing with industry, as well as environmental authorities for compliance

Summary

Speakers from developing countries particularly emphasized the need for strategic partnerships to build digital infrastructure, extend connectivity, and ensure universal access. These partnerships require both technical expertise and financial capabilities.

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Regulatory frameworks must be flexible and future-oriented

Speakers

– Philip Marnick
– Eneng Faridah

Arguments

We try to be immensely flexible. We don’t pretend we know tomorrow. We don’t pretend that we say that this is where the regulation is. We’ve got a framework in that enables people to deploy technology

Regulatory frameworks itself are agile and adaptive. And we have just amended the law after probably 26 years to precisely to ensure that it’s future proof. The challenge is sometimes, especially as a regulator, when you’re trying to draft laws, is how wide do you want to cast your net

Summary

Both speakers agreed that regulatory frameworks need to be flexible and adaptive to accommodate unknown future technological developments while enabling current innovation and deployment.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Digital inclusion requires special focus on underserved populations

Speakers

– Aminata Zerbo Sabane
– Whitney Baird

Arguments

Creation of local expertise with IT people with the diversification of different sectors, implementation of centers of excellence in IOTs, in our academies, and also digital illiteracy amongst the population to reach out to all types of populations, placing emphasis on young people and women in rural areas

2.6 billion people who are still offline the increase in negative cyber activities that cause security breaches and victimized governments companies and individuals the increased need for dependable electricity to power AI and the resulting growth in the access gap

Summary

Both speakers highlighted the importance of addressing digital divides and ensuring that underserved populations, including rural communities and those currently offline, have access to digital technologies and services.

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sociocultural

Similar viewpoints

Both African representatives emphasized the critical need for infrastructure development and strategic partnerships to achieve universal connectivity, particularly focusing on extending fiber optic networks and ensuring equal access to digital technologies.

Speakers

– Aminata Zerbo Sabane
– Alioune Sall

Arguments

Strengthening connectivity infrastructure through fiber optic backbone extension to reach borders and increase resilience

Strategic partnerships needed for infrastructure development, particularly for populations lacking universal connectivity access

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Both speakers acknowledged that AI development is still in early stages but emphasized the importance of having clear national strategies and practical applications for AI technologies in their respective countries.

Speakers

– Laszlo Palkovics
– Aminata Zerbo Sabane

Arguments

Current AI development is still at the beginning, with agentic AI as current highlight and general AI as future superintelligence

Tapping AI potential requires clear national vision and data valorization, including tools for language translation and health smart centers

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Both regulatory officials emphasized the need for flexible, adaptive regulatory approaches that can accommodate technological uncertainty while enabling innovation and ensuring broad stakeholder participation in policy development.

Speakers

– Philip Marnick
– Eneng Faridah

Arguments

Flexible regulatory regimes that don’t pretend to know tomorrow but enable technology deployment for current and future needs

Regulatory frameworks must be agile and adaptive, with wide stakeholder engagement in law reforms and policy development

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Unexpected consensus

Business partnerships over traditional aid models

Speakers

– Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard
– Alioune Sall

Arguments

Public-private collaboration is essential despite geopolitical challenges, focusing on doing business rather than just handouts

Young population with great ICT appetite requires talent development and strategic partnerships for technological reinforcement

Explanation

Unexpectedly, both a developed country representative (Denmark) and a developing country representative (Senegal) agreed on moving away from traditional aid models toward genuine business partnerships and trade relationships in the digital space.

Topics

Development | Economic

Local solutions over universal approaches

Speakers

– Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard
– Aminata Zerbo Sabane

Arguments

Meaningful technology should solve local problems rather than applying universal solutions, with harmonized public interest and private innovation

Tapping AI potential requires clear national vision and data valorization, including tools for language translation and health smart centers

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus between a European tech ambassador and an African minister on the importance of developing locally relevant technological solutions rather than applying one-size-fits-all approaches, particularly in AI applications.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on the fundamental importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation, the need for flexible regulatory frameworks, strategic partnerships for infrastructure development, and digital inclusion. There was particular alignment between developing country representatives on infrastructure needs and between regulatory officials on adaptive governance approaches.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for digital cooperation policy. The agreement across diverse geographical and institutional perspectives suggests these principles could form the foundation for effective international digital cooperation frameworks. The consensus on moving beyond traditional aid models toward business partnerships and locally relevant solutions indicates a maturing approach to global digital development.

Different viewpoints

Approach to international cooperation – partnership vs. self-reliance

Speakers

– Alioune Sall
– Philip Marnick

Arguments

Strategic partnerships needed for infrastructure development, particularly for populations lacking universal connectivity access

Achieving 100% 5G coverage and ubiquitous fiber systems as foundation for future technologies

Summary

Senegal emphasizes the need for strategic partnerships and external support to achieve digital goals, while Bahrain demonstrates a more self-reliant approach having already achieved comprehensive digital infrastructure independently

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Regulatory approach – prescriptive vs. flexible frameworks

Speakers

– Eneng Faridah
– Philip Marnick

Arguments

Regulatory frameworks must be agile and adaptive, with wide stakeholder engagement in law reforms and policy development

Flexible regulatory regimes that don’t pretend to know tomorrow but enable technology deployment for current and future needs

Summary

Malaysia focuses on comprehensive stakeholder engagement and formal law amendments for future-proofing, while Bahrain emphasizes maintaining flexible frameworks that avoid predicting specific outcomes

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected differences

Technology universality vs. localization

Speakers

– Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard
– Laszlo Palkovics

Arguments

Meaningful technology should solve local problems rather than applying universal solutions, with harmonized public interest and private innovation

Autonomous machines and vehicles represent the next logical step in AI development, with Hungary allowing level 4 vehicles on roads

Explanation

Unexpected disagreement on whether technology solutions should be universally applicable or locally tailored – Denmark advocates for context-specific solutions while Hungary promotes universal technological advancement

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed minimal direct disagreements, with most speakers focusing on complementary aspects of digital cooperation. Main areas of difference centered on regulatory approaches (comprehensive vs. flexible) and cooperation strategies (partnership-dependent vs. self-reliant)

Disagreement level

Low level of disagreement with high consensus on core objectives. The speakers generally aligned on the importance of digital inclusion, infrastructure development, and multi-stakeholder cooperation, differing mainly in implementation approaches rather than fundamental goals. This suggests strong international consensus on digital cooperation principles with room for diverse national strategies

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both African representatives emphasized the critical need for infrastructure development and strategic partnerships to achieve universal connectivity, particularly focusing on extending fiber optic networks and ensuring equal access to digital technologies.

Speakers

– Aminata Zerbo Sabane
– Alioune Sall

Arguments

Strengthening connectivity infrastructure through fiber optic backbone extension to reach borders and increase resilience

Strategic partnerships needed for infrastructure development, particularly for populations lacking universal connectivity access

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Both speakers acknowledged that AI development is still in early stages but emphasized the importance of having clear national strategies and practical applications for AI technologies in their respective countries.

Speakers

– Laszlo Palkovics
– Aminata Zerbo Sabane

Arguments

Current AI development is still at the beginning, with agentic AI as current highlight and general AI as future superintelligence

Tapping AI potential requires clear national vision and data valorization, including tools for language translation and health smart centers

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Both regulatory officials emphasized the need for flexible, adaptive regulatory approaches that can accommodate technological uncertainty while enabling innovation and ensuring broad stakeholder participation in policy development.

Speakers

– Philip Marnick
– Eneng Faridah

Arguments

Flexible regulatory regimes that don’t pretend to know tomorrow but enable technology deployment for current and future needs

Regulatory frameworks must be agile and adaptive, with wide stakeholder engagement in law reforms and policy development

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Key takeaways

Digital cooperation requires recommitment to public-private partnerships rather than complete rethinking, with multi-stakeholder systems through WSIS and IGF as key mechanisms

Infrastructure development must be inclusive and future-proof, requiring ecosystem-based collaborations between government, industry, academia, and civil society

AI development is still in early stages with agentic AI as current highlight, but autonomous machines represent the next logical step toward future general AI

Digital transformation success requires clear vision, political will, and both internal cooperation (institutions, academia, private sector) and international partnerships

Regulatory frameworks must be agile and adaptive to enable innovation while ensuring investment viability and seamless cross-border digital services

Digital inclusion efforts must address 2.6 billion people still offline through meaningful technology that solves local problems rather than universal solutions

Multi-stakeholder cooperation strengthens business ability to partner with governments while building trust and bringing diverse voices into policy consultations

Strategic partnerships are essential for developing countries to access computing power, AI technologies, and reach the same technological starting point as developed nations

Resolutions and action items

Invitation to GSMA Digital Nation Summit in Kuala Lumpur in September 2024 (Malaysia)

Burkina Faso’s commitment to achieve zero white areas by 2027 through coverage expansion

Senegal’s digital action plan to become a digital society by 2050 requiring strategic partnerships

Albania’s continuation of offering 95% of public services exclusively online

Hungary’s ongoing implementation of level 4 autonomous vehicles on roads

Call to action for recommitment to WSIS and IGF multi-stakeholder systems to keep conversations going

Unresolved issues

How to effectively harmonize public interest with private innovation in practice

Addressing the challenge of determining optimal stakeholder engagement scope in regulatory law reforms

Resolving the paradox of increased need for collaboration amid growing geopolitical fragmentation and trust deficits

Ensuring sustainability of digital inclusion initiatives, particularly in rural internet centers

Bridging the gap between developed and developing countries in venture capital funding and cloud access costs

Managing the increased need for dependable electricity to power AI and resulting access gaps

Addressing growing negative cyber activities and security breaches affecting all stakeholders

Suggested compromises

Focus on ‘doing business’ rather than just providing handouts in international digital cooperation

Balance wide stakeholder engagement with practical implementation in regulatory frameworks

Combine local expertise development with international knowledge sharing and technology transfer

Integrate next-generation technologies with existing sectors (healthcare, smart cities) through cross-sectoral cooperation

Align business innovation with public interest through collaborative frameworks rather than opposing approaches

Use UN Declaration of Human Rights as foundational principles for digital cooperation to ensure respectful and productive outcomes

We are still at the beginning of artificial intelligence. Whatever it means, it’s a very much loaded expression… But there is some interim step that I would see as the next logical step. We really see that artificial intelligence is just in the vicinity. We talk about mostly autonomous machines, machines who are perceiving the environment or acting like we can act in that given environment.

Speaker

László Palkovics (Hungary)

Reason

This comment is insightful because it challenges the hype around AI by emphasizing we’re still in early stages, while providing a grounded technical perspective on the progression from current AI to autonomous systems. His acknowledgment that engineers ‘are not really able to answer’ questions about general AI shows intellectual humility and highlights the complexity of the field.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from abstract AI concepts to concrete, near-term applications like autonomous vehicles. It grounded the conversation in practical reality and influenced the moderator to immediately reference the AI for Good exhibition, connecting theory to tangible demonstrations.

That fourth revolution that we believe should be the starting point for everybody. We think everybody should be on the same level, on the same starting point for 5G… So that’s my plea. So we’re talking about a technological reinforcement, a financial reinforcement.

Speaker

Alioune Sall (Senegal)

Reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it reframes digital cooperation from a development aid perspective to one of technological equity and equal starting points. His plea for universal connectivity as a foundation for the fourth industrial revolution challenges traditional North-South cooperation models.

Impact

This comment introduced the critical theme of technological equity that resonated throughout subsequent speakers. It shifted the conversation from individual country strategies to global digital justice and influenced later discussions about inclusive partnerships and closing digital divides.

Without the cooperation with all the friends, with all those partners that you foresee your future, you cannot build a system which is secure, which is sustainable, and which is resilient… not only even international cooperation… but especially internal cooperation in institutions, academia and private sector, is already becoming a reality.

Speaker

Enkelejda Mucaj (Albania)

Reason

This insight is valuable because it introduces the often-overlooked dimension of internal cooperation as equally important to international partnerships. Her emphasis on the interconnection between internal and external cooperation provides a more holistic view of digital transformation challenges.

Impact

The moderator immediately highlighted this as ‘a very good takeaway from the session,’ showing its impact. This comment influenced the conversation to consider cooperation as multi-dimensional, flowing both internally and externally, which shaped subsequent discussions about ecosystem-based approaches.

There’s a paradox geopolitically it’s a charged world it’s harder to find common ground… there’s sort of an increased fragmentation the trust deficit… and then on the other hand… there’s never been a bigger moment for this collaboration… that’s really the paradox.

Speaker

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard (Denmark)

Reason

This comment is deeply insightful because it articulates the central tension of our time – the simultaneous need for and difficulty of international cooperation. Her framing of this as a paradox provides a sophisticated analysis of current geopolitical realities while maintaining urgency for collaborative action.

Impact

This comment elevated the entire discussion by acknowledging the elephant in the room – geopolitical tensions – while reframing challenges as opportunities. It influenced the final speaker to emphasize trust-building and led to the moderator’s concluding call for ‘recommitment’ rather than just ‘rethinking’ partnerships.

Maybe the question is not how are we rethinking public-private partnerships but how are we recommitting to public-private partnerships… the call to action is to recommit we commit to WSIS we commit to IGF let’s keep the conversation going.

Speaker

Lori Schulman (Moderator)

Reason

This closing insight reframes the entire session’s premise, suggesting that the issue isn’t conceptual innovation but renewed dedication to existing frameworks. It’s thought-provoking because it challenges the assumption that we need new approaches, instead arguing for deeper commitment to proven multi-stakeholder models.

Impact

As the final comment, this provided a unifying conclusion that synthesized the discussion’s themes. It shifted the conversation from problem identification to action orientation, giving participants a clear takeaway and call to action that transcended individual country perspectives.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by introducing critical tensions and reframings that elevated the conversation beyond routine policy presentations. Palkovics grounded AI discussions in technical reality, Sall introduced equity as a central concern, Mucaj highlighted the internal-external cooperation nexus, Meldgaard articulated the central paradox of our times, and Schulman reframed the entire premise from innovation to recommitment. Together, these comments created a progression from technical grounding to equity concerns to cooperation complexity to geopolitical realism, culminating in a call for renewed dedication. The discussion evolved from individual country reports to a sophisticated analysis of global digital cooperation challenges, with each key insight building upon previous ones to create a more nuanced understanding of partnership dynamics in the digital era.

How can we achieve zero white areas (areas without connectivity) by 2027?

Speaker

Aminata Zerbo Sabane (Burkina Faso)

Explanation

This is a specific target mentioned as part of Burkina Faso’s digital inclusion initiatives, but the detailed implementation strategy and challenges were not fully explored

What does general AI and superintelligence actually mean, and how do we prepare for it?

Speaker

László Palkovics (Hungary)

Explanation

He explicitly stated that engineers are not able to answer what general AI exactly means and that they need to consult with mathematicians and other scientists, indicating a need for further interdisciplinary research

How can international funding organizations better mobilize resources to enable universal connectivity for populations that cannot access it?

Speaker

Alioune Sall (Senegal)

Explanation

He made a specific plea for funds to be mobilized by organizations to help African populations access universal connectivity, suggesting this needs further policy and funding research

How can small countries without significant resources successfully implement comprehensive digital transformation?

Speaker

Enkelejda Mucaj (Albania)

Explanation

She mentioned it’s ‘not an easy task for a country without our means’ but didn’t elaborate on the specific strategies and challenges, indicating need for further study on resource-constrained digital transformation

How wide should regulators cast their net when engaging stakeholders in law-making processes?

Speaker

Eneng Faridah (Malaysia)

Explanation

She identified this as an ongoing challenge for regulators, noting that there will always be people who feel they weren’t engaged enough, suggesting need for research on optimal stakeholder engagement frameworks

How can we ensure sustainability of digital inclusion initiatives like Internet centers?

Speaker

Eneng Faridah (Malaysia)

Explanation

She mentioned the challenge of keeping Internet centers alive and serving community needs, indicating a need for research on sustainable models for digital inclusion infrastructure

How can we create seamless, borderless digital communication that doesn’t change based on location or roaming costs?

Speaker

Philip Marnick (Bahrain)

Explanation

He highlighted the problem of digital services changing when people travel due to cost models, suggesting need for research on international regulatory frameworks for seamless connectivity

Why does cloud access cost 30-40% more in Africa than in Europe, and how can this be addressed?

Speaker

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard (Denmark)

Explanation

She questioned this disparity as part of discussing barriers to digital inclusion, indicating need for research on infrastructure costs and pricing models in different regions

Why did African venture capital funding fall 50% from 2022 to 2024, and how can this trend be reversed?

Speaker

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard (Denmark)

Explanation

She cited this statistic as evidence of the need for better business partnerships rather than just handouts, suggesting need for research on investment patterns and barriers in African tech markets

How can we align public interest with private innovation to solve major global challenges?

Speaker

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard (Denmark)

Explanation

She stated this seems ‘almost impossible’ but is essential for creating a relevant future, indicating need for research on frameworks that can harmonize these often competing interests

How can larger firms effectively bring the voice of small businesses and entrepreneurs into policy consultations?

Speaker

Whitney Baird (United States)

Explanation

She identified this as an area where multi-stakeholder cooperation needs to focus, suggesting need for research on inclusive representation mechanisms in policy processes

Summary

This discussion focused on accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital era, featuring leaders from multiple countries sharing their national strategies and initiatives. The session was moderated by Professor Abdulkarim Oloyede and aligned with WSIS Action Line C3, emphasizing that access to information and knowledge is a fundamental human right rather than a privilege.

Cambodia’s Minister Dr. Chia highlighted their digital transformation efforts, including AI translators for the visually impaired, digital scholarships, and community access points in rural areas. Ghana’s Minister Samuel Nartey George discussed their multistakeholder approach involving government, private sector, and civil society, announcing a $1 billion agreement with UAE to build Africa’s first AI hub and a program to re-skill one million Ghanaians. Indonesia’s Minister Meutya Viada Hafid presented their 10,000 Digital Villages program, which has connected over 3.8 million citizens to digital services, alongside their Digital Talent Scholarship that has trained nearly 400,000 individuals since 2018.

Russia’s Deputy Minister Grigoriy Borisenko reported that over 90% of Russian households have high-speed internet access and emphasized their investments in AI technologies. Turkey’s Minister Omer Fatih Sayan stressed the importance of ethical AI development, citing recent concerns about AI systems that ignore basic human rights principles. The Dominican Republic’s Dr. Guido Gómez Mazara described their Rapid Skills Centers targeting young people in marginalized communities, particularly focusing on women and border areas with high poverty rates.

The discussion concluded with recognition that universal access to information remains a cornerstone of sustainable development and human rights, requiring continued multistakeholder cooperation to create truly inclusive digital societies.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Digital Infrastructure Development and Connectivity**: Multiple countries shared their efforts to expand internet access and digital infrastructure, with Indonesia highlighting their 10,000 Digital Villages program and 4G expansion, Cambodia discussing community access points in rural areas, and the Dominican Republic focusing on connecting marginalized border communities.

– **Human Capital Development and Digital Skills Training**: A central theme across all presentations was the importance of building digital literacy and skills alongside infrastructure, including Indonesia’s Digital Talent Scholarship program training 400,000 individuals, Ghana’s 1 Million Quotas Program for reskilling, and the Dominican Republic’s Rapid Skills Centers teaching programming and AI to young people.

– **Public-Private Partnerships and Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration**: Countries emphasized the critical role of partnerships between government, private sector, civil society, and international organizations, with Ghana highlighting their $1 billion AI hub agreement with UAE and collaborative programs with MTN, Huawei, and Google.

– **Ethical AI Development and Responsible Technology**: Turkey raised important concerns about AI ethics, citing recent examples of AI systems spreading hate speech and emphasizing the need for transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights in AI development.

– **Inclusive Digital Transformation for Marginalized Communities**: All speakers emphasized ensuring no one is left behind, with specific focus on women, rural populations, people with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged groups, such as Cambodia’s AI translator for the visually impaired and the Dominican Republic’s programs targeting single mothers.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aimed to share best practices and strategies for accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital era, specifically focusing on WSIS Action Lines C1 and C3. The session brought together government ministers and officials from diverse regions to exchange experiences on bridging the digital divide and building inclusive digital societies.

**Overall Tone:**

The discussion maintained a consistently collaborative, optimistic, and solution-oriented tone throughout. Speakers were respectful and supportive of each other’s efforts, sharing concrete examples and achievements while acknowledging common challenges. The tone remained professional and forward-looking, with participants expressing commitment to continued cooperation and shared learning, culminating in a unifying call to action by the moderator.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Introduction**: Role/Title: Not specified, Area of expertise: Event hosting/coordination

– **Abdulkarim Oloyede**: Role/Title: Professor of Wireless Communications at the University of Illinois in Nigeria, Moderator of the leaders talks session, Area of expertise: Wireless Communications, Digital transformation in the global South

– **Vandeth Chea**: Role/Title: Minister for Post and Telecom of Cambodia, Area of expertise: Digital policy, telecommunications, digital transformation

– **Samuel Nartey George**: Role/Title: Honorable Minister MP, Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation, Republic of Ghana, Area of expertise: Digital economy, public-private partnerships, AI adoption in government

– **Meutya Viada Hafid**: Role/Title: Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs of Indonesia, Area of expertise: Digital infrastructure, digital inclusion, human capacity development

– **Grigoriy Borisenko**: Role/Title: Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communication and Mass Media (Russia Federation), Area of expertise: Digital development, ICT infrastructure, artificial intelligence

– **Omer Fatih Sayan**: Role/Title: Not clearly specified in the transcript, Area of expertise: AI ethics, digital policy, technology regulation

– **Guido Gomez Mazara**: Role/Title: Chairman/President of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunication (Indotel), Area of expertise: Digital inclusion, skills development, telecommunications regulation

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Summary: Accelerating Global Access to Information and Knowledge in the Digital Era

## Introduction and Session Framework

This high-level discussion was part of the WSIS plus 20 high level events, bringing together government ministers and digital policy leaders to address accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital era. The session was moderated by Professor Abdulkarim Oloyede and focused on sharing national strategies and best practices for digital transformation under WSIS Action Line C3.

Professor Oloyede established the foundational framework by emphasizing that “access to information and knowledge is no longer a luxury or a privilege, it is fundamental human rights. It is the foundation that empowers individual, strength in communities, drives innovation and accelerates sustainable development.”

## National Digital Transformation Strategies

### Cambodia’s Digital Ecosystem Approach

Minister Vandeth Chea of Cambodia’s Ministry of Post and Telecom highlighted how digital technology has become a core pillar of inclusive growth through national strategy and policies. Cambodia has developed innovative accessibility tools, including AI-powered chemistry-to-braille translators for visually impaired students.

The country has implemented extensive digital scholarship programmes supporting thousands of students while expanding community access points in rural areas. Cambodia is also finalizing its national data governance and open data policy to build public trust and support innovation.

### Ghana’s Partnership-Based Strategy

Honourable Minister Samuel Nartey George of Ghana’s Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation presented a comprehensive partnership approach involving government, private sector, civil society, academia, and international partners.

Ghana announced a $1 billion agreement with the UAE to build Africa’s first AI hub. The country’s 1 Million Quotas Programme aims to re-skill and up-skill citizens through partnerships with major technology companies including MTN, Huawei, and Google.

Minister George revealed an innovative governance approach: “Key among this is three weeks from now, I’m leading all of cabinets to an AI boot camp for all government ministers to show them use cases on the directive of his excellency for AI adoption in their ministries. And this is gonna form the KPIs for ministers in 2026 in the government.”

### Indonesia’s Constitutional Rights Framework

Minister Meutya Viada Hafid of Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs emphasized that “Indonesia’s digital transformation policy is firmly guided by the recognition that digital connectivity is a right rather than a privilege. It is stated in our constitution that information is basic human rights and thus must be extended across all regions, rural, urban, and remote.”

Indonesia’s 10,000 Digital Villages programme has reached over 4,000 villages and connected more than 3.8 million citizens to digital services. The country has deployed 7,500 base transceiver stations to expand 4G coverage in underserved areas.

The Digital Talent Scholarship programme has trained almost 400,000 individuals since 2018, with 40% of beneficiaries from non-metropolitan regions and over 10,000 women from rural and low-income households participating. The National Digital Literacy Movement has reached over 22 million citizens with content localized in 17 regional languages.

Indonesia’s Digital Vision 2045 targets 90% operational broadband coverage by 2030 and 100% by 2045.

### Russia’s Infrastructure Development

Deputy Minister Grigoriy Borisenko of Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communication and Mass Media spoke in Russian with translation provided. He reported that over 90% of Russian households have access to high-speed internet and reliable mobile connections. Russia is developing artificial intelligence technologies, with two AI models comparable to international standards.

### Dominican Republic’s Focus on Vulnerable Youth

Dr Guido Gómez Mazara, Chairman of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunication (Indotel), addressed specific socioeconomic challenges through digital inclusion. The Dominican Republic faces significant youth unemployment, with more than 22% of people aged 15-24 neither studying nor working, particularly in border areas where over 60% of households live under structural poverty.

The country’s Rapid Skills Centres teach programming, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity to young people in vulnerable communities, specifically targeting single mothers and marginalized populations. These centres will operate across 12 provinces by the end of 2026. The Canasta Digital programme provides devices and connectivity, with over 60% of beneficiaries being women.

Dr Gómez Mazara stated: “where there is more exclusion, there must be more state presence and more innovation.”

### Turkey’s Emphasis on AI Ethics

Minister Omer Fatih Sayan of Turkey focused on ethical considerations in AI development, citing recent incidents where AI systems have spread hate speech and undermined human rights.

“This is not just a software error, but a serious ethical and societal irresponsibility,” Minister Sayan observed. “Allowing abusive language and hate speech to spread on a platform poses a serious threat to the security, not only on one platform, but our entire digital ecosystem.”

Minister Sayan emphasized the need to protect vulnerable populations: “as the experts, we can distinguish that this is artificial intelligence, but what about the children, teenagers, people with low digital literacy?” He called for AI development that respects cultural diversity, social equality, and human rights while maintaining objectivity, transparency, and accountability.

## Common Themes

### Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

All speakers emphasized the importance of partnerships between government, private sector, civil society, and international organizations for effective digital transformation.

### Digital Rights and Inclusion

Multiple speakers framed digital access as a fundamental human right, with particular emphasis on reaching rural and underserved communities.

### Human Capacity Development

Countries consistently highlighted the need for digital skills training and education alongside infrastructure development, with programs targeting millions of citizens.

### Infrastructure and Connectivity

Speakers shared achievements in expanding broadband coverage and mobile connectivity, particularly in rural and remote areas.

## Global Challenge

The session acknowledged that 2.6 billion people globally still lack internet access, highlighting the scale of work remaining to achieve universal digital inclusion.

## Conclusion

Professor Oloyede concluded the session as “a renewed call to action” for participants to return to their countries and communities with commitment to driving inclusive digital society. The session ended with a group photograph of the participants.

The discussion demonstrated significant progress in national digital inclusion efforts while highlighting the continued need for international cooperation, ethical frameworks, and sustained investment to ensure access to information and knowledge becomes a universal reality rather than a privilege.

Introduction: and our sponsors, thank you so much. Without you, The WSIS plus 20 high level events would not be possible. Thank you to our Deputy Secretary General and our Director, VDG as well. Thank you very much. Dear ladies and gentlemen, it’s time now to move on to our next leaders talks. This leaders talks is about accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital era. And I’d like to invite Professor Abdulkarim, who is the moderator of this leaders talks to please lead the panelists and to lead us into this leaders talks. Abdulkarim, the floor is yours.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Good morning, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, colleagues, friends, whether you are here with us in Geneva or online, good morning to us all. My name is Abdulkarim Oluyede, I’m a Professor of Wireless Communications at the University of Illinois in Nigeria. And it is truly an honor and a privilege to moderate this leaders X session. And our discussion focuses on the team that sits in the very heart of WSIS vision, accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital era, which aligns with the action line C3. For me, coming from the global South, where digital transformation holds tremendous promise, but where digital device still presents a pressing challenge. The topic is one that I am both personally passionate and also professionally engaged in. This conversation is not only timely, but it is also crucial. In our interconnected world, access to information and knowledge is no longer a luxury or a privilege, it is fundamental human rights. It is the foundation that empowers individual, strength in communities, drives innovation and accelerates sustainable development. We are fortunate to be joined by a truly distinguished panel of leaders who are working tirelessly to close the gap. Leaders who are turning aspiration to action, potential into progress in their countries and beyond. So we’re going to start the session. So we’re going to begin from South Asia, where Cambodia has been making steady progress in digital transformation and connectivity. I would like to invite his excellency, Dr. Chia, who is the Minister for Post and Telecom of Cambodia. And Honorable Minister Sir, your question is, your digital growth is truly commendable. So what additional measures has Cambodia taken in addition to foundation efforts to ensure access to information is available to all across the digital divide? You can sit if you want, or you can go on the stage. We can go on the stage.

Vandeth Chea: Excellency, ladies and gentlemen. In Cambodia, we are entering a new era of democratization. which access to the knowledge. Building on over two decades of peace and development, the government has made digital technology a core pillar of inclusive and sustainable growth as reflected in our national strategy and policies. This commitment is operationalized through the Digital Economy and Society Policy Framework and the Digital Government Policy, which outline concrete measures to expand access to information, especially for the under-served community. The reforms in our Ministry have led to a significant increase in revenue, enabling us to reinvest in national digital connectivity, human resources, and inclusive innovations. We have supported thousands of digital scholarships and pioneering tools such as an AI translator that converts chemistry into braille. Improving access for visually impaired. To further ensure access and transparency, we are finalizing national data governance and open data policy, supporting both innovations and public trust. At the same time, we are expanding community access points in rural areas to ensure no one is left behind. We also recognize that Cambodia journey is part of a broader global effort. We work with regional and international partners in improving open standards, inclusive technologies, and share platforms that advance access to knowledge for all. With this integrated approach, combining infrastructure, skills, data, and collaborations, we believe our people are better positioned to fully benefit from digital areas. I thank you.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Thank you, Your Excellency. Thank you for sharing your digital growth. It’s truly commendable and contributes greatly to bridging the digital divide, especially in your region. Thank you, Honorable Minister. Cambodia-inspired digital access initiatives will now shift to West Africa, where Ghana is championing innovative public-private partnership. It’s an honor for me to welcome my big brother, His Excellency, Mr. Samuel Nethi George, Honorable Minister MP, Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation, the Republic of Ghana. Thank you so much. So, Honorable Minister, your question is, how has Ghana’s strategic approach to public-private partnership in the digital sector contributed to economic growth, and what lessons can be shared with other developing nations in implementing the WSIS Action Line C1 on stakeholder governance? You have the floor, Your Excellency.

Samuel Nartey George: Thank you very much, and a very good morning to Your Excellencies and delegates in the room. The digital economy for us in Ghana is no longer a luxury. It’s actually the foundation of our modern development. Ghana is a country, and under the leadership of His Excellency, John Dramani-Mahama, recognizes this, and we’re intentionally bringing together government, the private sector, civil society, academia, and our international partners. And this is meant to drive the digital transformation initiatives in Ghana. Our multistakeholder approach is a strong example, and a shining one at that, on the continent, of how inclusive partnerships can accelerate digital transformation. By aligning the strengths of government, private sector, civil society, and development partners, Ghana is building a resilient and inclusive digital economy, and we’re doing this on three key pillars, leadership and policy framework, active collaboration with international and development partners, and private sector partnerships. On leadership and policy framework, Ghana’s leadership plays a government’s leadership as playing a pivotal role in shaping and accelerating the growth of Ghana’s digital economy. My ministry leads this initiative by creating clear policy frameworks, and we’re championing the strategic direction, the legal environment, and institutional support needed to foster innovation, attract the necessary investments, and ensure that there’s inclusive access to digital technologies. We cannot address new challenges with old solutions as a country. And as such, his excellency, John主 Mahmoud Mahamud’s government has initiated various policy reforms that respond to the fast pace of technology and at which our economy is changing. Key among this is three weeks from now, I’m leading all of cabinets to an AI boot camp for all government ministers to show them use cases on the directive of his excellency for AI adoption in their ministries. And this is gonna form the KPIs for ministers in 2026 in the government. This is our way of ensuring that we include AI in our public sector delivery. Under active collaboration with international involvement partners, we know that no country can achieve this on its own. And that’s why on the 29th of May this year, I signed a $1 billion agreement with the government of UAE to build Africa’s first AI hub in Ghana on 25 kilometers squares, which signals our desire to be the leading player when it comes to artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, and new technologies. When it comes to our private sector partnerships, we’ve already started what we call the 1 Million Quotas Program, which is gonna see us re-skill, up-skill, and give new skills for the future to 1 million Ghanians, including the civil service, students, and young people. And this is not just being led by government, but through partnerships with partners like MTN, Huawei, and Google. I thank you.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Thank you, Minister George. I would like to say that Ghana’s collaborative approach demonstrates how public-private partnership can drive real impact on economic growth and inclusive governance. So next, I will move to the world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia, a country that’s overcome geographic and demographic challenges to build an inclusive digital economy. I would like to welcome my excellency, Ms. Viada Afid, the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs of Indonesia. Thank you. So we acknowledge the significant progress made by the government of Indonesia in ICT and digital development. In this regard, we also recognize the challenges posed by Indonesia’s vast and diverse geographical landscapes and demographs. What kinds of programs or initiative has the government of Indonesia implemented to ensure that ICT development policies remain inclusive, both in terms of physical digital infrastructure and human capital development? You have the floor, Honorable Minister.

Meutya Viada Hafid: Thank you very much, Moderator, and a very good morning to our next distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Indonesia’s digital transformation policy is firmly guided by the recognition that digital connectivity is a right rather than a privilege. It is stated in our constitution that information is basic human rights and thus must be extended across all regions, rural, urban, and remote. As an archipelagic nation, Moderator has stated before, Indonesia is a country with more than 17,000 islands and a population of more than 280 million citizens. We have designed a digital development model that prioritizes inclusivity, both in terms of physical infrastructure and also human capacity. On the infrastructure front, the ministry is implementing the 10,000 Digital Villages program with the goal of internet access, digital public services, and community-based connectivity to Indonesia’s most underserved areas. As of July 2025, the program has reached more than 4,000 villages in outermost frontier and disadvantaged regions, connecting over 3.8 million citizens to digital services for the first time. Additional to that is the deployment of 7,500 base transceiver station, or BTS, has expanded 4G coverage to areas where commercial operators were previously absent. Our broader infrastructure push is supported by Palapari National Fiber Backbone, targeting to achieve 90% operation level broadband coverage by 2030 and 100% by 2045, as outlined in the Indonesia Digital Vision of 2045. However, we also recognize that building infrastructure alone will not be meaningful for the people. That is why our government places equal emphasis on human capacity development. Our Digital Talent Scholarship that the ministry has undertaken has trained almost 400,000 individuals since it was launched in 2018. This includes 76,000 people in 2024 alone. And from this number, importantly to note is 40% of the DTS beneficiaries come from non-metropolitan regions, and over 10,000 of them are women from rural and low-income households. In a broader scale, we also complement this with National Digital Literacy Movement, which as of this year has reached more than 22 million citizens through offline and online training modules. This program targeting youth and also teachers, small-medium enterprises, homemakers, and senior citizens, using culturally relevant and also linguistically inclusive content. For example, the module have been localized into 17 regional languages, including Javanese, Sundanese, Buganese, and also Papuan dialects. The government of Indonesia is also actively collaborating with civil society and the private sectors to ensure that digital transformation is responsive to local realities and also needs. So to close, I would like to say that our digital vision under the leadership of President Prabowo is clear, which is to make digital transformation work for all Indonesians, regardless of who they are and where they come from. Thank you very much.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Thank you, Minister Hafid. And Indonesia’s commitment to man-capacity building alongside infrastructure is a model for many nations facing similar diversity. Thank you very much once again. From Southeast Asia, we now turn to Russia Federation, where digital development plays central role in the national policy and international cooperation. We welcome His Excellency, Mr. Grigori Borisenko, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communication and Mass Media. Your Excellency, your question is, in today’s world, many countries are paying increasing attention to issues of accelerating global access to information and knowledge in the digital age. Is there a similar practice in Russia? If so, what policy is being pursued at a state level in this area? You have the floor, Your Excellency.

Grigoriy Borisenko: Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I’m happy to be here. Happy to see you all here. I’ll do my speech in Russian. Therefore, if you guys don’t know Russian well, you may consider using the translation tool. Our main goal is the development of a human-oriented and inclusive digital society where everybody can create knowledge and have access to them. We also focus ourselves on minimizing gap, especially taking into account geographical aspects. Unfortunately, this was not achieved for everybody. Up to date, 2.6 billion people have no access, but in our country, more than 90% of households has access to high-speed internet connection. Also, our mobile connection is a very reliable one. Many social utilities and facilities have access to high-speed fiber optical internet. At the same time, we use the ability of Russian potentiality. We also made massive investments in our ICT complex. We also actively developed our artificial intelligence technologies. Russia has two own models, which can be compared with international leading models. We also are developing V.J.

Omer Fatih Sayan: Bashir Hwayi Chardhan, H.E. Thr. Technology must be shaped through inclusive, visionary, and multi-stakeholder approaches, not solely relying on technical solutions. And every step in this direction will contribute to building a more equitable, connected, and resilient digital society, and Turkey will continue to strongly support these collaborative endeavours. Today, as we all see, accessibility drives the increased use of technology and innovation, and as AI continues to integrate every aspect of human life, ethical responsibilities and human values should play a fundamental role in the development of technology. Otherwise, the development of AI may further deepen social injustices and undermine human rights. I would like to take your attention to ethical concerns over AI with a fresh example from yesterday, in the case of growth. We witnessed an act of artificial intelligence that ignored these basic principles and touched the low-end of society and caused outrage in society. This is not just a software error, but a serious ethical and societal irresponsibility. Turning a blind eye to the dissemination of language that harms human rights, respect and social peace, especially through a technology platform, is not simply a mistake, but a clear violation. And this is irresponsible and undermines trust in technology. Allowing abusive language and hate speech to spread on a platform poses a serious threat to the security, not only on one platform, but our entire digital ecosystem. It’s seen that we will be facing more ethical concerns than ever in the AI world, and as the experts, we can distinguish that this is artificial intelligence, but what about the children, teenagers, people with low digital literacy? It’s clear that developers should adhere to the ethical principles such as objectivity, transparency and accountability in their actions and decision-making processes. As policymakers and regulators, we should establish rules and regulations to ensure that AI systems respect cultural diversity, social equality and human rights. This shows us that, technology having no geographical boundaries, we should work in collaboration for responsible AI to reflect common values of humanity. Thank you.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Thank you so much, Your Excellency, and I’m sure that is why the ITU is also having in parallel the AI for Good that is happening. So thank you so much, Your Excellency. So finally, we move to the Caribbean, where Dominican Republic has been leveraging ICT to promote social inclusion and economic opportunity. I warmly welcome Dr. Guido Gómez Mazara, who is the chairman of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunication. So, Dr. Gomez, could you share with us how Dominican Republic, through Indotel, is using ICT to promote digital inclusion and skills development in traditionally marginalized communities? You have the floor, Your Excellency.

Guido Gomez Mazara: Okay. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Distinguished members of the panel, it is a great honor for me to speak on the representation of my country, Dominican Republic, as the president of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunication. And thanks for your question. In the Dominican Republic, more than 22% of the job people between the age of 15 and 24 are neither study nor working, according to the data from the World Bank and the National Statistic Office. Considering this reality, the Dominican Institute of Telecommunication, Indotel, we understood that it’s not enough to connect community, we must connect the opportunity, the training to transform destiny. We create the Rapid Skills Center, space equipment with virtual classroom, where the job people from vulnerable communities learn programming, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, alongside soft skill and English. We currently have one center operating in Santiago de los Caballeros, and four active rapid skill points along the border zone, specifically in some of the poorest provinces in the country, such as El Espina and Pedernales. According to the Multidimensional Poverty Index, over 60 of the household border areas live under structural poverty, and less than 35% have internet access. That’s why we started there, because where there is more exclusion, there must be more state presence and more innovation. Our goal is clear, to have the program fully operational in 12 provinces by the end of 2026, impacting thousands of strong people through an intensive and transformative educational model. The woman face of Canasta Digital. In detail, Canasta Digital provides devices, connectivity, and basic training to facilitate digital participation. According to our records, over 60 of the beneficiaries have been females, half of the household, or single mothers. This not only bridge the access gap, but also empower women to educate their children, engage in a digital entrepreneurship, and access to public service independently. I respect the three minutes. Thank you.

Abdulkarim Oloyede: Thank you very much. Let me say on behalf of the Chair of WSIS 2025, I want to extend our deepest appreciation to each of you for your insightful and inspiring contribution today. We have had rich perspectives from across the globe. From South Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, from the Caribbean to the Eastern Europe. Despite our diverse context, a common trend unites us, the recognition that universal access to information and knowledge is not just a technical issue, it is a cornerstone of sustainable development of human rights and inclusive digital societies. Today’s session reaffirms that WSIS process is more relevant than ever. 20 years on, it continues to provide a collaborative platform where government, civil society, the private sector, academia, and international organizations come together. Not only to exchange good practice, but to co-create the future of truly inclusive information society. We must continue to uphold and expand multi-stakeholder cooperation. Just as we outlined in WSIS Action C1 and C3 to implement effective national and regional strategies that respond to local realities, let this session be a renewed call to action for each of us to go back to our countries, our institutions, our communities with a commitment to keep driving a shared vision. Once again, thank you for your valuable contribution, and I thank the ITU and all the WSIS stakeholders for sustaining this powerful process. Now I’ll kindly invite my panelists to please join me on the stage for a group photograph. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for digital transformation

Speakers

– Samuel Nartey George
– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Omer Fatih Sayan
– Abdulkarim Oloyede

Arguments

Ghana brings together government, private sector, civil society, academia, and international partners for digital transformation

Indonesia actively collaborates with civil society and private sectors to ensure digital transformation responds to local needs

Turkey emphasizes that technology must be shaped through inclusive, visionary, and multi-stakeholder approaches

The session reaffirms WSIS process relevance as collaborative platform for multi-stakeholder cooperation

Summary

All speakers emphasized the critical importance of bringing together multiple stakeholders including government, private sector, civil society, academia, and international partners to achieve effective digital transformation and inclusive technology development.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Digital access is a fundamental human right, not a privilege

Speakers

– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Abdulkarim Oloyede

Arguments

Indonesia’s digital transformation policy recognizes digital connectivity as a constitutional right rather than privilege

Access to information and knowledge is fundamental human rights and foundation for empowering individuals and communities

Summary

Both speakers explicitly stated that digital connectivity and access to information should be treated as fundamental human rights rather than privileges, with constitutional and policy frameworks supporting this principle.

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Comprehensive human capacity development is crucial alongside infrastructure

Speakers

– Vandeth Chea
– Samuel Nartey George
– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Guido Gomez Mazara

Arguments

Cambodia supports thousands of digital scholarships and develops AI tools like chemistry-to-braille translator

Ghana launches 1 Million Quotas Program to re-skill and up-skill citizens through partnerships with MTN, Huawei, and Google

Indonesia’s Digital Talent Scholarship has trained almost 400,000 individuals since 2018, with 40% from non-metropolitan regions

Dominican Republic creates Rapid Skills Centers teaching programming, AI, and cybersecurity to young people in vulnerable communities

Summary

All speakers emphasized that building digital infrastructure alone is insufficient; comprehensive human capacity development through skills training, digital literacy programs, and educational initiatives is essential for meaningful digital transformation.

Topics

Development | Economic | Sociocultural

Special focus on rural and underserved communities is necessary

Speakers

– Vandeth Chea
– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Guido Gomez Mazara

Arguments

Cambodia expands community access points in rural areas to ensure no one is left behind

Indonesia implements 10,000 Digital Villages program reaching over 4,000 villages and connecting 3.8 million citizens

Dominican Republic’s Canasta Digital program provides devices and connectivity with over 60% of beneficiaries being women

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasized the need to prioritize rural and underserved communities in digital development initiatives, implementing specific programs to bridge the digital divide and ensure inclusive access.

Topics

Development | Human rights | Infrastructure

Similar viewpoints

All three speakers emphasized the importance of comprehensive national policy frameworks that position digital technology as central to national development strategy, with clear legal and institutional support structures.

Speakers

– Vandeth Chea
– Samuel Nartey George
– Meutya Viada Hafid

Arguments

Cambodia has made digital technology a core pillar of inclusive growth through national strategy and policies

Ghana creates clear policy frameworks and legal environment to foster innovation and attract investments

Indonesia’s digital transformation policy recognizes digital connectivity as a constitutional right rather than privilege

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Economic

Both speakers highlighted the importance of addressing cultural and linguistic diversity in digital inclusion programs, with specific attention to marginalized groups including women and linguistic minorities.

Speakers

– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Guido Gomez Mazara

Arguments

Indonesia’s National Digital Literacy Movement has reached over 22 million citizens with content localized in 17 regional languages

Dominican Republic’s Canasta Digital program provides devices and connectivity with over 60% of beneficiaries being women

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Human rights

Both speakers emphasized their countries’ significant investments in artificial intelligence development and international collaboration in AI technology advancement.

Speakers

– Samuel Nartey George
– Grigoriy Borisenko

Arguments

Ghana signed $1 billion agreement with UAE to build Africa’s first AI hub demonstrating international collaboration

Russia actively develops artificial intelligence technologies with two models comparable to international standards

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Unexpected consensus

AI ethics and responsible development concerns

Speakers

– Omer Fatih Sayan
– Vandeth Chea

Arguments

Turkey warns that AI development may deepen social injustices and undermine human rights without ethical considerations

Cambodia supports thousands of digital scholarships and develops AI tools like chemistry-to-braille translator

Explanation

While Turkey focused on AI ethics concerns and potential negative impacts, Cambodia demonstrated practical AI applications for accessibility. This creates an unexpected consensus around the need for responsible AI development that serves human needs while addressing ethical concerns.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural

Constitutional and legal frameworks for digital rights

Speakers

– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Vandeth Chea

Arguments

Indonesia’s digital transformation policy recognizes digital connectivity as a constitutional right rather than privilege

Cambodia finalizes national data governance and open data policy to support innovation and public trust

Explanation

Both countries from different regions (Southeast Asia) showed unexpected alignment in establishing strong legal and constitutional foundations for digital rights, suggesting a regional trend toward rights-based digital governance frameworks.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkable consensus across multiple key areas: the fundamental importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, recognition of digital access as a human right, the necessity of comprehensive human capacity development alongside infrastructure, and the critical need to prioritize rural and underserved communities. There was also strong agreement on the importance of national policy frameworks and international cooperation.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for global digital development policy. The alignment across diverse geographic regions (Southeast Asia, West Africa, Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Middle East) suggests these principles represent universal best practices for digital transformation. This consensus strengthens the WSIS framework and provides a solid foundation for continued international cooperation in digital development, particularly in bridging the digital divide and ensuring inclusive access to information and knowledge.

Different viewpoints

AI development approach and ethical concerns

Speakers

– Omer Fatih Sayan
– Grigoriy Borisenko

Arguments

Turkey warns that AI development may deepen social injustices and undermine human rights without ethical considerations

Turkey calls for developers to adhere to ethical principles of objectivity, transparency, and accountability

Russia actively develops artificial intelligence technologies with two models comparable to international standards

Summary

Turkey emphasizes the critical need for ethical frameworks and warns about AI’s potential to harm human rights and social peace, citing recent incidents of AI causing social outrage. Russia focuses on technical advancement and competitive AI development without addressing ethical concerns or safeguards.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected differences

Approach to AI development priorities

Speakers

– Omer Fatih Sayan
– Grigoriy Borisenko

Arguments

Turkey warns that AI development may deepen social injustices and undermine human rights without ethical considerations

Russia actively develops artificial intelligence technologies with two models comparable to international standards

Explanation

This disagreement is unexpected because both countries are discussing AI development in the context of global digital access and inclusion, yet they have fundamentally different priorities. Turkey prioritizes ethical considerations and human rights protection, while Russia focuses on technical advancement and international competitiveness without addressing ethical frameworks.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkably low levels of direct disagreement among speakers, with most conflicts being implicit rather than explicit. The main area of disagreement centered on AI development approaches, specifically between Turkey’s emphasis on ethical considerations and Russia’s focus on technical advancement. Most speakers shared common goals around digital inclusion, infrastructure development, and human capacity building.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The implications are significant for AI governance and ethical technology development globally, as the different approaches could lead to divergent international standards and practices. However, the strong consensus on digital inclusion goals suggests potential for collaborative frameworks despite methodological differences.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

All three speakers emphasized the importance of comprehensive national policy frameworks that position digital technology as central to national development strategy, with clear legal and institutional support structures.

Speakers

– Vandeth Chea
– Samuel Nartey George
– Meutya Viada Hafid

Arguments

Cambodia has made digital technology a core pillar of inclusive growth through national strategy and policies

Ghana creates clear policy frameworks and legal environment to foster innovation and attract investments

Indonesia’s digital transformation policy recognizes digital connectivity as a constitutional right rather than privilege

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Economic

Both speakers highlighted the importance of addressing cultural and linguistic diversity in digital inclusion programs, with specific attention to marginalized groups including women and linguistic minorities.

Speakers

– Meutya Viada Hafid
– Guido Gomez Mazara

Arguments

Indonesia’s National Digital Literacy Movement has reached over 22 million citizens with content localized in 17 regional languages

Dominican Republic’s Canasta Digital program provides devices and connectivity with over 60% of beneficiaries being women

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Human rights

Both speakers emphasized their countries’ significant investments in artificial intelligence development and international collaboration in AI technology advancement.

Speakers

– Samuel Nartey George
– Grigoriy Borisenko

Arguments

Ghana signed $1 billion agreement with UAE to build Africa’s first AI hub demonstrating international collaboration

Russia actively develops artificial intelligence technologies with two models comparable to international standards

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Key takeaways

Access to information and knowledge is a fundamental human right and cornerstone of sustainable development, not a luxury or privilege

Digital transformation requires comprehensive approaches combining infrastructure development, human capacity building, and inclusive governance frameworks

Multi-stakeholder collaboration between government, private sector, civil society, academia, and international partners is essential for successful digital transformation

Geographic and demographic challenges can be overcome through targeted programs – as demonstrated by Indonesia’s archipelagic connectivity and Dominican Republic’s border region initiatives

AI ethics and responsible technology development are critical concerns, with need for transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights and cultural diversity

Public-private partnerships are effective mechanisms for scaling digital initiatives and leveraging resources for maximum impact

Digital inclusion must prioritize marginalized communities, with special attention to women, rural populations, and economically disadvantaged groups

The WSIS process remains highly relevant 20 years later as a collaborative platform for international cooperation on digital development

Resolutions and action items

Ghana will conduct AI boot camp for all government ministers in three weeks to establish AI adoption KPIs for 2026

Indonesia targets 90% operational broadband coverage by 2030 and 100% by 2045 under Digital Vision 2045

Dominican Republic plans to have Rapid Skills Centers fully operational in 12 provinces by end of 2026

Cambodia is finalizing national data governance and open data policy implementation

Ghana’s 1 Million Quotas Program to re-skill and up-skill citizens through partnerships with MTN, Huawei, and Google

Renewed call to action for participants to return to their countries and communities with commitment to drive shared vision of inclusive digital society

Unresolved issues

How to address the 2.6 billion people globally who still lack internet access

Specific mechanisms for ensuring AI development adheres to ethical principles across different cultural contexts

Standardization of approaches for measuring and evaluating digital inclusion progress across different countries

Sustainable financing models for long-term digital infrastructure maintenance in developing countries

Coordination mechanisms between different national digital strategies to avoid fragmentation

Specific regulatory frameworks needed to govern AI development and deployment responsibly

Suggested compromises

Balancing national digital sovereignty with international cooperation and open standards

Combining government-led policy frameworks with private sector innovation and civil society input

Addressing both urban and rural digital needs through differentiated but coordinated approaches

Integrating local cultural and linguistic requirements with global technology standards

Balancing rapid AI adoption with necessary ethical safeguards and human rights protections

In our interconnected world, access to information and knowledge is no longer a luxury or a privilege, it is fundamental human rights. It is the foundation that empowers individual, strength in communities, drives innovation and accelerates sustainable development.

Speaker

Abdulkarim Oloyede (Moderator)

Reason

This comment reframes the entire discussion by elevating digital access from a technical or economic issue to a fundamental human rights issue. It establishes a moral imperative that transcends national boundaries and economic considerations, positioning digital inclusion as essential to human dignity and development.

Impact

This framing set the tone for the entire session, with subsequent speakers consistently emphasizing inclusivity and universal access in their responses. It elevated the discussion from technical implementation to values-based policy making.

Indonesia’s digital transformation policy is firmly guided by the recognition that digital connectivity is a right rather than a privilege. It is stated in our constitution that information is basic human rights and thus must be extended across all regions, rural, urban, and remote.

Speaker

Meutya Viada Hafid (Indonesia)

Reason

This comment provides concrete constitutional backing to the human rights framework established by the moderator, showing how abstract principles can be institutionalized in national law. It demonstrates practical implementation of rights-based digital policy.

Impact

This constitutional approach influenced the discussion by showing other participants how human rights principles can be legally enshrined, potentially inspiring similar constitutional or legal frameworks in other countries.

We cannot address new challenges with old solutions as a country… Key among this is three weeks from now, I’m leading all of cabinets to an AI boot camp for all government ministers to show them use cases on the directive of his excellency for AI adoption in their ministries. And this is gonna form the KPIs for ministers in 2026 in the government.

Speaker

Samuel Nartey George (Ghana)

Reason

This comment introduces a revolutionary approach to government digital transformation – making AI literacy a performance indicator for cabinet ministers. It challenges traditional government structures and demonstrates unprecedented political commitment to digital transformation at the highest levels.

Impact

This innovative governance approach shifted the discussion toward the importance of leadership commitment and systemic government transformation, influencing other speakers to emphasize high-level political support for their initiatives.

However, we also recognize that building infrastructure alone will not be meaningful for the people. That is why our government places equal emphasis on human capacity development… 40% of the DTS beneficiaries come from non-metropolitan regions, and over 10,000 of them are women from rural and low-income households.

Speaker

Meutya Viada Hafid (Indonesia)

Reason

This comment challenges the common assumption that digital infrastructure automatically leads to digital inclusion. It introduces the critical insight that human capacity building must parallel infrastructure development, with specific attention to gender and geographic equity.

Impact

This observation deepened the discussion by highlighting the multidimensional nature of digital inclusion, prompting other speakers to address both technical and human elements in their responses.

This is not just a software error, but a serious ethical and societal irresponsibility… Allowing abusive language and hate speech to spread on a platform poses a serious threat to the security, not only on one platform, but our entire digital ecosystem… as the experts, we can distinguish that this is artificial intelligence, but what about the children, teenagers, people with low digital literacy?

Speaker

Omer Fatih Sayan (Turkey)

Reason

This comment introduces urgent ethical concerns about AI development and deployment, referencing a contemporary incident to highlight the gap between technical capabilities and ethical responsibility. It raises critical questions about protecting vulnerable populations in the digital age.

Impact

This intervention significantly shifted the discussion from celebrating digital progress to acknowledging serious risks and responsibilities. It introduced a more critical and cautionary perspective that balanced the otherwise optimistic tone of the session.

In the Dominican Republic, more than 22% of the job people between the age of 15 and 24 are neither study nor working… We create the Rapid Skills Center… because where there is more exclusion, there must be more state presence and more innovation.

Speaker

Guido Gomez Mazara (Dominican Republic)

Reason

This comment provides a concrete example of how digital inclusion can address broader socioeconomic challenges, particularly youth unemployment. The principle that ‘where there is more exclusion, there must be more state presence and more innovation’ offers a powerful framework for targeted intervention.

Impact

This practical approach to addressing structural inequality through digital skills training provided a concrete model for other participants, demonstrating how digital inclusion can be a tool for broader social and economic development.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing a human rights framework, introducing innovative governance approaches, highlighting the complexity of digital inclusion beyond infrastructure, raising critical ethical concerns, and providing concrete examples of targeted interventions. The moderator’s human rights framing set a values-based foundation that influenced all subsequent contributions. Ghana’s AI governance innovation and Indonesia’s constitutional approach demonstrated institutional commitment, while Turkey’s ethical concerns provided necessary balance to the optimistic tone. The Dominican Republic’s targeted approach to youth unemployment showed practical application. Together, these comments elevated the discussion from technical implementation to a comprehensive examination of digital inclusion as a multifaceted challenge requiring rights-based, ethically-grounded, and systematically innovative approaches. The flow moved from establishing principles to sharing innovations to acknowledging risks to demonstrating practical solutions, creating a well-rounded dialogue that addressed both opportunities and responsibilities in digital transformation.

How can AI systems be developed to respect cultural diversity, social equality and human rights while maintaining objectivity, transparency and accountability?

Speaker

Omer Fatih Sayan (Turkey)

Explanation

This is important because AI is integrating into every aspect of human life, and without proper ethical guidelines, it may deepen social injustices and undermine human rights, as demonstrated by recent incidents of AI platforms spreading hate speech

What collaborative frameworks are needed for responsible AI development that reflects common values of humanity across geographical boundaries?

Speaker

Omer Fatih Sayan (Turkey)

Explanation

This is crucial because technology has no geographical boundaries, and different stakeholders (policymakers, regulators, developers) need to work together to establish rules and regulations for AI systems that serve all of humanity

How can countries ensure that digital transformation policies remain inclusive for both physical infrastructure and human capital development in diverse geographical and demographic contexts?

Speaker

Implied from the discussion format and Indonesia’s response

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of ensuring digital rights are extended to all citizens regardless of location, which is particularly relevant for archipelagic nations and countries with diverse populations

What are the most effective models for public-private partnerships in digital transformation that can be replicated across developing nations?

Speaker

Implied from Samuel Nartey George’s (Ghana) presentation and the session structure

Explanation

This is important for scaling successful digital transformation initiatives and ensuring that lessons learned from countries like Ghana can benefit other developing nations implementing WSIS Action Lines

How can digital inclusion programs be designed to specifically address the needs of marginalized communities, particularly women and youth in poverty-stricken areas?

Speaker

Implied from Guido Gomez Mazara’s (Dominican Republic) presentation

Explanation

This is critical because over 60% of households in border areas live under structural poverty with limited internet access, and targeted programs are needed to transform opportunities for vulnerable populations

Summary

This discussion centered on the 20th anniversary review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and planning for its future direction beyond 2025. The ministerial roundtable brought together high-level representatives from various countries to assess digital transformation progress and chart a path forward for inclusive, sustainable digital cooperation. Participants were organized into breakout groups to discuss three key themes: national digital priorities and implementation needs, emerging digital trends and risks, and WSIS beyond 2025.

Throughout the discussions, ministers highlighted significant achievements in digital infrastructure development, with some countries like Azerbaijan reporting near-universal fiber-optic connectivity at 99.9% of households. However, persistent challenges were acknowledged, particularly the digital divide affecting rural and underserved populations, with Africa’s average coverage rate remaining below 43%. Countries shared their experiences with AI strategies, cybersecurity frameworks, e-government services, and digital literacy programs, while also addressing obstacles such as funding constraints and sanctions that impede technological development.

Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G, quantum computing, and space-based solutions were recognized as transformative but requiring careful governance frameworks to ensure ethical, transparent, and secure implementation. Participants emphasized the need for international cooperation in developing these technologies responsibly, with particular attention to cybersecurity, data governance, and protecting vulnerable populations including women, youth, and marginalized communities.

Looking toward WSIS beyond 2025, there was strong consensus that the framework should continue serving as the central platform for digital cooperation, with ITU maintaining its leadership role. Ministers called for stronger alignment between WSIS and the Global Digital Compact to avoid duplication, while emphasizing the importance of maintaining the multi-stakeholder approach that has been fundamental to WSIS success. The discussion concluded with a commitment to present unified recommendations at the UN General Assembly’s 20-year review in December, ensuring that digital transformation serves humanity’s shared values and leaves no one behind.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **National Digital Priorities and Infrastructure Development**: Ministers shared their countries’ progress in digital transformation, with some reporting near-universal broadband coverage (like Azerbaijan at 99.9%) while others highlighted persistent challenges in rural connectivity and the need for substantial infrastructure investment, particularly in African nations where coverage averages only 43%.

– **Emerging Digital Technologies and Governance**: Extensive discussion on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, 5G networks, and quantum computing, with emphasis on the need for ethical AI frameworks, responsible governance, and international cooperation to ensure these technologies benefit all nations rather than widening digital divides.

– **WSIS Beyond 2025 and Future Framework**: Participants debated how to evolve the World Summit on the Information Society for the next phase, including suggestions to rename it from “Information Society” to “Digital Society,” strengthen its binding framework, and ensure proper alignment (rather than just complementarity) with the Global Digital Compact.

– **Digital Equity and Inclusion Challenges**: Strong focus on addressing the digital divide, particularly for rural populations, women, youth, and marginalized communities, with calls for affordable devices, local language content, and capacity building programs to ensure “no one is left behind.”

– **International Cooperation and Sanctions Impact**: Discussion of how geopolitical tensions and sanctions affect global digital development, with ministers from Russia and Cuba highlighting how restrictions impede technological progress and calling for ITU to help mitigate these barriers to international cooperation.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to conduct a comprehensive 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, assess current digital development challenges, and chart a path forward for inclusive global digital transformation leading up to the UN General Assembly review in December.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with ministers sharing both achievements and challenges openly. While there were moments of tension when discussing geopolitical issues like sanctions, the overall atmosphere remained diplomatic and solution-oriented. The tone was forward-looking and urgent, emphasizing the need for accelerated action while maintaining the human-centric approach that has characterized WSIS. Technical difficulties with interpretation services briefly interrupted the flow but did not dampen the engaged and professional atmosphere of the ministerial roundtable.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **SidAli Zerrouki** – Minister from Algeria, moderated breakout session discussions on digital priorities and WSIS beyond 2025

– **Shan Zhongde** – Minister of Industry and Information Technology from the Republic of China

– **Rashad Nabiyev** – Minister of Digital Development and Transport from Azerbaijan

– **Doreen Bogdan-Martin** – ITU Secretary General

– **Ernesto Rodriguez Hernandez** – Representative from Cuba, discussed national digital priorities and challenges under US sanctions

– **Samuel Nartey George** – His Excellency from Ghana, moderated Group E breakout session

– **Mark-Alexandre Doumba** – Minister from Gabon, discussed digital economy and artificial intelligence initiatives

– **Abdulbaset Albaour** – Representative from Libya, spoke about technological challenges and digital governance

– **Solly Malatsi** – Minister of Digital Technologies from South Africa, WSIS Plus 20 Chair and co-chair of ministerial roundtable

– **Alioune Sall** – Minister from Senegal, discussed connectivity challenges and digital inclusion in Africa

– **Meutya Viada Hafid** – Minister from Indonesia, moderated Group F breakout session

– **Grigoriy Borisenko** – Representative from Russian Federation, discussed impact of sanctions on digital development

– **Jonathan Reid** – His Excellency from Barbados, moderated Group G breakout session

– **Julissa Cruz** – Executive Director of the Regulatory Authority of the Dominican Republic

– **Aminata Zerbo Sabane** – Excellency from Burkina Faso, discussed national digital transformation initiatives

– **Leocadie Ndacayisaba** – Leo Kadhi from Burundi, discussed digital economy development projects

– **Tawfik Jelassi** – ADGE of UNESCO (Assistant Director-General for Education)

– **Cosmas Zavazava** – ITU elected official, Dr. from ITU Development Bureau

**Additional speakers:**

– **Selina** – ITU colleague who guided the breakout session logistics and room assignments

# WSIS+20 Ministerial Roundtable Discussion Report

## Executive Summary

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 20th anniversary ministerial roundtable brought together high-level representatives from across the globe to review digital transformation progress and chart future directions for international digital cooperation. The discussion, moderated by Sid Ali Zerrouki, Minister from Algeria, featured ministers and senior officials from diverse regions assessing achievements, identifying challenges, and developing recommendations for ongoing digital cooperation efforts.

The roundtable was structured around three core themes identified by ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin: national digital priorities and implementation needs, emerging digital trends and risks, and the evolution of WSIS beyond 2025. Participants engaged in both plenary discussions and breakout sessions in designated rooms, with groups focusing on different aspects of digital transformation and international cooperation.

## Opening Remarks and Framework Setting

Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary-General, emphasized that “shared digital future is not just about technology, it’s about people,” stressing that decisions and policies must ensure technology improves lives and livelihoods while uplifting everyone with openness, fairness, and dignity. She outlined the three key discussion topics and reinforced that WSIS provides a platform for shared learning and collective progress.

Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, announced the launch of UNESCO’s Data Governance Toolkit, providing policymakers with actionable guidance for ethical data systems. He also highlighted UNESCO’s SPARC AI Alliance, bringing together 50 public administration schools globally, and presented concerning statistics that “only 21% of governments worldwide have policies on ethical use of AI in public administration, and only 18% of countries have a national data strategy.”

## National Digital Transformation Progress

### Infrastructure Development Achievements

Several countries reported significant progress in digital infrastructure development. Rashad Nabiyev, Minister of Digital Development and Transport from Azerbaijan, reported that 99.9% of households are connected to fiber-optic internet, positioning Azerbaijan among countries achieving near-universal high-speed connectivity. Azerbaijan also developed a comprehensive national AI strategy built around four pillars, though specific details were not elaborated in the discussion.

Shan Zhongde, Minister of Industry and Information Technology from China, outlined substantial infrastructure investments ensuring widespread connectivity coverage. China’s approach demonstrated attention to environmental sustainability, with 5G energy consumption reduced by 16% through investments in green technologies including lithium battery technology, smart solar power, and energy storage systems.

Aminata Zerbo Sabane from Burkina Faso highlighted infrastructure development progress, though technical difficulties during transmission limited the clarity of specific details shared.

### Comprehensive Digital Strategies

Leocadie Ndacayisaba from Burundi outlined a digital transformation strategy focused on public service digitization and institutional modernization, including fiber-optic connections development and digital training centers, though technical issues affected the complete transmission of details.

Ernesto Rodriguez Hernandez from Cuba emphasized the country’s commitment to creating digital skills and inclusive access while expanding telecommunication infrastructure, maintaining focus on equity and social justice despite facing international blockade challenges.

## Persistent Challenges and Digital Divides

### Infrastructure Disparities

Despite achievements in some countries, significant disparities remain in digital infrastructure development. Alioune Sall, Minister from Senegal, noted that “in 2025, at the time we’re speaking in Africa, the average coverage rate does not exceed 43%” while countries like Azerbaijan report coverage exceeding 95%. This disparity highlighted challenges in ensuring equitable participation in advanced technology discussions when basic connectivity remains problematic for many nations.

Jonathan Reid from Barbados emphasized that “40% of the planet is rural population,” requiring special consideration for advanced technologies and acknowledgment that much of the global population lives in rural settings with limited connectivity options.

### Financing and Resource Constraints

Meutya Viada Hafid, Minister from Indonesia, noted that while many countries have made progress in digital infrastructure and broadband expansion, “financing for infrastructure is still challenging,” particularly for developing nations seeking to bridge connectivity gaps.

Mark-Alexandre Doumba, Minister from Gabon, raised questions about mobilizing the financing community to support transitions into the AI economy, highlighting the need for ITU and other international organizations to facilitate access to funding for advanced technology adoption.

## Emerging Technologies and Governance

### Artificial Intelligence Governance

The discussion revealed significant gaps in AI governance frameworks globally. Countries demonstrated varying approaches to AI regulation, with some developing comprehensive national strategies while others expressed caution about premature regulatory frameworks that might stifle innovation.

Jonathan Reid from Barbados advocated for measured approaches, warning against rushing into strict regulations for technologies not fully understood, while noting that “so much of the work and the moment in time we are in are driven by news that scares us a little bit and so much of the conversation around AI does, in fact, scare some members of our population.”

### Cybersecurity Concerns

Cybersecurity emerged as a critical issue requiring both national investment and international cooperation. Meutya Viada Hafid emphasized that cybersecurity is “a paramount issue requiring continued investment and implementation of mitigation actions,” including child online protection and security of undersea cables that must be tackled internationally.

## Geopolitical Challenges

### Impact of International Tensions

Grigoriy Borisenko from the Russian Federation argued that sanctions impact technological infrastructure development and create security vulnerabilities, noting that “criminals do not observe sanctions, and our public sphere must observe the sanctions.”

Ernesto Rodriguez Hernandez from Cuba maintained that despite facing extensive sanctions, Cuba continues pursuing digital transformation with commitment to equity and social justice.

### Digital Sovereignty Questions

Sid Ali Zerrouki raised questions about the role of global technology companies, noting concerns about tech giants that “generate billion-dollar revenue, not investing a single penny in no country” while enforcing their own content moderation policies and resisting government regulations.

## Human-Centric Approaches and Inclusion

### Cultural and Linguistic Considerations

Samuel Nartey George from Ghana emphasized the importance of “content in local languages as main focus going forward,” highlighting the need for digital inclusion strategies that respect linguistic diversity and cultural contexts.

Meutya Viada Hafid stressed the need for “careful understanding of AI opportunities including cultural and language aspects,” recognizing that technology deployment must be sensitive to local contexts and needs.

## WSIS Framework Evolution

### Continued Relevance and Leadership

There was strong consensus that WSIS should continue as the central framework for digital cooperation, with ITU maintaining its leadership role. Cosmas Zavazava from ITU explained ITU’s responsibility for specific WSIS action lines including capacity building, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and e-applications.

### Relationship with Global Digital Compact

Participants expressed preference for “alignment” rather than “complementarity” between WSIS and the newer Global Digital Compact, with one speaker noting that “the diplomatic language of complementarity perhaps is too subtle” and advocating that “the GDC has to be in alignment with WSIS” to avoid duplication.

### Framework Modernization

Samuel Nartey George proposed evolutionary changes, suggesting that “WSIS was fit for purpose in Tunis in the early 2000s, but today we should move away from talking about the World Society on Information Society and rather talk about the digital society,” proposing rebranding to WSDIS (World Summit on Digital Society).

## Key Initiatives and Announcements

### UNESCO Programs

Tawfik Jelassi announced the launch of UNESCO’s Data Governance Toolkit and highlighted the SPARC AI Alliance initiative. Countries were encouraged to engage with UNESCO’s AI for public sector programs.

### Upcoming Events

Ministers were invited to participate in the World Telecommunication Development Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, scheduled for November 17-28, 2024. African ministers were also informed about the Smart Africa meeting and AFRINIC discussions.

## Areas of Consensus

Participants demonstrated widespread agreement on several key points:

– WSIS remains vital as the central framework for digital cooperation

– Digital transformation must prioritize human welfare, equity, and social justice

– Cybersecurity requires both national investment and international cooperation

– The multi-stakeholder approach is fundamental to WSIS success

– Significant disparities exist between regions and require targeted approaches

## Action Items and Next Steps

The secretariat was tasked with incorporating all group recommendations and text changes into final recommendations. The chair committed to presenting a consolidated summary at the Friday plenary session. ITU was encouraged to continue coordinating international cooperation efforts for digital infrastructure and capacity building.

The Global Digital Compact implementation is to be aligned with WSIS structures to avoid duplication, while the WSIS framework will be strengthened with continued multi-stakeholder engagement approaches.

## Conclusion

The WSIS+20 ministerial roundtable demonstrated both remarkable progress in global digital transformation and significant challenges that remain. While some countries have achieved near-universal connectivity and are advancing into AI technologies, others continue struggling with basic infrastructure development.

The discussion revealed that digital divides have evolved beyond simple connectivity issues to encompass complex challenges related to AI governance, cybersecurity, and international cooperation under geopolitical stress. The strong consensus on WSIS as the central framework for digital cooperation, combined with recognition of the need for framework evolution, provides a foundation for continued international collaboration.

The upcoming activities, including the World Telecommunication Development Conference in Baku and continued WSIS implementation, represent opportunities to consolidate insights from this discussion into actionable international commitments for the next phase of global digital development.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin: And this is my last slide, and at the workplace level, so we talked a lot about the national and the national framework of the regulations, but even at the workplace level, if you have a digital background, you know that we work by heart in what we’re supposed to do. Development requires more than infrastructure. It requires leadership. It requires political will to develop and deploy technology responsibly, no matter which portfolio your ministry holds. Finance, healthcare, education, the environment, and industry are so now deeply intertwined with digital that they demand effective policy coherence and coordination. And I think that’s where the WSIS makes a difference, by providing a platform for shared learning and collective progress. As we look ahead to the UN General Assembly’s 20-year review at the end of this year in December, I think we have, Excellencies, an opportunity. We have an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment, to reflect on what’s been achieved, and to identify how we can prepare for what’s to come. The Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact have reinforced this shared vision and also offers us useful guidance. Twenty years after the conclusion of the WSIS, or the Tunis phase of the WSIS, it’s the moment to make sure that this time-tested, multi-stakeholder framework continues to be future-ready, inclusive, and resilient. Let’s renew that shared purpose. As you discuss, we’re going to go into breakouts. We’ll get into that in a moment. But we’re going to focus on three key topics, national digital priorities, emerging digital trends, and of course, the WSIS beyond 2025. So I would encourage you to remember that our shared digital future is not just about technology. It’s about people. The decisions and the policies that you make must ensure that technology improves the lives and the livelihoods and uplifts everyone everywhere. As Minister Solly, you mentioned this morning in your speech so eloquently that we need to lead with openness, fairness, and dignity, if I got that right. But I thought that was a great message. So thank you again for being here. Thank you for your commitment to the WSIS process. And with that, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to turn to, I often call him my partner in crime, my friend and colleague, the ADGE of UNESCO. Please, Taufik, over to you.

Tawfik Jelassi: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Doreen, ITO Secretary General, Excellencies, Ministers, Ambassadors, Representatives, participants. Good afternoon to all of you. It’s an honor for me to be here with you today and to present the Director General of UNESCO, Madame Audrey Azoulay. First, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the ITU Secretary General, to the ITU as an organization for hosting this important meeting, and for their leadership. I would like also to acknowledge His Excellency Solly Malatzi, the new Chair of WSIS, South Africa’s Minister of Digital Technologies, but also to acknowledge the distinguished ministers present here with us. Mr. Alonso, and many others who have joined us today, whose commitment, engagement, continue to shape our collective work. Today, we can take pride in the achievements made by the WSIS process, which built a strong foundation for inclusive, human rights-based digital development. However, as we approach the WSIS Plus 20 Review, we are at a crossroads. The digital landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and new pressing challenges are emerging. These include artificial intelligence, data governance, and digital inclusion. These are no longer distant concerns. They are the imperatives of our time. The WSIS Plus 20 Review presents a unique opportunity to reflect on how we’ll confront the challenges ahead. This moment calls for reaffirming our commitment to an ethical, inclusive, and sustainable digital transformation, ensuring that our digital governance frameworks evolve in tandem with technological innovation, while addressing the widening digital divide that marginalizes so many. This is why UNESCO has long advocated for a reinvigorated, action-oriented WSIS 2.0 vision, a vision that accelerates progress towards achieving the goals we all share. Central to this are public administrations worldwide, governments and civil servants that hold the power to modernize service delivery, relationships with citizens, enhance transparency, foster participation, and ensure a secure, data-driven decision-making. Despite progress, the public sector still faces critical challenges. For instance, only 21% of governments worldwide have policies on the ethical use of AI. in public administration, and only 18 percent of countries have a national data strategy. Moreover, women, people with disabilities, and marginalized communities continue to face barriers to digital access. Nevertheless, the public sector is not just a stakeholder. It’s central to driving digital transformation. At UNESCO, we are committed to empowering this sector with the knowledge, tools, frameworks, and resources needed to lead change. Our AI for the public sector program has already reached 50 countries worldwide, equipping civil servants with the skills needed to leverage AI ethically and responsibly. Last June, we launched the SPARC AI Alliance, which brings together 50 public administration schools worldwide. Also, in partnership with the University of Oxford, we unveiled an open source online course on AI and digital transformation for the public sector. I encourage each one of you here, as well as your national schools of public administration, to engage with UNESCO regarding these initiatives. I’m also pleased to announce that yesterday, here, we officially launched the Data Governance Toolkit, How to Navigate Data in an AI Era. This work is an outcome of the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development’s Working Group. It provides policymakers with actionable guidance to ensure inclusive and ethical data systems, laying the groundwork for responsible AI development. In conclusion, the future we envision is one where technology serves as a powerful enabler of opportunities, justice, and equity for all. As we stand at this critical crossroads, I am reminded of the wise words of Nelson Mandela, who once said, quote, it always seems impossible until it’s done, end of quote. Let’s together take on this difficult challenge. Through our collective efforts, we can ensure that digital innovation benefits everyone, everywhere, that it respects human rights and fosters a future that is inclusive, ethical, and sustainable. Thank you.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin: Thank you so much, Dr. Jelassi. So I now have the honor of handing the floor to His Excellency Minister Solly Malatsi, our WSIS plus 20 chair and the co-chair of this ministerial roundtable.

Solly Malatsi: Excellency, over to you. Thank you very much, Secretary General, all excellencies, distinguished guests, and fellow friends. Our meeting this week is much more than just reviewing the progress of the WSIS process over the past two decades. We are definitely gathering to forge a collective forward, not just for the WSIS process, but also for the world’s digital agenda. Since its inception, WSIS has proven to be more than a mere process. It has become a platform for shared vision and coordinated action, and I firmly believe that its legacy lies in its enduring relevance. Both the Geneva Declaration and the Tunis agenda continue to shape the way we think about emerging technologies, rights, and responsibilities in the ever-evolving world of the digital age. One of the most forward-looking aspects of the original framework was the inclusion of an action on the ethical dimensions of the information society. The emergence of AI is not only prevalent because of the from both governments and the private sector. And in the area of digital skills, innovation, data governance, procurement reform, and digital literacy. And as this week has shown us, we can achieve so much more when we work together, but also when we collaborate with non-governmental stakeholders. Colleagues, as chair of the YSYS 20 High Level event, I’m very grateful towards all of you for the renewed energy and commitment that you have showcased in the official and sideline events that we have had in the build-up to this week. It is clear that we’ve got mammoth responsibilities, and we dare not do anything less than our best. Let us use the momentum we are having here and recommit ourselves to building a digital future that is open, inclusive, sustainable, and rights-based, and ultimately one that is about uplifting the people of the universe, most of whom remain unconnected. Thank you very much, Chair.

Speaker: Thank you so much, Chairman, Minister. With that, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to hand the floor to my colleague, Selina, who’s going to guide us in the next part of our deliberations. Please, Selina. Thank you, Secretary General. Your Excellencies, so the next part will be the breakout, where we have arranged for each of you to go into a group. There will be four groups. Let me see. Each group, I think you can put that onto the screen. So the rooms are, first of all, K, which is this room, Kilo, Room E, Echo, down the hall to your left, Room F, Foxtrot, at the end, on the left, and Room G, on the right, at the end. All three other breakout rooms are on this floor. Room K, ministers who have been assigned to Room K, please do remain in Room K. Each of the rooms will be moderated by a minister, and we thank the ministers from Algeria, Ghana, Indonesia and Barbados for agreeing to help us moderate each of these groups. You’ll be able to see which group you are in. They are on the screen. And as you have been, well, we have sent ahead to your focal points the topics which we would like to suggest that you discuss. I think the Secretary General has informed you what these are, national digital priorities, emerging digital trends, and WSIS beyond 2025. So the breakout room will take about an hour, and then we come back here at four o’clock. So we are five minutes before time, which should give us enough time to find our rooms, get comfortable, and then we will bring you back by four. Now, in each of these rooms, an elected official will also be present. In Room K is Dr. Cosmas Zabazava. In Room E would be Sezo Onoesan. The Secretary General is in Room F, and the Deputy Secretary General will be in Room G. So without further ado, Secretary General, I suggest that we go into the breakouts. It’s okay, you just go and sit in G. My colleagues will be outside to lead you to all three rooms, so just look out for them. They will be the ones shouting E, F, and G. Thank you. Thank you.

SidAli Zerrouki: So I’m calling just Excellency Minister Rashad from Azerbaijan, Excellency Aminata Zerbo from Burkina Faso, Excellency Leo Kadhi from Burundi, Excellency Zong Chan from China, Excellency Mr. Ernesto from Cuba, Excellency Mr. Radwan from Djibouti, Excellency Guido Gomez from Dominican Republic, Excellency Mark Alexander from Gabon, Excellency Abdulbaset from Libya, Excellency Gergur from Russian Federation, Excellency Mr. Alion Sel from Senegal, and last but not least, Excellency Sina Lawson from Togo. Please remain seated, so we’ll be starting very soon, and we’ll be having supporting us from the ITU, Dr. Cosmas, and also Mr. Arshana Gulati, and the reporter, Mrs. Nell McDonald. Thank you. So we shall be starting in the next… We are having a few spare minutes, so… Okay. Excellencies, fellow ministers, distinguished delegates, I’m truly honored to welcome you today to this high-level breakout session held at a pivotal moment, the 20th anniversary of the World Summit on the Information Society. As the digital era accelerates, our shared responsibility is to ensure that technology became a driver of equity, peace, and sustainability. Sustainable development, not fragmentation, neither exclusion. Today we’ll explore three strategic themes that lie with the heart of our collective digital trajectory. First, national digital priorities and implementation needs. Second, emerging digital trend and risk. Third… WeSis Beyond 2025, Achieving Future Milestones Together. Now I invite the ITU elected official to set the scene and introduce the spirit expectation of our dialogue.

Cosmas Zavazava: Thank you, thank you, Chair. I think you are aware, you are well briefed that there are three topics that we wanted to focus on, and it will be free flow. So we want to understand from you the national digital priorities and implementation needs. At ITU, our responsibility in the Development Bureau is to remain member-driven and to understand from the member states what their priorities are so that we can build viable and bankable projects that we can implement with partners. But we want also to discuss the issue of emerging trends, digital trends, because we want to align the regulatory, legal frameworks so that we can drive the digital development agenda or digital transformation at the right speed. And finally, within the context of the WeSis Beyond 2025, Achieving Future Milestones Together, we would like to understand from you what you think a multi-stakeholder platform should be, and also the need for partnerships that are resilient, that can help us to achieve universal meaningful connectivity and sustainable digital transformation, which are the two strategic goals of ITU. So I think the chair is going to go around, and you feel free to express yourselves.

Rashad Nabiyev: We can – thank you, thank you. So here we – According to the alphabetical order, so we start with Azerbaijan, His Excellency Rashad, Minister of Digital Development and Transport, you have exactly three minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Over the past two decades, the World Summit on the Information Society has played a key role in building a more inclusive, secure, and connected world. From the early days of dial-up to today’s fast-moving world of cloud services, data centers, and artificial intelligence, digital transformation has fundamentally changed the way we live and work. Azerbaijan has not only kept pace with the change, we have embraced it with determination and long-term vision. Today, I am proud to share that 99.9 percent of the households in Azerbaijan are connected to fiber-optic Internet, placing our country among a small group globally that has achieved near-universal high-speed connectivity. This milestone reflects our national commitment to digital inclusion. But connectivity is just the beginning. Our focus is on building a digitally empowered society. Platforms such as MyGov, the CIMA digital infrastructure, and our expanding e-government services are helping us deliver efficient, secure, and citizen-friendly public services. Since 2022, Azerbaijan has advanced nine places in the UN e-Government Development Index and achieved the status of a country with very high e-government development. We are also investing in digital trust and cybersecurity. Azerbaijan currently ranks as a top performer among CIA’s countries in the Global Cybersecurity Index with a score of 93.7 out of 100. Our national cybersecurity strategy and expanding CERT capabilities are helping us protect critical infrastructure and promote responsible data use. In March, we launched our National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the first unified state-led AI policy in our region. The strategy is built around the four pillars. Governance and Ethics with Clear Regulatory Standards and Human Oversight Infrastructure, Tier 3 Certified Data Centers, and National GPU Clusters to Support AI Training and Deployment Human Capital, led by our new AI Academy, which aims to train 500 engineers and 500 public sectors professionals by 2028 Innovations or supports for AI Startups, Public-Private Partnership, and Applied R&D Our approach ensures that AI development in Azerbaijan is ethical, inclusive, and aligned with the public interest, while enabling innovation in areas such as health care, education, smart agriculture, and telecommunication. As a host of COP29, we are also aligning our digital growth with our climate commitments through green ICT infrastructure, energy-efficient data centers, and sustainable network design. In closing, Azerbaijan believes that digital transformation must serve everyone, not just a few. Our vision is clear, a future where every citizen is connected, empowered, and protected. We stand ready to collaborate, to share our experience, and to build a smarter, safer digital world together. Thank you.

SidAli Zerrouki: Thank you, Excellency. In fact, three questions come to my mind, which is, what are the biggest policy or infrastructure bottlenecks? This was the three minutes, so you’ve been on time. Thank you, Excellency. So, what are the biggest policy or infrastructure bottlenecks to each and every country? And how has OASIS concretely helped your respective countries move forward in this digital move? What kind of international support your respective countries might need, or do still need? I would love that, if we can address those main topics, that would be fantastic. Now, Leo Kadhi from Burundi. Sorry, beg pardon, Excellency Aminat from Burkina Faso.

Aminata Zerbo Sabane: Thank you, Mr. Chair, hello everyone, dear colleagues, I would like to commend again the excellent frame of dialogue that the Information Society Summit represents and I would like to thank for this initiative that aims to install inclusive development of digital centered on humans and its well-being. My country, Burkina Faso, who liberalized its sector in the communication sector in the year 2000, has quickly adhered to the SMSI action plan, the WSIS action plan. We structured action around the implementation of a complete framework including cyber security and the protection of data, the building of structure and project for infrastructure connectivity, a backbone network of 3,000 kilometers in optical fiber accessible to all the operators and has considerably improved the high bandwidth coverage, 11,000 kilometers for the country. Implementation of internet cut points and of virtual connection points for the accessibility to services to structures like the national security, information security and the commission of freedom and liberty and the regulation authority for telecommunication and postal services have been implemented to deal with the cyberspace, the privacy protection and the regulation of the communication sector, electronic communication. to many initiatives in order to meet these challenges, to overcome these challenges and to continue our march towards a more inclusive information society that does not leave anyone behind. We can quote the reinforcement of digital inclusion with the idea to cover until 2027 all our look at the idea is no non-connected areas and this year we already have 750 areas that are being covered. the acceleration of the dematerialization of public services in order to have an administration that is more reactive, more performing and more efficient and closer to the user below development of skills a cynical non-conditions to manage our digital transform in many projects in order to have local activities that are able to support our ambition. I’m sorry, we have lost the sound. I conclude here by reaffirming the engagement of Burkina Faso in a transparent and solidarity to cooperation with all the countries in order to build an inclusive information society for the benefit of populations development and peace and that does not anyone on the side of the road.

SidAli Zerrouki: Thank you, your excellency. I remind that you allocated time for each minister. So now I hand over to Excellency Liu Kadhi from Burundi. Thank you.

Leocadie Ndacayisaba: Thank you for giving me the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished participants, the WSIS is a strategic challenge for international cooperation and sustainable development of emerging and developing countries. For Burundi, the participation in the summit, it goes beyond just the experience sharing. It really embodies a true opportunity to have technical and financial partnerships, re-inform our national capacities and position our country. as an emergent but nevertheless major actor of the digital inclusive economy on the African continent. Within its digital transformation, Burundi has launched an ambitious dynamic aiming to lay the groundwork of an inclusive digital economy, resilient and sustainable. We are aware of the central roles of ITC in the modernization of public administration, the reinforcement of transparency and the improvement of services rendered to citizens. The government of Burundi has launched 2021 the support project for the foundation of digital economy with the support of the World Bank. This project is fully part of the strategic vision of the country for emerging Burundi 2014-2060. The strategy for 2014-2060 we have among others the digitization of the public services from 2023 to 2033 and all the orientations converge closely on the society in training, also the objectives of the global compact. The project is centered around two main pillars. The first one devoted to the access to high-speed internet and digital inclusion with the aim to reducing the digital divide by developing fiber-optic connections across the entire country, creation of digital training centers and implementation of basic digital literacy programs for women, for young people and for vulnerable minorities. The second point is focused on the digitization of public services linked on the implementation of an institutional framework, modernize the development of platforms. And we have sadly lost the communication. The interpreter apologizes, but we have lost. Please, Keion, try to ramp up, please. One minute to finish. …of the privacy data and also the revision of the national action plan on ITC that is aligned with the national development and revised plan and the revision of Burundi being an emerging country and developed in 2060. Thank you very much.

SidAli Zerrouki: …go just like with volunteers, where we need to cover the main three topics, which is national digital priorities and implementation needs, and then emerging digital trend and risk, and where it is beyond 2025, achieving the future milestones altogether. So, I prefer maybe we change the way how we need to conclude, and then please, if any volunteers, try to stick to the three minutes, please. Yes, please, Excellency from Dominican Republic.

Julissa Cruz: Very good afternoon. I’m Julissa Cruz, Executive Director of the Regulatory Authority of the Dominican Republic. The World Summit on Information Society in the past 20 years has taken the Dominican Republic to position itself as fourth in the world. We really need to make a great effort in order to support certain economies and emerging countries like my country, the Dominican Republic. I want to conclude with my gratitude to the ITU because we must continue promoting innovation so that we really make that leap towards digital development that will support the economy of the country. I think we have great opportunities ahead. Thank you very much.

Abdulbaset Albaour: Thank you for this meeting. I would like to speak by Arabic regarding the challenges that face most of the countries in the world. I am not talking about the internal issues because the technology today is possible to achieve for any country to adopt and can be utilized inside those countries. With regards to Libya, inside Libya we have, and then according to the reports of the ITU, we have achieved many achievements, which is demonstrated in the reports of the ITU. With regards to the priorities that are usually faced by worldwide countries, we have to speak about the world has become a small village. This perspective, which requires, a vision that requires of diminishing the technological gap or the digital gap. which requires true governance and artificial intelligence. We need a pact for the proper governance. I don’t want to take longer than that. Those are the main points that we need to work upon.

SidAli Zerrouki: Now I hand over to Excellency the Minister of Industry and Information Technology from the Republic of China.

Shan Zhongde: Our Honored Excellencies, colleagues, in the last 20 years China has been implementing the promises and we are enlarging the connections. We have a lot of these work and every city has 1,000 megabytes, every county has 5G, every village has broadband in a lot of our village areas. Our users only need five to six dollars per month. They can have their cell phones and internet and their internet TVs. We have a lot of policies and we have a total of 11 these innovation centers and 50 international standards DeepSeek and Hongmeng open platform and open OLA and these public products and our contributions. We continue to do our work and to do this green development 2024 5G stations per tower and the daily consumption energy consumption is down by 16 percent and overall and we have like a 4 billion this kilowatt hours and purchase and we have a lithium battery and smart this volatile solar power and energy storages. And based on this topic and for the development and opportunities and the challenges, we have three suggestions. And the technology should benefit people, and we should do this for general and inclusive information society. No one should be left behind. This is the core mission, and we should continue to deepen our cooperation to promote 5G networks, the computing capabilities, satellite, internet connectivities, and this CBAT, the internet cable connections, and to do the digital transformations, and to close the digital device and this intelligent device, and to promote the global south strategy. And the second is the standards should touch on the whole world to have this opening and the sharing mentality and the new generation of information technology. We need the investment on research and innovation, have the applications, and especially this for we expect the ITU to use its members’ capabilities to do more research exchanges, and we can get more knowledge, more technology, and more people. These are the key aspects and the assets. And number three, we need to embrace a green future to have this green and environmental protection and information society 2030. These sustainable development goals are the major guidelines. We need ITU to set up these platforms and use our experiences and try to take on the challenges of climate change and the resource shortages. We will do this for the future and leave a good digital future for our next generations to come. All the colleagues, this information communication technology connects everyone together. We have the same destiny in the future. China would like to work with everybody, deepening our cooperations and to have a more prosperous, more inclusive, more sustainable digital future. Thank you everyone.

SidAli Zerrouki: In this emerging technology such as AI, quantum, IOTs, and space-based solutions are no longer abstract. They are actively reshaping sovereignty, security, and equity. But governance of these tools remains fragmented. The divide today is no longer just about access to the Internet. It’s about access to trust, compute, power, ethical innovation. How each and every country is integrating AI into the public services securely, especially that cyber security threat is there on a daily basis. What partnerships have helped with 5G today? Satellite or resilient infra? Are we collectively prepared for the geopolitical shift of quantum and AI? So the floor is yours, Excellencies. Yes, please.

Grigoriy Borisenko: Thank you very much, Mr. President, dear ministers, briefly talking about the idea which you mentioned. Thank you very much for our discussion. I’d like to say that our digital technologies are at maximum point integrated in our activities, and we care at the same time about the welfare of our citizens. And it is important to develop them in an open and dynamic way. In Russia, one of the main challenges recently are the sanctions from the West countries, which impacted the technological infrastructure and different information technologies. So, one of our priorities today in the digital sphere is the response to these sanctions. The sanctions by themselves produced a reverse effect, because our digital economy continues to grow, and in many cases more rapidly than in many countries. But I think our priority must be shared by the world community, because sanctions imposed on countries impact irredeemably the development of technologies and also the security sphere, because criminals do not observe sanctions, and our public sphere must observe the sanctions. And this deepens the digital divide. If we talk about those who can be under such sanctions, and in this room we have representatives of countries who are under secondary sanctions, this bears a discriminatory character and impedes us in solving our common problems. So, we suggest that ITU as an international platform helps, if not in removing totally those problems, but at least to mitigate the consequences of sanctions for the new technologies. Talking about 5G, it is impossible to put 5G towers in Russia, and we have to recreate this technology in our country from scratch. At the same time, this situation saps the whole potential of the world community in the technologies sphere, and the investments which are needed in the technologies use sphere, they also need time and slow down our progress, and it slows down our progress towards achieving the welfare of our citizens. We have a large experience as regards response to sanctions. It’s relocating our infrastructure inside the country, creating our different technologies in different spheres, but we are ready to share our experience with every partner within the framework of any information union and in any platform. Thank you. Excellency, thank you. Your mic, please.

Ernesto Rodriguez Hernandez: Thank you. Excellencies, Dear colleagues, we have identified three priority actions in Cuba, actions that are interconnected in order to achieve a technology-based, information technology-based development. First of all, the creation of digital skills, both basic and advanced, including everything related to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other emerging technologies. Inclusive access to technologies because of the personal and professional growth is also another priority for our government. And the third priority is to develop, amongst the huge difficulties that we have, the expansion of telecommunication infrastructure, stability, security, resilience and the quality of our services. And we have lost the connection, so we cannot continue interpreting at this moment in time. As soon as we get back the connection, our interpretation service will continue. Thank you for your patience. …unified for online processes and services and digital identity, public-private collaboration is favoured, technology-based companies are promoted, the development of the TIC industry… Unfortunately, the problem is still not solved. We are waiting for the connection to be restored. Thank you for your patience. … It looks like we got the connection back. You can… Right now, there are initiatives that are being deployed, such as a unified platform for online services regarding digital ID. We are favoring private-public partnerships. We are helping technology-based industries, the development of the TIC, the ITC industries, accessibility programs for people with disabilities, and progress for women, and we are also updating the legal framework, and we are also strengthening the technological sovereignty. We have been aiming at providing society with competences and skills that will be able to make a humanist approach, an ethical approach of data, including its governance, where we can foster the culture of innovation within the framework of a safe digital environment that will contribute to the best welfare and well-being of all citizens, men and women, and in general, of the country. This development is done despite the fact that the government of the United States of America has imposed coercive measures on us, which is the longest blockade that we have seen against any nation in the world. As our Russian Federation colleague has said, they do not understand how these measures have caused and what they have caused to all the citizens, despite the inhuman limitations from these sort of measures. We will not refuse to develop and to grow and to have digital transformation as one of our development pillars, and we will never Surrender our right to be a useful member of the United Nations and to be a member of WSIS. Cuba has a firm decision to build a digital future that benefits society as a whole and that fosters equity, social justice and sovereignty. Thank you.

SidAli Zerrouki: Your Excellency, thank you so much. So, done, but I have still the other last topic, WSIS 2025 and beyond. Twenty years on, WSIS remains a cornerstone, but a digital environment that has radically changed. The coming review in December, it’s a rare chance to reshape the architecture of a global digital governance. Should WSIS be upgraded to a more binding framework? How can we embed the global digital compact commitment into national planning? Please, Excellency from Gabon.

Mark-Alexandre Doumba: Thank you very much, Excellency. Hello, everyone. Very nice to be here, dear friends and colleagues. I would like to share a perspective where, assuming you have a country where there is a new ministry of digital economy and, you know, intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the ITU is the only body out there to support his policy planning, the implementation of his growth strategy, the planning with regards to building capacity for its people, whether it’s the workers or students. I think to me, when I look at the evolution of WSIS, it should be as a body. So But we’re toying with that option. The other option is to look at other countries that have already made those investments. There’s so many platforms out there, application software, and looking at ways to come in and import them in our countries to move more quickly. But then we need to be able to have a portal where we can sort of see a catalogue, a menu of those different platforms, but they should be open source so that our entrepreneurs or coders can take them on, build them and just move that much more quickly. You know, it’s very similar with regards to funding. How can, you know, we see going forward help, you know, mobilize the funding community, the financing community to sort of support on things that are specific to transitioning into the AI economy. Many of our countries, again, are faced with basic infrastructure challenges, and we don’t yet have the resources to think about how I can leapfrog into, you know, the next 10 years, 20 years. I think, you know, if this institution could, you know, do, you know, that work of mobilizing financial sponsors to support some of our economies, I think it would be very, very good. I know multilateralism is struggling, but perhaps ITU can go in the opposite direction and bring people closer. I think there is a topic also about, well, I spoke of technology stacks, I spoke of, you know, mobilizing sponsors, I spoke of making R&D available for our countries in order to move more quickly. I spoke about ITU supporting countries’ capacity building even further. I really see this organization, WESIS, as an organization that can help our countries scale up, converge, work together, and just accelerate and improve our preparedness to the AI economy, which has many implications for our country’s development. Thank you so much.

SidAli Zerrouki: Thank you, Excellency. Thank you for this strategic point that you’ve been pointing. In fact, let me speak now as minister of my country, right? One of the topics which is very, very crucial and important today, we have this OTT tech giant that is spreading technology here and there, and in many other countries, such as some African countries, other Latin American countries, and here and there, they just keep on spoiling data, generating billion-dollar revenue, not investing a single penny in no country. There is no impact. Moreover, on top of that, they are just setting the rules. When it comes to the mind, they say, we ban this account for this influencer or content creator because it does not comply with their policies. But when it comes to government policies, they say, no, no, no, freedom, right to talk, right to express itself. So this could be one of the pillars that we, united all of us, okay, we should raise the voice, this is our respective countries, this is our respective policies that they need to cope with first. And likewise, we have on the other side these universal services where each country imposes, like, taxes on mobile operators, where they have to reverse to the government taxes that they need to invest in spreading network here and there. Same, same, it has to be like for this content-spreading tech giant, they need to pay tax for these countries, right? And this could be part of the funding you just asked for, Excellency. Thank you so much. And then I give the floor to Mr. Minister.

Alioune Sall: Thank you very much, dear colleagues, dear moderator, ladies and gentlemen, it’s an honour for us to take I was here to talk about the strategy in Senegal by my colleague from Gabon made me change my mind regarding the question that you asked, which seems to me to be an essential question. I don’t think we’re talking about the same basics. The minister from Azerbaijan was saying previously that the coverage rate in his country was exceeding 95%. In 2025, at the time we’re speaking in Africa, the average coverage rate does not exceed 43%. As an international organization, I believe that there are real questions here. We’re talking about the fourth industrial revolution, but if all countries are not starting from the same starting point, then there will be discrepancies in the way we approach those technologies. My brother from the Russian Federation was talking about the stakes related to cyber security. We’re talking about stakes related to connectivity, to the stakes related to cyber resilience. I’m not saying that I’m conveying the voice of Africa, but I think we should correct those discrepancies, the ones that are dealing with universal connectivity, satellite technologies, 5G, optic fibers, fiber optics. We know that these are very costly infrastructures, but there is no infrastructure. There is no sub-regional strategies. In the past, there’s been some initiatives in Africa with sharing of experience, but I think the role that WSIS should play should be that for African countries that are lacking resources in accessing connectivity, that there should be a discussion group so we could pull together some infrastructures in terms of connectivity, in terms of cyber security, which are global stakes. Our ambition today is to have a 95% universal coverage by 2034. We know it’s very complicated because if each country, you know, we’ve had strategies for years, but if everybody is trying to deal with those connectivities on its own, these connectivities are universal connectivities. You cannot have a robust information system if you don’t have all assets related to cyber security. So, this is going beyond a country level. We are all involved in this process because populations that are deprived from the means of having access to this, I believe this should be a right. The fact that we live in urban areas, we do have the possibility to study on the internet, but we have to think about the people who are living in remote villages and we talk about digital inclusion. Digital inclusion should have a meaning. We were talking about financing, but this is like starting over and over. regarding all technologies that have been developed so far. I’m talking about my country, which is Senegal, with 18 million inhabitants. It’s a very young country. Half of the population is less than 19 years old. 75% is less than 30 years old. And this is the situation in most African countries. So we see how our countries are evolving. We know the population is going to double. We talk about 1 billion people. They will have to be connected. And we think about all the digital platforms that will have to be developed. So if we want to talk about universality in this area, which I believe is essential. Thank you so much, Mr. Moderator. That’s what I wanted to add to that point. Thank you very much.

Cosmas Zavazava: Thank you very much. I would like just to guide you to say that there are a number of recommendations under either thematic topic that were sent to you. In the room, we have got two colleagues sitting in that corner. One is supporting technically on the content. The other one is the rapporteur. When we come back into plenary, the rapporteur is going to report back. They captured everything that you raised. I would like to recognize, just to clarify one thing. As you well know, within the WSIS, there are action lines. And ITU is responsible for the following action lines, which we implement. Capacity building, cyber security, infrastructure, and E-applications. We jointly implement the E-applications environment with UNITA and other UN agencies. So there is a great opportunity. I recognize, of course, the presence of The Minister of Azerbaijan and I want to thank him. He’s going to be our next host for the next World Telecommunication Development Conference, which is going to be held in Azerbaijan, Baku, from 17 to 28 of November this year. The ministers are cordially invited to come. And we have already sent invitation letters. There is an opportunity for the ministers to speak and provide or deliver policy statements during the high-level segment. Please indicate your interest so that we can reserve slots for you. You are going to have a great time. We were provided excellent facilities in Baku. The food in Baku is extraordinary. You are going to have a very good time there. So Minister, we thank you for hosting us. And we are working very closely with the team. Now why is this relevant? It is relevant because the topics and the discussions that we have had here, you can bring them to WTDC. Of course, we have captured them. But this is an opportunity because that is the highest level of conference for the development sector. And you will be giving us instructions to implement certain measures by way of resolutions or by way of thematic topics. And also the declaration that is going to be adopted in the strategic plan of the development sector as it contributes to the overall ITU strategic plan. So I would like to cordially invite you to come at your level and also to have your consideration for young people because on the 16th, the day before, we are going to have a celebration day for young people, for the youth, who are going to participate in a number of exciting activities organized by our host country. Thank you.

SidAli Zerrouki: Thank you, Director. Thank you, Excellencies, for your kind participation. And I just mentioned that all your comments have been reported and captured integrally and they’ll be communicated later on. So thank you so much. I think we are good in terms of timing, so it gave us some spare time, maybe a couple of minutes to stretch or to have some coffee. Thank you so much. Just between brackets and out of this meeting, for African ministers, there’s also Smart Africa, right? And we have this afternoon a meeting also about a topic which is very sensitive, which is AFRINIC, and also the future of IP addresses within Africa. So it will be held at 5.47 this afternoon. There is a group managed by Mr. Lassina, a Canadian DG. Thank you so much. We’ll be back here at five o’clock?

Solly Malatsi: Okay. Excellencies, welcome back from the breakaway groups and thank you to all of you for the engagements that you had in their respective groups. I managed to attend at least three of those and I appreciated the contributions that took place in each of them and to thank the moderators who will now be leading us with their report back sessions from their respective groups. We’ll start with His Excellency from Algeria, followed by Ghana, then the Barbados, and then Indonesia will be the last group. In that order, I’ll hand over to His Excellency Zerrouki from Algeria. Thank you very much.

SidAli Zerrouki: Thank you, Excellency and Chairman. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the diverse group of high-level representatives reflected on two decades of digital transformation and considered the path forward for inclusive, sustainable digital cooperation. The dialogue underscored the urgency of ensuring that digital technology serves equity, peace, sustainability, particularly as the digital divide evolves beyond Internet access to encompass AI, trust, and governance. The Chair proposed three topics, national digital priority and implementation needs, emerging digital trend, and why it is beyond 2025. Under the first topic, many delegations highlighted significant progress in expanding connectivity, digital infrastructure, public service digitalization, and financial inclusion. Several countries reported near-universal broadband coverage, national AI strategy, and strong performance into global digital. and others. Others emphasized the importance of foundational reforms such as liberalizing communication sector, enacting data protection laws, and launching digital literacy programs, especially for women, youth, and marginalized groups. Despite this gain, persistent challenges remain, rural and underserved populations still lack access, digital skill gaps, and funding constraints limit the pace of infrastructure deployment, keeping in mind the need for green digital solutions. There was broad consensus that OASIS should remain the central framework for digital cooperation with the continued ITU leadership and annual multi-stakeholder forum to sustain momentum. On the second topic, participants acknowledged the transformative potential of the technology like 5G, AI, IOTs, and quantum computing. These innovations are reshaping economic and public services, but also introduce new risks, particularly around cybersecurity, ethical governance, and infrastructure resiliency. Several interventions stressed the need for inclusive access to emerging technology, especially in underserved regions, and called for international cooperation to ensure that AI and space-based technology are developed responsibly. Trust, transparency, and a fairness AI system were required in them, with a call for a global governance framework that respects national sovereignty while promoting shared standards and safeguards. Last but not least, under the third topic, the upcoming UN General Assembly review in December was seen as a pivotal opportunity to assess progress. and Recalibrate Strategy. Delegates emphasized the importance of integrating the global digital compact into the OASIS architecture to avoid duplication and ensure coherence. Many called for a more binding framework to strengthen digital cooperation, including mechanisms for financing capacity building and knowledge sharing. Doreen was interested in developing an open source platform and digital public good support innovation and policy experimentation, particularly in a resource-constrained setting. Overall, Roundtable reaffirmed the enduring relevance of OASIS as a platform for inclusive digital development and highlighted the need for a sustainable political will, multi-stakeholder engagement, and international solidarity to bridge divide, harness emerging technology, and ensure that the digital future is equitable and secure and sustainable for all. Thank you very much.

Solly Malatsi: Thank you very much, His Excellency. We will now move over to Group E that was led by His Excellency George from Ghana.

Samuel Nartey George: Thank you very much, Chair, and I think that we would associate ourselves largely with the report from Algeria and not want to bore everybody. We just make a few additions so that we don’t have to repeat the same points. We had conversations about the fact that the OASIS process has led to the establishment of universal access funds, for example, in some of the member states, and those are some of the benefits that the OASIS actions lines have led to in our countries and the need for us to continue to build on those successes. Some countries have established their cyber security and certs in H.E. H.E. H.E. One key thing that came up was the fact that as we continue to drive the information society, we need to have an eye on the cost of devices so that that drops down the entry barrier for more people to be onboarded onto the digital community. There’s also the need for us to continue the multistakeholder engagements and the fact that the WSIS platform remains a key critical part. And going forward for us, one of the key things that came up was the need for us to have more content in local languages. And that should be a main focus of the WSIS plus 20 going forward. We had three broad changes to the recommendations, but they don’t change it substantially. The first was the suggestion that WSIS was fit for purpose in Tunis in the early 2000s. But today we should move away from talking about the World Society on Information Society, but we should rather be talking about the digital society. And so that’s for the consideration of the House. If we want to change it from WSIS to WSDIS, that’s going to be up to us to make a decision. And then on the final draft recommendation, we inserted human-centric as one of the key things that we thought needed to be part of – because we’re looking at the global human rights, and so we decided to include human-centric. And then we ended as well with introducing the phrase through continued multistakeholder engagements, because we thought that in the draft recommendation, it didn’t highlight the key essence of what WSIS is, the platform for multistakeholder engagement. And so we introduced that as well for the consideration of the larger group. Thank you.

Solly Malatsi: Thank you very much, His Excellency George. We’ll now move over to Group G, led by His Excellency Reid from Barbados.

Jonathan Reid: Thank you so much. And I’m taking the line from my colleague directly across from me, acknowledging all the said before, and largely in agreement, and not wanting to bore you with an AI-enabled summary. But just pulling on some core key components that I felt was quite interesting in the discussion. One led by the colleague from Honduras, who spoke quite a bit of fully acknowledging the need to understand that 40% of the planet is of rural population, and acknowledging that there needs to be special consideration for advanced technologies with the acknowledgement that so much of the planet lives in rural settings, and therefore special considerations must be made about that. The colleague from Nepal made special recommendation and reference to green digitization. As many of us are in a race towards enabling our nations to stand up digitized data centers and advanced compute centers, the constant need to be us to thinking about electricity generation, the cost of it, the impact of it, needs to be at the forefront of our mindsets and our thinkings, and that was well received by the group. The colleagues from UAE and Zimbabwe, in varying ways, made reference to the fact that us all, we are at different stages of our digital development, and we need to be cognizant of the fact that there is opportunities for collaboration and sharing and learning with each other, whether it’s resources or it may be investment, there’s an opportunity for acknowledgement of where you are in terms of your digital cycle, and then collaborating on it. The colleague of the United States of America, I think, made a very strong point regarding not being so firm to rush to strict and irreversible in some ways regulations around where we are thinking about framing the do’s and don’ts of AI, which we don’t fully yet understand where it’s at, that there’s an opportunity to I’m going to start with the sidebar conversation that we had. Of course there was large support for WSIS and the power of having a uniform platform of broad development, a power of where conversation and voices could be heard and different ideas can contend, but the balance could become clear at the end of a conversation. And one I think that was particularly powerful came from a member from Kenya who reminded us that a lot of us are doing very, very good work and a lot of very good programs are happening without full knowledge of the world and in some cases our population, our communities, for those to exist and the good news to come out of it. So much of the work and the moment in time we are in are driven by news that scares us a little bit and so much of the conversation around AI does, in fact, and advanced technologies, does scare some members of our population. So we need to always make sure that we are very much operating with a human-centric perspective and allowing the goodness of the work that we are doing.

Solly Malatsi: Thank you very much. And for the last report, we’ll come from Group F, led by Meutya Viada Hafid from Indonesia.

Meutya Viada Hafid: Thank you, Chair. It’s an honor for me to report back on behalf of the Breakout Room F, where ministers engage in a rich and robust forward-looking discussions on three critical topics related to OASIS Plus 20 process and our shared digital future. And participants reaffirmed the lasting impact of OASIS process over the past 20 years. Many ministers highlighted significant progress in digital infrastructure and broadband expansion. However, it was also noted that digital divides persist, particularly in rural and underserved areas, and the financing for infrastructure is still challenging. It was also stressed out the importance of digital literacy and capacity building. Sorry, I’ll just open my – there was also a strong recognition that international cooperation is essential to support infrastructure development, trust frameworks, and cybersecurity mechanism, especially for least developed and small island state. The group also discussed emerging digital trends, and many countries are exploring regulatory approaches to ensure ethical, transparent, and secure adoption of AI, while also fostering innovations. With emerging technologies, our group also discussed how careful understanding of opportunities is also important, and that includes opportunities for cultural and also language. Thus, skills – upskilling is needed, and knowledge sharing becomes an important issue in that context. We also discussed about cybersecurity and how it is a paramount issue. There is a need to continue to invest and implement mitigation actions. Child online protection is also one concern that is discussed in Group F. Security of emerging technology, security of undersea cables that has to be tackled internationally. And also, of course, to close, we all agree that WSIS is important and should continue to play a role in digital development. ITU should continue to play a leading role moving forward, and WSIS should continue also to strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach.

Solly Malatsi: Thank you. Thank you very much, Excellency, and to all the moderators for their feedback. Just to underscore one point, because there were several recommendations that also emerged from the different groups, that those will be reflected in the chair’s summary that encapsulates the totality of the discussion. There was in one of the groups a suggestion around some possible text change in terms of the word, and I’ll ask the secretariat just to elaborate on that in the process that they will follow. It was a very good suggestion from Qatar around the use of the word complementarity and the sequencing with the global digital impact so that we give prominence to the work that is done through WSIS.

Speaker: Thank you, Your Excellency. I noticed that one of the groups has made changes, and these changes have been reflected. I assure the other groups that the secretariat will take the minor changes which you have agreed in your groups to put into the text, and we will clean that up and hand that over to the chair. And all other comments, as the chair has mentioned, will be gathered and put into the chair’s report. For the group that Minister Mutia was moderating, there were two revisions or two additions which were suggested, and I will just describe them. Under emerging digital trends, the group agreed, the ministers agreed that ITU’s role in coordinating the first bullet should be emphasised or should be included. It says here, governments and other stakeholders are encouraged to strengthen collaboration and the group felt that we should include the fact that ITU plays a coordinating role and so ITU should coordinate this and we will put that into the text. The second point has to do with the WSIS Beyond 2025 recommendation and that is, as you can see right now, the word complementarity appears in the third line. It says, by strengthening existing WSIS structures in complementarity to the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, the group felt very strongly that it should be alignment and there should be no duplication at all and the diplomatic language of complementarity perhaps is too subtle and therefore, to use the word alignment, it would mean that we will say that the GDC has to be in alignment with WSIS and so we will arrange that text and put it into this. I’m very happy to see that other groups have included the multi-stakeholder engagement because that was another point that emerged from our group. Chair, thank you very much. The Secretariat will work on this and we will present it to you. Thank you.

Solly Malatsi: Thank you very much to the Secretariat for consolidating all of the input and the observations from the different groups and I hope the room is in agreement with the approach that we are outlining in terms of incorporating those views and we thought that it is important to bring it to the Forum for Transparency so that everyone in the group has a sense of even the most of minute.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin: infrastructure resilience and protecting cultural and linguistic diversity. And I’m also hearing this this push for continuous investment in inclusive digital access, digital literacy, education, and local content to ensure that no one is left behind. The road to December to the General Assembly high level event I think runs through us. No matter how fast technology advances, we must never give up on placing humanity and shared values at the core of innovation. The last 20 years of WSIS are proof of the value in really working together across sectors, across institutions, and borders to drive digital development progress. I think the clock is ticking and the world of course is watching. So together, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let’s continue transforming the WSIS vision into impact so that our digital cooperation ultimately results in universal, meaningful connectivity and sustainable digital transformation for all. With that, Excellencies, I think I pass the

Solly Malatsi: floor back to you, my co-chair. Minister. Thank you very much. Colleagues, it’s been a really fruitful endeavor to be able to break into the different groups and come to this text that is now in front of us. So for that, I just want to thank all of you for your leadership in the respective groups that we had. Special mention to the moderators who were able to facilitate the discussions that took place and to come with a unified position. And also to thank the Secretariat and all of their technical team for how quickly they also worked in making sure that the summaries reflect the views of the whole group. We’ve got an exciting It’s very difficult to decide if we can make this happen. It’s very difficult to make this happen. I think it’s a very difficult decision for all of us. It’s a very difficult decision for all of us. So I’m looking forward to sharing that with the rest of plenary so that you can see that the work that we collectively do is reflected even in the commitments and the vision that will outline on Friday when we present the chair’s summary. With that, thank you very much, and enjoy the rest of the other sessions that you’ll be attending. Thank you.