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Summary

This French-speaking roundtable discussion at the Internet Governance Forum focused on the challenges facing Francophone countries in digital governance and artificial intelligence, particularly regarding inclusion, cultural diversity, and data governance. The session was moderated by a representative from Francophonie and included Chad’s Minister of Telecommunications Boukar Michel, French Digital Ambassador Henri Verdier, UN Economic Commission for Africa representative Mactar Seck, and Professor Destiny Tchehouali from the University of Quebec in Montreal.

Minister Michel emphasized how digital technologies and AI present new opportunities to strengthen Francophone ties, building on the historical foundation established by leaders like Léopold Sédar Senghor. He highlighted the need for better digital infrastructure, particularly through programs like Connect Africa, and stressed the importance of creating AI tools that work effectively in French and local African languages. Ambassador Verdier drew parallels between the origins of Francophonie as a shared linguistic commons and the current digital landscape, arguing that digital resources should remain accessible to all rather than being captured by large tech monopolies.

The discussion revealed significant challenges facing Francophone countries, including limited internet access for 2.6 billion people globally and the dominance of English-language content online. Professor Tchehouali introduced the concept of “discoverability,” explaining how French content, despite representing 6% of web content, struggles to be recommended by algorithms that favor English-language material. The participants identified data governance as a critical issue, with Seck noting that individual countries cannot effectively negotiate with tech giants like Google and Facebook alone.

The speakers agreed that regional cooperation through Francophonie is essential to address these challenges, with plans to continue discussions at an upcoming Geneva summit to develop concrete proposals for improving digital inclusion and preserving linguistic diversity in the AI era.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital Inclusion and Infrastructure Challenges**: The discussion highlighted that 2.6 billion people still lack internet access, with particular focus on connecting rural territories in Francophone countries and ensuring meaningful connectivity beyond basic access. Speakers emphasized the need for shared infrastructure projects like regional fiber optic networks and data centers.

– **Language Diversity and Cultural Preservation in AI**: A central concern was how to preserve French and other Francophone languages (over 1,000-2,000 languages in the Francophone space) in the age of AI, which is predominantly trained on English data. The concept of “discoverability” was introduced – ensuring Francophone content can be found and recommended online despite representing only 6% of web content.

– **Data Governance and Digital Sovereignty**: Extensive discussion on the need for Francophone countries to control their own data rather than being dependent on major tech companies (GAFAM – Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft). Speakers called for regional cooperation to negotiate with tech giants and establish frameworks for data protection and value sharing.

– **Francophone Cooperation and Institutional Response**: Strong emphasis on the need for coordinated action among Francophone countries, moving beyond individual national efforts to collective regional approaches. The discussion called for ministers and governments to actively engage in international digital governance forums.

– **Capacity Building and Innovation**: Focus on training young people in AI and digital technologies, supporting local content creation, and digitizing existing cultural and governmental data that currently exists but isn’t digitized.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how Francophone countries can collectively address challenges in digital governance and artificial intelligence, particularly focusing on inclusion, cultural/linguistic diversity, and data sovereignty. It served as preparation for upcoming meetings in Geneva at the World Summit on Information Society.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was collaborative and urgent throughout, with speakers expressing both concern about being left behind in the digital revolution and optimism about the potential for Francophone cooperation. There was a consistent sense of urgency about the need to act collectively rather than individually, with speakers emphasizing that the Francophone space represents a significant global market (over 1 billion people, 15-16% of global GDP) that should have more influence in digital governance. The discussion maintained a constructive, solution-oriented approach while acknowledging serious challenges.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Moderator**: Session moderator for this French-speaking round table on digital governance and AI

– **Boukar Michel**: Minister of Telecommunications, Digital Transformation of Administration, and Digital Economy of the Republic of Chad

– **Henri Verdier**: Ambassador of Digital for France

– **IGF Central Africa representative** (Mactar Seck): Head of the technology and innovation section within the Economic Commission of the United Nations for Africa, based in Addis Ababa; Coordinator for IGF for Central Africa

– **Destiny Tchehouali**: Professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, specialist on issues of diversity and discoverability (participating remotely from Montreal)

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

**Additional speakers:**

– **Abdelgeril Bacharbon**: From Chad, coordinator of IGF Chad, president of House of Africa

– **Nicole Baibé-Kennedy**: From Chad, Director of Electronic Communications at the Ministry of Telecommunications, Digital Economy and Digitalization of the Public Administration

– **Sébastien Bachelet**: From France, representing European users

– **Sidi Kabubaka Nondishao**: From Alexandria at the University of Senghor, University of French Languages at the African Development Service

– **Emmanuel Empeta**: Member of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Congo

# Comprehensive Report: Francophone Digital Governance and AI Roundtable Discussion

## Executive Summary

This French-speaking roundtable discussion at the Internet Governance Forum brought together key stakeholders from across the Francophone world to address critical challenges in digital governance and artificial intelligence. The session, moderated by a representative from Francophonie, featured high-level participants including Chad’s Minister of Telecommunications Boukar Michel, French Digital Ambassador Henri Verdier, a representative from IGF Central Africa and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and Professor Destiny Tchehouali from the University of Quebec in Montreal (participating remotely), alongside several other experts and civil society representatives.

The discussion was framed around three main themes identified by the moderator: digital inclusion and infrastructure development, preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity in the AI era, and data governance and digital sovereignty. The session took place in the context of the upcoming World Digital Pact and the World Summit on Information Society beginning July 7th in Geneva. Participants demonstrated broad agreement on fundamental challenges whilst offering varied approaches to implementation, ultimately calling for concrete collective action through upcoming meetings in Geneva.

## Key Participants and Their Perspectives

### Government Representatives

**Minister Boukar Michel** of Chad emphasised the transformative potential of digital technologies for strengthening Francophone ties, drawing inspiration from historical leaders like Léopold Sédar Senghor. He highlighted Chad’s commitment to digital infrastructure development through programmes like Connect Africa, whilst candidly critiquing the frequent absence of Francophone ministers from crucial international digital conferences. His perspective combined optimism about AI’s potential for cultural preservation with practical concerns about creating effective French-language AI tools.

**Ambassador Henri Verdier** of France provided a philosophical framework for the discussion by drawing parallels between Francophonie’s historical success in making French a shared commons and the current need to protect digital resources from monopolisation. He advocated for frugal connectivity solutions and hybrid physical-digital services that can function with limited infrastructure, whilst emphasising the importance of keeping digital commons accessible to all.

### International Organisation Representatives

**The IGF Central Africa representative**, speaking for the UN Economic Commission for Africa, focused on the structural challenges facing the region, noting that individual countries cannot effectively negotiate with tech giants alone. They emphasised the need for shared infrastructure solutions, including regional optical fibre networks and data centres, whilst highlighting the diversity of languages (over 1,000-2,000) within the Francophone space that require protection and promotion.

### Academic Perspective

**Professor Destiny Tchehouali**, participating remotely from Montreal despite some technical difficulties, introduced the critical concept of “discoverability,” explaining how French content, despite representing 6% of web content, struggles to gain visibility through algorithms that favour English-language material. Her analysis revealed the sophisticated mechanisms through which cultural dominance operates in digital spaces, moving beyond simple content creation to the politics of algorithmic recommendation.

## Major Discussion Themes

### Digital Inclusion and Infrastructure Challenges

The discussion revealed the stark reality that 2.6 billion people globally still lack internet access, with particular challenges in connecting rural territories across Francophone countries. Participants agreed that meaningful digital inclusion requires far more than basic connectivity. Minister Michel outlined Chad’s Connect Africa programme, which aims to develop digital infrastructures and fibre optic networks to promote internet access in rural areas.

Ambassador Verdier emphasised that meaningful connectivity must enable emancipation, self-organisation, and local solidarity rather than merely providing technical access. He advocated for frugal connectivity solutions that can work with limited infrastructure, including hybrid physical-digital services that acknowledge real-world constraints.

The IGF Central Africa representative highlighted that infrastructure problems exist at country, regional, and population levels, requiring shared solutions such as regional optical fibre networks and data centres. Multiple speakers emphasised the critical importance of capacity building and training programmes, particularly targeting youth and women in digital technologies and AI.

Audience member Abdelgeril Bacharbon reinforced the importance of capacity building, emphasising that active participation rather than passive consumption should be the goal of digital inclusion efforts.

### Language Diversity and Cultural Preservation in AI

A central concern throughout the discussion was the preservation of French and other Francophone languages in an AI landscape dominated by English-language training data. Professor Tchehouali’s analysis revealed that whilst French represents 6% of internet content, the challenge extends beyond content creation to algorithmic bias in recommendation systems.

Minister Michel noted the practical implications of this bias, observing that voice recognition and AI systems work significantly better in English than in French or African languages. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle where AI systems become increasingly optimised for dominant languages whilst marginalising others.

The concept of “discoverability” emerged as a crucial framework for understanding these challenges. Professor Tchehouali explained that discoverability refers not only to the availability of content online but, more importantly, to the ability of that content to be recommended to users who may not have known of its existence beforehand. This transforms discoverability from a technical issue into what she termed “an eminently political issue, a cultural policy issue.”

Participants discussed various solutions, including the creation of Francophone linguistic databases to train more inclusive AI systems and support for local content creation in multiple languages as both a cultural preservation and job creation strategy. Ambassador Verdier briefly mentioned regulatory approaches, referencing requirements for platforms to invest in local content production.

### Data Governance and Digital Sovereignty

The discussion of data governance revealed sophisticated understanding of the complex challenges facing Francophone countries in the digital age. Minister Michel raised fundamental questions about sovereignty and citizens’ rights protection in the context of massive data collection by international tech companies.

Ambassador Verdier articulated a framework identifying three key aspects of data governance: privacy protection, keeping common knowledge common, and ensuring fair value sharing from data use. He highlighted the particular challenge facing African countries, where data is simultaneously under-exposed (limiting AI development that serves African needs) and at risk of capture by foreign entities.

A particularly insightful contribution came through Ambassador Verdier’s reference to Ghana’s digital minister, who articulated the double bind facing African countries: concerns that insufficient data exposure means AI solutions won’t be developed for African needs, but also risks that opening up data could lead to theft and capture by foreign entities.

A crucial correction to assumptions about African data scarcity came from audience member Emmanuel Empeta, who noted that “Africa has data, but we have a serious problem. It is the low rate of digitisation of this data. State data, public data, cultural data.” This reframed the challenge from data creation to digitisation infrastructure and capacity.

Sébastien Bachelet contributed another perspective on digital sovereignty, highlighting domain name extensions as national digital assets that countries should actively manage and promote.

### Francophone Cooperation and Institutional Response

Throughout the discussion, participants demonstrated broad agreement that individual Francophone countries lack the power to effectively address digital governance challenges alone. The IGF Central Africa representative noted that the Francophone space represents significant global influence if properly coordinated.

Minister Michel provided a moment of candid self-reflection, directly challenging the Francophone community’s own commitment to digital governance: “Sometimes it’s us who pose problems in our Francophone space… I attend international conferences on digital sometimes. So, tell me Verdier, is the French minister in charge of digital always busy? He can come, he can attend these conferences where big decisions are made.” This honest assessment of internal coordination failures elevated the discussion’s realism about what collective action actually requires.

Ambassador Verdier’s historical perspective proved particularly influential, drawing parallels between the origins of Francophonie and current digital challenges. He noted how four major heads of state—Léopold Sédar Senghor, Habib Bourguiba, Hamani Diori, and Norodom Sihanouk—”imposed on France the idea that this French language does not belong to France, that it is something that we have in common.” This historical precedent provided a conceptual framework for approaching digital commons as shared resources rather than national assets.

## Areas of Agreement and Disagreement

### Strong Agreement Areas

The discussion revealed broad alignment across speakers from diverse backgrounds on several key points. All participants agreed that digital inclusion requires more than basic connectivity, necessitating meaningful access that enables empowerment and local innovation. There was general recognition that Francophone countries must work collectively to address digital governance challenges, as individual nations cannot effectively negotiate with major tech companies alone.

Participants also demonstrated strong agreement on the threat posed by AI bias toward English content and the importance of data governance for digital sovereignty. The agreement spanned technical, cultural, and political dimensions, suggesting a mature understanding of digital challenges in the Francophone space.

### Implementation Differences

Whilst participants agreed on fundamental goals, they offered different approaches to specific implementation strategies. The most notable disagreement emerged around ministerial engagement, with Minister Michel directly criticising the frequent absence of Francophone ministers from international digital forums, whilst Ambassador Verdier focused on practical engagement through local innovations rather than addressing the attendance issue directly.

Participants also offered different approaches to addressing AI bias: Minister Michel emphasised creating Francophone linguistic databases, Professor Tchehouali focused on discoverability measures and algorithmic fairness, whilst Ambassador Verdier pointed to regulatory obligations for platforms.

An important disagreement emerged regarding the nature of Africa’s data challenges, with some discussion suggesting Africa lacks sufficient data exposure and infrastructure, whilst audience member Emmanuel Empeta argued that Africa has abundant data but faces digitisation challenges. This disagreement has significant implications for resource allocation and development strategies.

## Thought-Provoking Insights

Several comments during the discussion provided particularly profound insights that shaped the conversation’s direction. Ambassador Verdier’s historical analysis connecting Francophonie’s success to digital commons protection offered a unifying conceptual framework that other speakers referenced. His observation that “we have protected, extended and brought to life a common” provided philosophical grounding for approaching digital governance challenges.

Professor Tchehouali’s introduction of the discoverability concept moved the discussion beyond simple content creation to the sophisticated mechanisms through which cultural dominance operates in digital spaces. Her insight that discoverability is “an eminently political issue, a cultural policy issue” connected technical infrastructure questions to cultural policy in ways that influenced subsequent discussions.

Minister Michel’s candid critique of Francophone coordination failures demonstrated authentic leadership and self-reflection, creating a moment of uncomfortable truth-telling that elevated the discussion’s honesty level. His direct questioning of French participation shifted focus from external challenges to internal accountability.

## Unresolved Challenges and Future Directions

Despite the broad agreement on major goals, several critical issues remain unresolved. Participants did not reach agreement on specific mechanisms for coordinating collective action among Francophone countries with different levels of digital development, nor on concrete funding mechanisms for shared digital infrastructure projects.

Questions remain about how to ensure fair value sharing from data generated in Francophone countries, how to recover and repatriate historical data and archives currently held in other countries, and how to balance digital sovereignty with the need for international cooperation and open standards.

The discussion also left unaddressed the challenge of brain drain of digital talent from Francophone developing countries and specific criteria for determining what constitutes diversified Francophone content for platform obligations.

Several speakers acknowledged limitations and expressed uncertainty about optimal approaches, reflecting the complexity of the challenges rather than presenting overly confident solutions.

## Action Items and Next Steps

The discussion concluded with concrete commitments for continued collaboration. Participants agreed to continue discussions at the upcoming Geneva meeting during the World Summit on Information Society beginning July 7th, with plans to develop strong recommendations on data governance for Francophone countries.

Specific action items identified include creating databases of Francophone linguistic data to train more inclusive AI systems, establishing regional data centres and shared digital infrastructure among Francophone countries, implementing capacity building programmes through initiatives like the OIF’s Déclic programme, and digitising existing cultural, state, and public data archives across Francophone Africa.

Participants also committed to increasing Francophone ministerial presence at international digital conferences and decision-making forums, and developing regulatory frameworks to promote Francophone and local content on digital platforms.

## Conclusion

This roundtable discussion demonstrated the Francophone community’s sophisticated understanding of digital governance challenges and its potential for coordinated response. The conversation successfully moved beyond technical issues to address fundamental questions of power, sovereignty, and collective action in the digital age.

The broad agreement on major challenges, combined with constructive differences on implementation strategies, suggests a foundation for future collaboration. The participants’ ability to engage in honest self-reflection about internal coordination failures, whilst maintaining optimism about collective potential, indicates a mature approach to addressing complex global challenges.

The discussion’s emphasis on historical precedents, particularly Francophonie’s success in creating shared cultural resources, provides a valuable framework for approaching contemporary digital challenges. As participants prepare for continued discussions in Geneva, they carry forward both a clear understanding of the challenges ahead and a demonstrated capacity for the kind of honest, sophisticated dialogue necessary to address them effectively.

The session ultimately reinforced that whilst individual Francophone countries may lack the power to shape global digital governance alone, their collective voice has the potential to meaningfully influence the development of more inclusive, culturally diverse digital futures, provided they can overcome internal coordination challenges and maintain consistent high-level engagement in international forums.

Moderator: … Ok. Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Theoretically, now it works, right? The headphones, you hear me. Welcome to this French-speaking session. Do not hesitate to sit here around the table, since, as you can see, this Studio 6 is one of those who have very large tables. It’s easier and more comfortable to be together. I see that some prefer to keep the distance, but really, do not hesitate. So, welcome to this round table organized by Francophonie, with the aim of exploring quickly the main issues that are related to the current context regarding the governance of digital and artificial intelligence. I think it is not necessary to repeat what has been played out around the World Digital Pact and what is now being discussed within the framework of the World Summit on Information Society which will begin in Geneva on July 7th with the prospect of making proposals, including proposals that will emanate directly from the IGF Forum on Internet Governance where we are now, to… try to make this governance evolve. There are specific issues for the francophone space and it is these issues that we want to evoke, that we want to explore today. Three main themes, the issue of digital inclusion, since as it was also repeated a lot during the various workshops of this IGF, 2.6 billion people today do not have access to the Internet. But beyond this figure, there are all kinds of fractures, forms of digital fractures. There is also an extremely important issue for the francophone space and it will be our second theme on the fact of being able to express oneself in one’s own language. And I’m not talking here only about French. You know that the francophone space includes a large number of languages, a large number of cultures. When artificial, generative intelligences develop, which rely on existing digital data, it is extremely important to know how we will also face this challenge. And finally, of course, the issue of data governance, since it is the raw material from which these artificial intelligences are built. We will address these three points successively. So we have around the table some of our speakers, others are still on their way. And I would like to particularly highlight the presence of His Excellency, Minister Boukar Michel , who is the Minister of Telecommunications. Be careful, I can’t be wrong. No, the Minister of Telecommunications. of the transformation of the administration and of the digital economy. It’s not in the right order, but it’s all there. From the Republic of Chad, who gives us the honor of his presence, to his right, His Excellency, Mr. Ambassador of Digital for France, Henri Verdier, and I think we also have next to us Mr. the coordinator for IGF for Central Africa. And online, he will intervene from Montreal, where he is, Professor Destiny Tchehouali, professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal and specialist on the issues of diversity and discoverability. Our colleague, Mactar Seck, but it’s Mactar who is here. Ah, sorry, I hadn’t seen, because Henri is hiding everyone. So, Mactar is here. No, it’s Michel who is missing, who will join us a little later. Well, let’s go, without further ado, and I will give the floor on this issue of digital inclusion, the challenge that today still represents the fact of being able to connect all our territories, including rural territories. The fact also of giving real access beyond connectivity, that is, to have people who are able to use the tools and develop them in their turn. I will start by giving the floor to Mr. Minister Michel Boukhar, because it is the main project that you are currently carrying out in Chad, isn’t it, Mr. Minister?

Boukar Michel: Thank you, Mr. Henri. Mr. Ambassador in charge of digital, thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about the theme that was sent to me, towards an evolution of international governance of digital and AI. What are the challenges for the countries of the French-speaking space, inclusion, cultural diversity, linguistics and data governance? I think it’s a very good theme, but the reformulation that I wanted to put at your disposal is towards an evolution of international governance of digital and AI. Challenges for the French-speaking space. What is Francophonie? We need to talk a little about that, which is quite interesting. Around the 1970s, when most African countries began to gain independence, it was a question of maintaining a cultural link with France. This is what led to the creation of the OEF in the 1970s, with the arrival of President Pompidou, who started the creation of the OEF, which is the former cultural and technical cooperation agency. At that time, cooperation was based on culture, education and political relations. But today, the era of digital and AI opens up new perspectives to strengthen these links, while posing new challenges. As Leopold Sedar-Senghor said, Francophonie is not a legacy, it is an adventure to be built. Digital and AI can be powerful tools for this adventure. They are no longer in this world, but we think they have still left us with something interesting that we have to rely on. So, what are the new challenges of digital and artificial intelligence? We are talking about digital inclusion. Despite the progress of many French-speaking countries that still suffer from limited access to the digital, especially in Africa, the OIF has set up a whole arsenal to accompany this country. The Connect Africa program, which is supported by the OIF, aims to develop digital infrastructures, fiber optic networks, internet networks, fiber optics, to promote access to the Internet in rural areas. Access to the Internet is the first condition for populations to benefit from the digital and artificial intelligence. And global access to culture. Today, thanks to the Internet, we can access works of culture from all over the world in a few clicks. Concrete examples. We have on YouTube. You can listen to Congolese music. Watch Senegalese short films. You can discover traditional dances in Vietnam. These contents are often produced locally and find an interesting audience internationally. Social networks such as Instagram or TikTok allow young people to value their culture. We see, for example, African creators using local languages in their videos, which contributes to their recognition. From a cultural-linguistic point of view, what is going to happen? What can the Internet and AI bring us? There are digital technologies, especially AI, which are often developed. in an anglophone context, which threatens cultural and linguistic diversity. A concrete example, vocal recognition works much better in English than in French or in African. What can the OEF do to create a platform that can engage or correct this? The OEF encourages the development of content and digital tools adapted to local and francophone languages, such as Wolof, Bambara, or the Arabic dialect, Otyat, which thus preserves cultural riches. So, what can we do and what can we think of the OEF regarding projects? It is necessary to create a database of francophone linguistic data to train more inclusive AI. This can result in practical examples. Young people in Burkina Faso create, for example, the podcast in French and in Moré to talk about their daily life, their customs, or to discuss social issues. This content is in Africa, but also in France and Canada. It is a revolution. It does not depend on big publishing houses or young people. Everyone can create and publish. The OEF, which is our common space, can work to create this synergy. Regarding the governance of data and digital sovereignty, the massive collection of data raises questions of sovereignty and respect for citizens’ rights. Chad and other francophone countries adopt legislation to protect personal data. Where does the OEF stand? The OEF can fight for an international governance of data that takes into account cultural specificities. and respect for diversity. Finally, we need to talk about international governance, digital and AI, a space to co-construct. The role of international institutions such as the IEF or UNESCO is to promote a more balanced governance that respects all cultures. As a concrete example, the IEF has launched the D2Click program, which trains young French-speakers in digital so that they can become creators of cultural content. But I think the IEF needs to think about this project so that it can reach many French-speaking countries that are not included in this project. For example, in my country, Chad. We need it because this project hasn’t happened yet and I might have the opportunity in Geneva to try to talk to the people in charge so that if you want our space to grow, it can have a significant impact on our French-speaking space, which is totally different from our communities because the origin was first of African countries. The founding father, Oufed Bouyi, Leopold Sedar Senghor and Amani Djouri, were the ones who brought this torch so that we could reach this French-speaking space. But what do we say to the IEF today? We realize that we are a little behind. With the arrival of digital artificial intelligence, we can, through the IEF, regenerate this system that has remained in the bureaucracy with very concrete projects, the IEF with its key-aid program. If we manage them well, we will be able to reach this space. Thank you.

Moderator: Well, at the same time, I let our speakers give their point of view. Once again, the idea is also in the debate that will follow that we can formulate the proposals and expectations that we have for each other in relation to what we can do in common. You said it, Mr. Minister, the Francophones will meet next week in Geneva just before the 20th meeting of the World Summit on Information Society to precisely focus on these issues. But it starts here, it starts now. The debate is on. Mr. Ambassador, you have the floor.

Henri Verdier: Yes, but I’m going to refuse your rule of the game, because Mr. Minister made me want to go back to your words, Mr. Minister. I would say a very small word about inclusivity at the end. I think you are right, infinitely right, to go back to the history of Francophonie and to the Cultural and Technical Cooperation Agency of 1970. And I think you were very kind to quote President Pompidou, because the truth is that four huge heads of state, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Habib Bourguiba, Amani Diori and Norodam Sianouk, imposed on France the idea that this French language does not belong to France, that it is something that we have in common. It is a common, in the sense that we are going to talk about a moment of digital common, that is, everyone has the right to use it, and everyone who uses it has the right to modify it, and it will live from that. And I think that this gesture saved the French language from a certain point of view, because it has enriched itself with its nuances, its creolities. Yesterday, I took a taxi with my Norwegian team, and the driver said to me, « Oh, you are French, Aya Nakamura ! » And he congratulated me on this great French singer, who is Aya Nakamura, here in Norway. This is the world that has been authorized by Francophonie. And I often wondered what should be the main note of digital francophonie, and it might be to remember this story where we have protected, extended and brought to life a common. Because finally, this digital in which we live, which is a bearer of many benefits, it was born as a common. It was born with large transatlantic cables that were co-financed but that belonged to no one. It was born with open standards, the TCPIP protocol, the web. It was born with free content. It was born in a logic of cooperation and extraordinary contribution. And today, it is threatened. It is threatened from all sides. It is threatened from… In English, we say weaponization. I have never found the perfect translation of weaponization. It is threatened… It is turned away from confrontation by a certain number of state powers. It is a privileged playground for some malicious actors. And above all, it is captured by gigantic industrial monopolies. And I think, I say it, that no state, even the United States by the way, is ready to regulate companies that weigh a thousand billion dollars and who now consider themselves as private political actors and who consider that they have the right to weigh on the geopolitical order of the world. We are not ready, conceptually and methodologically. We are progressing and we are progressing fast. But we have never had to face this, except maybe a long time ago with the North Indian Company who tried to control the spice road with the power we know. And besides, the only way the Queen Victoria managed to control the Indian Company was by suppressing the Indian Company. States never succeeded in controlling it. They ended up banning it. And so, I want to leave what you just said, Mr. Minister, and to say that maybe this is our… our origin and our common destiny. There are things that are common and we want them to remain common. Everyone has the right to use them and everyone has the right to contribute. And it’s quite simple in the end because it will serve as a compass on many of the subjects we are going to deal with today. And if I come to inclusivity, first of all, it is unethical to leave almost 2 billion people out of this digital revolution and therefore accessibility in the simplest sense of the term must remain a fundamental priority. We can perhaps enrich this observation with a few ideas because it is not enough to have an optical fiber in your living room. First of all, we can also take a culture of reflection and a somewhat frugal connectivity. I was talking yesterday with my Indian friends who have designed the digital public infrastructures and they told me that we also have to plan physical paths that can hybridize physical and digital so that we can use a digital service with a phone even if we don’t have a connection. It’s possible, we flash something and then we wait to be in front of Wi-Fi to be able to use it. We can put things in the design that take into account the fact that perfect connectivity will not be there tomorrow morning. So people have rights today. To reproduce this culture of frugality we can say that it is not enough to have fiber but that there is a kind of digital infrastructure things like identity, payment on which we need to have a look if we want both people to benefit but also that it is not private property of one or two gigantic companies. So the idea that we need digital public infrastructures, a small layer of public service to be part of a project of connectivity and then of course I often heard about in English but often in the OIF environment meaningful connectivity a connectivity that makes sense. Because it is not enough to be a passive consumer who receives content. This connectivity must be used for emancipation, for self-organization, for local solidarity. And for that, we still need programs to encourage innovators, to support communities, to share capabilities that go with the arrival of Internet access. But I think, and I finish, I say it again, you are right to remember where we come from, and it can really serve as a compass in the fight against digitalization.

Moderator: Thank you very much, dear Henri. And we continue this first round table by giving the floor to Mr. Matarsek, who is the head of the technology and innovation section within the Economic Commission of the United Nations for Africa, based in Addis Ababa, who has a long experience of these issues, who has followed the evolution of the governance model and of each of the priorities that have been mentioned here for a long time, who knows the actors well. So you, in relation to the turning point, so it may be a turning point that is not always perceived, but which, it seems to me, is effective with the adoption of the digital pact, which still means a new role, a slightly different role from that of the States in a process that is specifically intergovernmental. At the same time, a reflection within the multi-actor system here, in particular to see how to adapt to this. How do you see these specific challenges for the French-speaking space?

IGF Central Africa representative: Thank you very much. It is with great pleasure that I participate in this important discussion. on the French-speaking space. How digital, and in particular artificial intelligence, can revolutionize the world of French-speaking, in light of the adoption of the digital pact you just mentioned. And also the role of different actors, international organizations, at the level of the implementation of this digital pact, and especially the role of French-speaking in this space. I remind you that the French-speaking space is a large market, more than a billion people. And I think the GDP represents 16 to 15% of the world GDP, which is extremely important. But we have been confronted for decades with many problems by our French-speaking countries, by the majority of French-speaking countries, in the adaptation and adoption of these digital technologies. First, we mentioned the question of infrastructure. The problem of infrastructure is not only at the country level, but also at the level of the regions, and also at the level of the population. So this problem has existed for a long time. With the objective of the digital pact, to promote connectivity, I think that organizations like Francophonie can work with other organizations to see how to extend the infrastructure at the level of the rural world and at the level of French-speaking countries. This can be done in several ways. I think there is a deficit in optical fiber. Why not group countries together, or regional organizations, to put in place shared optical fiber? Also, the question of data is very important. If French-speaking countries want to master this AI, there is the battle of data, by setting up adequate data centers. And there is also a lack at the level of certain French-speaking countries, and as the Minister said, I think there is room for coordination between French-speaking countries so that we can have regional data centers or data centers for French-speaking countries. And also, the question of infrastructure is not only related to physical infrastructure, there is also the question of electricity, which must not be forgotten. Well, there are different initiatives undertaken by French-speaking countries in this area, but it is also an important problem in these member states. Another point that is needed is regulation, because we need a new form of regulation at the level of this digital technology. And this is where I think that French-speaking countries have an important role with their digital strategies that they have adopted to see how we can help French-speaking countries to take inspiration from practical cases and success stories in other countries to arrive at an adequate regulation of these new technologies, especially AI, blockchain and other emerging technologies. And this leads to a new form of development through the definition of regulation centered on specific approaches. How can we promote innovation? With that, regulation is a point on which I think French-speaking countries have a lot of assets. Another point on which I think it is important is at the level of inclusion. How can these technologies help inclusion at the level of the French-speaking space? It is a space where there are several languages, more than 1,000 languages. Some even say 2,000 languages, but I can give you some examples. For example, take the country of RDC, they have 250 local languages. Countries like Cameroon have 200 languages. Countries like Senegal and the Ivory Coast have between 10 and 15 languages. So it’s a great asset for the continent and for inclusion as well. How can we make use of these local languages, thanks to the IAEA, as a tool for development in the French-speaking space? In terms of content development, Francophonie is making a lot of effort to support the development of local content. And I think that the IAEA is a way for Francophonie to achieve this local content development, which will not only create added value for the population, but also create jobs. Because in these countries, the number of young people is extremely high, thanks to these technologies, we can create a lot of jobs for these young people. Research and development. It is very important that we support research and development. This is the missing piece. And so that we can make our own IAEA tools in French-speaking Africa, people need to be able to promote research and development. And I think that Francophonie has an important role to play, given your progress in countries like France, Belgium, and Canada. We need to help promote this research and development in the French-speaking space, so that the majority of French-speakers can develop their own IAEA tools. And also the skills. There are a lot of initiatives at the level of Francophonie on the development of free software. But with the era of information technology, we need to train more young people in these new technologies, in the IAEA. And this is where Francophonie has an important role to play. Of course, Francophonie cannot do everything. So we will have to work with multilateral and bilateral organizations to see how we can contribute, to make aids so that the aid can have more impact in these French-speaking countries. For the moment, I will stop there, and I think that the problem of inclusion in the language is extremely important. We have seen in the IGF that the French-speaking presence is not high, and we need to do something. ELIA is here to help. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you, thank you very much. We will come back to this, indeed, but let’s continue on the question of language and diversity. And now I will switch briefly to English, because we are going to invite our colleague Destiny, and it’s in order that the technics can know that they have to connect him. So, we are going to cross the Atlantic to go and meet Professor Destiny Tchehouali. Destiny, can you hear me?

Destiny Tchehouali: Yes, Mr. Ambassador, I can hear you perfectly. We can see you, but we can’t hear you. Ah, we can hear you, we can hear you in the headphones, of course. Of course. OK, great. Welcome. Thank you, thank you very much for being among us. It is still early in Montreal, but I can see you bravely there. So, you heard that this issue of diversity, of this excellent, brilliant heritage, and at the same time, perhaps overwhelming, in relation to the issue of artificial intelligence, arises. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you, Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador Henry. Hello to everyone. Your Excellency, Mr. Minister, Your Excellency, Ambassador, distinguished panelists and participants. I regret not being with you in person, but I feel very privileged to be able to take part in this discussion, in this consultation, I would say, which is very precious for Francophonie. So, in relation to all the previous exchanges and to the question you are asking me, dear Henry, I would simply like to bounce back on the fact that we are all concerned about the very rapid evolution of digital technologies, which are literally disrupting the way we access our French-speaking content online, our cultures, our languages, in the digital environment. And if until now we were happy with the fact that French is still the fourth language on the Internet, with about 6% of content behind English, which is about 30% or so, Chinese, Spanish, we can still continue to worry about a certain urgency to act, because we realize that the web, the digital environment, the cyberspace, do not spontaneously generate diversity. And access to diversity is ultimately due to an issue that we had named here in Quebec an issue of discoverability. which, by the way, has already been well re-appropriated elsewhere in the Francophonie. And discoverability, what does it refer to? It ultimately refers to the availability of our content in their online presence, but above all, to the ability to be recommended this content, especially when we did not know its existence beforehand. Basically, it just comes down to the question of knowing, and I admit that it is also a question of inclusion, it is to know, but a content that I did not know, what is the probability that I can discover it, access it, among these 6% of Francophone content available online, for example. And this is where we emphasize the importance of activating levers of governance, because discoverability is an eminently political issue, a cultural policy issue, and it is important to be able to work together, both public decision-makers, politicians, but also platform owners, civil society, digital actors as a whole, to find adequate solutions to optimize this discoverability. Because the threat currently, and Ambassador Henri Verdier highlighted it, there is a threat. The threat today is precisely that of everything we have considered as acquired over the past few years, acquired as a result of long battles in terms of promotion and preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, but which are today totally threatened because we have algorithms, for example, of recommendation of digital platforms, which tend to promote, to put more forward and to make more visible content other than Francophone. I will simply finish in this first part, and to reconnect with the dimension of inclusion and accessibility. on the need, more than ever, to be able to put in place measures, rules. It is very important to be able to agree, as a Francophone, on the criteria necessary to determine what constitutes or not diversified French-speaking content, so in different languages that characterize Francophonie, to know in what proportion, as a government, we would like platforms to put forward what quantity, what proportion of national content they could put forward when they offer distribution and distribution services on our territories, and, of course, to reduce bias and discrimination, which are both linguistic but also a lot technological, by improving these automated recommendation systems, especially in the era of artificial intelligence. That’s it. I’ll stop there, and I’m sure we’ll go deeper into other considerations, always in line with these questions. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you very much. Thank you, Destiny. We’ll come back to you in a moment, but I would like, for my part, to go a little bit deeper into the question of data governance, because we’ve talked about inclusion, diversity, you’ve talked about it in your respective introductions, but the issue of data governance remains a subject that is still very poorly defined. The actor and producer Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who spoke at the opening of this IGF on Tuesday morning, said, but we have entered a situation where we are used to the fact that companies, these digital minotaurs, feed off our data, and it seems almost impossible today to change the rules. It seems almost impossible to tell them, but listen, these are our data, they can only be used on certain conditions, with remuneration, they cannot be used in certain cases, and these data are fundamental in relation to all the elements you have mentioned. to be able to manage them, we still find ourselves in a situation of dependence and a difficulty in building a digital offering, because that is still the issue. For my part, I am used to explaining, and I know that we share this point of view with Henri Verdier, to explain to my European colleagues that they do not realize that they are today actors colonized by other digital actors, and that it is essential to have a mastery of data. Do you think that this can be changed? And do you think that in the context where we are now, both the geopolitical context but also the decision-making framework that is being announced, with notably a debate within the General Assembly of the United Nations on the dialogue for the IAEA and on the architecture of the governance model, in December, is there something to do? Are the Francophones, and perhaps others, the Hispanophones, the Lusophones, others, still mobilizing on this issue of data governance? I will perhaps give the floor to Ambassador Verdier, and then we will go to Mr. Seck, who will finish with Mr. Minister and Destiny.

Henri Verdier: I will be very brief, because in the end we are largely consensual, so I will be content to push some additional ideas, knowing that we agree on the heart. I stay for a moment on the discoverability, just to say that the speech was eloquent. We have also heard that the Francophone content makes up 6% of the web content. We have a problem, it is that there is both a problem of discoverability, but also a problem of offer, and a problem of accessibility, and they are linked. And I think we have to work together. The more people will access the web, the more requests will be in French, the more content in French, the more we will find them, and the more we will fight for discoverability. All this can make a virtuous circle. I was checking there. In France, for example, only three years ago, it’s late, we took our responsibilities and we decided that Netflix was an audiovisual service like the others and that they had obligations to produce in French. And so now Netflix is obliged by law to invest in the production of cinema in French. And televisions already had these obligations. It was normal to extend the obligation and everyone is fine with it, including Netflix, by the way. On your question on data, yes, it’s very important. The problem, first of all, is that there are many places where we talk about data governance without always specifying it very well. So I want to share with you the idea that for me there are three issues in data governance. First of all, of course, there is the protection of private life and, moreover, we could say of all legal secrets. Because private life is a legal secret, but industrial property is another, national security is a third. There are a number of secrets that we have decided to protect by law and that must remain protected in the digital world. The second is what I said in the introduction, what was common must remain common. We still see that there are movements to capture the knowledge that we had in common in humanity. So artificial intelligence, since we are talking about it, it’s not that they steal our data, but if they build the only highway to access the data and if we don’t have open artificial intelligence or in French and we have to take the little mountain path, it’s as if there had been capture of knowledge. So this idea that we have the obligation to be certain that there will be an equality in access to knowledge and information, it is very important and it is also a subject of data governance. And then the third is the sharing of value. Because in fact we are told, the more you circulate data, the more value will be created. Which is true. One in the other, the more people are looking to do things with data, the more value will be created. But the question is, where will the value be created? And will it be? create, for example, or will it fall back in the countries where the data comes from? This is a real question. And on that, I finish with that. You know that we had, a few months ago, the summit for action on AI in Paris, and we had the privilege to set up a small dialogue session with a dozen African digital ministers, but you were not there, Mr. Minister, and with a dozen start-ups. And I heard something extremely important. It was Mr. Sam George, the digital minister of Ghana, who said that Africa has a double problem. As you can see, it’s not just Francophonie. We have a double problem. First of all, our data is not enough exposed, and so we are not sure that the people who develop solutions with AI will find solutions for us. But secondly, if we manufacture the data and if we open them up, there is also a risk that we will be stolen and captured, and that we will dominate our economy. And he said, in fact, we should design the African infrastructure for exposing African data. So find a way to have large public infrastructures by saying that African data is there. Come, it’s easy, you can use it, you can innovate, but you can’t capture them and privatize them for your profit, because it’s a public infrastructure, and continental and intergovernmental, and so there are rules of the game, and you can question these databases, but you can’t steal them. I think it’s a path that really deserves to be explored, and that the French-speaking space should mobilize to contribute with Smart Africa and others to this reflection.

Moderator: Thank you very much. Yes, Jovan Kurbalija, who many of you know, the director of the Diplo Foundation, explained yesterday that for him, the issue, indeed, is far beyond the data today, it is the issue of knowledge. Until then, knowledge was a public monopoly, it was the object of considerable public investment, and of a work that put in the foreground infrastructures and public research, and today, It is a field that is largely captured by the private sector through the digital industry. Is this also your point of view, Mr. Sec?

IGF Central Africa representative: Yes, he is perfectly right. And I also agree with Ambassador on his reflection on data. Because data goes beyond sovereignty. It is also linked to digital sovereignty. Without data, without the mastery of your data, you do not have digital sovereignty in the current world. And the majority of the Francophone countries in Africa face these difficulties of data governance and above all of data creation. Because in general, we don’t have a lot of data on the continent. We can’t go and get the data. You can take an example. You go to any country and you ask for a data. Compared to three institutions, it is not the same thing. It is not the same number they give you. On the population, someone gives you a number, another gives you a different number. On the GDP, the same thing. On inflation. In fact, it is the same in France. There are three ministries that have three… When you ask them how many there are municipalities in France, they have three different answers. And if you don’t have the right data, you can’t build a policy. You can’t build an adequate and sustainable development plan. So we need first of all the battle to have correct data. That’s one. Two, we will have to be able to master our data and govern the data. This is extremely important. Who needs data? What data is public? What data is not public? How will people use our data? Especially in terms of privacy protection. This is extremely important. Unfortunately, this is not the case in several countries. In Francophonie in Africa, there is a problem with privacy data protection. The second point, when we manage to do good governance, is how we are going to do the data market. How to structure this data market? How can these data help to create added value, to create more jobs, especially for the younger generation? How can these data allow the government to set up development policies in the future with adequate data? And this is where I think that Francophonie has an important role to play in terms of data governance in the Francophone space. A single country cannot do data governance because we are in an open space. We need regional assemblies and blocs like Francophonie to develop a framework for data governance where everyone will see their interest. Because the data is on Facebook, it’s on Amazon, it’s on Google. Not a single country can negotiate with Google. It’s not possible. Francophonie will have to play this role, with other organizations of course, to be able to help Francophone countries to discuss, to have the necessary level of information. We don’t have it yet.

Moderator: I will go again to Montreal in order to have Destiny’s view on this question. And then, Mr. Minister, I would also like to ask you to give your point of view. Because when Mr. Sec tells us that it is important for Francophonie and other organizations to act, these organizations are intergovernmental. So it is the will of the States that must manifest itself through it. And so we also need, of course, collectively, that our governments, that our ministers, get involved in this direction. Is Destiny here? Ok, go ahead my dear Destiny.

Destiny Tchehouali: Thank you. Indeed, the issue of data governance is just as crucial when we talk about digital sovereignty, data sovereignty, but also cultural sovereignty. You know, data governance today is a major geopolitical issue that is redefining the power relations between states and technological companies, technological giants. And particularly in the context of the development of AI, what is worrying is to see the effects at the level of training models. We know that the centrality of data, for example, in the AI ecosystem sometimes induces bias because it is the raw material, it is the input, it is the raw material necessary for the operation of models. And if they are not well accompanied, if they are not mastered, sometimes also depending on the location issues of these data, and obviously it has an impact on the exploitation of all the potential. And training data, when we talk about AI, these are works on which we focus at the level of our research of Quebec on AI and French-speaking digital. They are very important to take into account when we talk about machine learning, to learn from the algorithm, to learn and to detect models or to predict, for example, results, to recommend content when it comes to discoverability. All this is done on the basis of data that are etiquetted, on the basis of metadata, of reference processes, etc. And which ultimately also creates links between these different layers of data. And where there are risks today, if I take the example of the field of automatic translation, we realize that AI models are often trained mainly on Anglophone data or Anglophone corpus. And so the languages ​​said to have low resources are not taken into account enough. There are unequal performances at the level of the results of these models and these processes, for example, of automatic translation. And so, once again, it challenges the need to have regulatory and strategic answers. And once again, these answers must not be isolated. Of course, the issue of sovereignty can be national, but clearly, in relation to AI, to the world giants of AI, the regulatory frameworks to be built must also be made, especially on the issue of data governance, for example, on a much more multilateral scale, in particular.

Moderator: Merci, merci beaucoup Destiny. Comme promis, Monsieur le Ministre, je reviens vers vous. Alors, sur cette question de la gouvernance des données, peut-on envisager une initiative commune de ou des ministres, on peut rêver, de l’ensemble des ministres de l’espace francophone, pour porter le dossier et pour attendre, bien sûr, de votre organisation, de l’OIF, mais aussi des organisations internationales concernées, qu’elles portent vraiment le sujet.

Boukar Michel: Merci beaucoup. Moi, je vais sauter un peu sur les dites de l’ambassadeur Verdier et de Seck. Quelquefois, c’est nous-mêmes qui posons problème dans notre espace francophone. Je crois que la francophonie, comme disait, je citais le Paul Sédar, Senghor, la francophonie c’est pas un héritage, mais c’est une aventure. Et cette aventure tombe à pic avec l’arrivée de l’internet et de numérique et de l’intelligence artificielle. Donc, on doit saisir cette aventure-là pour faire de la francophonie un espace solide. J’assiste quelquefois à des conférences internationales sur le numérique. Alors, dites-moi Verdier, est-ce que le ministre en charge du numérique de la France est toujours occupé ? Il peut venir, il peut assister quand même à ces conférences où il y a des grandes décisions qui se prennent. Par exemple, sur le pacte numérique, ils sont toujours absents. In 2030, I think that the countries that speak French will have about 600 million inhabitants. You can’t imagine this international language of communication, which makes us rich, which is a culture for us. We are always absent. We are proud to be Francophones. And the arrival of digital and artificial intelligence is an opportunity for this space. But to succeed, we need a solid consultation. Leaving politics aside, that’s something else. But it is still this privileged Francophone space that can lead us to go further. We can’t go and steal data from GAFT, Google and others without a solid consultation. Sometimes that can lead us to arbitrariness. And to go to arbitrariness, we still need to put in place all these countries in charge of the Francophone space, which manages the digital to defend the file. Data-based governance is also a culture. And this culture requires a really dense consultation in our spaces to move forward. So how do we do it? That’s where it seems to be interesting. In some countries, they have datacenters that already host data. In other countries, they are building. How do we make sure that in each country or in each area of Francophonie, we can host data? The United States has how many? They have about 2,500 datacenters. How many countries are there in Africa? China, Europe, France. How many are there? I don’t know, about 250 or 300 datacenters. But how can we build trust in the francophone space? Because it’s about data. And when it comes to data, there is cultural data, there is protection data that is needed. Today, the arrival of AI can lead us to think about something extraordinary. Do you think it’s normal that our politicians, thanks to artificial intelligence, find their data imaged on the internet? What should we do? What should we decide? We can already start thinking about our francophone space to be a little bit ahead. Because the anglophones are very advanced, and we are not. We leave aside everything we want to decide together. We are here on small battles. And then, now that there is something interesting, we must also say to ourselves, our founding fathers had a vision. They gave us a heritage, but this heritage is shrinking. We have to start thinking about how to consolidate it. I have finished. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Minister. It gives us a great desire to continue the debate next week, since we will have two full days in Geneva on this discussion, this specifically francophone discussion, in the presence of all the speakers who participate in this debate, including Professor Chewaly, who will also be in Geneva, and many others. So, if you are not yet registered in this forum, you have 24 hours to do so. You can follow it online if you do not come to the World Summit on the Society of Information, if you are not in Geneva at this time. I now give the floor to the room. If you have questions, questions, comments, do not hesitate, you know how it works here in Oslo. You have to go to the microphone that is there on your left, near the screen. Maybe there is one on the right. Yes, I see one on the right too, perfect. Go ahead, sir.

Audience: OK, thank you very much. I am Mr. Abdelgeril Bacharbon. I am from Chad, coordinator of IJF Chad, at the same time president of House of Africa. So we thank you above all for these high-level panels, including high personalities with different perspectives. We thank you for this opportunity and also to the IJF for the organization. As a member of the community, here in the room, I see a lot of elders who are here. Sébastien here. We have been in the ecosystem for a long time, so we learn a lot from them. They have been coaching us, pushing us, even if before, the Francophone was not there. And there was a great void, whether at the level of the IJF ecosystem, whether at the level of ICANN, whether at the level of the IJF here, that now the Francophone is back. Before, it was with Emmanuel, the representative of the IJF at the level of Latin America, who did a great job with the call of the Francophone government, with the reinforcement of capacities at the level of Africa. If the Francophonie was there, we would not have arrived where there are problems in Africa too, because there was a community behind it. So thank you again for your return. My suggestion is much more the reinforcement of capacities. I think the ministers have spoken here. It is very important to train our new generation on artificial intelligence, and above all to push the start-upers. to create, to support them. Because, as we say in Africa, they cannot applaud. But when we are together, as you said here, we are almost at 1 billion, let’s say 500, 600 million. So I think it is very important to push and especially the content, the creation of content. So when we see them, everything is in English here. So we have a lot of difficulties. There are certain sessions that we go to, we don’t even remember. So I think we are there, presence, but there is no active presence. To be there and not to be active is not good. And especially with the new trend, it is the WSIS, all these topics. And I think we are promoting Francophonie and we would like that on the national level too, that there will be these topics, these discussions, so that we go up. So for me, it is the strengthening of the capacities, especially of women’s youth, and it is very important that we are involved in this global Internet governance. So I thank you.

Moderator: Thank you very much. Another question over there. We will take all the questions, at least a reasonable number, and then give the floor to our speakers so that they can answer. I beg you, sir.

Audience: You receive me, yes. I am Nicole Baibé-Kennedy. I am from Chad. I am the Director of Electronic Communications at the Ministry of Telecommunications, Digital Economy and Digitalization of the Public Administration. So, the subject and theme that is really worth thinking about today and laying the foundations for the development of IA, whether it is global, regional or sub-regional. Specifically, we are on a platform of Francophonie. So I congratulate the panelists for being up to the standards that we all here are trying to live up to. My question is about AI. This is a very new field and it requires us to change our traditional ways in order to adapt and go towards digital inclusion so that the entire terrestrial population can be at the same level. This is where culture must pave the way. I would like to ask a question. Why is it that, generally speaking, books are often translated into English, especially French-language documents? Why do we let them be translated? What is the motivation and how can we frame this system? Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you. There is another question in the room to my left. If there are other questions in the room, thank you for speaking up right away. There is also a question online. So this question in the room, the online question, and then the floor to the speakers. Please, sir.

Audience: Thank you very much, Sébastien Bachelet from France, representing the European users. First of all, thank you for having a session in French. I think that when we are in an international structure like the IGF, there should be a lot more possibilities to exchange in different languages. and that there is only one room, it’s a bit of a shame. I wanted to support what my friend Abdejadir Bacharbong from Chad said. The return of Francophonie here, as he said, is absolutely important and essential. We need you, we need you in structures like here, like ICANN, because without you it’s difficult to make the voice of the French language be heard. And not the voice of France, but the voice of the French language. And I would like you to think about something around the digital, is that you have a treasure in each of your countries. And the treasure is the extension, the domain name, the country code, as they say in English, so the extension of your country. And I think there are things to do around that, which would allow to develop, on the one hand, the uses, and also the control, in quotes, of the data in your country, in your countries. And so I think it would be worth it to have a reflection around that. There is an international college at AFNI that manages the .fr, which can be a good place for this discussion to take place. And if you need a reflection on this subject, I am also at your disposal. Thank you very much.

Moderator: Okay, and now I go to the technics, because we have someone online, it seems. Question online. Does it work? Yes, it works. Bonjour. Okay, bonjour. On l’entend.

Audience: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Hello, Ambassador Emoso. I am Sidi Kabubaka Nondishao, from Alexandria at the University of Senghor, University of French Languages at the African Development Service, direct operator of Francophonie. And I would like, by the way, to convey my greetings to the Rector, Professor Thierry Verdel, who should also be connected, but due to agenda issues, he could not be here. It is very interesting, everything I heard this afternoon, and I would like to congratulate the various speakers. And I would like to point out that a lot of calls have been made on digital governance. And I would like that, following this great dialogue that we will have in a few days, that we can really take action in the respective countries of Francophonie. Earlier, a colleague spoke of capacity enhancement. I would like to remind you that Francophonie, through the direction of Francophonie économique et numérique, has launched a large initiative of training on Internet governance through the Déclic program. And the University of Senghor in Alexandria had the chance to be able to pilot this training for the benefit of French-speaking diplomats, as well as members of the National Assembly. And we would like and we think that this kind of training should continue in the entire French-speaking space. And today, the University of Senghor has the privilege of hosting what is called the Diplomatic Class of the University of Senghor, which has been organized since early 2021. We are in the fourth edition. And during this Diplomatic Class, we have brought together several French-speaking diplomats from different countries to participate in the issues of Francophonie and on the occasion of this Diplomatic Class. We are going to come back to the issues of digital governance and the issues of artificial intelligence. To tell you that the OIF, through all its organs, is putting the plug in to allow all French-speaking citizens to do better. to be able to learn more about digital governance. And I would like to finish my speech by inviting all French-speaking countries to take action, because there are a lot of facts that often seem to be announcements that have been made in different forums. And it is time today that we can take action, that we can synergize our energies, our resources, so that we can, as French-speakers, really weigh all our weight in the governance of the Internet and digital. I hope to be among you here in July, if I have my visa to come. Thank you very much.

Moderator: Thank you, thank you very much. So, we have very, very little time. We have two minutes left. So, I’ll give you, sir, the floor quickly, but really in 10 seconds, if you like, 15 seconds, to still give each of the speakers 30 seconds for one last word. But we understood that the conclusion was a rendezvous in Geneva. I beg you.

Audience: May I speak? Yes, yes, go ahead. Thank you very much. I am Emmanuel Empeta, member of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I heard here that Africa has a problem with data. I can say yes and no. No. Why? Because I think that Africa has data. We have data, but we have a serious problem. It is the low rate of digitization of this data. State data, public data, cultural data. Africa has a lot of data and is facing a serious problem of digitization. And I would take this opportunity to ask Francophonie to be able to help African Francophones to be able to digitize the data. Today, the infrastructure is there and we are invaded, we are invaded, as it has been said here, by anglophone data. And my plea would be to ask Francophonie to be able to see to what extent we can help Africa to be able to digitize these data. That was my contribution. Thank you.

Moderator: Very important contribution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I will quickly, but very quickly, you only have a handful of seconds each, or at least those who wish to say a word, if you wish. Mr. Minister, Mr. Verdier, Mr. Seck. Yes, who? Go ahead. Mr. Seck.

Boukar Michel: Thank you very much. I think that, as you said, the meeting will be in Paris and I think that we will come out with a very strong recommendation, especially at the level of data governance for the Francophone countries. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you. In Geneva, I think. OK, Henri.

Henri Verdier: So, yes, the data exists, but we need the information systems, and therefore the digital transformation of the State is a major issue to make them interoperable, exploitable, etc. Yes, the Union is doing its best, and Europe has taken it to its limits because it took European texts to impose rules on men and women, and otherwise it was able to boycott France, Spain or Germany. It was not big enough to get them to step back. And thirdly, yes, there is a subject of innovation in the French language, and I would like to emphasize the fact that we can also engage in the battle with small innovations, to solve real problems in one’s country, for one’s agriculture, for one’s hospital system. It is also a way of entering and weighing in the digital revolution.

Moderator: Mr. Minister.

IGF Central Africa representative: Well, I would just like to link myself to the others. I think that David Dubité has spoken. We have a lot of data, with the arrival of AI and the Internet. Numeracy is not artificial intelligence, so I think that Francophonie can already start to think about how to accompany our states to digitize first all the documents, the archives. And then there are some countries that have gone through a lot of time in the war. How to recover this data? There are some data that are also in France. How to recover them to bring them to France or Africa? These data must be released. My father already had his bank, we called it the Mathelem bank, which is housed in France. So how do we bring all this back to think about other things? Very quickly, Kennedy talked about why books are so hard. I always write my books in French. Francophonie has never paid me. I always write my books in French, but given the importance of the documents, my books are automatically translated into English. I don’t even ask for them. Thank you.

Agreement points

Digital inclusion requires more than basic connectivity – meaningful access and capacity building are essential

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier
– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Connect Africa program aims to develop digital infrastructures and fiber optic networks to promote internet access in rural areas

Meaningful connectivity requires more than just access – it must enable emancipation, self-organization, and local solidarity

Infrastructure problems exist at country, regional, and population levels, requiring shared solutions like regional optical fiber and data centers

Capacity building and training programs are essential, particularly for youth and women in digital technologies and AI

Summary

All speakers agree that digital inclusion goes beyond simply providing internet access and requires comprehensive infrastructure development, meaningful connectivity that empowers users, and extensive capacity building programs

Topics

Development | Human rights | Infrastructure

Francophone countries must work collectively to address digital governance challenges and cannot succeed individually

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier
– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Need for solid consultation among Francophone countries to defend digital interests collectively

Individual countries cannot negotiate effectively with tech giants – need collective Francophone action

Francophone countries need to move from announcements to concrete action and resource synergy

Summary

There is strong consensus that individual Francophone countries lack the power to effectively negotiate with major tech companies and address digital governance challenges alone, requiring coordinated collective action

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Sociocultural

AI systems exhibit significant bias toward English/Anglophone content, threatening linguistic and cultural diversity

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Destiny Tchehouali
– IGF Central Africa representative

Arguments

Voice recognition and AI systems work much better in English than in French or African languages

French represents only 6% of internet content, with threats from AI systems predominantly trained on English data

AI poses risks to privacy and cultural representation, requiring new forms of regulation

Summary

All speakers acknowledge that current AI systems demonstrate clear bias toward English language content and Anglophone data, creating unequal performance and threatening the preservation of Francophone linguistic and cultural diversity

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Data governance is crucial for digital sovereignty and requires protection of both privacy and cultural heritage

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier
– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Massive data collection raises questions of sovereignty and citizens’ rights protection

Three key aspects: privacy protection, keeping common knowledge common, and ensuring fair value sharing

African data is both under-exposed and at risk of capture by foreign entities

Africa has abundant data but faces serious digitization challenges for state, public, and cultural data

Summary

There is unanimous agreement that data governance is fundamental to digital sovereignty, requiring protection of privacy rights, prevention of data capture by foreign entities, and ensuring that data benefits originating communities

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers draw on the historical success of Francophonie in creating shared cultural resources and argue that this model should be applied to digital technologies and AI to preserve and strengthen cultural diversity

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier

Arguments

AI can be a powerful tool for cultural preservation and development if properly managed

Digital commons must remain common, drawing from Francophonie’s historical success in making French a shared language

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Both emphasize the critical importance of building local technical capacity and research capabilities to enable Francophone countries to develop their own digital solutions rather than remaining dependent on foreign technologies

Speakers

– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Research and development support is crucial for Francophone countries to develop their own AI tools

Capacity building and training programs are essential, particularly for youth and women in digital technologies and AI

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers advocate for regulatory measures that require digital platforms to actively promote and make discoverable local and diverse content, rather than allowing algorithmic bias to favor dominant languages

Speakers

– Henri Verdier
– Destiny Tchehouali

Arguments

Digital platforms should have obligations to promote national and diverse content, similar to Netflix’s French production requirements

Need for discoverability measures to ensure Francophone content can be found and recommended online

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

The need for frugal and hybrid digital solutions that work with limited infrastructure

Speakers

– Henri Verdier
– IGF Central Africa representative

Arguments

Need for frugal connectivity solutions that can work with limited infrastructure, including hybrid physical-digital services

Infrastructure problems exist at country, regional, and population levels, requiring shared solutions like regional optical fiber and data centers

Explanation

It’s unexpected that a French ambassador and an African regional representative would both emphasize the importance of designing digital solutions that accommodate infrastructure limitations rather than waiting for perfect connectivity. This pragmatic approach shows consensus on realistic, adaptive technology deployment strategies

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

The historical parallel between Francophonie’s success and digital commons protection

Speakers

– Henri Verdier
– Boukar Michel

Arguments

Digital commons must remain common, drawing from Francophonie’s historical success in making French a shared language

AI can be a powerful tool for cultural preservation and development if properly managed

Explanation

The unexpected consensus lies in both speakers independently drawing on the same historical reference point – how Francophonie succeeded by making French a shared common resource – and applying this model to digital governance. This shows remarkable alignment in their conceptual framework despite their different roles

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion reveals strong consensus across all speakers on four main areas: the need for meaningful digital inclusion beyond basic connectivity, the necessity of collective Francophone action in digital governance, the threat posed by AI bias toward English content, and the critical importance of data governance for digital sovereignty

Consensus level

High level of consensus with remarkable alignment across speakers from different backgrounds (government ministers, diplomats, academics, civil society). The consensus suggests a mature understanding of digital challenges in the Francophone space and points toward concrete collaborative actions, particularly the upcoming Geneva meetings. The agreement spans technical, cultural, and political dimensions, indicating potential for effective coordinated policy responses

Different viewpoints

Presence and engagement of Francophone ministers at international digital forums

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier

Arguments

Francophone ministers should be more present at international digital conferences and decision-making forums

Small innovations solving local problems can be an entry point into the digital revolution

Summary

Minister Michel directly criticizes the frequent absence of Francophone ministers (particularly mentioning France’s digital minister) at crucial international conferences, while Ambassador Verdier focuses on practical engagement through local innovations rather than addressing the attendance issue

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural

Unexpected differences

Nature of Africa’s data problem

Speakers

– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Individual countries cannot negotiate effectively with tech giants – need collective Francophone action

Africa has abundant data but faces serious digitization challenges for state, public, and cultural data

Explanation

This disagreement is unexpected because both speakers are advocating for African digital development, but they fundamentally disagree on the root problem. The IGF representative suggests Africa lacks sufficient data exposure and infrastructure, while the audience member argues Africa has plenty of data but lacks digitization capabilities. This disagreement has significant implications for resource allocation and development strategies

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkable consensus on major goals (digital inclusion, cultural preservation, collective action) with disagreements primarily on implementation strategies and problem diagnosis. The main areas of disagreement involve: ministerial engagement levels, specific technical solutions for data governance, and the fundamental nature of Africa’s data challenges

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers share common objectives but differ on tactical approaches and problem identification. This suggests a strong foundation for collaboration with need for more detailed coordination on implementation strategies. The disagreements are constructive and focus on ‘how’ rather than ‘whether’ to address the challenges, which is positive for future cooperation in Francophone digital governance

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers draw on the historical success of Francophonie in creating shared cultural resources and argue that this model should be applied to digital technologies and AI to preserve and strengthen cultural diversity

Speakers

– Boukar Michel
– Henri Verdier

Arguments

AI can be a powerful tool for cultural preservation and development if properly managed

Digital commons must remain common, drawing from Francophonie’s historical success in making French a shared language

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Both emphasize the critical importance of building local technical capacity and research capabilities to enable Francophone countries to develop their own digital solutions rather than remaining dependent on foreign technologies

Speakers

– IGF Central Africa representative
– Audience

Arguments

Research and development support is crucial for Francophone countries to develop their own AI tools

Capacity building and training programs are essential, particularly for youth and women in digital technologies and AI

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers advocate for regulatory measures that require digital platforms to actively promote and make discoverable local and diverse content, rather than allowing algorithmic bias to favor dominant languages

Speakers

– Henri Verdier
– Destiny Tchehouali

Arguments

Digital platforms should have obligations to promote national and diverse content, similar to Netflix’s French production requirements

Need for discoverability measures to ensure Francophone content can be found and recommended online

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

The Francophone space represents over 1 billion people and 15-16% of global GDP, giving it significant potential influence in digital governance if properly coordinated

Digital inclusion requires more than just connectivity – it needs meaningful access that enables emancipation, local innovation, and cultural preservation

French content represents only 6% of internet content, and AI systems are predominantly trained on English data, threatening Francophone cultural and linguistic diversity

Individual Francophone countries cannot effectively negotiate with tech giants alone – collective action through organizations like OIF is essential

Data governance involves three key aspects: privacy protection, keeping common knowledge accessible, and ensuring fair value sharing from data use

Africa has abundant data but faces serious digitization challenges, particularly for state, public, and cultural archives

The digital commons must remain common, drawing lessons from Francophonie’s historical success in making French a shared rather than exclusively French language

Capacity building and training programs, especially for youth and women, are crucial for meaningful participation in the digital economy

Resolutions and action items

Continue discussions at the upcoming Geneva meeting during the World Summit on Information Society (July 7th)

Develop strong recommendations on data governance for Francophone countries at the Geneva meeting

Create databases of Francophone linguistic data to train more inclusive AI systems

Establish regional data centers and shared digital infrastructure among Francophone countries

Implement capacity building programs through initiatives like the OIF’s Déclic program

Digitize existing cultural, state, and public data archives across Francophone Africa

Increase Francophone ministerial presence at international digital conferences and decision-making forums

Develop regulatory frameworks requiring digital platforms to promote Francophone and local content

Unresolved issues

How to effectively coordinate collective action among Francophone countries with different levels of digital development

Specific mechanisms for ensuring fair value sharing from data generated in Francophone countries

How to recover and repatriate historical data and archives currently held in other countries

Concrete funding mechanisms for shared digital infrastructure projects

How to balance digital sovereignty with the need for international cooperation and open standards

Specific criteria for determining what constitutes diversified Francophone content for platform obligations

How to address the brain drain of digital talent from Francophone developing countries

Suggested compromises

Hybrid physical-digital service models that can function with limited connectivity infrastructure

Regional rather than purely national approaches to data centers and digital infrastructure

Graduated obligations for digital platforms based on market size and presence

Public-private partnerships for digital infrastructure development while maintaining public oversight

Multilateral regulatory frameworks that respect national sovereignty while enabling collective bargaining power

Frugal innovation approaches that solve local problems as entry points to broader digital participation

I think you are right, infinitely right, to go back to the history of Francophonie… four huge heads of state, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Habib Bourguiba, Amani Diori and Norodam Sianouk, imposed on France the idea that this French language does not belong to France, that it is something that we have in common. It is a common, in the sense that we are going to talk about a moment of digital common… And I often wondered what should be the main note of digital francophonie, and it might be to remember this story where we have protected, extended and brought to life a common.

Speaker

Henri Verdier

Reason

This comment is profoundly insightful because it reframes the entire discussion by connecting historical Francophonie principles to contemporary digital challenges. Verdier draws a powerful parallel between how French language was transformed from French property to a shared commons, and how digital infrastructure should remain a commons rather than be captured by monopolies.

Impact

This comment fundamentally shifted the discussion’s framework from technical issues to philosophical foundations. It provided a unifying conceptual lens that other speakers referenced throughout, establishing ‘commons’ as the central organizing principle for Francophone digital governance.

Africa has a double problem. First of all, our data is not enough exposed, and so we are not sure that the people who develop solutions with AI will find solutions for us. But secondly, if we manufacture the data and if we open them up, there is also a risk that we will be stolen and captured… we should design the African infrastructure for exposing African data… you can question these databases, but you can’t steal them.

Speaker

Henri Verdier (quoting Sam George, Ghana’s digital minister)

Reason

This captures the fundamental paradox facing developing nations in the AI era – the need to participate in data sharing for AI development while avoiding digital colonialism. It articulates a sophisticated understanding of how data exposure can be both empowering and exploitative.

Impact

This comment introduced nuanced thinking about data sovereignty that moved beyond simple ‘protect vs. share’ binaries. It sparked discussion about regional data infrastructure and influenced subsequent speakers to think more strategically about collective approaches to data governance.

Sometimes it’s us who pose problems in our Francophone space… I attend international conferences on digital sometimes. So, tell me Verdier, is the French minister in charge of digital always busy? He can come, he can attend these conferences where big decisions are made. For example, on the digital pact, they are always absent… We can’t go and steal data from GAFT, Google and others without solid consultation.

Speaker

Boukar Michel

Reason

This is a remarkably candid critique that challenges the Francophone community’s own commitment to digital governance. The Minister’s direct questioning of French participation and his blunt assessment of internal coordination failures demonstrates authentic leadership and self-reflection.

Impact

This comment created a moment of uncomfortable truth-telling that elevated the discussion’s honesty level. It shifted focus from external challenges to internal accountability, prompting more realistic assessments of what collective action actually requires.

Discoverability… refers to the availability of our content in their online presence, but above all, to the ability to be recommended this content, especially when we did not know its existence beforehand… discoverability is an eminently political issue, a cultural policy issue.

Speaker

Destiny Tchehouali

Reason

This comment introduces a sophisticated concept that goes beyond simple content creation to the politics of algorithmic recommendation. It reveals how cultural diversity is threatened not just by lack of content, but by the invisible mechanisms that determine what content gets seen.

Impact

This introduced a new analytical framework that helped other participants understand how cultural dominance operates through recommendation algorithms. It connected technical infrastructure questions to cultural policy in ways that influenced subsequent discussions about platform regulation.

Africa has data, but we have a serious problem. It is the low rate of digitization of this data. State data, public data, cultural data. Africa has a lot of data and is facing a serious problem of digitization… we are invaded by anglophone data.

Speaker

Emmanuel Empeta

Reason

This comment reframes the ‘data deficit’ narrative by distinguishing between data existence and digital accessibility. It challenges assumptions about African data poverty while highlighting the structural barriers to digital participation.

Impact

This intervention corrected a fundamental misunderstanding in the discussion and redirected attention from data creation to digitization infrastructure. It influenced the final recommendations toward supporting digitization rather than just data collection.

Overall assessment

These key comments transformed what could have been a technical discussion about digital infrastructure into a sophisticated analysis of power, sovereignty, and collective action. Verdier’s ‘commons’ framework provided philosophical grounding, while Minister Michel’s candid self-criticism introduced necessary realism about Francophone coordination challenges. Tchehouali’s ‘discoverability’ concept and Empeta’s digitization distinction added analytical precision that elevated the discussion’s sophistication. Together, these interventions created a conversation that moved fluidly between historical context, contemporary challenges, and future possibilities, ultimately producing a more nuanced understanding of how cultural communities can maintain agency in an increasingly centralized digital landscape.

How can francophone countries create shared optical fiber infrastructure at regional level?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

This addresses the infrastructure deficit problem that has existed for decades in francophone countries and could promote connectivity as outlined in the digital pact

How can francophone countries establish regional data centers or shared data centers?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

This is essential for francophone countries to master AI technology and address the battle for data governance

How can the OIF expand the D2Click program to reach more francophone countries like Chad that are not currently included?

Speaker

Boukar Michel

Explanation

The minister specifically mentioned Chad needs this program for training young French-speakers in digital content creation

What are the specific criteria needed to determine what constitutes diversified French-speaking content across different francophone languages?

Speaker

Destiny Tchehouali

Explanation

This is crucial for establishing rules and measures to ensure platforms promote francophone content diversity

What proportion of national content should governments require platforms to promote when offering distribution services on francophone territories?

Speaker

Destiny Tchehouali

Explanation

This relates to discoverability and ensuring francophone content gets adequate visibility on digital platforms

How can African infrastructure be designed for exposing African data while preventing capture and privatization?

Speaker

Henri Verdier

Explanation

This addresses the double problem of data exposure for AI development while maintaining sovereignty over African data

How can francophone countries develop adequate regulation for new technologies like AI and blockchain?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

New forms of regulation are needed for digital technologies, and francophone countries need to learn from practical cases and success stories

How can local languages (over 1000-2000 languages in francophone space) be utilized through AI as tools for development?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

This addresses inclusion and the potential for AI to support local content development and job creation

How can francophone countries promote research and development to create their own AI tools?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

This is identified as the missing piece for francophone Africa to develop indigenous AI capabilities

Why are books often translated from French into English, and how can this system be better framed?

Speaker

Nicole Baibé-Kennedy

Explanation

This relates to cultural preservation and the dominance of English in digital content translation

How can francophone countries leverage their country code domain extensions for digital development and data control?

Speaker

Sébastien Bachelet

Explanation

Country domain extensions are identified as a treasure that could help develop digital uses and maintain data control

How can francophone countries improve digitization of existing data (state, public, cultural data)?

Speaker

Emmanuel Empeta

Explanation

Africa has data but faces serious problems with low digitization rates, and this needs francophone support

How can historical data and archives housed in France be recovered and brought back to African francophone countries?

Speaker

IGF Central Africa representative

Explanation

Some countries have lost data through wars, and historical archives stored in France need to be repatriated for digitization efforts

Summary

This discussion focused on multi-stakeholder cooperation in digital governance during an era of increased protectionism, examining challenges to the current Internet governance model and opportunities presented by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process. The panel, moderated by Cheryl Miller from the U.S. Council for International Business, included representatives from ICANN, government agencies, Internet Society, Global Network Initiative, and Meta Platforms.

Participants identified several key trends undermining multi-stakeholder digital governance, including rising geopolitical tensions, erosion of trust between nations, and regulatory approaches that prioritize national sovereignty over global Internet interoperability. Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar from Denmark highlighted the fundamental uncertainty created by shifting geopolitical orders, while Tatjana Trupina from Internet Society emphasized the tension between sovereign borders and the globally connected Internet. The panelists noted that well-intentioned regulations addressing legitimate concerns about online harms often create unintended consequences for Internet fragmentation when implemented without proper technical consultation.

The discussion revealed significant concerns about the WSIS Plus 20 review process, particularly regarding an elements paper that appeared to retreat from previously agreed-upon language supporting multi-stakeholder governance. Veni Markovski from ICANN warned that the current draft lacks support for the technical community and multi-stakeholder model that has guided Internet governance for two decades. Several speakers advocated for making the Internet Governance Forum permanent rather than continuing to renew its mandate every few years, citing its proven success and growing participation from diverse countries.

The panel emphasized the importance of leveraging existing frameworks rather than creating duplicative processes, suggesting that the Global Digital Compact’s implementation should be integrated into the WSIS framework. They called for transparent, inclusive negotiations and meaningful stakeholder participation in upcoming discussions, stressing that multi-stakeholder cooperation remains essential for maintaining an open, interoperable Internet while addressing legitimate security and sovereignty concerns.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Regulatory and Political Trends Undermining Multi-stakeholder Governance**: Panelists discussed how increasing protectionism, geopolitical tensions, data localization requirements, and fragmented national regulations are threatening the global, interoperable internet and undermining collaborative digital governance approaches.

– **WSIS Plus 20 Review and Global Digital Compact Integration**: Extensive discussion on how to leverage the World Summit on the Information Society’s 20-year review process and the Global Digital Compact to reinforce multi-stakeholder principles, avoid duplication of processes, and ensure meaningful stakeholder participation in UN negotiations.

– **Making the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Permanent**: Strong advocacy from multiple panelists for transitioning the IGF from its current renewable mandate structure to permanent status, given its 20-year track record of success and growing participation from diverse countries including China and Russia.

– **Balancing Digital Sovereignty with Global Connectivity**: Discussion of the tension between legitimate national concerns (security, citizen protection, autonomy) and maintaining an open, globally connected internet, emphasizing the need for proportionate regulatory responses that don’t fragment the internet.

– **Power Asymmetries and Market Concentration**: An audience member raised concerns about inequality in the digital ecosystem, including the concentration of power among major tech companies and the weaponization of digital infrastructure, prompting discussion about antitrust, platform accountability, and supporting innovation diversity.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine multi-stakeholder cooperation in digital governance during an era of increased protectionism, develop strategies for advancing the multi-stakeholder model through upcoming WSIS Plus 20 negotiations, and strengthen collaboration between different stakeholder groups (academia, governments, industry, civil society, and technical community).

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional, collaborative tone throughout, with participants demonstrating deep expertise and genuine concern for preserving multi-stakeholder governance principles. While acknowledging significant challenges from geopolitical tensions and regulatory fragmentation, the tone remained cautiously optimistic about finding solutions through inclusive processes. The panelists showed mutual respect and built upon each other’s points constructively, even when discussing complex political realities that threaten their shared vision of open internet governance.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Cheryl Miller** – Vice President for Digital Policy at the U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB); Session moderator; Member of the multi-stakeholder advisory group (MAG)

– **Veni Markovski** – Vice President for Government and Intergovernmental Organization Engagement at ICANN and interim head of that department; Based in New York, covers UN agencies, UN, ITU and others

– **Jorge Cancio** – Swiss government representative; Member of the multi-stakeholder advisory group (MAG)

– **Tatjana Trupina** – Senior Advisor on Institutional Relations at Internet Society

– **Jason Pielemeier** – Leader of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder organization working on free expression and privacy in the tech sector

– **Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar** – Danish Tech Ambassador

– **Flavia Alves** – Director of International Organizations for Meta Platforms

– **Milton Mueller** – Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech

– **Audience** – Juan Ortiz, PhD candidate at USC

**Additional speakers:**

– **Juan Ortiz** – PhD candidate at USC (identified as separate from generic “Audience” category)

# Multi-stakeholder Cooperation in Digital Governance: Navigating Protectionism and Geopolitical Uncertainty

## Executive Summary

This interactive discussion examined the challenges facing multi-stakeholder digital governance amid increasing protectionism and geopolitical tensions. Moderated by Cheryl Miller from the U.S. Council for International Business, the panel brought together representatives from ICANN, government agencies, Internet Society, Global Network Initiative, and Meta Platforms to address how collaborative governance models can adapt to current pressures.

The conversation revealed fundamental tensions between the borderless nature of the Internet and territorial sovereignty of nation-states. Participants identified trends undermining traditional multi-stakeholder approaches, including regulatory fragmentation and data localisation requirements, while highlighting opportunities through the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process to reinforce collaborative governance principles and make the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) permanent.

## Current Challenges to Multi-stakeholder Digital Governance

### Geopolitical Shifts and Erosion of Trust

Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar, Denmark’s Tech Ambassador, provided a sobering assessment: “the fact that we’re trying to think about multi-stakeholder cooperation in a time that is a shifting geopolitical order, the last three decades of an international rule-based order are right now at a conjunction where I’m not sure what the answer is going to be a few years down the line.” This uncertainty stems from intensified strategic and economic competition globally.

The erosion of trust between nations has made cooperation increasingly difficult, with governments becoming more protective of their digital sovereignty while recognising their dependence on global connectivity.

### Regulatory Fragmentation and Technical Consultation Gaps

Veni Markovski from ICANN highlighted that governments sometimes regulate without consulting technical experts, leading to potential Internet fragmentation. He shared a specific example: “In Bulgaria in 1999, they wanted to license ISPs, and it took a Supreme Court case to resolve this issue.”

Tatjana Trupina from Internet Society articulated the core challenge: “There is a tension, especially in the current geopolitical climate, between sovereign states and their borders, and them trying to navigate this climate. And tension between states and sovereign borders and the open, interoperable, and globally connected Internet.”

Jason Pielemeier from the Global Network Initiative noted that while some regulatory efforts show promise, imprecise regulatory responses to Internet harms often create cross-border impacts that fragment the global Internet ecosystem.

### Data Localisation and Digital Protectionism

Flavia Alves from Meta Platforms identified data localisation and digital protectionism as significant drivers of censorship and Internet fragmentation. She mentioned specific infrastructure challenges, noting Meta’s investment in projects like “Project W submarine cable” to improve connectivity.

Milton Mueller from Georgia Tech’s Internet Governance Project reframed these issues, pointing out that “the protectionism and fundamentally the fragmentation and the sovereignty concerns you’re talking about are fundamentally about digital free trade.” This highlighted that many digital governance challenges are actually trade disputes requiring engagement beyond traditional Internet governance forums.

## The WSIS Plus 20 Opportunity

### Current State and Integration Challenges

The WSIS Plus 20 review process emerged as a central focus. Veni Markovski warned that current drafts lack adequate support for the technical community and multi-stakeholder model. However, speakers saw opportunities to incorporate positive language from the Global Digital Compact (GDC).

Jorge Cancio, representing Switzerland and serving on the multi-stakeholder advisory group, called for “a joint implementation roadmap integrating GDC into WSIS framework” to avoid duplications. He mentioned that Switzerland has circulated a non-paper on this topic and invited participants to approach them for discussions.

Jason Pielemeier emphasised that the GDC was “facilitated and negotiated really in New York” and stressed that WSIS should incorporate GDC objectives while maintaining its multi-stakeholder foundation.

### Ensuring Meaningful Participation

Tatjana Trupina stressed that “multi-stakeholder approach must be at the core with transparency and inclusion, not just lip service,” emphasising that “it is important for stakeholders to see how their input is actually taken into account.”

Jorge Cancio raised questions about the structure of participation, particularly regarding the informal multi-stakeholder sounding board, asking whether it would “act as a spokesperson of the global community or just be an elite group.”

## Making the Internet Governance Forum Permanent

### Strong Consensus for Permanence

There was remarkable agreement on making the IGF permanent after twenty years of temporary mandates. Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar argued that “IGF should be institutionalised as what works, rather than creating more global conversation processes.”

Flavia Alves noted that “IGF should be made permanent given its 20-year success and growing participation from previously sceptical countries,” specifically mentioning that China and Russia now host IGF events, demonstrating growing acceptance of the forum.

When Cheryl Miller asked “Does that mean that it’s permanent already? Do we just make that push for it?” the consensus was clear that formal permanence still requires action.

Jorge Cancio supported permanence with practical considerations, advocating for stable mixed funding and using the IGF as a vehicle for WSIS and GDC implementation.

## Addressing Digital Inequality and Market Concentration

### Challenging Questions from the Audience

Juan Ortiz, a PhD candidate at USC, raised critical questions about power distribution, noting “massive inequality exists in Internet value distribution, with few companies dominating traffic and wealth creation.” He provided specific examples, mentioning how “Google, YouTube traffic” dominates and how “ICC emails being cut by Microsoft” demonstrates platform power.

Ortiz challenged the panel: “how are we going to remain together if being together implies weaponisation, implies inequality, implies lack of distribution of value?”

### Varied Responses to Structural Challenges

Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar pointed to European legislation and platform accountability measures as necessary tools. Jorge Cancio referenced multi-stakeholder guidelines as potential solutions, while acknowledging that “power asymmetries must be addressed through evolved multi-stakeholder approaches.”

Flavia Alves acknowledged industry responsibility through connectivity investments and supporting small businesses on platforms, but the responses highlighted ongoing tensions between different approaches to addressing inequality.

## Connectivity and the Digital Divide

### Persistent Challenges

Despite twenty years since original WSIS commitments, Tatjana Trupina highlighted that “original WSIS connectivity goals remain unmet with one-third of the world still unconnected, requiring strengthened implementation.”

Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar, noting she had recently returned from maternity leave, emphasised the need to “focus on delivering actual outcomes rather than just negotiating text, especially for countries still joining the digital revolution.”

Flavia Alves suggested that connectivity and bridging the digital divide could be areas where stakeholders find common ground for cooperation.

## Trade Dimensions and Institutional Gaps

Milton Mueller’s intervention fundamentally reframed the discussion by identifying digital governance challenges as trade-related. He questioned whether multi-stakeholder models could be applied to World Trade Organisation negotiations, highlighting a significant gap in current approaches.

This observation revealed that while multi-stakeholder models have succeeded in technical coordination and policy dialogue, they haven’t been applied to trade negotiations where many digital governance decisions are ultimately made.

## Key Areas of Agreement and Next Steps

### Procedural Consensus

The discussion revealed strong consensus on several procedural issues:

– Making the IGF permanent with stable funding

– Ensuring transparent, inclusive, and meaningful multi-stakeholder participation

– Integrating WSIS Plus 20 and GDC implementation without duplication

– Consulting technical experts in regulatory processes to avoid Internet fragmentation

### Implementation Focus

Speakers agreed on prioritising implementation over endless negotiation. As Anne-Marie noted, there’s a need to focus on “what works” rather than creating new conversation processes.

The panel emphasised leveraging existing frameworks like the IGF and national/regional Internet governance initiatives rather than building parallel structures.

## Conclusion

The discussion demonstrated both the continued relevance and evolving challenges of multi-stakeholder digital governance. While geopolitical tensions and economic pressures create new obstacles, there remains strong support for collaborative approaches among diverse stakeholders.

The WSIS Plus 20 process represents a critical opportunity to reinforce multi-stakeholder principles while adapting to new realities. The strong consensus on making the IGF permanent provides a concrete, achievable objective that could demonstrate the continued value of collaborative governance.

However, deeper challenges around digital inequality, market concentration, and the tension between sovereignty and global connectivity require ongoing attention. As the interactive nature of this session demonstrated, meaningful multi-stakeholder cooperation depends on genuine dialogue that addresses difficult questions rather than avoiding them.

The path forward requires both defending existing achievements in Internet governance and innovating new approaches that can address legitimate concerns while maintaining the open, interoperable Internet that has driven global connectivity and economic development.

Cheryl Miller: Hi everyone. Hi everyone. Okay, sorry. This is my first time wearing earphones with a microphone, so apologies. I want to thank you all for coming here today. This session is multi-stakeholder cooperation in an era of increased protectionism. We have a panel full of experts and I’m really excited to dive right in and hear from them. I really would like this to be an interactive session and I really want to encourage you all to get up to the microphone and ask questions so there won’t be any long speeches or anything like that here. What we’re hoping to achieve in this session is a shared understanding in advancing the multi-stakeholder model to Internet governance and more broadly digital governance. Also hopefully discussions around a tentative roadmap for community engagement for the WSIS Plus 20 negotiations and strengthen collaboration between academia, governments, industry, civil society and the technical community. My name is Cheryl Miller and I’m the Vice President for Digital Policy at the U.S. Council for International Business, USCIB. For those of you who are not familiar with USCIB, we are a business association that promotes the voice of business in the multilateral process. We have special standing with ECOSOC and we engage across many different international organizations whether it is the Internet Governance Forum, APEC, the IGF, WSIS Plus 20, et cetera. What I’d like to do now is I’d like to allow the panelists to each introduce themselves and then we’ll dive into some questions to get the conversation started. Thank you so much. And if we start with you, Veni, that would be great.

Veni Markovski: My name is Veni Markovski. I’m Vice President for Government and Intergovernmental Organization Engagement at ICANN and interim head of that department. Based in New York, I cover a lot of the UN agencies, UN, ITU and others.

Jorge Cancio: Hello. Hello, everyone. I’m Jorge Cancio, Swiss government.

Tatjana Trupina: Hello everybody. My name is Tatjana Trupina and I’m a Senior Advisor on Institutional Relations at Internet Society.

Jason Pielemeier: Hi. I’m Jason Pilemar. I lead something called the Global Network Initiative, which is a multi-stakeholder organization working on free expression and privacy in the tech sector.

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Anne-Marie Ingtof-Milgar and I’m the Danish Tech Ambassador.

Flavia Alves: Hi everyone. My name is Claudia Alves, Director of International Organizations for Meta Platforms.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. So I think for the benefit of some of the newcomers in the room, I’ll just say a couple of words just with respect to the history of WSIS and IGF. So the World Summit on the Information Society is coming up for its 20-year review. And through this process, you know, it really laid out and established the multi-stakeholder model that we have today and it helped to create the Internet Governance Forum. It helped to create the Committee on Science and Technology for Development, CSTD. For those of you who are new, you may be hearing all these acronyms and I know it can be overwhelming. So we’re going to do our best to spell out those acronyms as we go along. But the first question that I’d like to ask our panel, what regulatory or political trends are undermining multi-stakeholder digital governance today and how are they affecting global cooperation? Who would like to jump in first? Veni?

Veni Markovski: I mean, thanks for volunteering me. I wasn’t going to. It’s like law school, Socratic method. Yeah, I was hiding here but you saw me nevertheless. I don’t know that we can talk about the regular. I mean, ICANN has a legislative regulatory tracking which we do at every ICANN meeting and for those of you who are not familiar, ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Signed Names and Numbers. We coordinate the domain name system, the IP addresses, protocol parameters on the Internet. And we have three times a year we have public meetings and they’re all accessible. You know, there is a recording from every session and you guys can go and take a look at it including on our leg tracking. I would say that sometimes governments take decisions to regulate or to govern one or another aspect of the Internet without thinking of the consequences that this might lead to. And sometimes this might lead to fragmentation at the technical level. So earlier today, Mona Gaballa, our president and CEO, spoke at the opening of the IGF and he mentioned that we’re talking about coordination, not centralization of the functions that we do and the way it makes the Internet work. So I think it’s important to actually understand that it’s better to talk to the technical experts before drafting or passing any legislation because once it’s passed, it usually takes a lot of time to fix it. I can give examples from my own Bulgaria where in 1999 the government introduced licensing for the Internet service providers and it took a whole case at the Supreme Court to get rid of it. So again, the urge here is to make sure that they use a multi-stakeholder model of somehow or consultations when they’re discussing issues. And again, ICANN is limited to talk about the technical aspects of the functioning of the Internet. So we’re looking always at is the DNS working around the globe, are the IP addresses working as the protocol parameters, and as long as they’re working, you know, whatever else is being governed and is being regulated on top of that, that’s up to every country to decide because they have legal jurisdiction in their borders. Thank you.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. Did I see someone else? Come on in.

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar: The question on what are the political trends affecting global cooperation, I find myself every morning waking up and feel, you know, a sense of uncertainty, insecurity, discombobulated. We got to be very honest that the fact that we’re trying to think about multi-stakeholder cooperation in a time that is a shifting geopolitical order, the last three decades of an international rule-based order are right now at a conjunction where I’m not sure what the answer is going to be a few years down the line. There’s an uncertainty. There’s an intensified strategic and economic competition globally, and we do not know the outcome of that. And it is impacting the multi-stakeholder and the multilateral processes as we speak. There’s an increase in conflicts around us, unfortunately, and we see that on the rise. All of this leads to an erosion of trust. The definition of trusted partners, I think, and I can speak for my own country on this, is changing. And so the combined sort of uncertainty, competition, uncomfortable truth that we do not know the future we’re going into is making cooperation incredibly hard. And what I hope for me, IGF, this year will be a sense of what can we meaningfully do to continue and drive some of this forward? What does meaningful, inclusive, effective multi-stakeholder governance look like in a world that is so fundamentally different than it was last year when we met at IGF?

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. And I would agree with that. I sit on the multi-stakeholder advisory group, which is the MAG, and so we’ve been having a lot of conversations around this as well, and conversations around the value of the IGF and how we can support it and support the multi-stakeholder model throughout. Tatiana, did you want to add?

Tatjana Trupina: Yes, thank you. And maybe I will go back a bit from the geopolitical tensions to what Venya was talking about, and start from this perspective. There is a tension, especially in the current geopolitical climate, between sovereign states and their borders, and them trying to navigate this climate. And tension between states and sovereign borders and the open, interoperable, and globally connected Internet. And when Venya was talking about regulation, especially regulation on the top of this network, we can recognize the states do have very valid concerns, for example, about security, safety of their citizens, online harms, crime, as well about their autonomy. Their ability to represent their citizens, their ability to protect their citizens. But again, as Venya said, the way states address these concerns, or maybe regional organizations are trying to address these concerns collectively, could harm the global interoperability and connectivity, perhaps sometimes even inadvertently, as unintended consequence. And in this way, what I see is a trend that is hampering the market. Interoperability and connectivity is the focus on national and regional sovereign policies, regulations, and it’s not only about affecting the Internet, it also affects the global cooperation because when you are focusing on your territory, you’re losing this global picture. This tension cannot be resolved just by saying, okay, let’s ditch the multi-stakeholder process, let’s go to more national, intergovernmental, multilateral regulatory processes. So, we must work together in this multi-stakeholder fashion to address these threats and to address the trends globally. And while we are addressing those concerns globally, the valid concerns, the legitimate concerns, we have to preserve the global connectivity and interoperability. So, we can have safety, we can save security, and at the same time, we can have open and globally connected Internet. Thank you.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. And Jason, I know GNI has been doing a lot of work around this. What are your thoughts?

Jason Pielemeier: Yeah, thanks. So, really building on what everyone else has said already, and just maybe to pull out a few regulatory trends. I think the concerns, the legitimate concerns, as Tatiana was articulating, for addressing harms on the Internet, I think are well understood. And there’s a recognition that sovereign states will, in certain circumstances, need to take steps to address those harms. A challenge is that where states try to address those harms in imprecise or disproportionate ways, they end up not only creating impacts within their own jurisdiction for their own citizens, but they create impacts across the Internet because of its interoperable, interconnected nature. So, you know, examples like network blocking or even network shutdowns, you know, attempts to take censorship deeper and deeper into the technology stack are sort of examples of that trend. On the other hand, there are more appropriate, more proportionate efforts that have been, that are being developed. The Digital Services Act in the EU, the Online Safety Act in the UK. These are not perfect, but they do at least attempt to address the content layer of the Internet in a way that recognizes that not every platform has the same business model, not every platform has the same risk profile, the same user base. And so they center on risk management frameworks that allow for a degree of flexibility. And those approaches, I think, have more promise and do less damage to sort of the fundamental layers of the Internet architecture. But they too are now being politicized, right? And we’re seeing an attempt to brand, you know, common sense, good faith efforts to regulate as censorship themselves. And it’s not to say that there aren’t concerns about how these laws could be misused. And unfortunately, we have seen high level political figures in Europe, you know, articulate a desire to use regulation in ways that we would consider inconsistent with the regulatory frameworks themselves. But by and large, these are good faith efforts to try and address legitimate concerns. And the fact that they’re becoming politicized and getting caught up in these broader geopolitical headwinds is of real concern. Because if these efforts can’t succeed, then I’m afraid we will see the more far-reaching, the more disproportionate efforts prevail. And that will do more damage to the interoperable global Internet.

Cheryl Miller: And this makes the business environment particularly very, very difficult. Flavia, from Meta’s perspective, how is this having an impact?

Flavia Alves: Yes, I think some of my colleagues made this comment here. And I think the most impact for us is the impact of calls for data localization, digital protectionism in general that can result in censorship. But having to reform or reduce or just respond to requests for reduction and removal of content on our platform in a speed process that can actually result in censorship, that is something that is actually impacting the global network in a way that isn’t resulted in Internet fragmentation, obviously. And so getting back to the point, I think every other colleague here made a comment on how it is important to take into account these digital sovereignty asks and see how it impacts on Internet fragmentation. But how can we go back to the WSIS principles and bring back the importance of mood stakeholder participation in these conversations? The WSIS had provided us a platform to discuss these issues, and I think we should take the opportunity that we have now to readdress how to connect on these matters with the stakeholders on the ground. Technical community has an important factor in expertise to talk on those issues, just like business that can say what is commercial or what is actually doable for us to respond and how should we be protecting an open, interoperable and free Internet.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. And Jorge, did you have thoughts?

Jorge Cancio: Yeah. Maybe too many to put them in 90 seconds or in two minutes. I think we are living in a time of contradictions, which is paradoxical in many ways. So we had some years ago this report from the high-level panel on digital cooperation, which was called Cooperation in an Age of Digital Interdependence. And at the same time, we have the mounting geopolitical tensions, the different interests, and of course, much more political attention to what formally 20 years ago was a much more technical subject. And you see that at all levels and it doesn’t make our life easier. But I wouldn’t see linear evolution or just a linear path of development. There are many contradictions. It depends on the level where you are talking about. It depends on the subject you are talking about. It depends on what the national stakeholders or the national government is doing about it. So just to mention some examples, of course, we have, for instance, the more technical management of the internet. And here we talk about ICANN, for instance, and I have here VENI to my right. And what we see is much more attention from governments to things like DNS abuse, to the malicious use of some of the elements of the DNS where ICANN has a role. And at the same time, we see the ICANN model that takes some time to get people together and to agree. And maybe not all incentives are always set right to deliver because political attention means that also the political people who are responsible are accountable, are really made responsible if there are no results. So that’s also something the community, the technical community or the people, the community that is participating in ICANN has to take into account as a legitimate concern. So it’s not just a top-down decision of government officials who have no clue about the issue. It’s really about things that affect the people. And I think I’m optimistic on the possibility of these multi-stakeholder organizations and communities to deliver. Then you have other, for instance, AI, which is the topic of attention in many places during this forum. And you could say, okay, has there been a move for top-down regulation of AI? Now there are many contradictions. There are different positions all across the globe at the national level. But for instance, the first international, let’s say, binding legal document on AI, which was developed by the Council of Europe, was very much based on a multi-stakeholder process. So we see how there are contradictions where in some places you can push the multi-stakeholder approach. In other places, you have a pushback. So it depends very much. It depends also on us. And I think that brings us also to the next. We have seen what happens when you have a weak process, when you have a process where multistakeholder is just a lip service, is something that is not really felt and we have an opportunity to learn from that and to improve things based on that learning and to make the multistakeholder approach in the WSIS Plus 20 review much more powerful.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. I want to pause there. Is there anyone from the audience who would like to ask something or add something? Come on up to the microphone. Please tell us your name and where you work and all that good stuff.

Milton Mueller: Is this the mic? It’s very tall. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. My name is Milton Mueller. I’m at the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech. There’s kind of like a missing link or an elephant in the room that you’re not talking about. I think Mia raised it sort of by implication and I think Flavia raised it and it’s the issue of trade. So the protectionism and fundamentally the fragmentation and the sovereignty concerns you’re talking about are fundamentally about digital free trade. Like can you move data around borders? Can you offer services in different parts of the world or do you have to conform to completely different regulatory patterns? And you’re so focused on multistakeholder cooperation but the fact of the matter is that trade issues are negotiated by the WTO, which is a multilateral organization. Do you think it’s possible for the multistakeholder model, which is not really a model as we know, but do we think that civil society and others could participate in WTO negotiations? Could we infuse that process with multistakeholder participation the way we have, let’s say, in ICANN and the IGF? That’s my question.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. That’s a great question, Milton. And thank you for helping to flesh out the conversation. Would anyone like to take a stab at an answer?

Veni Markovski: If nobody is willing, I can take it.

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar: Go ahead. Mia, you go first. My name is Anne-Marie. Sorry. But I think it says Mia up there. Mia is my incredibly wonderful colleague. Okay. That’s what was confusing me. I actually had to turn around at one point because I was like I thought it was Anne-Marie. Mia is sitting right down here right now. She’s not, but she did before. You’re welcome to change your name at any point. Questions I do not answer, go to Mia afterwards. She’s the brain behind all of this. I just get to sit here. So on this question, I think technically yes. I think there’s a bigger question on sort of the geopolitical, how effective is the World Trade Organization tackling what we are seeing now as a huge transformation of global trade. I come from a small, open economy. We are very much free marketeers, but we’re also not naive in understanding where the world is headed. And I think in that sense, it is critical to not think of the IGF, multi-stakeholder Internet governance going on over here where we’re all about free, open Internet, which let’s be honest, that is not entirely how the world already looks today, right? That is a vision, and I think it’s a vision that we firmly stand by, and with the EU presidency that we’re going to be assuming in five days from now, 1st of July, that will be the same vision that we will be pursuing through visas and all of the other multilateral bodies. But we have to be very realistic that the world is heading in a different place, one of more protectionism, one where trade is no longer sort of a Kumbaya place for us, but one of a lot of tension, and how to maintain a free, open Internet, because that is a prerequisite for the resilience and the securities of our communities. We had a discussion about this earlier today. How do we take that into the domain of national common interest? By the way, this is Mia entering over there. Any questions? She can’t hear. Which is even better, right? So just to say… She can’t hear what we are talking about. I know, which makes it better. This is really a question of how do we maintain and preserve the model as much as we can in a radically different world, at least for the next couple of years. I don’t have the answer. I have a promise from the Danish government that we will try to do as much as we can on infusing the multi-stakeholder model that we think worked well, not only for Internet governance, but across the board. But it’s not an easy play.

Cheryl Miller: Vanny, I think you wanted…

Veni Markovski: I think this is way better than… Flavia? Very quickly, Vanny.

Flavia Alves: I think when it comes to the discussion around data-free flows of trust and data governance and the conversations we are in internationally now, I think definitely there are conversations on the bilateral level, there are conversations of the EU-US level, there are conversations at the WTO, there are conversations actually in other international multi-stakeholder forums, such as the OECD. And data flows is also not only an economic issue, but it’s also a privacy and security issue, that we need to be careful and balance how we do the safeguards on privacy at the same time on law enforcement and others. So I think there is an excellent work that has been done by the OECD called the Trusted Government Access to Data Flows, Trusted Government Access. And there was an input from not only private privacy agencies, but also law enforcement agencies. And the OECD got input from civil society as well as industry, and there was an agreement on how to approach data flows, to secure data flows, at least among those countries that are from OECD. This work continues at the OECD. But above all, what I believe, there is also a discussion at this, at the UN level in the WSOS process, which you believe should really be taken by other bodies. There are more experts on this, such as the OECD. At the WTO, I understand the conversation is very member state driven. Not even us as private sector, we participate there. So I think in my expertise in this field, I would encourage us to go back to the OECD Trusted Government Access, but then move away from only government’s discussion on this.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. Are there any questions online? No? Okay. Any other questions in the room before we move forward? Okay. And picking up on that point on Trusted Government Access, we have the WSIS Plus 20 Review. We have the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, which came together last year, right? How can we leverage the WSIS Plus 20 Review and the GDC to reinforce trust? Is that possible? Can it reinforce inclusion? And can it reinforce global cooperation and digital governance?

Veni Markovski: I want to start first because, unfortunately, I have to leave for a bilateral, which starts in 10 minutes. But I think it’s very important to take the good things from the GDC, which is, in our case, from ICANN’s point of view, this is the text about internet governance, and use it in the WSIS Plus 20 Review. Because we’ve seen already with the elements paper that was published last Friday that that language is gone completely. Actually, the language that is there about internet governance goes back to, like, 2002, maybe, 2003. And then the other thing which we have to have as a lesson, and we already see that, actually, in the WSIS Plus 20 organization, the Secretariat is way better in managing the WSIS Plus 20. They have multi-stakeholder consultations. They’re taking notes. They’re webcasting some of the stuff, you know. So we are hopeful that the co-facilitators have taken notes and are going to use the WSIS Plus 20 to show how a multi-stakeholder process could be implemented to the limits, of course, of the UN General Assembly Rules of Procedure. Because we know from the WSIS Plus 10, 10 years ago, that there are certain requirements that the governments will never change for that particular process because they cannot be changed just for this process. They have to be changed for every other process. And so we are hoping that this is with regards to the processes and the way they work. Now, also, it’s important to see how the relations between the WSIS and the GDC will be formed, because even though, for example, there was an agreed language in the GDC about the importance of the IGF, later last year in the ICT resolution discussions on the General Assembly, this language was taken back to before it. So for those of you who are listening and who are in the room, please understand that the UN processes are very complex and sometimes very complicated. And even though we have the good desire to provide our factual information, how the Internet works, and what is good in the processes so far, it’s not necessarily that the governments will take this and will not decide to change it. So it’s a very complex process. The ICANN community… The broader internet community had a wake-up call with the Elements paper because they were expecting maybe some support of the multi-stakeholder model, some support for the technical community and that is not in the text. So there is a lot of areas that we would be able to contribute to try to persuade the governments to take the good language from the

Cheryl Miller: GDC. Thank you. Thank you. And Tatiana? Yes, thank you. Just zooming out a bit

Tatjana Trupina: and building upon what Veni said, rather than looking at the text and words and shaping, I would say that how the question is posed, right? Reinforcing trust, reinforcing cooperation. We cannot reinforce trust, we cannot reinforce cooperation if we don’t put multi-stakeholder approach in the core of these processes. Transparency and inclusion at the core. And Jorge, you said, you used the words lip service, right? So this inclusion should not be just talking for participation. I think it is important for stakeholders to see how their input is actually taken into account, for example, in the WSIS review process. And transparency is very much at the core of this as well. And here we can, for example, leverage the NetMundial plus 10 guidelines, which is a very good reference. And secondly, and I think that everybody is talking about this, right? Let’s not duplicate the processes. But I would add something to this. Not only not duplicate the process, let’s not create alternative vehicles or alternative process to what we already have. This would also allow us to avoid duplication as much as possible. Because very few stakeholders, if any, have resources to follow all these multiple complex processes. Venya was talking about complexity of the UN process. And not only to follow, but also resources to contribute to these multiple duplicative trucks. So in this regard, and I think I’ve heard some discussions already happening here, how the IGF and national and regional initiatives can be leveraged as a good vehicle for continuing the WSIS, for strengthening the WSIS implementation and the promise of the WSIS. But also being used as a vehicle for the GDC implementation within the WSIS process. Again, they’re very well positioned to address any issues within the GDC. And there are already existing channels. And any alternative process will significantly undermine this multi-stakeholder collaboration and participation. Also, with regard to IGF being such a vehicle, it should not become an avenue to sideline non-governmental stakeholders. When governments are discussing the GDC implementation or WSIS somewhere else, and other stakeholders are coming and discussing the IGF, no. They should be brought together. And in this regard, the IGF as an avenue should be strengthened as open, inclusive platform. At the same time, the WSIS and the GDC implementation should become more transparent, more open, and more inclusive. So this is a mutual process.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. Thank you. And Jason, I know that the Global Network Initiative has been quite involved in the WSIS plus 20 discussions and the Global Digital Compact. What do you think?

Jason Pielemeier: Yeah, just to kind of synthesize a little bit maybe what Veni and Tatiana was just saying, I think there is good text in the GDC that it would be helpful to see reiterated and underscored in the WSIS. However, the WSIS process has been around for 20 years. It sets out a very broad and I think fairly politically sophisticated approach to global cooperation around the internet and internet governance. The GDC is very new. It’s a process driven by a relatively new office in New York and that was facilitated and negotiated really in New York, which within the UN system is a very different operating environment than Geneva and some of the other centers of conversation multilaterally. So there’s a real concern if the WSIS process essentially becomes transformed into GDC implementation rather than the WSIS being seen as a way to incorporate the objectives of the GDC into an existing process that is built with multi-stakeholder purchase and participation. So I hope that we can see those sort of textual references echoed into the WSIS but without fundamentally changing kind of the locus or the process that WSIS has embodied and hopefully will continue to carry forward.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. Flavia, I know that Meta and many other businesses have been really involved in the WSIS since its inception as well as the Global Digital Compact. What do you think? Do you agree?

Flavia Alves: There are points obviously that I agree with Vinny and Jason. I think if I can step a bit with regard to the WSIS in general, I think it’s important for us to look at the process and the WSIS review right now. And so first we need to see and make sure this process is predictable, is transparent and is inclusive. So to the extent that there are consultations, that there are papers that we need to have enough time to be able to reiterate and connect between civil society and industry and others to submit comments and those comments should actually be taken into account. And I think that’s the process that we think should be established. We see a lot of good intention and it sounds that co-facilitators are trying as much and so we should continue to reinforce that. But then it comes with regard to the WSIS plus 20 resolution per se and I think there is a critical opportunity for us to again reinforce the stakeholder governance framework that we have seen for internet governance in general and we should take advantage of that again and do so. For instance, the definition of internet governance for some might be not an issue right now. We’ve just heard something about like maybe the G7 and G7 are not necessarily concerned with internet governance. They are more concerned with AI access and etc. But I really think that we do not need to lose this opportunity to again reinforce internet governance, to again reinforce the principle of a mood stakeholder approach to internet governance that we should be seeing on the definition that is right now in the elements paper. It’s not. When it comes then to internet governance too, obviously it’s very important to renew the IGF mandate and now I wonder is it important to renew or to make it permanent? Should we look into partnering with others and making it permanent? Are we, I mean as Cyril said, I was there at the WSIS resolutions discussions 10 years ago and we were discussing exactly the same. Obviously I’m getting old but it went too fast. 10 years is too much, too fast and we are here again. Should we make it permanent? It has been successful. We are having more and more participation from delegations such as China and Russia and others that before were not necessarily supposed or not approved or approval of the IGF process but now not only that but they also are hosting. I mean we all have an agreement here with countries that IGF it’s important. So I think we should take this opportunity to make it permanent and then obviously on the WSIS and the negotiation process, given the geopolitical process where we are, the UN negotiations now, issues such as human rights, AI, content information integrity, internet liability, copyrights and etc. are going to be taken, are going to be brought up and I think we should go back to what the resolution has been adopted before and go into those principles but also take into account what has been discussed at GDC and that’s how I go to Vinny’s point. I don’t think we should open again the discussion around AI. I don’t think we should open again the discussion of human rights. Human rights text at the GDC is actually, I mean Jason is much more of an expert but it’s actually something that we worked in and we support and so we want to see action on that. Does that make sense to open again with the same stakeholders the discussion about human rights and internet? So us adopting that text, it’s going to be interesting and then finally I think there are things that are good that everyone is working towards and we should continue but not forget it’s too very important connectivity. There was a huge focus on connectivity, spectrum access, you’re there as well, connectivity access and etc. It’s too important that we try to bridge the digital divide. It’s too important that we try to assure that connect communities have access to the latest technology and emerging technologies so that I must say for instance on artificial intelligence, open source artificial intelligence has been shown as a way of actually getting much more people using the tool than any other. So we would be supportive of something around that. I think the negotiation should start in topics that we actually agree on. So connectivity, access, education, research. Are we talking research? And of course, topics that we have issues that are hard to agree on, let’s leverage the GDC that has already been adopted. I know, long short, just to make sure that I do think both the WISAs and the GDC can actually be put together somehow as we lead to the December negotiations.

Cheryl Miller: Great points, thank you. And connectivity is so important, so thank you for raising that. With respect to making the IGF permanent, that is a topic that we’ve heard in a number of different meetings. It’s been here for 20 years and it has had some great results and some great success. Does that mean that it’s permanent already? Do we just make that push for it? It was one of the conversations that Flavia and I were just in recently. From a government perspective, Anne-Marie, what do you think?

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar: I think many things. One is on this discussion between WISAs and GDC alignment and negotiating text and sort of the outcomes. I think we advocate for transparent, inclusive negotiations of the WISAs. We very much support permanently institutionalizing the IGF because more global conversations about process, I don’t think it’s going to lead to better outcomes. It’s also about institutionalizing what works. That goes to my second point on all of this. As we are negotiating and spending years, it feels like for years, since the first panel was set up in Geneva that led to the GDC, that led to the Office of the Tech Envoy. Now with WISAs, with NetMundial, going back to my initial conversations, that the geopolitical backdrop is completely changing. Erosion of trust, an altered global environment as we know it. If individual people, citizens are to trust these UN processes actually delivering open, free, secure, stable Internet and access for everyone to participate in the technological revolution, we need to focus on how to deliver that actually and not just negotiate text. This is not to diminish the incredible work that many of us spend so much of our time on, which is negotiating commas and sentences and words. But ultimately, if we do not want to lose so many countries who still have yet to fully participate in the digital revolution and harvest that for prosperity, for human rights, for security, for dignity, for opportunity for all, we need to be thinking a lot more about what can we do on actually implementing this. I was just on maternity leave, so I’ve been away for some months, and I come back and curious. Congratulations. Thank you so much. What have we done? And the thing is that this takes a long time. But if you look at the commitments in the GDC on delivering on the SDGs and leveraging digital, we have so much work ahead of us. And I say that as a government. We say this in a time when we know that civil society is losing funding. We know this is a time where a lot of funding also going to digital connectivity is gone, where platforms are stepping back a little bit on platform accountability. So I think that this IGF should be not just about the negotiated text and how we do processes in New York and Geneva, but much more on how do we deliver for those who are on the fence of whether to be with us or be against us on these negotiations so that they trust us and that they see that the multistakeholder model is delivering on the promises that we made.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you. And on your point on the dots and the commas and the hard work, Jorge, I know that you have been hard at work. You’re also on the multistakeholder advisory group with me, and you’ve put so much into the IGF and other things. What are your thoughts?

Jorge Cancio: Yeah. Thank you. So it’s difficult to sum up. Maybe some of you know that there’s been a non-paper being circulated by the Swiss, so by my government. And if you are interested and you don’t know it, please approach us because we are happy to share. And we’ve been building that over many conversations, not only in New York, in the Western countries or in the Global North, but with many partners from the Global South to really see how we can build a UN system on digital governance that delivers for all. And that means to really look into the what and the how and how we get there. And on the what, I agree very much that it will be very difficult to go beyond what we agreed last year in the Global Digital Compact. There’s a lot of substance there. Maybe if the process of WSIS plus 20 is stronger, more inclusive, maybe we can move the needle in one or two issues, but it will be a hard thing. But more important that what is on paper is how we put it to work. And there, especially thinking about this UN80, which is a budget cut process within the UN system, we cannot afford any baroque duplications and having parallel processes and some of them established ex-novo. We have to update and use the WSIS framework. And the WSIS framework is really the UN agencies putting the WSIS vision and the WSIS action lines into work together with stakeholders all over the world. And that’s what we have to update, putting the new agreements of the GDC into that work. That’s why we are advocating for a joint implementation roadmap of the GDC integrated into WSIS. And we are advocating also to update the existing WSIS architecture, which is different UN bodies and UN structures, to instill them with a multi-stakeholder approach to include stakeholder participation in the different steps of the work of the United Nations in this field. And of course, of improving and strengthening the IGF, making it permanent with a stable funding, a mixed funding, voluntary contributions, but also UN contributions. And that will be a hard fight, but we are not talking about tens of millions. We are talking about a couple of millions, so it’s doable. And we are also talking about other specific measures that we explain in our non-paper. So I think that, of course, the elements paper is lacking in many things. And as we have discussed here, it is also due to the fact that the co-facilitators decided to exclude everything that was minimally controversial. So it’s very important for all stakeholders, for all of you, for all of us to really participate in this consultation until the 15th of July. Put forward specific proposals, wording proposals, if possible, on how to improve things. We will, of course, do on the basis of our non-paper. And let’s use all channels of participation to the furthest extent possible. The co-facilitators are showing some willingness to go along the lines of the São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines. For instance, they have decided to establish this informal multi-stakeholder sounding board to help them in the negotiation process. And it’s important that this is not just an elite group formed by a couple of members of the IGF leadership panel and the IGF MAC. It’s important that those members are really connected to the rest of the global community and act as a spokesperson group of the multi-stakeholder community in order to be in the negotiation process. And of course, we as governments, we have different possibilities to include stakeholders like embedding them in our delegations. And we for sure are going to try to do that again as we’ve done in the past.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you so much. And we’re moving toward the end, but I want to check with our online participants. Is there anyone that wants to ask a question or make a comment? No? Anyone in the room that would like to comment on anything that’s been said? Come on up to the mic. If you can just let us know your name and who you’re with, that would be great. Thank you very much.

Audience: Juan Ortiz, PhD candidate at USC. I feel another elephant in the room is perhaps the inequality within the network currently that, you know, we have massive companies. If you put Google and YouTube together, they have the same amount of clicks as the next one. We have a massive inequality in the distribution of value of being together. The 10 richest people, I think 8 of them have made money off the internet, so we’re talking about connectivity, we want to connect everyone, but what are we connecting them to? We have very little technical distribution, the main companies keep their headquarters in the US, they don’t create jobs elsewhere, and we have the weaponization of these infrastructures so the ICC emails got cut by Microsoft, so how are we going to remain together if being together implies weaponization, implies inequality, implies lack of distribution of value, so I think one of the elephants in the room is what’s happening with antitrust, what’s happening with taxes, what’s happening with disarmament.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you for your comment, collaboration comes to mind when you mention that. Does anyone on the panel want to respond or make a comment?

Jorge Cancio: I wished I had the response to that, but I think it’s important if we are talking about multi-stakeholder approach and you look into the São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines which were adopted last year, the first guideline addresses that point, the point of asymmetries of power, asymmetries of influence, so it’s really a very tough question, but I think we can evolve also the multi-stakeholder approach to at least try to address some of those issues.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you, Annemarie?

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar: It’s absolutely an elephant in the room. I think there are three main things that we’re doing from my own perspective. One is the DMA, so the European legislation on actually trying to make better market access for more players. Two, how do we support innovation, because right now I think the power grab and rightly so much of internet traffic is really within very, very few platforms, so how do we support an innovation for European companies, companies from all over the world that can deliver internet platforms to compete and allow for diversity, because with that also comes the diversity of what are we discussing online, how are we discussing online, how are we engaging online, what are we using and spending our time on digitally, and then I do think the third one, and that goes back to how we’re thinking about the multi-stakeholder cooperation, which is really also around platform accountability, because it’s going to be some time before that we’re going to see a fundamentally different picture of how it looks today, but I do think just as a hopeful comment, this is not the end of the digital revolution. Just because this is how it evolved for the past 10, 15 years, you have very few companies who have been incredibly successful to the point that we have very few others competing with them, why can’t we change that? I mean, the evolution, and I think especially the incredible innovators out there, the open source community, who I think sort of ebbs and flows over the past 30 years, but have gained an incredible traction again, the use of AI, not only from the existing live platforms, but very much in the hands of people around the world. Maria Ressa is here with Rappler, there’s so many new platforms that are starting to see the day of light, we have discussions on how are we meaningfully engaging online, and that also means diversifying the services that we’re using, so I do find there should be this, this is not the sort of the height of it, and from here on it’s just downwards, we’re really at an opportunity and an inflection point, I think, for a rethinking the internet we want, and how does it live up to the hopeful expectations back in 1992 of actually providing this wide array of opportunities, and emancipation for individuals and citizens in all sorts of acceptance form rather than where we are today.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you so much, and as we close out, maybe we can close out this way, I’d like to give everyone just really, really quickly, we’ll go down, what specific actions, we’ve had a lot of discussion about what we need to do, but what specific actions could we prioritize if we are to ensure meaningful, inclusive, and effective multi-stakeholder cooperation? Tatyana?

Tatjana Trupina: Yes, I can start, just to sum up basically what we discussed here, first of all we should continue demanding that the WSIS plus 20 review and GDC implementation process is transparent and inclusive, that stakeholders input is taken into account, and we should participate as Jorge said, and in terms of priorities, I have three, protect the global interoperability and connectivity, ensure that this is put at the core, secondly, strengthen the multi-stakeholder cooperation by reaffirming commitment to the multi-stakeholder model in the WSIS plus 20 and also by evolving the IGF and renewing its mandate, also making it permanent, and thirdly, and this goes to what was said about connectivity, the original WSIS goal was connectivity, we still have one third of the world not connected, the WSIS has to deliver, we have to strengthen its implementation to address the current and emerging digital divides.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you, and we’re running short on time, so I’m going to give Flavia the last word.

Flavia Alves: Sure, so I think one thing very quickly and following the question from the audience as well, it is important that on the multi-stakeholder to make sure it works, that every single stakeholder play their role, and so for instance when we say about making sure the internet is accessible, free and open for everyone, how do we do that as us, I speak for industry now, we invest in connectivity, we have just announced a super, a submarine cable that is one of the biggest that is called Project W, it’s going to go around to have users, to give users access to the latest technologies we have, but our users are also not necessarily receiving information, they are actually small business, selling, trading and creating in our platform, so that responds to the economic question, we are also helping increasing economic value in this country, but then when it comes to the use of platforms, it’s important for us to also invest on education and awareness, 10 years ago we were discussing the importance of helping education, including accessibility, awareness programs, to make sure folks are using the internet as they should, there are people that have access but may not know necessarily how to use the internet, but then when it comes to the WSIS, I have said my points before, making sure the process is right, making sure internet governance is included and multistakeholder process is defined there too.

Cheryl Miller: Thank you so much, and I want to say thank you so much to our audience, thank you for the questions, for our online audience as well, thank you so much for joining us, and for anyone who, raise your hand if you are an IGF newcomer, if this is your first IGF, that’s awesome, so I hope that we keep continuing to see you guys in these meetings, I hope that you get involved, and I hope to be sitting there and listening to you guys up here at one of your next panels, maybe at the next IGF, so thank you so much, and let’s give it up for our panel.

Agreement points

Need for transparent, inclusive, and meaningful multi-stakeholder participation in WSIS Plus 20 and digital governance processes

Speakers

– Veni Markovski
– Tatjana Trupina
– Jason Pielemeier
– Flavia Alves
– Jorge Cancio

Arguments

Good language from the GDC about Internet governance should be incorporated into WSIS Plus 20, as current elements paper lacks multi-stakeholder support

Multi-stakeholder approach must be at the core with transparency and inclusion, not just lip service

WSIS should incorporate GDC objectives without being transformed into GDC implementation, maintaining its 20-year multi-stakeholder foundation

The process must be predictable, transparent, and inclusive, with opportunity to reinforce Internet governance principles and make IGF permanent

A joint implementation roadmap integrating GDC into WSIS framework is needed, avoiding baroque duplications

Summary

All speakers agree that the WSIS Plus 20 review process must be genuinely transparent and inclusive, with meaningful stakeholder participation rather than token consultation. They emphasize the need to preserve and strengthen multi-stakeholder principles while integrating lessons from the Global Digital Compact.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

IGF should be made permanent given its 20-year track record of success

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Tatjana Trupina
– Flavia Alves
– Jorge Cancio

Arguments

IGF should be institutionalized as what works, rather than creating more global conversation processes

IGF and national/regional initiatives should be leveraged for continuing WSIS implementation without sidelining non-governmental stakeholders

The process must be predictable, transparent, and inclusive, with opportunity to reinforce Internet governance principles and make IGF permanent

IGF should be made permanent with stable mixed funding and serve as a vehicle for WSIS and GDC implementation

Summary

Multiple speakers strongly support making the IGF permanent, recognizing its proven effectiveness over 20 years and its potential role as a vehicle for implementing both WSIS and GDC objectives. They see permanence as institutionalizing what works rather than continuing endless process discussions.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Regulatory approaches must consider technical implications and avoid Internet fragmentation

Speakers

– Veni Markovski
– Tatjana Trupina
– Jason Pielemeier
– Flavia Alves

Arguments

Governments sometimes regulate without consulting technical experts, leading to potential Internet fragmentation

Tension exists between sovereign state borders and the open, interoperable Internet, with focus on national policies potentially harming global connectivity

Imprecise regulatory responses to Internet harms create cross-border impacts, though some efforts like the Digital Services Act show more promise

Data localization and digital protectionism calls result in censorship and Internet fragmentation

Summary

Speakers agree that while governments have legitimate concerns about security and safety, regulatory approaches must consider technical implications and avoid fragmenting the global, interoperable Internet. They advocate for consulting technical experts and using more precise, proportionate regulatory frameworks.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Connectivity and bridging the digital divide remain critical priorities

Speakers

– Tatjana Trupina
– Flavia Alves
– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar

Arguments

Original WSIS connectivity goals remain unmet with one-third of the world still unconnected, requiring strengthened implementation

Connectivity and bridging the digital divide should be prioritized topics where stakeholders can find agreement

Focus should be on delivering actual outcomes rather than just negotiating text, especially for countries still joining the digital revolution

Summary

Speakers emphasize that the original WSIS goal of universal connectivity remains unfulfilled, with one-third of the world still unconnected. They agree this should be a priority area where stakeholders can find common ground and focus on actual implementation rather than just policy discussions.

Topics

Development | Digital access

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers, representing technical community perspectives, emphasize the need to salvage good language from the Global Digital Compact and integrate it into WSIS Plus 20, while avoiding duplication of processes. They share concern about the regression in the current elements paper.

Speakers

– Veni Markovski
– Jorge Cancio

Arguments

Good language from the GDC about Internet governance should be incorporated into WSIS Plus 20, as current elements paper lacks multi-stakeholder support

A joint implementation roadmap integrating GDC into WSIS framework is needed, avoiding baroque duplications

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers acknowledge the fundamental tension between national sovereignty concerns and maintaining global Internet connectivity, recognizing that current geopolitical shifts are making international cooperation more challenging.

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Tatjana Trupina

Arguments

Shifting geopolitical order and erosion of trust are making cooperation increasingly difficult

Tension exists between sovereign state borders and the open, interoperable Internet, with focus on national policies potentially harming global connectivity

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers, representing civil society and industry perspectives, share concerns about how regulatory responses to legitimate harms can create unintended consequences for Internet freedom and global connectivity, while acknowledging some regulatory efforts are more appropriate than others.

Speakers

– Jason Pielemeier
– Flavia Alves

Arguments

Imprecise regulatory responses to Internet harms create cross-border impacts, though some efforts like the Digital Services Act show more promise

Data localization and digital protectionism calls result in censorship and Internet fragmentation

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Making IGF permanent after 20 years of temporary mandates

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Tatjana Trupina
– Flavia Alves
– Jorge Cancio

Arguments

IGF should be institutionalized as what works, rather than creating more global conversation processes

IGF and national/regional initiatives should be leveraged for continuing WSIS implementation without sidelining non-governmental stakeholders

The process must be predictable, transparent, and inclusive, with opportunity to reinforce Internet governance principles and make IGF permanent

IGF should be made permanent with stable mixed funding and serve as a vehicle for WSIS and GDC implementation

Explanation

The strong consensus across government, civil society, industry, and international organization representatives for making the IGF permanent is somewhat unexpected given the traditional reluctance of UN processes to create permanent institutions. The fact that even a government representative strongly advocates for this shows significant shift in thinking.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Acknowledgment of digital inequality and market concentration as legitimate concerns requiring attention

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Jorge Cancio
– Flavia Alves

Arguments

European legislation like DMA, innovation support, and platform accountability are needed to address market concentration

Power asymmetries must be addressed through evolved multi-stakeholder approaches as outlined in São Paulo guidelines

Industry plays a role through connectivity investments, supporting small businesses on platforms, and education programs

Explanation

The consensus among government, civil society, and industry representatives that digital inequality and market concentration are real problems requiring attention is unexpected, as these stakeholders often have different perspectives on market regulation. Even the industry representative acknowledges the need for addressing these issues.

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrate strong consensus on procedural issues around multi-stakeholder governance, IGF permanence, the need for transparent and inclusive processes, and the importance of avoiding Internet fragmentation. They also agree on the continued importance of connectivity and bridging the digital divide.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on governance processes and institutional arrangements, with broad agreement on the need to preserve Internet openness while addressing legitimate regulatory concerns. This suggests potential for meaningful progress in WSIS Plus 20 negotiations if procedural agreements can be maintained and translated into substantive outcomes.

Different viewpoints

Approach to addressing digital inequality and market concentration

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Audience (Juan Ortiz)

Arguments

European legislation like DMA, innovation support, and platform accountability are needed to address market concentration

Massive inequality exists in Internet value distribution, with few companies dominating traffic and wealth creation

Summary

While both acknowledge the problem of digital inequality, Ingtof Milgar presents an optimistic view focusing on regulatory solutions like the DMA and supporting innovation, expressing hope that the digital revolution can be redirected. The audience member presents a more critical perspective, emphasizing the severity of current inequality and questioning whether connectivity efforts are meaningful given the concentration of power and weaponization of infrastructure.

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected differences

Optimism vs. pessimism about the future of digital governance

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar

Arguments

Shifting geopolitical order and erosion of trust are making cooperation increasingly difficult

European legislation like DMA, innovation support, and platform accountability are needed to address market concentration

Explanation

Unexpectedly, the same speaker (Ingtof Milgar) presents seemingly contradictory viewpoints – expressing deep concern about geopolitical uncertainty and erosion of trust making cooperation ‘incredibly hard,’ while simultaneously expressing optimism about the potential for change and innovation in the digital landscape. This internal contradiction reflects the complex and uncertain nature of current digital governance challenges.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed remarkably high consensus among speakers on fundamental principles and goals, with disagreements primarily focused on implementation approaches rather than core objectives. The main areas of disagreement centered on the extent of GDC-WSIS integration and approaches to addressing digital inequality.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Most speakers shared common ground on supporting multi-stakeholder governance, making IGF permanent, ensuring transparency and inclusion, and addressing connectivity gaps. The disagreements were primarily tactical rather than strategic, focusing on ‘how’ rather than ‘what’ or ‘why.’ This suggests a mature policy community with shared values but different perspectives on implementation pathways. The implications are generally positive for advancing multi-stakeholder digital governance, as the consensus on principles provides a strong foundation for negotiating implementation details.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers, representing technical community perspectives, emphasize the need to salvage good language from the Global Digital Compact and integrate it into WSIS Plus 20, while avoiding duplication of processes. They share concern about the regression in the current elements paper.

Speakers

– Veni Markovski
– Jorge Cancio

Arguments

Good language from the GDC about Internet governance should be incorporated into WSIS Plus 20, as current elements paper lacks multi-stakeholder support

A joint implementation roadmap integrating GDC into WSIS framework is needed, avoiding baroque duplications

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers acknowledge the fundamental tension between national sovereignty concerns and maintaining global Internet connectivity, recognizing that current geopolitical shifts are making international cooperation more challenging.

Speakers

– Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar
– Tatjana Trupina

Arguments

Shifting geopolitical order and erosion of trust are making cooperation increasingly difficult

Tension exists between sovereign state borders and the open, interoperable Internet, with focus on national policies potentially harming global connectivity

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers, representing civil society and industry perspectives, share concerns about how regulatory responses to legitimate harms can create unintended consequences for Internet freedom and global connectivity, while acknowledging some regulatory efforts are more appropriate than others.

Speakers

– Jason Pielemeier
– Flavia Alves

Arguments

Imprecise regulatory responses to Internet harms create cross-border impacts, though some efforts like the Digital Services Act show more promise

Data localization and digital protectionism calls result in censorship and Internet fragmentation

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Key takeaways

Multi-stakeholder digital governance faces significant challenges from shifting geopolitical tensions, erosion of trust, and increasing protectionism that are making global cooperation more difficult

There is fundamental tension between sovereign state borders and the open, interoperable Internet, with national regulatory approaches potentially causing unintended fragmentation

The WSIS Plus 20 review process offers an opportunity to reinforce multi-stakeholder principles and Internet governance frameworks, but current elements paper lacks adequate multi-stakeholder language

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) contains good language on Internet governance that should be incorporated into WSIS Plus 20 without transforming WSIS into mere GDC implementation

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) should be made permanent given its 20-year track record and growing participation, including from previously skeptical countries

Digital inequality and market concentration represent significant challenges, with few companies dominating Internet traffic and value creation

One-third of the world remains unconnected, indicating that original WSIS connectivity goals still require urgent attention and strengthened implementation

Meaningful multi-stakeholder cooperation requires transparency, inclusion, and stakeholder input being genuinely taken into account, not just lip service

Resolutions and action items

Participate in WSIS Plus 20 consultation process until July 15th deadline with specific wording proposals to improve the elements paper

Advocate for incorporating good Internet governance language from the GDC into the WSIS Plus 20 review

Push for making the IGF permanent with stable mixed funding (voluntary contributions plus UN contributions)

Establish a joint implementation roadmap integrating GDC into WSIS framework to avoid duplication

Ensure the informal multi-stakeholder sounding board acts as genuine spokesperson for the global community rather than just an elite group

Governments should embed stakeholders in their delegations during negotiations

Leverage IGF and national/regional initiatives as vehicles for WSIS and GDC implementation

Focus on delivering actual outcomes rather than just negotiating text, especially for countries still joining the digital revolution

Unresolved issues

How to effectively address power asymmetries and digital inequality within the multi-stakeholder model

Whether and how to incorporate multi-stakeholder participation into World Trade Organization negotiations on digital trade issues

How to balance legitimate government concerns about security and citizen protection with maintaining global Internet interoperability

The relationship and coordination between WSIS Plus 20 and GDC implementation processes remains unclear

How to ensure adequate funding for IGF if made permanent, particularly securing UN budget contributions

How to address market concentration and the dominance of few major Internet platforms

How to meaningfully connect one-third of the world that remains unconnected to the Internet

How to maintain multi-stakeholder cooperation effectiveness in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical environment

Suggested compromises

Use existing WSIS framework and update it rather than creating new parallel processes to avoid duplication and resource strain

Focus negotiations on topics where stakeholders can find agreement (connectivity, access, education, research) while leveraging already-agreed GDC text for contentious issues

Adopt risk management frameworks that allow flexibility for different platforms rather than one-size-fits-all regulation

Establish mixed funding model for IGF combining voluntary contributions with UN budget allocations

Create joint implementation roadmap that integrates GDC objectives into existing WSIS architecture rather than separate processes

Use São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines as reference for addressing power asymmetries while maintaining inclusive participation

Embed stakeholders in government delegations and use informal multi-stakeholder sounding boards to bridge governmental and non-governmental participation

We got to be very honest that the fact that we’re trying to think about multi-stakeholder cooperation in a time that is a shifting geopolitical order, the last three decades of an international rule-based order are right now at a conjunction where I’m not sure what the answer is going to be a few years down the line. There’s an uncertainty. There’s an intensified strategic and economic competition globally, and we do not know the outcome of that.

Speaker

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar

Reason

This comment was particularly insightful because it directly addressed the fundamental tension underlying the entire discussion – how to maintain cooperative frameworks when the geopolitical foundations that enabled them are shifting. It moved beyond technical discussions to acknowledge the existential uncertainty facing multilateral cooperation.

Impact

This comment set a more realistic and sobering tone for the discussion, moving it away from purely technical solutions toward acknowledging the broader political constraints. It influenced subsequent speakers to address the tension between sovereignty and global cooperation more directly.

There’s kind of like a missing link or an elephant in the room that you’re not talking about… the protectionism and fundamentally the fragmentation and the sovereignty concerns you’re talking about are fundamentally about digital free trade… Do you think it’s possible for the multistakeholder model… could we infuse that process with multistakeholder participation the way we have, let’s say, in ICANN and the IGF?

Speaker

Milton Mueller

Reason

This intervention was thought-provoking because it identified a critical gap in the discussion – the panel was discussing governance fragmentation without addressing its root cause in trade disputes. Mueller reframed the entire conversation by pointing out that digital governance issues are fundamentally trade issues, requiring engagement with different institutional frameworks like the WTO.

Impact

This comment forced the panel to confront the limitations of their multi-stakeholder approach when applied to trade negotiations, leading to more nuanced discussions about where multi-stakeholder models can and cannot be effectively applied. It broadened the scope of the conversation beyond traditional internet governance forums.

There is a tension, especially in the current geopolitical climate, between sovereign states and their borders, and them trying to navigate this climate. And tension between states and sovereign borders and the open, interoperable, and globally connected Internet… This tension cannot be resolved just by saying, okay, let’s ditch the multi-stakeholder process, let’s go to more national, intergovernmental, multilateral regulatory processes.

Speaker

Tatjana Trupina

Reason

This comment was insightful because it articulated the core structural tension that underlies all digital governance challenges – the fundamental mismatch between territorial sovereignty and borderless digital networks. It also provided a clear argument for why multi-stakeholder approaches remain necessary despite these tensions.

Impact

This framing helped other panelists structure their responses around this central tension, leading to more focused discussions about how to balance legitimate state concerns with global connectivity. It provided a conceptual framework that other speakers built upon throughout the discussion.

I feel another elephant in the room is perhaps the inequality within the network currently… we have massive inequality in the distribution of value… how are we going to remain together if being together implies weaponization, implies inequality, implies lack of distribution of value?

Speaker

Juan Ortiz

Reason

This comment was particularly thought-provoking because it challenged the fundamental assumption that connectivity and cooperation are inherently good. By highlighting power asymmetries and the weaponization of digital infrastructure, it forced the panel to confront whether the current internet model is worth preserving or needs fundamental restructuring.

Impact

This intervention shifted the discussion from procedural questions about governance mechanisms to substantive questions about power distribution and economic justice. It forced panelists to acknowledge that technical solutions cannot address underlying structural inequalities, leading to more honest discussions about the limitations of current approaches.

We cannot reinforce trust, we cannot reinforce cooperation if we don’t put multi-stakeholder approach in the core of these processes. Transparency and inclusion at the core… this inclusion should not be just talking for participation… it is important for stakeholders to see how their input is actually taken into account.

Speaker

Tatjana Trupina

Reason

This comment was insightful because it moved beyond advocating for multi-stakeholder participation to identifying why such participation often fails – the gap between consultation and actual influence. It highlighted that procedural inclusion without substantive impact undermines trust rather than building it.

Impact

This observation led other panelists to discuss specific mechanisms for ensuring meaningful participation, such as Jorge’s mention of embedding stakeholders in government delegations and the need for transparent feedback on how input is used. It elevated the discussion from advocacy to implementation details.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by forcing participants to move beyond technical solutions and procedural fixes to confront the deeper structural and political challenges facing multi-stakeholder digital governance. Anne Marie’s opening acknowledgment of geopolitical uncertainty set a realistic tone that prevented the discussion from becoming overly optimistic about technical solutions. Milton Mueller’s intervention about trade forced recognition that digital governance issues cannot be solved within traditional internet governance forums alone. The comments about power asymmetries and meaningful participation pushed the conversation toward more honest assessments of current limitations. Together, these interventions created a more sophisticated and nuanced discussion that acknowledged both the value of multi-stakeholder approaches and their significant constraints in the current global environment. The result was a conversation that balanced advocacy for existing institutions with realistic assessment of the challenges they face.

Can the multistakeholder model be infused into WTO negotiations to address digital trade and data flow issues?

Speaker

Milton Mueller

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental tension between digital sovereignty and free trade, questioning whether civil society and other stakeholders could participate in WTO processes similar to their participation in ICANN and IGF

Should the IGF mandate be made permanent rather than renewed every few years?

Speaker

Flavia Alves

Explanation

Given the IGF’s 20-year track record and increasing participation from countries like China and Russia, this questions whether the current renewal process is still necessary or if permanent status would provide more stability

How can we ensure meaningful implementation of digital governance frameworks rather than just negotiating text?

Speaker

Anne Marie Ingtof Milgar

Explanation

This highlights the need to focus on actual delivery of outcomes for citizens and countries rather than spending years on textual negotiations, especially given the changing geopolitical backdrop

How can power asymmetries and inequality within the internet ecosystem be addressed through multistakeholder governance?

Speaker

Juan Ortiz

Explanation

This addresses the concentration of power among major tech companies, lack of value distribution, and weaponization of internet infrastructure, questioning what people are being connected to when we talk about connectivity

How can the relationship between WSIS and GDC implementation be structured to avoid duplication while leveraging existing frameworks?

Speaker

Multiple speakers (Veni Markovski, Jason Pielemeier, Jorge Cancio)

Explanation

This explores how to integrate GDC objectives into the established WSIS process without creating parallel or competing frameworks, ensuring efficient use of resources and maintaining multistakeholder participation

How can multistakeholder processes be strengthened to ensure input is actually taken into account rather than being lip service?

Speaker

Tatjana Trupina and Jorge Cancio

Explanation

This addresses the need for transparency and meaningful inclusion in governance processes, ensuring stakeholder contributions have real impact on outcomes

What mechanisms can ensure the informal multistakeholder sounding board for WSIS+20 represents the broader community rather than just an elite group?

Speaker

Jorge Cancio

Explanation

This concerns the structure and representativeness of stakeholder participation in the WSIS+20 negotiation process to ensure genuine community input

Summary

This discussion focused on the launch of New Nordics AI, a strategic initiative funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers to accelerate AI adoption and innovation across the Nordic and Baltic regions. Fredrik Siversen from ICT Norway explained that the project began over a year ago with AI Sweden and has now secured initial funding with support from all Nordic governments. The initiative aims to address the concerning decline in Nordic countries’ global AI rankings, despite their reputation for digital maturity, with rankings dropping from 23rd to 24th position globally.

The center will serve a combined population of over 30 million people across the Nordic and Baltic countries, representing the world’s 10th largest economy. Siversen emphasized that Nordic businesses already operate with regional matrices and leadership structures, making this collaboration a natural extension of existing relationships. The primary goals include speeding up AI adoption across businesses and public sectors, strengthening Nordic leadership in AI, and ensuring all organizations develop AI strategies.

Marianne Wilhelmsen, State Secretary from Norway’s Ministry of Digitalization, highlighted the importance of trustworthy AI, particularly for public sector applications where trust is essential currency. She noted that Nordic countries share democratic values, transparency principles, and human rights commitments that provide a strong foundation for collaboration. The initiative will focus on developing language models for Nordic languages, building competence in small and medium-sized enterprises, and leveraging the region’s high-quality data, especially in healthcare.

Both speakers emphasized the Baltic countries’ contributions, particularly Estonia’s digital leadership and innovations like Bolt. The center officially launches in Helsinki in October, and they are currently seeking a managing director based in Stockholm.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Launch and funding of New Nordics AI initiative** – The Nordic Council of Ministers has funded a strategic initiative to accelerate AI adoption and innovation across Nordic and Baltic regions, with an official launch planned for October in Helsinki

– **Nordic competitiveness concerns in AI** – Despite being digitally mature, Nordic countries are dropping in global AI rankings (from 23rd to 24th position), highlighting the need to speed up AI adoption to maintain competitiveness against global trends

– **Regional collaboration advantages** – The Nordic-Baltic region represents 30+ million inhabitants and the world’s 10th largest economy, sharing common democratic values, cultural ties, and business frameworks that make collaboration natural and effective

– **Public-private cooperation and data sharing** – Discussion of how government and private sector can better collaborate, particularly around high-quality Nordic data (especially healthcare data) and upcoming EU data spaces initiatives

– **Implementation priorities and trust** – Focus on developing trustworthy AI systems, particularly for public sector use, while helping small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI safely and effectively

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion serves as an announcement and explanation of the New Nordics AI initiative, aimed at informing stakeholders about this new regional collaboration to accelerate AI adoption and maintain Nordic competitiveness in the global AI landscape.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone is consistently professional, optimistic, and collaborative throughout. Both speakers maintain an enthusiastic yet pragmatic approach, acknowledging challenges (dropping AI rankings, competitiveness concerns) while emphasizing opportunities and shared Nordic values. The tone remains constructive and forward-looking from start to finish, with no significant shifts in mood or approach during the conversation.

Speakers

– **Moderator**: Role – Discussion moderator/host; leads the lightning talk session about New Nordics AI

– **Marianne Wilhelmsen**: Title – State Secretary of the Ministry of Digitalization and Public Governance; Area of expertise – Government digitalization policy, AI strategy implementation, public sector digital transformation

– **Fredrik Syversen**: Title – Director for Strategy and Business Development at ICT Norway; Area of expertise – Private sector technology advocacy, AI adoption in business, Nordic technology collaboration (Note: Name appears as both “Fredrik Siversen” and “Fredrik Syversen” in transcript, but refers to same person)

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# New Nordics AI Initiative: A Strategic Response to Regional AI Competitiveness Challenges

## Executive Summary

This discussion centred on the launch of New Nordics AI, a strategic initiative funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers to accelerate artificial intelligence adoption and innovation across the Nordic and Baltic regions. The conversation featured Fredrik Syversen, Director for Strategy and Business Development at ICT Norway (the private interest organization for technology companies in Norway), and Marianne Wilhelmsen, State Secretary of the Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance.

The initiative, which started a little over a year ago with AI Sweden, emerges from concerns about maintaining Nordic competitiveness in AI whilst leveraging the region’s strengths in digital maturity and democratic values. Both speakers emphasised the need for accelerated AI adoption to sustain the Nordic welfare state model amid demographic challenges.

## Initiative Background and Rationale

### AI Competitiveness Concerns

Syversen highlighted concerns about Nordic AI performance, noting challenges in global AI rankings: “when the AI wave hit us, we kind of didn’t take it as seriously as we should.” However, Wilhelmsen referenced Oxford Insights data suggesting Norway ranks considerably higher, particularly due to strong public sector digitalisation. The speakers were referencing different indices, illustrating varying assessments of regional AI standing.

### Demographic and Economic Context

Syversen provided context for the initiative’s urgency: “all the Nordics I think those for all Europe what we’re heading at is more less money and less people. That’s not a good combination.” This demographic reality positions AI as essential for societal sustainability.

The combined Nordic and Baltic region represents over 30 million inhabitants and constitutes the world’s 10th largest economy, providing significant leverage for regional cooperation.

## Structure and Objectives

### Funding and Governance

The initiative has secured funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers with support from all Nordic governments. Funding confirmation came last week, and the centre will officially launch in Helsinki in October during Finland’s Nordic Council presidency.

The centre is currently recruiting board members and seeking a managing director to be based in Stockholm. Applications are being accepted through the new-nordics-ai website.

### Core Objectives

The centre’s primary goals include:

– Accelerating AI adoption across business and public sectors

– Strengthening Nordic leadership in artificial intelligence

– Ensuring comprehensive AI strategy development across organisations

– Leveraging regional advantages in data quality and democratic values

– Facilitating public-private collaboration

## Regional Collaboration Benefits

### Natural Partnership Foundation

Both speakers emphasised that Nordic collaboration builds on existing relationships. Syversen noted that “Nordic businesses already operate with regional matrices and leadership structures,” making AI collaboration a natural development.

Wilhelmsen highlighted shared “democratic values, transparency principles, and human rights commitments” as foundations for developing trustworthy AI systems aligned with regional governance principles.

### Baltic Integration

The inclusion of Baltic countries offers strategic advantages. Wilhelmsen praised Baltic nations’ “agility in technology adoption and strong public sector transformation,” whilst Syversen highlighted Estonia’s leadership: “Estonia leads Europe in digital innovation with companies like Bolt, providing valuable expertise.”

Baltic integration provides expanded talent pools, innovation capacity, and opportunities for collaborative language model development, particularly between Finnish and Estonian languages.

## Implementation Priorities

### Trustworthy AI Focus

Trust emerged as a central theme. Wilhelmsen emphasised that “trustworthy AI is essential, especially for public sector applications where trust is the most important currency.” She referenced implementation challenges in Norwegian municipalities, acknowledging real-world failures in AI-based decision-making systems.

This focus on trust distinguishes the Nordic approach, reflecting the region’s governance values and public sector requirements.

### Data Sharing and European Integration

Wilhelmsen identified high-quality data as a key Nordic advantage, particularly in the health sector. Both speakers acknowledged the importance of European data spaces in health and energy sectors, with Syversen describing these as “mandatory collaboration opportunities.”

Norway is developing new data sharing legislation and establishing a data prioritisation council to facilitate strategic data sharing whilst engaging with European frameworks.

## Next Steps and Timeline

### Immediate Priorities

– October launch in Helsinki with ministerial participation

– Board recruitment and managing director selection

– European data spaces engagement in health and energy sectors

– AI Act implementation targeted for next summer

– Continued development of data sharing legislation

### Strategic Positioning

Syversen highlighted that Nordic cooperation enables influence in European AI policy: “coming from Norway, we can piggyback on our Nordic neighbours to influence what is happening in the European Commission.” This positioning provides access to EU AI funding and amplifies Nordic influence in European policy development.

The collaboration addresses Norway’s position as a non-EU member seeking participation in European AI initiatives, using Nordic partnerships as a bridge to broader European engagement.

## Conclusion

The New Nordics AI initiative represents a strategic response to competitive pressures and demographic challenges facing the Nordic and Baltic regions. Built on shared values and complementary capabilities, the collaboration aims to accelerate AI adoption whilst maintaining the trustworthy AI principles that distinguish the Nordic approach.

Success will depend on effective implementation of the planned October launch, successful recruitment of leadership, and maintaining alignment between public and private sector stakeholders. The initiative offers a distinctive model for regional AI cooperation that balances rapid adoption with democratic values and public sector requirements.

Moderator: Welcome to this lightning talk here about the new Nordics AI. Last week we got the news that the Nordic Council of Ministers are funding a strategic initiative called New Nordics AI. The objective of this initiative is to accelerate AI adoption and innovation across the Nordic and Baltic region. Here to talk more about this regional initiative is Marianne Wilhelmsen, State Secretary of the Ministry of Digitalization and Public Governance, and Fredrik Siversen, Director for Strategy and Business Development at ICT Norway, and one of the partners in this new initiative. Fredrik, tell us more about New Nordics AI.

Fredrik Syversen: I will. First of all, thank you. As you said, my name is Fredrik Siversen. I work daily for ICT Norway, which is the Norwegian translation. We are the public. We’re not the public, we’re the private interest organization for technology companies here in Norway. So with that said, this project started a little over a year ago with interest from the Nordic Council of Ministers, started off in Sweden with our partner AI Sweden, and then took it further with partners all over the Nordics. And as you mentioned, last week we got the confirmation from our funding partner, the Nordic Council of Ministers with Nordic Innovation, that we have secured the initial funding for getting started. And this is a project that is supported by all the governments all over the Nordics. And we also have to mention that by time we expect all the Baltic countries to be a part of the Nordic AI Center. So this is a little bit of the backdrop. I think all Nordic countries are seen as mature digitally, and that is of course very true. But if you look at how we look at the global AI index, the picture is not so pleasant to look at. We are actually dropping from 23 to 24. There’s lots of reasons to that, and I guess State Secretary can probably dive into some of the reasons. But I think the lesson learned here is that we are pretty mature from the get-go, and when the AI wave hit us, we kind of didn’t take it as seriously as we should. And the opportunity is not missed, but we have to speed up, and that’s the reason behind the center. And as we come from Europe, we have been bombarded with different reports from the European Commission on the state of business in the European area. And it’s not so pleasant to read that either. And those of you who have read the Drager Report, we know that the competitiveness of Europe needs to be sped up, and that also goes from Norway. So that’s kind of the backdrop as well. And why the Nordics? So Nordics combined with the Baltics, almost a little over 30 million inhabitants, 10th largest economy in the world. That’s a widow without the Baltics, to be honest. But still, it gives an opportunity not to be missed, both in terms of the size, but not the least in terms of what we can present to the world when it comes from Nordic values, Nordic opportunities, Nordic innovation, so forth, so on. And what are we going to achieve? So give me a hands up when I’m reaching my five minutes here. But I think what we are really looking forward to, and really are eager to, is to speed up adoption. We need all our businesses, we need all our public sector to at least have some strategy concerning AI. And that’s kind of the raison d’etre, and that’s what we are really aiming at. And we have projects in the get-go that will actually achieve this. We need stronger both national and Nordic leadership, and that is also one of the reasons behind this Nordic project. And of course, when you are looking at it from inside out, from Norway to the Nordics, all of our businesses are mostly in all Nordic countries. They are led Nordically, their internal matrix is almost always Nordic. I have to say, all the headquarters are not always in Norway, they have to be in Sweden or Copenhagen for some reason. But the opportunity here is there, and we are ready to launch. So this coming fall, October, we are gathering in Helsinki, you’re all welcome. The Finland is heading the Nordic Council of Ministers that half year, hence we’re in Helsinki, and the launch will be there with hopefully a lot of ministers. We have an election before that, so let’s see. But that’s where we’re going to start. So just to end up with this slide, that if you’re interested to work with us, these are some of the people that you can contact depending on the country. But I think all of us are interested to hear from you. So that’s my five minute pitch to why you should be a part of the Nordic AI Center. So Katrine, back to you.

Moderator: Thank you, Frederik. Marianne, why are Norway and the other ministries funding this center?

Marianne Wilhelmsen: Thank you, and thank you for the invitation. And of course, also just want to take the opportunity to thank everyone here for coming to this year’s IGF and engaging in all the various discussions. Well, first of all, we need to accelerate the AI adoption, and we have a strong and long history of collaborating with our neighbors. Not just because they’re our neighbors, but of course, because we have a lot in common, as Frederik says. We have cultural ties. We share the same democratic values, freedom of speech, transparency, human rights, and working together to be able to share experiences and create arenas where we can collaborate, I think will be very important for us to be able to accelerate and speed up the adoption. So when it comes to this initiative, it’s a really important initiative, and I am very, very glad that it got the funding. In terms of the Nordic cooperation, is this particularly important in these days, both towards Europe and the world in general? I would say so. And of course, I see we see it, this IGF is also a testament of our strong ties. This year, later today, we’re having a reception together with the Nordic Council. Just a little bit later today, I’m having lunch with my colleagues from the Nordics and the Baltics over at the hotel just by here. So definitely an important time, of course, with everything happening around in the world. And I think when it comes to AI, we have a lot we can collaborate on. The language models, for example, ensuring that we have large language models that are built on our languages and also our contexts. We need to get, as Frederik said, the small and the medium-sized companies to be able to adapt, building competence in all areas. We see it’s a huge challenge when it comes to that, to having knowledge and competence on how to adopt AI, especially in a safe and secure way in the small and medium-sized businesses, as well as in the public sector, especially. So working together on initiatives like this can help mitigate those risks and also unlock some of the large opportunities that we have.

Fredrik Syversen: Yeah, I just want to emphasize that, I mean, the Nordics, at least we like to pride ourselves in having shared value sets and shared the business mindset as well. We can always argue that there are differences between us, but I think from a European perspective, you would say that if you look up north, where the Nordics lie, if you look at the map, it’s where much of the innovation, if you look at the fastest-growing innovation, some of the indexes will point north when it comes to Europe. And I think that opportunity is not to be missed, especially coming from Norway. Norway has to be said, it’s not a part of the European Union, but we are as close as it gets, to put it like that, we’re inside the internal market. But from that perspective also, coming from Norway, we can piggyback on our Nordic neighbors to influence what is happening in the European Commission and Europe at large. But also, I think if you look at, there’s some new conflict lines here, it has to be said, over the Atlantic that has not been there before. So in that perspective, also, I think working more on the Nordic level is very much politically correct these days. That being said, I think also it makes total business sense. And I think that is kind of the fuel that we are needing to get this engine off the ground and get this plane in the air, so to say. And I think we also have opportunities inside the European R&D environment being kind of a setup already for being a part of different European initiatives, especially, of course, on the AI, which if you look at all the numbers that have been flying around, it’s billions of euros that’s going to be heading not our particular way, but going to AI. And we need to take our fair share of that coming from the Nordics. That’s a given.

Marianne Wilhelmsen: And I just also want to say, like earlier, you showed us some numbers on where Norway, for example, stand, and there are definitely. Challenges, but we also had you know in our government We recently launched our digitalization strategy and one of the the follow-ups from that is that we have These governmental digital forums where the ministers come together and just a few weeks ago We had AI on the agenda there and we have had Oxford Insights coming president the global index on AI readiness And we saw that Norway is Not as bad as you your numbers show We’re we’re quite far high up and one of the reasons for that is our strong public sector and how digitalized it is And I think when we bring together all the Nordic countries, we have different perspectives. We have different challenges and we have different What can I say like? Stuff that we do great, you know where we where we accelerate and we when we bring those those together we can all kind of Learn from each other and build and an increase Get up on those numbers

Moderator: This center is called the new Nordics AI So it’s also including the Baltic countries, even not if they’re not part already, but it will be How do you think the Baltic states can strengthen this cooperation?

Marianne Wilhelmsen: well, like I just said I It will add added value we see that the Baltic countries they have Shown a lot like agility in and adopting technology and I think that They also have a strong public sector and and has shown that the transformation in the public sector as well That they have yeah a lot of efforts in Accelerating that so I think we have a lot to learn from each other and then also, of course the the talent pool that we can bring in so Being close And collaborating also with the Baltics. I think it’s a Nice like it adds value to this Nordic initiative.

Fredrik Syversen: I just want to add on that I mean everybody knows of the of the Estonian miracle So to say that they’re kind of leading Europe in some parts at least and we all know We all know bolt, of course coming out of Estonia. We’ve already used but well on that note I mean innovation that comes out of the Baltics are kind of top top top and The possibility to kind of link into that and to use that as a fuel for further Nordic new Nordic collaborations I would say that’s going to be extremely important and I can’t wait to get those Partners on board because that will really set a new agenda for how we can work both inside the EU but also Towards global interests. I think we also need to kind of acknowledge that what’s happening in the Baltics here are super super important Especially we it’s easy to forget Lithuania Latvia But also these countries have great innovations coming out of their their countries And as you said, they’re also like big on public sector and it shouldn’t be too big but but big is okay And I think to draw upon that it’s also interesting. Of course, there’s some language There as well Finnish and Estonian is very closely linked. There’s something other with Lacta and Lithuania Scandinavia’s closely so working on this language models, which also kind of a side project to this center is also Getting better if you get the Baltics on board

Moderator: You mentioned the Norwegian strategy the digitalization strategy What are the key priorities for the Norwegian government in terms of AI and digitalization?

Marianne Wilhelmsen: Well, first of all, we need AI that we can trust And of course when you see I know I’m talking a lot about the public sector here So I’ll get on to to the business sector as well When we see that we adopt AI in the public sector trust is essential because it’s our most important currency and we’ve had municipalities in Norway leveraging AI and creating reports as decision-making foundation and it went To say at least and we need to learn from those mistakes, you know, and and ensure that those kind of usage of AI Does not happen but in Norway, we we see AI as a tool to To nationally, you know secure our welfare state and secured equal opportunities for all we need to work more efficiently In order to to keep the level up and we also see it as a tool for the digital and green transformation So those are the most kind of important things that are also reflected on the on the agenda here at IGF right now and of course We are implementing the AI act We’re gonna be ready Yes the same time as rest of the Europe next summer at least we’re working as as fast as we can to enable that and have put in place a lot of Infrastructure the the work on the large language models and And come what do you call it again high-tech computing no the law Yeah Sorry, but at least computing with powers, of course, yeah, and and We want it to we’ve created AI Norway, which is like the government’s AI Arena and we wanted to help accelerate adoption and and not be Not be something like a barrier but more Help make sense

Fredrik Syversen: I just want to say that I mean from a business perspective I think if you don’t get on the AI train, you’re about to lose your business some companies Especially in my business which is software business if we’re into package software You have delivered the same meal all over the years Some of these things can be done like in two seconds not two seconds, but maybe two minutes So you need to change your models and you need to change your business models fast because we don’t want to be left behind I think that’s super super important and I don’t think we kind of wake up and kind of face that reality That’s going to be very important for this center to get that awareness out on the public sector side. I agree totally I mean all the Nordics I think those for all Europe what we’re heading at is more less money and less people That’s not a good combination And I think we have left we kind of want to it in the toolbox That’s technology and technology with AI is something other than just technology and if you look at the health care sector the Opportunities there are so great. And if we kind of put that value set in the bottom or in the top if you like to create those Opportunities or does that Solutions based on AI that is something really can drive our public sector to be not only trustworthy Because that’s super important. But also that we trust that the Service delivery is going to be there. That’s also going to be an issue where you have less people So there’s a lot of issues that is concerning air, but also concerning that the society at large

Marianne Wilhelmsen: Yeah and I just want to add to that of course that AI is only as Good as the data that you train it on and I think that when it comes to Nordic countries and I can mainly speak for Norway We have a lot of high quality data, especially from the health sector and having initiatives And infrastructures or platforms where we can share that kind of data as far as we can I think that will be very important not only for For the public sector and for the health care, for example, but also for our businesses going forward

Moderator: Yeah, that brings me on to the next question in that is You’re representing public your private. How can the public and private maybe cooperate better, especially in terms of data sharing?

Marianne Wilhelmsen: Well, I think that these kind of arenas are one of the Like the best starting points that we have to ensure collaboration and to have like contact points where we can get together and and talk and see the challenges and also what kind of like Well, what is the status on the regulations? What do we need to improve? Where are the barriers for us to be able to share for example the the data or to accelerate within a large no small and medium-sized businesses.

Fredrik Syversen: Well, I just want to mention if coming from Europe you may be familiar with the data spaces that the European Union are Trying to provide these days. It’s going to be one in energy It’s going to be especially one in health coming up in the next three four years and then so on and so forth These are spaces that are going to create just to share data and if the Nordics can work together on that one inside the European health spaces that will be an opportunity that we have to take because this is something that’s going to be mandatory for all our Countries even Norway, but we’re outside the European Union health is first energy is second These are two projects that we already are working on in the Nordic AI Center So that is something that just needs to be done in in the Nordic Nordic framework so to say.

Marianne Wilhelmsen: and I think when it comes to for example data in the health ministry Which is not my ministry. I know that there are a lot of processes as an and Regulation work going on right now in my ministry. We are working with the new data sharing law that will come later this This year hopefully and also a new data Prioritization kind of council that would help us map out which kind of data we should prioritize to share first

Moderator: Thank you so much. So what’s next for the center now Frederick?

Fredrik Syversen: It’s summer holiday, I wouldn’t say that but we’re looking forward to October, of course, so we need to get our things together We’re looking for board members. We’re looking for the initial set of we actually looking for a managing director at these days for the they are eccentric if you want to work out of Stockholm be the GM of the Nordic AI Center, please look at our website new Nordic say I and Apply because that’s what we are looking forward now is to get the managing director on board. That’s going to be the first step

Moderator: Thank you, Marianne Frederick and good luck with new Nordic say I thank you. Thank have a great day You

Agreement points

Baltic countries bring valuable innovation and expertise to Nordic collaboration

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Estonia leads Europe in digital innovation with companies like Bolt, providing valuable expertise

Baltic countries demonstrate agility in technology adoption and strong public sector transformation

Summary

Both speakers agree that Baltic countries, particularly Estonia, offer significant technological expertise and innovation capacity that will strengthen the Nordic AI initiative through their proven track record in digital transformation and successful companies.

Topics

Development | Economic

Nordic collaboration is natural and strategically advantageous

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Combined Nordic and Baltic region represents 30+ million inhabitants and 10th largest economy globally, creating significant opportunity

Strong cultural ties, shared democratic values, and common business mindset make Nordic collaboration natural and effective

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that Nordic countries have strong foundations for collaboration based on shared values, cultural ties, and economic scale, making regional cooperation both natural and strategically beneficial.

Topics

Economic | Sociocultural

AI adoption acceleration is urgently needed

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Nordic countries are digitally mature but dropping in global AI rankings from 23rd to 24th position, requiring acceleration

AI adoption acceleration is essential to maintain welfare state and ensure equal opportunities

Summary

Both speakers agree that despite Nordic countries’ digital maturity, there is an urgent need to accelerate AI adoption to maintain competitiveness and sustain public services.

Topics

Development | Economic

Public sector efficiency through AI is crucial for future sustainability

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Businesses must adopt AI quickly or risk losing competitiveness, particularly in software sector

AI serves as tool for digital and green transformation while securing welfare state efficiency

Summary

Both speakers recognize that AI is essential for maintaining efficiency and competitiveness in both private and public sectors, with particular emphasis on the public sector’s need to deliver services with potentially fewer resources.

Topics

Development | Economic

High-quality data is a Nordic competitive advantage

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

European data spaces in health and energy sectors provide mandatory collaboration opportunities

Nordic countries possess high-quality data, especially in health sector, valuable for AI development

Summary

Both speakers acknowledge that Nordic countries have access to high-quality data, particularly in the health sector, which represents a significant competitive advantage for AI development and European collaboration.

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view European integration and compliance as strategically important, with Fredrik emphasizing funding opportunities and influence, while Marianne focuses on regulatory alignment and institutional development.

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Nordic collaboration allows influence in European Commission decisions and access to billions in EU AI funding

Norway implementing AI Act alongside EU and establishing AI Norway as government’s AI arena

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic

Both speakers see linguistic and cultural connections as practical advantages for collaboration, with Fredrik focusing on language model development and Marianne emphasizing talent pool expansion.

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Language connections between Finnish-Estonian and other regional languages support collaborative language model development

Baltic inclusion expands talent pool and adds innovation capacity to Nordic collaboration

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Unexpected consensus

Trust as fundamental requirement for AI implementation

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Businesses must adopt AI quickly or risk losing competitiveness, particularly in software sector

Trustworthy AI is essential, especially for public sector applications where trust is the most important currency

Explanation

Despite Fredrik representing private sector interests focused on rapid adoption and competitiveness, and Marianne representing public sector concerns about trust and reliability, both implicitly agree that successful AI implementation requires balancing speed with trustworthiness, suggesting a mature understanding that rushed adoption without proper safeguards could be counterproductive.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Data sharing infrastructure requires both regulatory framework and collaborative platforms

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

European data spaces in health and energy sectors provide mandatory collaboration opportunities

New data sharing law and data prioritization council being developed to facilitate strategic data sharing

Explanation

There is unexpected alignment between the private sector representative’s focus on European data spaces as business opportunities and the public sector representative’s emphasis on regulatory frameworks, suggesting both sectors recognize that successful data sharing requires both top-down regulation and bottom-up collaboration platforms.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrate remarkably high consensus across all major discussion points, including the strategic value of Nordic-Baltic collaboration, the urgency of AI adoption, the importance of leveraging high-quality data, and the need for both public and private sector transformation. Their agreement spans economic, regulatory, and sociocultural dimensions.

Consensus level

Very high consensus with complementary perspectives rather than conflicting viewpoints. The private and public sector representatives reinforce each other’s arguments while bringing different sectoral expertise. This strong alignment suggests favorable conditions for successful implementation of the Nordic AI initiative, as key stakeholders share common understanding of challenges, opportunities, and strategic approaches.

Different viewpoints

Assessment of Nordic AI competitiveness position

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Nordic countries are digitally mature but dropping in global AI rankings from 23rd to 24th position, requiring acceleration

Norway is not as bad as Fredrik’s numbers show, ranking quite high up due to strong digitalized public sector

Summary

Fredrik presents a more pessimistic view of Nordic AI competitiveness citing dropping rankings from 23-24th position, while Marianne counters with Oxford Insights data showing Norway ranking much higher, particularly due to its strong public sector digitalization

Topics

Economic | Development

Unexpected differences

Contradictory assessments of Nordic AI performance despite representing the same initiative

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Nordic countries are digitally mature but dropping in global AI rankings from 23rd to 24th position, requiring acceleration

Norway is not as bad as Fredrik’s numbers show, ranking quite high up due to strong digitalized public sector

Explanation

It is unexpected that representatives of the same Nordic AI initiative would present contradictory data about their region’s AI competitiveness. This disagreement on fundamental performance metrics could undermine the credibility of their joint initiative and suggests lack of coordination on key messaging

Topics

Economic | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows minimal direct disagreement, with the main conflict being contradictory assessments of Nordic AI competitiveness rankings. Most differences stem from sectoral perspectives rather than fundamental disagreements.

Disagreement level

Low level of disagreement with moderate implications. While speakers generally align on goals and strategies, the contradictory performance data presents a credibility issue that could affect stakeholder confidence in the initiative’s leadership and coordination.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view European integration and compliance as strategically important, with Fredrik emphasizing funding opportunities and influence, while Marianne focuses on regulatory alignment and institutional development.

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Nordic collaboration allows influence in European Commission decisions and access to billions in EU AI funding

Norway implementing AI Act alongside EU and establishing AI Norway as government’s AI arena

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic

Both speakers see linguistic and cultural connections as practical advantages for collaboration, with Fredrik focusing on language model development and Marianne emphasizing talent pool expansion.

Speakers

– Fredrik Syversen
– Marianne Wilhelmsen

Arguments

Language connections between Finnish-Estonian and other regional languages support collaborative language model development

Baltic inclusion expands talent pool and adds innovation capacity to Nordic collaboration

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Key takeaways

The New Nordics AI initiative has secured initial funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers to accelerate AI adoption across Nordic and Baltic regions

Nordic countries are digitally mature but falling behind in global AI rankings (dropping from 23rd to 24th), requiring urgent acceleration efforts

The combined Nordic-Baltic region represents 30+ million inhabitants and the 10th largest economy globally, creating significant collaborative opportunities

Trustworthy AI is essential, particularly for public sector applications where trust is the primary currency

AI adoption is critical for maintaining welfare states, ensuring equal opportunities, and supporting digital/green transformation

High-quality Nordic data, especially in healthcare, represents a valuable asset for AI development and training

Public-private collaboration through initiatives like this center is essential for addressing regulatory barriers and accelerating adoption

Baltic countries bring valuable agility in technology adoption and innovation capacity to strengthen the partnership

Resolutions and action items

Center will officially launch in Helsinki in October during Finland’s Nordic Council presidency with ministerial participation

Currently recruiting board members for the Nordic AI Center

Actively seeking a managing director to be based in Stockholm – applications being accepted through new-nordics-ai website

Working on European data spaces projects in health and energy sectors within the Nordic framework

Norway implementing AI Act alongside EU with target completion by next summer

Developing new data sharing law and data prioritization council in Norway

Unresolved issues

Specific timeline for full Baltic country integration into the initiative remains unclear

Details about funding amounts and long-term financial sustainability not specified

Concrete mechanisms for data sharing between countries and public-private sectors need further development

Specific strategies for addressing the gap in AI competence among small and medium-sized businesses require more detail

How to effectively coordinate language model development across different Nordic and Baltic languages needs clarification

Suggested compromises

None identified

But if you look at how we look at the global AI index, the picture is not so pleasant to look at. We are actually dropping from 23 to 24… when the AI wave hit us, we kind of didn’t take it as seriously as we should.

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Reason

This comment is particularly insightful because it challenges the Nordic countries’ self-perception as digital leaders. It introduces a sobering reality check that contradicts the common narrative of Nordic digital excellence, suggesting complacency may have led to falling behind in AI adoption.

Impact

This comment set the tone for the entire discussion by establishing urgency and justifying the need for the Nordic AI Center. It shifted the conversation from celebration of Nordic digital achievements to acknowledgment of current deficiencies and the need for accelerated action.

I mean all the Nordics I think those for all Europe what we’re heading at is more less money and less people. That’s not a good combination. And I think we have left we kind of want to it in the toolbox. That’s technology and technology with AI is something other than just technology.

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Reason

This comment provides a profound demographic and economic reality check, identifying the fundamental challenge facing Nordic societies: declining resources and aging populations. It positions AI not just as an opportunity but as a necessity for societal sustainability.

Impact

This observation deepened the discussion by moving beyond business competitiveness to existential societal challenges. It reinforced why AI adoption is critical for maintaining Nordic welfare states and public services, adding weight to the public sector focus of the initiative.

AI is only as good as the data that you train it on and I think that when it comes to Nordic countries… We have a lot of high quality data, especially from the health sector

Speaker

Marianne Wilhelmsen

Reason

This comment is insightful because it identifies a unique Nordic competitive advantage – high-quality data, particularly in healthcare. It shifts the focus from Nordic weaknesses to potential strengths and strategic assets.

Impact

This comment redirected the conversation toward Nordic advantages and practical collaboration opportunities. It led directly to the subsequent discussion about data sharing between public and private sectors and European data spaces, opening up concrete pathways for the center’s work.

We need AI that we can trust… it’s our most important currency and we’ve had municipalities in Norway leveraging AI and creating reports as decision-making foundation and it went… to say at least

Speaker

Marianne Wilhelmsen

Reason

This comment introduces the critical concept of trust as the foundation of AI adoption in the public sector, while acknowledging real failures. It’s thought-provoking because it connects Nordic values (transparency, trust) with practical AI implementation challenges.

Impact

This comment elevated the discussion from technical and economic considerations to fundamental questions of governance and public trust. It established trust as a central theme and differentiated the Nordic approach from purely efficiency-driven AI adoption models.

Coming from Norway, we can piggyback on our Nordic neighbors to influence what is happening in the European Commission and Europe at large… there’s some new conflict lines here… over the Atlantic that has not been there before.

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Reason

This comment reveals sophisticated geopolitical thinking, acknowledging how Nordic cooperation can amplify influence within EU structures while hinting at changing transatlantic relationships. It positions the AI center within broader strategic considerations.

Impact

This comment broadened the discussion’s scope from regional cooperation to global strategic positioning. It introduced the idea that Nordic AI collaboration has implications beyond technology adoption – it’s about maintaining influence and relevance in a changing global order.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing a narrative arc from complacency to urgency to strategic opportunity. Fredrik’s initial reality check about Nordic AI rankings created the foundational tension that justified the entire initiative. The demographic challenge comment deepened this urgency by connecting AI to societal sustainability. Marianne’s observations about trust and data quality then pivoted the conversation toward Nordic competitive advantages and values-based differentiation. Finally, the geopolitical positioning comment elevated the discussion to strategic statecraft level. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a routine policy announcement into a nuanced exploration of Nordic identity, challenges, and opportunities in the global AI landscape. The interplay between the speakers – with Fredrik providing business urgency and Marianne offering governmental perspective on trust and regulation – created a comprehensive framework for understanding why Nordic AI cooperation is both necessary and potentially transformative.

How can we ensure all businesses and public sector organizations develop AI strategies?

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Explanation

This was identified as a core objective of the Nordic AI Center – ensuring all businesses and public sector have at least some strategy concerning AI, but the specific mechanisms weren’t detailed

What are the specific reasons behind the Nordic countries dropping in global AI rankings from 23 to 24?

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Explanation

Fredrik mentioned there are lots of reasons for this decline but deferred to the State Secretary for details, which weren’t fully explored

How can small and medium-sized businesses safely adopt AI technology?

Speaker

Marianne Wilhelmsen

Explanation

This was identified as a huge challenge requiring knowledge and competence on safe and secure AI adoption, but specific solutions weren’t detailed

How can Nordic countries secure their fair share of European AI funding (billions of euros)?

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Explanation

Fredrik mentioned billions of euros going to AI initiatives in Europe but didn’t specify the strategy for Nordic countries to access this funding

What specific mechanisms will enable better public-private data sharing?

Speaker

Moderator

Explanation

While both speakers acknowledged the importance of data sharing and mentioned some initiatives, the specific practical mechanisms for implementation weren’t fully explored

How will the Nordic AI Center integrate with European data spaces (health, energy)?

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Explanation

Fredrik mentioned these are mandatory projects the center is already working on, but the integration strategy and timeline weren’t detailed

What will be the governance structure and operational model of the Nordic AI Center?

Speaker

Fredrik Siversen

Explanation

While Fredrik mentioned they’re looking for board members and a managing director, the overall governance structure and operational model weren’t fully outlined

Summary

This discussion focused on cyber defense and artificial intelligence challenges facing developing economies, moderated by Olga Cavalli with experts participating both in-person in Oslo and remotely. The panel examined how AI is transforming cybersecurity landscapes, creating both new defensive capabilities and more sophisticated threats that can be executed rapidly compared to traditional attacks that previously took months to develop.

Ram Mohan emphasized that cyber defense readiness in emerging digital economies requires comprehensive capabilities to anticipate, prevent, detect, and recover from AI-driven cyber threats. He highlighted that modern AI attacks can masquerade as friendly forces and are increasingly individualized, moving beyond brute force methods to targeted, sophisticated approaches. Mohan stressed that developing skilled workforces capable of understanding and harnessing AI systems represents a significant economic opportunity for developing nations to potentially leapfrog more developed economies.

Christopher Painter noted the proliferation of international forums discussing these issues, from regional organizations to UN working groups, creating resource challenges for smaller countries trying to participate meaningfully. He expressed concern that AI discussions might overshadow fundamental cybersecurity basics that many developing countries still lack, such as national computer emergency response teams and trained law enforcement.

Wolfgang Kleinwächter drew parallels between today’s “AI divide” and the digital divide of 20 years ago, arguing that knowledge sharing remains crucial since knowledge can be shared without additional cost. He emphasized that the AI divide could lead to a security divide, where some countries become less secure due to capacity gaps.

Philipp Grabensee argued that developing countries must focus on cutting strategic deals with major powers to gain access to large language models, since only the US and China currently possess the resources to develop these critical AI capabilities. Luis Adrián Salazar shared Costa Rica’s experience with major cyberattacks, emphasizing the need to connect human needs with technological solutions and create concrete roadmaps for developing countries. The discussion concluded that international cooperation, knowledge sharing, and strategic partnerships are essential for preventing a widening gap between AI-capable and AI-dependent nations.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **AI’s Dual Impact on Cybersecurity**: Artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming cyber defense by enabling faster threat detection and automated responses, while simultaneously empowering attackers with more sophisticated, scalable, and personalized attack methods that can operate at unprecedented speed and precision.

– **The Growing Digital Divide and AI Access Gap**: Developing economies face an increasingly severe disadvantage as AI capabilities become concentrated in major powers (primarily US and China), creating what speakers termed an “AI divide” that could leave smaller nations unable to defend against AI-powered cyber attacks without access to large language models.

– **Human Capacity Building as the Critical Bottleneck**: All panelists emphasized that skilled human resources, rather than technology alone, represent the primary constraint for developing economies in cyber defense, requiring investment in training programs that combine technical AI expertise with policy understanding and cyber defense capabilities.

– **International Cooperation and Diplomatic Solutions**: The discussion highlighted the need for developing countries to engage in “cyber diplomacy” and strategic partnerships to gain access to advanced AI defense technologies, potentially through foreign policy deals and knowledge-sharing arrangements with technologically advanced nations.

– **Regulatory Challenges and the Urgency of Action**: Speakers noted the difficulty of creating effective international regulations for AI in cybersecurity, with existing frameworks often becoming obsolete quickly, while emphasizing that developing economies cannot afford to wait for perfect solutions and must act immediately to build defensive capabilities.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine how developing economies can address the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence in cyber defense, focusing on practical strategies for capacity building, international cooperation, and policy development to prevent these nations from falling further behind in an AI-driven cybersecurity landscape.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a tone of cautious realism throughout, balancing optimism about AI’s potential benefits with serious concerns about widening global inequalities. While speakers like Olga Cavalli expressed consistent optimism about developing solutions, others like Chris Painter and Philipp Grabensee voiced more pessimistic views about the growing divide. The tone remained collaborative and solution-oriented, with all participants emphasizing the urgency of action while acknowledging the significant challenges ahead. The early morning timing (with Chris Painter joining at 3:30 AM) underscored the global importance and urgency of these issues.

Speakers

– **Olga Cavalli**: Dean of the National Defense Faculty of Argentina (managed by the Ministry of Defense in Argentina), Director of the South School of Internet Governance

– **Jose Cepeda**: European parliamentarian from Spain (participated via video message)

– **Ram Mohan**: Chief Strategy Officer of Identity Digital, former ICANN board member, Chair of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN

– **Christopher Painter**: Former director of Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, first high-level cyber diplomat of the United States during President Obama’s administration

– **Wolfgang Kleinwachter**: Professor Emeritus from University of Aarhus, former commissioner of the Global Commission of Stability and Cyberspace

– **Philipp Grabensee**: Attorney, former chair of Afilius

– **Luis Adrian Salazar**: Former ICT Minister of Costa Rica, currently professor at Universidad Latina in Costa Rica

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Expert Panel Discussion: Cyber Defence and Artificial Intelligence Challenges for Developing Economies

## Executive Summary

This expert panel discussion, moderated by Olga Cavalli in Oslo, examined the critical challenges facing developing economies in addressing AI-driven cyber threats. The panel brought together cybersecurity and AI governance specialists to discuss how artificial intelligence is transforming the cybersecurity landscape and what this means for countries with limited resources.

The panel comprised Ram Mohan (Chief Strategy Officer of Identity Digital and former ICANN board member), Christopher Painter (former US cyber diplomat participating at 3:30 AM), Wolfgang Kleinwächter (Professor Emeritus from University of Aarhus), Philipp Grabensee (attorney and former chair of Afilius), Luis Adrián Salazar (former ICT Minister of Costa Rica), and José Cepeda (European parliamentarian from Spain, who provided a video message).

## AI’s Transformation of Cybersecurity

### The Acceleration of Threats

Olga Cavalli opened the discussion by highlighting how AI has fundamentally accelerated cyber threats, noting that attacks that previously took months to develop can now be executed within minutes. She emphasized that AI’s impact extends beyond speed to include enhanced precision and the potential for autonomous operations.

Ram Mohan provided specific examples of how AI changes the nature of attacks, explaining that AI-driven phishing attempts can “masquerade as a friendly force and do it in a way that is far more superior than it used to be when you had humans doing it.” He argued that this represents a qualitative shift where existing cyber defence systems can potentially be turned against their operators.

José Cepeda, in his video message, characterized AI as “a structural element of cybersecurity,” noting that while it automates threat detection and response capabilities, it simultaneously amplifies the sophistication and scale of potential threats.

### Debate Over Strategy Adequacy

A significant discussion emerged regarding whether existing national cybersecurity strategies remain viable. Ram Mohan argued that “most national cybersecurity strategies are obsolete due to AI changing the entire nature of cybersecurity,” contending that the fundamental assumptions underlying these strategies no longer apply.

Christopher Painter offered a more measured perspective, suggesting that while strategies require updating, they represent valuable roadmaps that took years to develop and shouldn’t be completely discarded. He emphasized the importance of maintaining focus on basic cybersecurity fundamentals alongside AI considerations.

## The AI Divide and Its Security Implications

### Concentration of AI Capabilities

Philipp Grabensee delivered a stark assessment of the global AI landscape: “You need access to the large language models. And we have only so far, we have China and US who have… The race is over.” He argued that the development of advanced AI capabilities has become concentrated in the hands of major powers, leaving other countries in positions of technological dependency.

This concentration creates what Wolfgang Kleinwächter described as an “AI divide” that has direct security implications. Countries without access to cutting-edge AI capabilities may find themselves inherently less secure in their cyber defence capabilities.

### Strategic Dependencies and Diplomatic Urgency

Grabensee emphasized the urgency of diplomatic action for developing countries, stating: “Their foreign policy has to be fast to cutting deals… trade something, cut deals with them, so they grant them access to their large language models.” He noted that the rapid pace of AI development compresses traditional foreign policy timelines, requiring immediate strategic decisions.

## Human Capacity as the Critical Factor

### Workforce Development Consensus

Despite disagreements on other issues, all panellists agreed that human capacity represents the primary constraint for developing economies. Ram Mohan emphasized that countries need a “skilled workforce with security-first culture who understand how to harness AI systems for cyber defence.”

Christopher Painter noted that countries require “both technical training for technology use and policy training for diplomatic participation,” highlighting the multidimensional nature of capacity building needs.

### The Leapfrogging Opportunity

Both Olga Cavalli and Ram Mohan discussed the potential for developing countries to leapfrog traditional limitations. Ram Mohan argued that “the advantage here for a developing economy is it’s primarily about knowledge and skills. If you develop that, you could actually leapfrog other developed economies and become a real force in cyber defence readiness.”

Cavalli embraced this concept throughout the discussion, suggesting that the knowledge-intensive nature of AI capabilities could allow countries to bypass traditional infrastructure constraints.

## Real-World Implementation Challenges

### Competing Development Priorities

Luis Adrián Salazar provided crucial context about the practical challenges facing developing countries. Drawing on Costa Rica’s experience, which abolished its army in 1948, he noted that “developing countries are not thinking about artificial intelligence… they are thinking about how to reduce the poverty, how to increase the access to the water.”

Salazar shared Costa Rica’s experience with major cyberattacks in 2022 that affected financial systems, social security, and hospitals, demonstrating how cybersecurity threats become concrete priorities only after they directly impact essential services.

### Implementation Gaps

Salazar identified “a gap between political language and technical implementation that needs bridging,” highlighting communication challenges between policymakers and technical experts. Ram Mohan noted that “proactive preparedness doesn’t attract funding compared to reactive crisis response,” creating systemic incentives that favor post-incident recovery over prevention.

## International Cooperation and Governance

### Forum Proliferation Challenges

Christopher Painter raised concerns about the proliferation of international forums addressing AI and cybersecurity, noting that “multiple forums debate these issues creating resource challenges for developing economies to participate.” This creates difficult choices for countries with limited diplomatic resources about where to invest their attention.

### Regulatory Skepticism

Wolfgang Kleinwächter expressed skepticism about legally binding AI regulation, drawing on the experience of autonomous weapons negotiations: “legally binding AI regulation is very difficult, as seen with 10 years of negotiations on autonomous weapons without clear definitions.”

He emphasized that “knowledge sharing is key since knowledge can be shared without additional cost if there’s willingness,” suggesting that informal cooperation mechanisms might prove more effective than formal regulatory approaches. Kleinwächter also discussed how the UN Charter principle of sovereign equality applies to AI governance challenges.

### European Cooperation Framework

José Cepeda outlined specific European approaches, mentioning the NIS2 directive, DORA regulations, and the need for shared security infrastructures. He emphasized European cooperation frameworks as potential models for other regions.

## Key Tensions and Perspectives

### Strategy Evolution vs. Revolution

The discussion revealed a fundamental tension between evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to cybersecurity strategy. While Ram Mohan advocated for recognizing the obsolescence of current approaches, Christopher Painter emphasized building on existing foundations while adapting to new realities.

### Priority Balance

Speakers differed on how to balance AI-specific concerns with fundamental cybersecurity needs. Painter worried that AI discussions might overshadow basic cybersecurity fundamentals, while others argued that AI’s transformative impact requires immediate, focused attention.

### Access vs. Autonomy

The discussion highlighted a dilemma between accessing AI capabilities through partnerships with major powers versus maintaining technological autonomy. This tension reflects broader questions about technological sovereignty in an interconnected world.

## Conclusion

The discussion revealed the complex landscape facing developing economies as they navigate AI-driven cybersecurity challenges. While AI offers potential leapfrogging opportunities through knowledge-intensive capacity building, it also creates new dependencies and vulnerabilities.

The concentration of advanced AI capabilities in major powers presents developing countries with strategic choices between technological isolation and dependency relationships. The consensus on human capacity as the critical bottleneck provides a clear focus for action, while disagreements about strategy approaches highlight the need for flexible, adaptive frameworks.

As Philipp Grabensee noted about the pace of AI development, “it’s not a matter of years, you know, it develops so fast.” This temporal pressure adds urgency to an already complex set of challenges, emphasizing the need for immediate action while building long-term capabilities.

The discussion underscored that cybersecurity in the AI era cannot be separated from broader questions of international cooperation, resource allocation, and development priorities. Success will require countries to simultaneously build technical capabilities, navigate geopolitical relationships, and address fundamental human needs within rapidly evolving technological landscapes.

Olga Cavalli: Thank you very much and good morning to the brave audience that we have them at 9 a.m. here in beautiful Oslo. Thank you for joining us and thank you for those that are online. I know that Chris Painter is online. He’s very brave. It’s like 3 or 2 a.m. in Washington, D.C. Thank you, Chris, for that. So this is an open forum about cyber defense and artificial intelligence in developing economies. My name is Olga Cavalli. I am the dean of the National Defense Faculty of Argentina that depends and it’s managed by the Ministry of Defense in Argentina and I’m also the director of the South School of Internet Governance that has been organized since 2009 and organized in several countries in the Americas with its 17th edition this year in beautiful Mexico City. So let me first introduce my dear colleagues and friends here in the panel. We will have José Cepeda. He’s a European parliamentarian from Spain. Unfortunately, he couldn’t come to Oslo for this meeting and he was conflicted with his agenda but he has sent us a nice video in Spanish but it has captions in English. We have my dear friend Ram Moham. He’s the chief strategy officer of Identity Digital and a former ICANN board member and you’re the chair of… of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN, right? That’s correct. So you are a very, very powerful person in the panel. And we have Chris Painter, my dear friend Chris Painter, former director of Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Hi, Chris. It’s so early there. You’re so brave. Thank you so much for being with us today. And also, he was the first cyber ambassador of the United States at the time of President Obama. This is right, Chris, right? You were the first cyber ambassador. I was the first high-level cyber diplomat, exactly. Thank you. Wolfgang will be joining us, Professor Kleinwächter, Professor Emeritus from University of Aarhus, former commissioner of the Global Commission of Stability and Cyberspace. He will join us a little bit late because he’s arranging his things for his travel to home. We have my dear friend Philipp Grabensee. Philipp is attorney and former chair of Afilius. And we have my other dear friend, Luis Adrián Salazar. Bienvenido. He’s the former ICT minister of Costa Rica and now is professor in the Universidad Latina in Costa Rica, a beautiful country that was host of one of our schools, very well remembered, very nice. So, let me briefly make up some introduction about the issue that I’ve been thinking about. It’s important to reflect and to share with you some thoughts. We know that artificial intelligence is bringing profound changes to many things, public management, economy, regulations, has changed the dynamics of cyber attacks, allowing threats that previously took months to develop, now are quick, executed in minutes. So, artificial intelligence has changed the dynamics of cyber attacks, allowing threats Artificial intelligence is changing many things that we live, but also in defense. The strategic and geopolitical importance of artificial intelligence in the military sphere has a central role in the wars of the future. It can act as an advisor, collaborator, autonomous agent in conflicts, although its use poses ethical and governance challenges. We had a very interesting panel yesterday. I was talking about the session that you hosted yesterday. That was very interesting. Welcome, join us. I already presented you, but you’re here. Thank you very much. We were talking yesterday about autonomous weapons and how artificial intelligence is changing also that landscape. We’ll transform warfare by increasing the speed, precision, and autonomy of military operations, altering geopolitical dynamics, and demanding new forms of regulation and strategic preparation. We’ll be a strategic factor in future wars for several reasons. Speed and accuracy of decision making. Artificial intelligence processes large volumes of data in real time, allowing commanders to make faster and more accurate decisions than humans, accelerating the chain of command and the execution of attacks. Automation and autonomy in defense and attack systems. AI can operate as an advisor, collaborator, or autonomous agent on the battlefield, controlling drones, missile defense systems, and unnamed vehicles, increasing effectiveness and reducing human exposure. Shift the global strategic balance. Artificial intelligence can alter the balance of power between countries, generating risk of rapid escalation and preemptive action due to speed of reaction and perception of strategic advantage, new forms of hybrid warfare and cyber attacks. Artificial intelligence empowers faster and more sophisticated cyber attacks. Advanced operation planning, it enables a simulation of tactical scenarios to optimize attacks and defense plans. And there are ethical and governance challenges. The military use of artificial intelligence raises the need for international regulations to ensure its accountability, reliability and governability, avoiding the risk of misuse or uncontrolled escalation. This was also discussed in the very interesting workshop that Wolfgang hosted yesterday in this same room. So the urgency of having an automated response system and trained personnel is key in this new scenario. So the question is, how developing economies can face these challenges and can profit from these new advantages of artificial intelligence? So there are challenges, there are advantages. Are we creating a new divide in between countries that are very well developed in artificial intelligence and others that are lagging behind? Or maybe artificial intelligence can be used by developing economies, perhaps using them from afar, online, using, profiting from the different systems that are online now. So first we will have a video that Jose Cepeda, he’s a European parliamentarian from Spain, sent us. As I said before, he will not be able to be with us, not even online, because he’s busy. But he sent us a very nice video. The video is in Spanish, but it has captions in English. Can we show the video, please?

Jose Cepeda: and the 25th International Forum on Internet Governance. First of all, I would like to send a warm greeting to Olga Cavalli, the soul of all these days, who has allowed me to be here today with all of you, even if it is virtually. Unfortunately, I would have liked to be there, but this time, you know the length, on many occasions, of my obligations, but I do want to thank the opportunity of being able to share with all of you reflections and concerns. On the subject of artificial intelligence, I believe that artificial intelligence is already a structural element of cyber security. It is transforming defensive systems, automating threat detection, shortening response times and expanding, in an important way, the coverage of our protection. But it must be recognized that it also amplifies threats, making them more complex, more scalable and, above all, much more effective regarding their objectives. Due to the impact of artificial intelligence, among other reasons, in a short time we are going to face a panorama of different cyber threats, unprecedented. In terms of cyber security, it is crucial to integrate disruptive technologies such as AI, but also to address post-quantum cryptography and protect digital critical infrastructures. We are seeing the global scenario. It is changing in a very important way. It is strongly fragmented and in many countries, unfortunately, there is no cyber security strategy today or the use of artificial intelligence as a cyber shield, much less a holistic ablition that allows us to maintain or exploit the potential of both technologies together. Today, from here, from the European Union, I want to launch the idea in which we are working to recognize that cyber attacks are… without a doubt more and more complex. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and encryption must be integrated in an effective way in all digital investments to reinforce precisely our cybersecurity spaces and support, above all and especially, their industrial development. The European Artificial Intelligence Law includes explicit cybersecurity requirements for high-risk systems. These obligations are intertwined with directives such as the NIS2, the Act of Cyber Resilience or DORA, generating a large legislative framework, but coherent, which indicates a common political vision of alignment between artificial intelligence and digital security. However, digital threats do not know borders, so cybersecurity and the protection of our critical infrastructures must be a global strategic priority. For this, it is very important for us to talk about how to reinforce international cooperation and move towards a strategic cyber defense based on centralized systems, shared security infrastructures or the use of the IAEA also in the cloud and integrated security controllers from design, we always talk about design, it is very important. In the European Union, we promote global associations, especially with partners who share our values. I am talking about democratic partners in multilateral forums to promote a global governance of the Internet and cybersecurity under shared frameworks and values. However, we cannot forget the importance of defining regulatory frameworks and, in this sense, it is also very important to point out the absence of an adequate international regulation in the face of the use of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. As you are here, it is very important to mention that we must promote international standards because in the end it is impossible to regulate artificial intelligence and its malicious use in an absolutely isolated way. How to create mechanisms shared by solidarity and joint response at a global level? Well, let’s start with the exchange of information. It is very important to talk about this concept to generate confidence. The NINISTRO report talks about a European security system, for example, where we must strengthen the structural exchange of specialized knowledge, good practices, training in the field of mutual resilience, and for this it is necessary to consolidate and expand all these spaces of collaboration, but also to provide them with means. We also talk about investing in specific projects, such as the creation of a network of regional centers of mutual resilience. It is important to promote international collaboration in applied research to create joint projects, shared environments, sandboxes and regional centers of resilience. All this to generate precisely that mutual trust that I was talking about earlier. When we talk about interregional cooperation, we must take into account that it is very important to integrate countries with less digital development. In all these innovation processes, it contributes in a very important way to reduce that gap of capacities and improve global security. Where there is a space without covering, there will also be a space to generate new vulnerabilities. And in that sense, criminal organizations continue to exploit the digital era, legislative gaps and border vulnerabilities while continuing to work together. That is why I want to highlight the need to have a unified approach among all. This forum is very important because exchanging information between partners should lead us to close this technological and legislative gap, reinforce cyber security and therefore also protect in our last goal what matters most to us, which are our citizens. I would like to thank Olga and all her team for their attention and the space you have opened for me to share this collective reflection, the commitment that this forum represents for all of us and I trust that this space will help us build bridges, lasting bridges between regions, ideas and people, changing the rhythm that is possibly taking place today in other latitudes of the world. So, a cordial greeting and I really wish you a fruitful and especially useful debate to achieve these goals that we have all set for ourselves. Thank you very much. A big hug.

Olga Cavalli: Thank you, José. I know your team is watching the transmission virtually, so… It was a very interesting video. He prompted me some questions that I will include in the comments that I want to share with other panelists. And also I know that his team was going to follow the session online, so regards and thanks for the contribution, for taking the time of not only recording the video but adding the script, which is important because we don’t have translation in this room. He prompted me some new questions that I included to the panelists. I will now switch to my dear friend Ram. You are a very important cyber security expert. What does cyber defense readiness mean in the context of an emerging digital economy? And also, I would like to ask you, how do you think that developing economies could profit from using artificial intelligence systems in the cloud? Not having them on-site, but having them virtually accessed. How do you think that could enhance the national development of strategies and use in defense? Thank you, and welcome.

Ram Mohan: Thank you, Olga, you’re very kind. Look, in the context of an emerging digital economy that is being driven by AI, cyber defense readiness means having the comprehensive capability to understand, to anticipate, to prevent, detect, respond to, and rapidly recover from cyber threats that really could disrupt digital infrastructure, services, commerce, and governance. Our modern world is fundamentally built on internet connectivity. It is no longer just a convenience. It is an invisible infrastructure supporting nearly every aspect of our lives, from critical services to daily activities. Now, this new and evolving digital infrastructure is being driven by dramatic AI enhancements, and that requires a robust and adaptive defense posture. So, what does that mean? Cyber defense readiness means you have to be able to enable critical services, because the internet underpins essential services. You look at healthcare, you look at financial transactions, transportation, energy grids, even emergency response today depends upon the internet to be up and running, right? And so, a resilient cyber defense strategy will ensure that vital services are prioritized and that developing economies, the governments, have a clear set of priorities. and a clear set of plans to keep those services operational. And that requires proactive monitoring, proactive prevention, because you cannot just react to these things. You know, you look at AI and look at national cybersecurity strategies, countries have them, developing economies have national cybersecurity strategies. Most of them are useless now because AI has changed the entire nature of cybersecurity and rapid detection and response in sectors like energy or telecom or finance or healthcare. Most of those sectors are still having plans that for them, advanced cyber defense means they can respond in the cloud. But the cloud is now merely an enabling, amplifying factor for AI-based attack systems. So there is a real need to focus on going beyond rapid detection and response and being able to think about, do you have the ability to even know that the attack coming at you is AI-driven? Because AI-driven systems today can masquerade as a friendly force and do it in a way that is far more superior than it used to be when you had humans doing it. You know, when humans say another state actor was coming at you, you could find traits of those state actors. But AI-driven systems completely understand how your local languages or the dialect is, or, you know, and they can create. images that look absolutely identical to your existing cyber defense capabilities, right? So, it’s a world where your existing cyber defense is going to be used against you. Can you find out that it’s being used against you? Because that’s what AI systems are capable of doing. And in the commercial world, it’s already happening. You look at phish attacks that come through, they are so beautifully done right now. You’re so sophisticated. And it’s not only the sophistication, it is individualized. It used to be that spear phishing was a one-off thing. You had to really work hard to know you’re Olga Cavalli and I have to target you. Let me go look at your social media profile and try to write something special for you that’ll trick you. AI agents can do that automatically and can do that, you know, come at you in many different ways, right? So, I think there is a, for developing economies, the problem that they have is one of, can they scale and can they adapt? Because AI-driven cyber attacks are scaling and adapting faster than ever before. And cyber defenses therefore also have to scale quickly, right? Because the volume is not the only problem anymore. It is now the quality is likely to get much better than before. And so, you are moving from a brute force attack model to a targeted, focused, and very directed set of attacks. So, the attack plane is changing and the scale of it is also changing. One other thing that I want to point out is the AI. and cyber defense, it’s not so much about the technology. In my opinion, most of it is about the people and the processes. Developing economies are not prioritizing or they need to prioritize creating a skilled workforce that not only has a security first culture, but actually understand how to harness AI engines and AI systems in order to mount a cyber defense. So it’s one thing to have the ability to detect an AI-driven cyber attack, but it’s another thing if your economy doesn’t have the skill set to respond to it, then you’re going to have a problem. However, if you’re a developing economy and you as a government, as a university system, focus on that, it is an amazing engine of economic growth because the number of people who actually understand these technologies and can harness these technologies is tremendously small. And if you’re a developing economy that builds a strong base in your economy of having skilled people who understand, not just understand AI, we’re not talking about creating prompt engineers. We’re talking about having people who can go multiple skill sets above that. That I think is a tremendous opportunity, right? Many years ago, there was this idea that you offshore the undifferentiated technical tasks, right? I think we’re now in an era where because of AI, You have a need for differentiated technical work, and only a few countries are going to develop the skills for it. The major economies, even in the major economies, in my opinion, I think the United States and China are well ahead of most other major economies. But the advantage here for a developing economy is it’s primarily about knowledge and skills. If you develop that, you could actually leapfrog other developed economies and become a real force in cyber defense readiness.

Olga Cavalli: Thank you, Ram. Just leapfrog concept just came to my mind when you were saying that, because sometimes when you just start from behind, but you can profit from the development of certain technologies, maybe you can you can capture them. So you think that human resources and training of human resources could be that the the key to to have some some value at the national level, even in countries that have other problems. What happens in developing economies is priorities sometimes capture the attention of everyone. And these problems that seem to be from from other developing economies or other places are lagging behind. But then when something happens, when an attack happens, you realize that it was important to to have trained people. So maybe training would be could be the the key to to solve this trend, a group of trained human resources.

Ram Mohan: Yeah, look, the the pervasive problem is that proactive preparedness is not very attractive, doesn’t attract funding and is not sexy. Right. What what is more interesting is there’s a huge problem. And then you you rally people, you put out a fire. and nations’ leaders then get on TV and get a lot of attention because they are directing the cyber defense at that point, right? But if you invest the time in training a skilled force, workforce, you ought to be able to anticipate these problems and then you’ll find other countries coming to you, asking you for help, and that’s going to develop your local economy.

Olga Cavalli: Fantastic, thank you very much. I would like now to move to Chris Painter. Chris, thank you again for being so early. What time is it? 2 a.m., 3 a.m.? You’re an expert in cyber diplomacy and international relations, which are the international and regional debates spaces and forum where these issues are being discussed. Also, you were involved in several training capacity building in your role in the global forum of cyber expertise. How do you see this evolving? We were talking about this in the workshop yesterday, these different spaces where this is debated and the difficulties of having international rules or treaties to help countries to have some rules. Thank you again for being so early up with us.

Christopher Painter: Happy to join you, even though it’s 3.30 in the morning here, but it’s very nice to be with you all there. I wish I was there. It’s very hot in D.C., or it will be this day when the day starts. Look, I want to build on some of the other comments, Jomi. I think I certainly agree that artificial intelligence is both as the threat, because we see criminal actors using it, increasingly using it, as was just said, but also very much helps the defender, if used correctly. I think one of the concerns here—well, there’s a couple of concerns. One, as you said, Olga, there’s many, many forums. There’s regional forums like the— OAS, and in this region, the Organization for American States, there’s obviously the EU, there’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, there’s the OECD, there’s the African Union, ASEAN and others, and they’re all debating, and certainly this is being debated in the UN. And I think one of the challenges of all this, especially for developing economies, is just a resource issue of trying to even follow these debates. And this is true for cybersecurity more generally, that we’re, in a couple of weeks, going to be wrapping up at least this phase of what’s called the Open-Ended Working Group for Cybersecurity at the UN in New York, which has been a five-year mission, sort of like Star Trek, which is coming to a close. But one of the problems, especially for not just developing economies, but small countries, is participating in those meetings in New York, participating in the literal plethora of other meetings all around the world on every topic around cybersecurity, and more generally around digital issues, is a challenge. And I think that’s even more exacerbated with respect to artificial intelligence. And while I agree that artificial intelligence poses these real challenges, I worry sometimes that artificial intelligence is completely monopolizing the debate in a way that is important because we do have to debate it, and it’s good to be ahead of the curve to the extent we can be, but it also means a lot of times core cybersecurity issues, which are related and intertwined, but also somewhat different too, don’t get the attention they deserve. So at the policy level, lots of governments are like, we need to do things about AI, which is true, but they’re also sort of ignoring some of the basics that we’ve talked about for a long time and the need for cybersecurity. And I do think cybersecurity and AI, although they’re intertwined, will both be important. AI certainly could be a real benefit. Right now, I think the biggest benefit of AI is just making sense of the giant mass of data for system administrators and defenders to more prioritize different threats, and in the future it certainly will offer a lot more. So I do worry about that deprioritization of some of the basics of cybersecurity. You need to do both. The other thing I worry about, particularly for developing economies, and this is said by others, is that, you know, just like in cybersecurity, a lot of the countries who we’re developing don’t have the resources to do what they need to do in cybersecurity, including policy. And, you know, I do think a lot of countries now have cyber strategies. I don’t think they’re completely obsolete now, so I disagree with you a bit, or with our last speaker. But I think that, you know, that’s good. Those are roadmaps, and we worked for many years to get that to happen. But a lot of countries still don’t have national-level certs. They don’t have, you know, computer emergency response teams. They don’t have really trained law enforcement. They don’t have trained technical people. They don’t have policies within their government that integrate this with some of the digital and other areas. And that’s, I think, a continued problem, because, you know, it needs to get the political attention with every country, whether it’s developing or not. And I think that the rationale for that, the strongest one, is that if every country around the world, which is true, including developing economies most particularly, are trying to maximize digitization, you know, catch this digital transformation, which includes AI, that’s great to help their economies and their people. But cybersecurity is still an important plank of that. So I think that will be important, too. And I worry about developing economies being left even further behind and creating a larger digital divide, where if you have this very specialized area of AI that they don’t have, and this is building on what you just said, Olga, too, if they don’t have that ability, they don’t have that trained workforce to work in this area, if they don’t have the investment in these issues. Not that every country has to be a leader in artificial intelligence. themselves in development, but they need to be able to take advantage of this as a resource and also be able to appreciate where the threat is and, frankly, work with countries, and I think that’s always important. So on that, looking at that kind of framework, I think there’s a lot of things we need to do, both in international and regional forums, but also most importantly around capacity building to help address this issue and not wait till the end. So as I said, I think there’s training, I think others have talked about training, and that training is both at a technical level, so people understand the technology and how to use it, but it’s also at the policy level so that diplomats and others can debate these issues in these different forums intelligently, and really, I think this is not just a debate for, it’s clearly not just a debate for the large countries, it’s a debate for every country as we move forward. So I think that’s important. The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, which has been around now almost, actually, exactly 10 years, has expanded significantly, having over 225, I think, members and partners around the world in every region of the world, and has several working groups on national strategies, on incident response, on cybercrime, but most recently, in about the last year, there was a working group added on AI and emerging technologies more generally, and I think that’s really important, and what that’s trying to do is both ordinate and promote better capacity building around this among a multi-stakeholder community, which includes governments, private sector, and civil society. I do think this is an urgent issue for capacity building. I worry about that more generally because in the era where there’s increasingly cut funding by governments and others, including the U.S., where capacity building is not being emphasized as much, that, I think, causes a problem for all these countries who desperately need this help, and I think that’s the number one thing. I see when I go to the UN, as a lot of countries are glad to debate these issues, but really need the help, both the technical help and the policy help and the training help. And I think we can’t forget that. So as I look at this, I think it’s going to be, I suspect we’ll have this debate every year for a few years now, because it’s one of these evergreen things that’s going to continue to evolve. But I do worry about, you know, I love the promise of AI, but I do worry about not just the threat, but the potential of AI making it much more difficult for countries to achieve the things they need to achieve, because they don’t have the resources or priority to do that. And we need to address that. All of us need to address it, not just now, but in the future.

Olga Cavalli: Thank you, Chris. I do agree with you, but I’m always optimistic. And I got the concept of leapfrog from Ram, and it was in my mind as well. But I also have the fear of this broaden, of this divide among different countries. I would like now to give the floor to my dear friend Wolfgang Kleinwächter. You’re an expert in capacity building. We have been saying that having the capacity in human resources dealing with these issues is fundamental. How do you think this can be handled by developing countries? And also, which kind of talents we should develop at the national level? Perhaps to have a group of experts. And one of the challenges is when you train them, they go to work to the private sector very quickly because they get more money, which is understandable if you’re young and you want to develop your career. How do you retain them at the state, for example, working for national organizations or governments? And welcome.

Wolfgang Kleinwachter: Thank you very much, Olga. And certainly, thank you. knowledge is key and knowledge can be shared so that means the whole internet development has based on the principle of sharing so sharing the resource that was you know a limited resource was at the beginning of the internet in the 1970s who shared computers and you know to make it work and while you need certainly money but knowledge if it’s available so it doesn’t cost so it’s a question also of readiness to share the knowledge if somebody has the knowledge is he ready to share this you know without any additional cost so that’s a general problem and this leads a little bit to the political problem behind the discussion we have here 20 years ago when business started you know the driving force behind that was not internet governance it was the digital divide because the we did see with the development of the internet we see half and half knots and in so far the United Nations realized that they have to do something additionally to what the G7 decided or in 2000 in Okinawa where they had the dot force and said we have to bridge the digital divide G7 called it we have to turn it into digital opportunities from digital divide to have a positive language digital divide is negative though into digital opportunities and then we had the vices if I take this experiences now in today’s world 20 years later I see basically we have the same problem today so it’s not the digital divide it’s the AI divide if you remember the speech by the minister of communication from Saudi Arabia last year in Riyadh in the opening speech he had this made this very clear you know about the AI divide the skills divide and all this. And in so far, you know, 20 years of development of this has moved the problem, has not solved the problem, but moved it to a higher level. And if you say, you know, use what just Chris has said, that cyber security is part of the national security. And if we agree that, you know, to be safe in the Internet governance ecosystem, you need the skills and you need the knowledge. Then you could argue at the end of the day, the AI divide leads to a security divide, to a security gap. So that means if cyber security is national security and if you have different capacities, then, you know, at the end of the day, some countries are less secure because they do not have the capabilities as others. I think that’s a dilemma, but we should face it and should make clear the only way forward is then to find a certain agreement. And this brings me to the question of regulation. This will be my final point. So I think the basic idea of the United Nations 80 years ago was that all states are equal. Big states, small states should have the equal rights. The principle of sovereign equality of states is the cornerstone of the charter of the United Nations. So and if you translate this into today’s world, then we have to have safeguards. The law always protects the weak partners, the small partners. So and with other words, that we have to look for certain arrangements which are based on the philosophy of sharing, which I mentioned in the beginning. But, you know, leads to the. concept of, let’s say, equality or equal rights in this field. So we have certain discussions on it about projects to regulate this. So I’m very skeptical, and we have this discussion also with Chris over a couple of years, and I share his skepticism that it’s very difficult, you know, to find a legally binding instrument to regulate AI weapons or to regulate AI in general. So we did see the efforts of the European Union to regulate it with this risk-based approach, and after two years we realized the idea was probably not so bad, but the implementation is very difficult. You have to create a big bureaucracy to identify, you know, what is the risk application, and then to evaluate this. We did see the efforts in the Council of Europe, and they have now a legally binding convention to, you know, respect human rights if you develop AI. This is also helpful, but it has to be seen, you know, how this works in practice. If it comes to defense and weapon systems, we have since 10 years negotiations on a less autonomous weapon system, where even after 10 years we have no clear definition what it is. So we feel, everybody feels it, that something has to be done. We cannot delegate the question of life or death to a machine. So I think the human control is in the center, but how you organize the human control, you know, if you get as a soldier, you know, a recommendation from a computer, and says, you know, now you have to push the button, you know, certainly there is human control, and there’s a human in between, but what you can do in a difficult situation. So finally, you know, human control is a good concept. But in reality, in a battle situation, it’s very difficult to have this reflection about is this the right recommendation which comes from the computer, should I stop here or not. I think we have similar situation in the history of nuclear weapons. We all know this story from Mr. Pavlov when he was in the submarine and said, oh, this is the wrong information, I should not push the button. So he avoided the nuclear war, it was in the early 1980s. I think a lot of people will remember this story. So in so far debate, discussion, driven by the spirit of sharing, driven by the spirit of equal rights for everybody is for the time being the way forward. Probably the next generation has better ideas. So let’s wait for the next generation. Thank you.

Olga Cavalli: Thanks to you. Yeah, I’m always optimistic, especially in younger generations. And the challenge is there. But when we talk about it, there are some ideas that come up and we can think about possible ways of not solving all the problems, but address them somehow. Thank you very much, Wolfgang, very, very interesting, as usual, your interventions. You’re an attorney and also you have been leader of very important technology companies, especially related with the Internet. Which policies do you think that governments and development countries should develop in order to harness all this potential AI and also the challenges of AI? We have seen that it’s not easy. They have, as Chris and Wolfgang already mentioned, they have been years discussing about cyber security, international treaties, and it’s very difficult. But how do you think this could be addressed or handled by governments? policies, how those policies could be developed. Thank you, Olga. I think, you know, this session,

Philipp Grabensee: you know, follows up on the session you had in Riyadh and I think we all agreed that the bottleneck is really human capacity and human resources. We all agreed on that and I think, you know, in this session I pointed out and in agreement with everyone, so what can governments and what can policy do? I think to create environment and create funding, very simple, to develop those human resources and makes it attractive for those human resources to get developed and to grow in the country, create economic opportunities, establish maybe, you know, the problem you addressed, you know, that people go to private companies, so establish private, public-private partnerships, so it’s not either government or companies, private sectors, maybe some combinations, so that’s all, you know, that’s really what companies, what countries can do, you know, in the policy which has a, might have a direct effect. I mean, there are a lot of theoretic things and policies, you know, new laws for regulating and all that, but this comes, this comes too late. I think it’s all, you know, the only thing which has a really big practical impact is developing, you know, setting a framework to develop human capacities. Now artificial intelligence comes, you know, that’s new, you know, compared to the other sessions we had, so what does it mean for us? So, and I pretty much, unfortunately, I share Chris, you know, somehow concerns or pessimism, because we have one big problem. To a certain extent, AI might help a little bit to solve the capacity problem, because some of things, you know, which you need, I mean, you still need people who run the AI and all. But still, you know, maybe some of the tasks which are done by skilled humans can be in the future taken over by AI. But the big problem of the digital divide is now, and that makes, in my view, probably the digital divide even bigger now. You need access to the large language models. And we have only so far, we have China and US who have, you know, in those countries have companies to run those large language models. And to develop an autonomous cyber defense mechanism, you need access to those large language models. I think you should not get into, you know, even middle powers. I’m not even talking about developing countries. I think even middle powers, for them it’s too late to enter the race, to compete with those large language models. The race is over. Maybe some, you know, I discussed it yesterday with Rome, maybe Singapore, maybe some others with a lot of funding will develop also large language models. But that’s to be questioned. But definitely developing countries will not be able to develop those large language models. And so they need to make sure they have access to those large language models. So what can policy do to, you know, grant this access or to help this access? So they can first of all create, and that’s again a long shot again, to create an economic environment which makes it attractive for the large companies to go in those economies and make money by offering those people access to the large, so the economic incentive to create an environment which makes it attractive for countries to, you know, for the big companies to give access to them, economic access to their large language models so they can make money in those developing countries by giving them access because there need to be applications in those countries developed which can connect to the large language models and able to make money. But in cyber defense, cyber security, is there so much money? So what is the leverage of countries, developing countries, to make sure they get access? in their cyber defence environment to those large language models. And I believe they have to, and I know this is not very popular, but this is the real world now, and they have to cut deals. Their foreign policy has to be fast to cutting deals, offer, and it’s probably, as per now, the US or China, offer them deals, strategic advantages, trade in something with those nations and with those companies that they, you know, trade something, cut deals with them, so they grant them access to their large language models. Because the US has more funding, and the US has more funding goes, you know, government funding goes into the large language models. The less inclined, you know, the US government will be to share those merits of their large language models if they don’t get something in return. So, I think, you know, as said, as this might be, you don’t have time for many conferences, you have time for this whole framework. You have to be fast on foreign policy, and because it’s not a matter of years, you know, it develops so fast, so you need access right now, and you need grant access right now, so foreign policy has to cut deals and make sure they’re in a position that is attractive for the very country they talk to, that this grants them access to their artificial intelligence capacities. And that’s, you know, what my suggestion, and if this is not, if they don’t cut, and it’s already, the digital divide is much bigger than I think than probably than ever, with two countries having those large language models, and everyone in the world depends on them, but because how can you fight? a cyber attack which comes out of a large language model. If you don’t defend it out of one of the comparable or maybe even out of the same model, right, you have no chance. So that’s what the situation is right now and let’s see how it

Olga Cavalli: goes. Let’s see how it goes. Very good ideas and based on knowledge sharing and information sharing that’s something constant that has been addressed by several of you. And now I would like to go to my new friend Luis Adrián Salazar. We were friends from, I don’t know if we met in Costa Rica, I don’t know. I think someday we met. I feel that we are long time friends but I have just met. This is the most important thing that you feel that we have a lot of time to be friends. He was the former ICT minister of Costa Rica and now is a professor at a very dear university for us, Universidad Latina. And Luis, Costa Rica is a country without army. What happens if you have an attack to the country? How do you define or do you defend? Because it’s a new way of attacking countries like with technology. How do you see that situation? How did you handle the big ransom that you experienced some years ago? Thank you. We abolished the army since

Luis Adrian Salazar: 1948 and we don’t use never the word army because it’s not part of our ideology by a country. However in 22 we received a fatal attack, a cyber attack which affect the financial area, the social security area, the hospitals and we realized that we had to do something. I recognize that since this year and we’ll be in a very interesting point of the government history because The last government was in the last two weeks, and the next government started two weeks late. So it was very chaotic. However, I recognize to the current government all the efforts in order to improve the capacity to work with other countries. Because my colleagues were talking about one thing that is, for me, the most important thing in this area. And this is the understanding. Sometimes governments don’t understand what is happening now. And when I talk about that, it’s about the digital world, because I am an engineer. However, I am former Minister of Science, Technology and Telecommunications in Costa Rica. And when we go to the government, to the different areas of the government, to talk about that you require budget, research, people, technology, to improve the life of the people, because there are where we forget what is the mean, what is the principle that my colleague talked about sharing, about to work together, that we forget. And my opinion is that at this time, cyber diplomacy is a way to collaborate, to cooperate, to try to understand the scale, scope and speed that the technologies are changing. And it’s very important that we talk about infrastructure. It’s very important that we talk about all that we need to increase in capacities, to improve the capacity of the people to help in this area. However, when we talk about putting the human being in the center of the equation, it’s that you understand that when we receive an attack, we are affecting the health, we are affecting the education, we are affecting… the countries which receive attack on missiles, so I think that we have an opportunity and I really love this kind of conversation because I believe that we need to create a roadmap, but a roadmap with a specific result, a concrete result where developing countries are not thinking about artificial intelligence, are not thinking about a quantum computer, they are thinking about how to reduce the poverty, how to increase the access to the water. So when we combine the real world, the human needs with the technology, you find the real goals and real principles that we have to start working or that we must work for a solvent. For Finnish, I think that we must create a group in order to talk about this specific thing because when you try to translate from the political world and political language to the technical, there is a gap and the most recent thing is that we have a gap of gaps, we have a lot of gaps and all of those are increasing for the digital gap. So I am optimistic and I think that if we are still working together, we can have a better future for all of us. Thank you.

Olga Cavalli: Thank you all very much. We are running out of time, we have two minutes and thank you very much. I think that knowledge sharing, information sharing, working with foreign affairs to have this, I like this idea of having the deals with important countries that have more technology and I am also afraid of this big gap in between two main countries and all the rest, especially for developing economies and I think… You mentioned very rightly the priorities in developing economies are always others, it’s not technology, but then technology affects what is happening at the national level. So, thank you all very much. Thank you, Chris, for being so early up with us and I hope to meet you somewhere in the world in the near future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Philipp. Thank you, Ram. Thank you, Luis. Thank you, Wolfgang. And thank you, Karina, for being my remote moderator. Apologies for the audience, we don’t have much time and I ask you a big applause for our dear colleagues.

Agreement points

Human capacity and skilled workforce is the critical bottleneck for cybersecurity and AI defense

Speakers

– Ram Mohan
– Christopher Painter
– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Philipp Grabensee

Arguments

Countries need skilled workforce with security-first culture who understand how to harness AI systems for cyber defense

Countries need both technical training for technology use and policy training for diplomatic participation

Knowledge sharing is key since knowledge can be shared without additional cost if there’s willingness

Governments should create funding and economic environments to develop human resources through public-private partnerships

Summary

All speakers agree that developing human capacity and skilled workforce is the fundamental requirement for effective cybersecurity and AI defense, more important than just having technology

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity | Economic

AI fundamentally transforms cybersecurity landscape making traditional approaches insufficient

Speakers

– Olga Cavalli
– Jose Cepeda
– Ram Mohan

Arguments

AI transforms cyber attacks from months-long development to minute-level execution

AI is a structural element of cybersecurity, automating threat detection but also amplifying threats

Most national cybersecurity strategies are obsolete due to AI changing the entire nature of cybersecurity

Summary

Speakers consensus that AI has fundamentally changed the cybersecurity landscape, accelerating both attack capabilities and defense requirements while making existing strategies inadequate

Topics

Cybersecurity

International cooperation and knowledge sharing are essential but face significant challenges

Speakers

– Christopher Painter
– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Luis Adrian Salazar

Arguments

Multiple forums debate these issues creating resource challenges for developing economies to participate

Knowledge sharing is key since knowledge can be shared without additional cost if there’s willingness

Cyber diplomacy enables collaboration to understand the scale, scope and speed of technological change

Summary

All speakers recognize that international cooperation is crucial for addressing cybersecurity and AI challenges, but acknowledge significant practical barriers to effective collaboration

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers express pessimism about developing countries’ ability to compete in AI/cybersecurity due to resource constraints and the dominance of major powers

Speakers

– Ram Mohan
– Philipp Grabensee

Arguments

Proactive preparedness doesn’t attract funding compared to reactive crisis response

The race to develop autonomous large language models is over for most countries except major powers

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers highlight how AI development is creating new forms of digital divide that leave most countries dependent on major powers

Speakers

– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Philipp Grabensee

Arguments

AI divide creates security gaps where some countries are less secure due to lacking capabilities

Only US and China have companies running large language models, making middle powers and developing countries dependent

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity

Both speakers emphasize the fundamental gaps in developing countries between policy aspirations and practical implementation capabilities

Speakers

– Christopher Painter
– Luis Adrian Salazar

Arguments

Many developing countries still lack basic cybersecurity infrastructure like national CERTs and trained personnel

There’s a gap between political language and technical implementation that needs bridging

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Skepticism about international legal frameworks for AI regulation

Speakers

– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Christopher Painter

Arguments

Legally binding AI regulation is very difficult, as seen with 10 years of negotiations on autonomous weapons without clear definitions

Multiple forums debate these issues creating resource challenges for developing economies to participate

Explanation

Despite their expertise in international governance, both speakers express skepticism about the effectiveness of formal legal frameworks for AI regulation, suggesting that practical cooperation may be more valuable than treaty negotiations

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Optimism about leapfrogging opportunities for developing countries

Speakers

– Ram Mohan
– Olga Cavalli

Arguments

Countries need skilled workforce with security-first culture who understand how to harness AI systems for cyber defense

AI transforms cyber attacks from months-long development to minute-level execution

Explanation

Despite acknowledging significant challenges, both speakers suggest that developing countries could potentially leapfrog developed economies by focusing on building specialized AI and cybersecurity skills, which is unexpected given the generally pessimistic tone about the digital divide

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

Strong consensus on human capacity as the key bottleneck, AI’s transformative impact on cybersecurity, and the need for international cooperation despite implementation challenges

Consensus level

High level of consensus on problem identification and fundamental challenges, but more divergent views on solutions and feasibility of different approaches. The agreement suggests that while the challenges are well understood, the path forward requires both technical capacity building and pragmatic diplomatic solutions rather than idealistic regulatory frameworks.

Different viewpoints

Obsolescence of current national cybersecurity strategies

Speakers

– Ram Mohan
– Christopher Painter

Arguments

Most national cybersecurity strategies are obsolete due to AI changing the entire nature of cybersecurity

Countries need both technical training for technology use and policy training for diplomatic participation

Summary

Ram Mohan argues that existing national cybersecurity strategies are completely obsolete due to AI transformation, while Christopher Painter disagrees, stating that while strategies need updating, they are not completely obsolete and serve as useful roadmaps that took years to develop.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory | Development

Feasibility of international AI regulation

Speakers

– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Jose Cepeda

Arguments

Legally binding AI regulation is very difficult, as seen with 10 years of negotiations on autonomous weapons without clear definitions

AI is a structural element of cybersecurity, automating threat detection but also amplifying threats

Summary

Wolfgang expresses deep skepticism about legally binding AI regulation citing failed attempts at autonomous weapons regulation, while Jose Cepeda presents the EU’s regulatory framework as a viable approach with concrete implementation through laws like the AI Act and NIS2 directive.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Unexpected differences

Prioritization of AI versus basic cybersecurity

Speakers

– Christopher Painter
– Ram Mohan

Arguments

Multiple forums debate these issues creating resource challenges for developing economies to participate

Most national cybersecurity strategies are obsolete due to AI changing the entire nature of cybersecurity

Explanation

Christopher Painter unexpectedly warns that AI discussions are monopolizing attention and causing neglect of basic cybersecurity fundamentals, while Ram Mohan argues that AI has fundamentally changed cybersecurity making traditional approaches obsolete. This disagreement is unexpected because both are cybersecurity experts but have opposite views on whether to prioritize AI advancement or maintain focus on cybersecurity basics.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion reveals moderate disagreements primarily around implementation strategies rather than fundamental goals. Key areas of disagreement include the obsolescence of current cybersecurity strategies, the feasibility of international AI regulation, and the balance between AI advancement and basic cybersecurity. Most speakers agree on the importance of capacity building and international cooperation but differ on specific approaches.

Disagreement level

Moderate disagreement with significant implications – while speakers share common concerns about the AI divide and need for capacity building, their different approaches to regulation, strategy development, and resource allocation could lead to fragmented international responses. The disagreement between prioritizing AI advancement versus maintaining cybersecurity fundamentals is particularly significant as it could influence policy directions in developing economies.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers express pessimism about developing countries’ ability to compete in AI/cybersecurity due to resource constraints and the dominance of major powers

Speakers

– Ram Mohan
– Philipp Grabensee

Arguments

Proactive preparedness doesn’t attract funding compared to reactive crisis response

The race to develop autonomous large language models is over for most countries except major powers

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers highlight how AI development is creating new forms of digital divide that leave most countries dependent on major powers

Speakers

– Wolfgang Kleinwachter
– Philipp Grabensee

Arguments

AI divide creates security gaps where some countries are less secure due to lacking capabilities

Only US and China have companies running large language models, making middle powers and developing countries dependent

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity

Both speakers emphasize the fundamental gaps in developing countries between policy aspirations and practical implementation capabilities

Speakers

– Christopher Painter
– Luis Adrian Salazar

Arguments

Many developing countries still lack basic cybersecurity infrastructure like national CERTs and trained personnel

There’s a gap between political language and technical implementation that needs bridging

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

AI has fundamentally transformed cybersecurity by accelerating attack development from months to minutes and enabling more sophisticated, individualized attacks that can masquerade as friendly forces

A critical AI divide is emerging between major powers (US and China) who control large language models and the rest of the world, potentially creating greater security vulnerabilities for developing economies

Human capacity building and skilled workforce development are identified as the most crucial factors for developing economies to address AI-driven cyber threats, potentially offering opportunities to leapfrog other developed nations

Most existing national cybersecurity strategies are considered obsolete due to AI’s transformative impact, requiring comprehensive updates to address new threat landscapes

Developing economies face a fundamental challenge of prioritizing immediate needs (poverty, water access) over seemingly abstract technological threats, until attacks directly impact critical services

International cooperation and knowledge sharing are essential, but current forum structures create resource burdens for smaller nations trying to participate in multiple overlapping discussions

Proactive cybersecurity preparedness struggles to attract funding and political attention compared to reactive crisis response

Resolutions and action items

Developing countries should create economic environments and public-private partnerships to develop and retain skilled cybersecurity professionals

Nations need to engage in strategic foreign policy negotiations to secure access to large language models from major powers for cyber defense purposes

Governments should prioritize both technical training for AI/cybersecurity implementation and policy training for diplomatic participation in international forums

Countries should focus on establishing basic cybersecurity infrastructure including national CERTs and trained law enforcement before advancing to AI-specific defenses

A roadmap with concrete results should be created specifically addressing how developing countries can integrate technological capabilities with addressing fundamental human needs

Unresolved issues

How to bridge the growing AI divide between major powers and developing economies without creating permanent dependencies

How to retain skilled cybersecurity professionals in government roles when private sector offers better compensation

How to achieve meaningful international regulation of AI in warfare and cybersecurity given the failure to reach consensus on autonomous weapons after 10 years of negotiations

How to balance immediate development priorities (poverty, infrastructure) with long-term cybersecurity preparedness in resource-constrained environments

How to coordinate across multiple international forums discussing AI and cybersecurity without overwhelming smaller nations’ limited diplomatic resources

How to translate between political language and technical implementation to create effective policies

How countries without traditional military structures (like Costa Rica) can effectively defend against state-level cyber attacks

Suggested compromises

Developing countries should focus on accessing AI capabilities through cloud-based services rather than attempting to build domestic large language model capabilities

Nations should pursue strategic trade-offs in foreign policy, offering advantages to major powers in exchange for access to AI technologies and cybersecurity capabilities

International cooperation should emphasize knowledge sharing principles since knowledge can be shared without additional cost if there is willingness to do so

Countries should adopt a hybrid approach combining basic cybersecurity fundamentals with selective AI integration rather than attempting comprehensive AI transformation

Public-private partnerships should be established to address the challenge of retaining skilled professionals by combining government mission with private sector compensation models

AI-driven systems today can masquerade as a friendly force and do it in a way that is far more superior than it used to be when you had humans doing it… So, it’s a world where your existing cyber defense is going to be used against you. Can you find out that it’s being used against you?

Speaker

Ram Mohan

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframes the cybersecurity challenge by highlighting how AI doesn’t just amplify existing threats but creates entirely new categories of deception. The insight that defensive systems themselves become weapons against defenders represents a paradigm shift from traditional cybersecurity thinking.

Impact

This observation elevated the discussion from general AI benefits/risks to specific technical vulnerabilities, prompting deeper consideration of how developing economies need fundamentally different defensive strategies rather than just scaled-up versions of existing ones.

The advantage here for a developing economy is it’s primarily about knowledge and skills. If you develop that, you could actually leapfrog other developed economies and become a real force in cyber defense readiness.

Speaker

Ram Mohan

Reason

This comment challenges the assumption that developing economies are inevitably disadvantaged, introducing the powerful concept that AI-driven cybersecurity is more about human capital than infrastructure, creating unprecedented opportunities for strategic advancement.

Impact

This ‘leapfrog’ concept became a recurring theme throughout the discussion, with Olga referencing it multiple times and other speakers building on the idea that knowledge-based advantages could overcome traditional resource constraints.

You need access to the large language models. And we have only so far, we have China and US who have… The race is over. Maybe some… middle powers… But definitely developing countries will not be able to develop those large language models.

Speaker

Philipp Grabensee

Reason

This comment starkly contradicts the earlier optimism about leapfrogging, introducing a harsh geopolitical reality that AI capabilities are becoming concentrated in just two superpowers, creating unprecedented dependency relationships.

Impact

This observation fundamentally shifted the discussion’s tone from optimistic capacity-building to urgent geopolitical strategy, leading to discussions about ‘cutting deals’ and foreign policy implications that hadn’t been prominent earlier.

Their foreign policy has to be fast to cutting deals… trade something, cut deals with them, so they grant them access to their large language models… You have to be fast on foreign policy, and because it’s not a matter of years, you know, it develops so fast.

Speaker

Philipp Grabensee

Reason

This comment transforms the discussion from technical capacity-building to urgent diplomatic strategy, suggesting that AI access requires immediate geopolitical positioning rather than long-term development plans.

Impact

This introduced a new urgency and realpolitik dimension to the conversation, moving beyond technical solutions to acknowledge that AI cybersecurity may require countries to make strategic foreign policy choices they might prefer to avoid.

I worry sometimes that artificial intelligence is completely monopolizing the debate in a way that is important… but it also means a lot of times core cybersecurity issues, which are related and intertwined, but also somewhat different too, don’t get the attention they deserve.

Speaker

Christopher Painter

Reason

This comment provides crucial perspective by questioning whether the focus on AI is actually counterproductive, suggesting that basic cybersecurity fundamentals are being neglected in favor of more glamorous AI discussions.

Impact

This observation added important nuance to the discussion, preventing it from becoming purely AI-focused and reminding participants that developing economies still need to address fundamental cybersecurity gaps alongside AI considerations.

The AI divide leads to a security divide, to a security gap. So that means if cyber security is national security and if you have different capacities, then… some countries are less secure because they do not have the capabilities as others.

Speaker

Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Reason

This comment connects AI inequality directly to national security vulnerability, framing the digital divide not just as an economic issue but as a fundamental threat to state security and sovereignty.

Impact

This elevated the stakes of the entire discussion, moving from technical capacity-building to existential national security concerns, and reinforced the urgency expressed by other speakers about the need for immediate action.

When we combine the real world, the human needs with the technology, you find the real goals and real principles… developing countries are not thinking about artificial intelligence… they are thinking about how to reduce the poverty, how to increase the access to the water.

Speaker

Luis Adrian Salazar

Reason

This comment grounds the entire high-level discussion in practical reality, pointing out that developing countries face competing priorities and that AI cybersecurity must be justified in terms of basic human needs rather than abstract security concepts.

Impact

This brought the discussion full circle, reminding participants that all the technical and geopolitical strategies discussed must ultimately serve human development goals, adding essential perspective to prevent the conversation from becoming too removed from practical implementation challenges.

Overall assessment

These key comments created a dynamic tension throughout the discussion between optimism and realism about developing economies’ prospects in AI cybersecurity. The conversation evolved from initial optimism about leapfrogging opportunities through sobering geopolitical realities to practical implementation challenges. Ram Mohan’s technical insights about AI’s game-changing nature established the stakes, while his leapfrogging concept provided hope. Grabensee’s stark assessment of superpower dominance then injected urgent realpolitik, forcing consideration of immediate diplomatic strategies. Painter’s warning about AI monopolizing attention and Salazar’s grounding in human development needs provided essential balance. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a purely technical discussion into a nuanced exploration of how developing economies must simultaneously navigate technical innovation, geopolitical positioning, resource constraints, and human development priorities in an rapidly evolving threat landscape.

How can developing economies create mechanisms for shared solidarity and joint response at a global level in cybersecurity?

Speaker

José Cepeda

Explanation

This addresses the need for international cooperation frameworks that developing countries can participate in effectively, which is crucial for addressing cyber threats that don’t respect borders.

How can developing economies profit from using artificial intelligence systems in the cloud rather than having them on-site?

Speaker

Olga Cavalli

Explanation

This explores whether cloud-based AI access could be a viable solution for developing countries to benefit from AI capabilities without massive infrastructure investments.

How can countries detect whether a cyber attack is AI-driven versus human-driven?

Speaker

Ram Mohan

Explanation

This is critical because AI-driven attacks can masquerade as friendly forces and use existing cyber defense capabilities against the defender, requiring new detection methods.

How can developing economies retain skilled cybersecurity professionals in government roles when private sector offers better compensation?

Speaker

Olga Cavalli

Explanation

This addresses a key challenge in building national cybersecurity capacity when trained professionals migrate to higher-paying private sector jobs.

How can human control be effectively organized and implemented in autonomous weapon systems during actual battle situations?

Speaker

Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Explanation

This explores the practical challenges of maintaining meaningful human oversight when AI systems provide rapid recommendations in high-pressure military scenarios.

What specific foreign policy deals and strategic advantages can developing countries offer to gain access to large language models for cyber defense?

Speaker

Philipp Grabensee

Explanation

This addresses the practical reality that developing countries need access to advanced AI capabilities controlled by major powers and must negotiate for this access.

How can the gap between political language and technical implementation be bridged in cybersecurity policy?

Speaker

Luis Adrián Salazar

Explanation

This addresses the communication and understanding challenges between policymakers and technical experts that hinder effective cybersecurity governance.

What concrete roadmap with specific results can be created for developing countries to address cybersecurity while managing competing priorities like poverty reduction and basic infrastructure?

Speaker

Luis Adrián Salazar

Explanation

This seeks practical solutions for integrating cybersecurity priorities with fundamental development needs in resource-constrained environments.

How can international cooperation mechanisms be designed to address the resource challenges developing countries face in participating in multiple cybersecurity forums?

Speaker

Christopher Painter

Explanation

This addresses the practical burden on developing countries of engaging in numerous international cybersecurity discussions with limited diplomatic resources.

What arrangements based on sharing philosophy can ensure equal rights for all states in AI and cybersecurity capabilities?

Speaker

Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Explanation

This explores how the UN principle of sovereign equality can be applied to prevent a security divide based on AI capabilities.

Summary

This workshop at the Internet Governance Forum focused on AI sandboxes as tools for regulatory experimentation and innovation governance. Sophie Tomlinson from the DataSphere Initiative moderated a diverse panel of experts from government, business, academia, and international organizations to explore how sandboxes can help assess and govern AI technologies across different sectors.

Mariana Rozo-Pan introduced sandboxes as collaborative spaces where stakeholders experiment with technologies against regulatory frameworks, drawing parallels to childhood play with building blocks. The DataSphere Initiative has mapped over 150 sandboxes globally, demonstrating their expansion from fintech origins to AI applications across developed and developing countries. Meni Anastasiadou from the International Chamber of Commerce emphasized how sandboxes support the four-pillar approach to AI governance, particularly benefiting small and medium enterprises by providing safe testing environments before market deployment.

Alex Moltzau from the European AI Office discussed the EU AI Act’s incorporation of regulatory sandboxes, highlighting ongoing work with member states to develop implementation frameworks and cross-border collaboration mechanisms. Speakers from Africa, including Jimson Olufuye and Maureen, shared insights about the continent’s growing interest in sandboxes, with Nigeria developing frameworks for data protection compliance and AI strategy implementation.

Key challenges identified include resource constraints, the need for clear legal frameworks, transparency in eligibility criteria, and meaningful stakeholder engagement including civil society participation. Natalie Cohen from the OECD emphasized that sandboxes are just one form of regulatory experimentation, requiring careful consideration of policy objectives and exit strategies. The discussion highlighted sandboxes’ potential to build trust between regulators, businesses, and civil society while providing evidence-based approaches to governing emerging AI technologies responsibly across borders and sectors.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **What are AI sandboxes and why are they needed**: The discussion established that sandboxes are collaborative, safe spaces where different stakeholders (public sector, private sector, civil society) can experiment with AI technologies against existing or developing regulatory frameworks. They originated in fintech but are now expanding globally across sectors like health, transportation, and data governance.

– **Implementation challenges and resource considerations**: Speakers highlighted significant barriers including funding constraints, resource intensity for regulators, need for clear governance structures, eligibility criteria, and exit strategies. The discussion emphasized that sandboxes require substantial overhead for both regulators and participating businesses, particularly affecting SME participation.

– **Global perspectives and cross-border potential**: The conversation covered sandbox initiatives across different regions – from the EU AI Act’s regulatory sandboxes to Africa’s emerging sandbox landscape (25 national sandboxes, mostly in finance) to Asia’s health sector applications. There was significant discussion about the potential for cross-border sandboxes to address interoperability and international collaboration.

– **Stakeholder inclusion and civil society participation**: Multiple speakers emphasized the need to meaningfully include civil society and individuals affected by AI systems throughout the sandbox process, not just businesses and regulators. This was identified as an area needing improvement in current sandbox frameworks.

– **Trust-building and evidence-based regulation**: The discussion positioned sandboxes as tools to address mistrust between stakeholders and build evidence-based regulatory approaches for AI governance, with only 41% of countries trusting governments to appropriately regulate new technologies according to OECD data.

## Overall Purpose:

The workshop aimed to explore how regulatory sandboxes can serve as effective tools for AI governance, bringing together diverse international perspectives to discuss practical implementation strategies, challenges, and opportunities for using sandboxes to responsibly develop and regulate AI technologies across different sectors and regions.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently collaborative and constructive tone throughout. Speakers were enthusiastic about sandbox potential while being realistic about implementation challenges. The tone was professional yet accessible, with speakers building on each other’s points and acknowledging different regional perspectives. There was a sense of shared learning and knowledge exchange, with participants openly discussing both successes and obstacles in sandbox development. The atmosphere remained positive and forward-looking, focusing on solutions and best practices rather than dwelling on problems.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Sophie Tomlinson** – Director of Programs at the DataSphere Initiative

– **Mariana Rozo-Pan** – Research and Project Management Lead at the DataSphere Initiative

– **Meni Anastasiadou** – Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce

– **Alex Moltzau** – Policy Officer at the European AI Office

– **Jimson Olufuye** – Chairman of AFICTA (Africa ICT Alliance), Principal Consultant at Contemporary Consulting

– **Natalie Cohen** – Head of Regulatory Policy for Global Challenges at the OECD

– **Moraes Thiago** – PhD Researcher at VWB in Belgium, also works at Brazilian Data Protection Authority

– **Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran** – Executive Director at the Asia eHealth Information Network

– **Participant 1** – Africa Sandboxes Forum Lead at the DataSphere Initiative (identified as Maureen/Amoturine based on context)

– **Audience** – Multiple audience members including Giovanna (Brazil Youth Program facilitator) and others

**Additional speakers:**

– **Bertrand de la Chapelle** – Chief Vision Officer at the DataSphere Initiative

# AI Sandboxes for Regulatory Experimentation: A Comprehensive Workshop Report

## Introduction and Context

This workshop at the Internet Governance Forum brought together international experts to explore AI sandboxes in regulatory experimentation. Moderated by Sophie Tomlinson, Director of Programmes at the DataSphere Initiative—described as “a think-do-tank working on data governance and sandboxes”—the session featured representatives from government agencies, international organisations, business associations, and academic institutions. The discussion began with interactive Mentimeter polling, engaging participants on their associations with sandboxes and sector priorities.

The conversation maintained a collaborative tone throughout, with speakers demonstrating enthusiasm about sandbox potential whilst remaining realistic about implementation challenges. Participants built upon each other’s contributions, creating knowledge exchange that reflected the global nature of AI governance challenges.

## Understanding AI Sandboxes: Definitions and Evolution

### Conceptual Framework

Mariana Rozo-Pan, Research and Project Management Lead at the DataSphere Initiative, opened with a compelling childhood metaphor: “We often forget how we used to play when we were kids. And as we were children growing up, we were actually quite excited about experimenting and about thinking about building things, building them, and then kind of destroying them and building something new again.”

This framing established sandboxes as collaborative, safe spaces where different stakeholders—public sector, private sector, and civil society—experiment with technologies against existing or developing regulatory frameworks. Rozo-Pan defined sandboxes as environments enabling stakeholders to “craft solutions, experiment with technologies” in structured yet flexible ways.

### Global Expansion

The DataSphere Initiative’s mapping revealed significant global expansion, with Rozo-Pan noting they had identified “over 66 sandboxes that now is around 150” worldwide. This represents evolution from origins in financial technology to encompass AI applications across diverse sectors including health, transportation, and data governance. The expansion spans both developed and developing countries, indicating widespread recognition of sandboxes as valuable regulatory tools.

## Business and Industry Perspectives

Meni Anastasiadou, Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce, provided the business community’s perspective. She positioned sandboxes within a broader approach to AI governance, emphasising their particular value for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that may lack resources for extensive regulatory compliance testing.

Anastasiadou argued that sandboxes are “particularly beneficial for SMEs,” addressing a critical gap in the innovation ecosystem. She emphasised that AI governance frameworks need to be “harmonised, flexible, and supportive of innovation while reducing compliance complexities,” positioning sandboxes as tools that can achieve this balance.

## European Union Implementation Framework

Alex Moltzau, Policy Officer at the European AI Office, provided detailed insights into the EU’s approach to incorporating regulatory sandboxes within the AI Act framework. The EU’s implementation represents one of the most comprehensive attempts to integrate sandboxes into formal AI regulation.

Moltzau explained that the EU AI Office is developing implementation frameworks in collaboration with member states, with a draft Implementing Act for AI regulatory sandboxes expected for public consultation in autumn. The EU approach emphasises that SME participation should be free according to AI Act provisions, addressing equity concerns raised throughout the discussion.

Moltzau positioned sandboxes within evidence-based policy-making frameworks, noting that “exit reports are crucial for dissemination and getting value from sandbox investments.” He also mentioned cross-border collaboration potential, stating that “cross-border sandboxes can facilitate extensive collaboration on transport, health, and other sectors between regulatory environments.”

## African Perspectives and Emerging Markets

Jimson Olufuye, Chairman of AFICTA (Africa ICT Alliance), provided insights into Africa’s engagement with sandbox approaches. He noted the continent’s growing interest in AI applications as countries develop their digital strategies, emphasising that “regional cooperation is essential for products with countrywide and regional benefits.” Olufuye also referenced the Global Data Compact (GDC) in discussing international cooperation frameworks.

Maureen, identified as the Africa Sandboxes Forum Lead, provided ground-level insights into practical implementation challenges. She highlighted two critical issues: funding constraints and legal authority questions. Regarding funding, she noted that “funding challenges exist, with potential solutions including cost-sharing models between affected sectors.”

More fundamentally, she observed that “legal backing for sandboxing authority is often unclear and needs to be established,” representing a significant barrier as many regulators want to establish sandboxes but are uncertain about their legal authority to do so.

## OECD Analysis and International Frameworks

Natalie Cohen, Head of Regulatory Policy for Global Challenges at the OECD, positioned sandboxes within broader regulatory experimentation frameworks. She provided crucial context with a striking statistic: “Only 41% of countries trust governments to appropriately regulate new technologies, showing need for evidence-based collaboration.”

Cohen emphasised that sandboxes “require significant governance resources, clear eligibility criteria, testing frameworks, and exit strategies,” highlighting substantial overhead involved. She noted the importance of avoiding market distortions whilst supporting innovation: “Governments need to consider funding support for SMEs and avoid creating market distortions while providing participation incentives.”

## Academic and Research Perspectives

Moraes Thiago, a PhD Researcher at VWB in Belgium who also works at the Brazilian Data Protection Authority, introduced a critical dimension: meaningful civil society participation. He argued that “civil society and individuals affected by AI solutions need meaningful roles before, during, and after sandbox implementation.”

His perspective emphasised that sandboxes should consider “individuals that are having their personal data processed or that will be affected by these AI solutions, regardless if the personal data has been processed or not.” This broader conception challenges sandboxes to move beyond business-regulator dialogues to include those most impacted by AI systems.

Regarding documentation, Thiago noted that “exit report authorship varies between companies and regulators, with flexibility in approach depending on context.”

## Health Sector Applications

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran, Executive Director at the Asia eHealth Information Network (representing 84 countries with 2,600+ members), provided insights into health sector applications. He emphasised that health sector sandboxes can address “universal health coverage, interoperability standards, and cross-border data sharing needs.”

Significantly, Udayasankaran challenged traditional regulatory paradigms by advocating for sandboxes as “collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping,” suggesting a fundamental shift from adversarial compliance checking to collaborative capacity building.

## Trust Building and Stakeholder Relations

Bertrand de la Chapelle, Chief Vision Officer at the DataSphere Initiative, provided a crucial intervention addressing underlying trust deficits. He observed: “there are key words that we don’t dare to use, but that are very important in this discussion. One is mistrust… And we have to recognize that in the last 20 years, a huge amount of mistrust has grown between public authorities, private actors, and civil society.”

He positioned sandboxes as “one of the tools that brings the capacity of dialogue, particularly when the discussions are taking place very early on,” framing them as trust-building mechanisms rather than merely technical regulatory tools.

## Key Implementation Challenges

### Resource and Legal Framework Issues

Throughout the discussion, resource constraints emerged as a persistent challenge across different contexts. The African perspective highlighted particular challenges in developing economies, while European experiences demonstrated that even well-resourced regulatory systems face significant overhead requirements.

Legal uncertainty about regulatory authority for experimental approaches creates barriers to sandbox development across multiple jurisdictions. Many regulators expressed interest in establishing sandboxes but lacked clarity about their legal authority to engage in experimental regulatory approaches.

### Stakeholder Engagement

The discussion revealed significant challenges in ensuring meaningful stakeholder participation, particularly for SMEs and civil society organisations. While there was strong consensus on the importance of inclusive participation, speakers identified multiple barriers including resource constraints and complex application processes.

## Audience Engagement and Questions

The session included significant audience interaction through Mentimeter polling and Q&A. Giovanna from the Brazil Youth Program asked detailed questions about exit reports and documentation processes, highlighting young professionals’ engagement with sandbox development.

A representative from Vietnam inquired about policy packages and legislative features, demonstrating global interest in practical implementation guidance.

## Areas of Consensus and Disagreement

### Strong Consensus

The strongest consensus emerged around sandboxes’ collaborative nature, requiring meaningful participation from public sector, private sector, and civil society actors. All speakers agreed on the need for special SME support, including free participation and funding assistance.

There was universal acknowledgment that sandboxes are resource-intensive endeavours requiring careful planning, adequate funding, and proper documentation.

### Key Tensions

Speakers differed on implementation approaches, with some advocating supportive, collaborative approaches while others emphasised rigorous evaluation and market neutrality. Different regional perspectives proposed varying solutions to resource constraints, from cost-sharing models to government funding responsibility.

## Future Directions

Several concrete action items emerged, including the EU AI Office’s draft Implementing Act for public consultation and continued collaboration through the DataSphere Initiative’s coaching and master classes. The OECD committed to developing toolkits for sandbox implementation.

## Conclusion

The workshop revealed remarkable consensus on AI sandboxes’ value as tools for regulatory experimentation and innovation governance. Despite diverse geographical and institutional perspectives, speakers demonstrated strong alignment on fundamental principles including collaborative approaches, SME support requirements, and the value of cross-border cooperation.

The discussion successfully addressed broader challenges of trust-building and institutional legitimacy in technology governance. The recognition that sandboxes serve trust-building functions beyond their immediate regulatory purposes provides important context for understanding their growing global adoption.

Key challenges remain around resource allocation, legal framework development, and meaningful stakeholder engagement. However, the strong consensus on fundamental principles provides a solid foundation for addressing implementation challenges through continued collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The workshop’s collaborative tone and constructive engagement across different perspectives suggests that the sandbox community has developed effective mechanisms for knowledge sharing and mutual learning, potentially serving as a model for broader technology governance challenges requiring international coordination.

Sophie Tomlinson: Hello everybody and welcome to this workshop on AI sandboxes. Thank you so much for choosing to spend what must be your morning with us. My name is Sophie Tomlinson, and I’m the Director of Programs at the DataSphere Initiative. For people who aren’t familiar with our work, we are a think-do-tank working on data governance and sandboxes, working with businesses, governments, and civil society on how we can responsibly unlock the value of data for all. We’re here today to talk about how sandboxes and different types of experimental regulatory approaches can help us in using AI, in assessing whether we want to or need to use AI, and also approaching these governance questions that we face as we see AI penetrating different types of sectors. So what I’d like to just share with you before we get started is a QR code to a Mentimeter that we will be running. Please check out the QR code and go to the first question we have for you because we’d love to get your insights. We have a very diverse and an exciting panel today with many different speakers, and as you can see from this list we have a couple of people online, but also in person with us here in Oslo at the IGF. I’m going to introduce them as we go through the session, but as you can see all their names here. So first of all, what I’d like to start with is what is a sandbox, and what do we know about this as a concept and a tool for tech development and policy innovation? I’d like to hand over to Mariana Rosopaz, who is the research and project management lead at the Data for Initiative to give us a first look at what sandboxes are. and their potential for AI. So, Mary, over to you.

Mariana Rozo-Pan: Thank you, Sophie. And hi, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We are very excited about hosting this workshop. I think it’s like the third workshop that we host at the IGF focused on sandboxes. And for those that are here in person, I’d actually like to see a little show of hands of who here played in a sandbox as a kid, or maybe with Legos, with building blocks, building things. I see laughs and hands going up, even from the technical team, which is exciting. Well, I did, too. And I was actually quite obsessed with playing with Legos and building things. And one of the things that we realized when it comes to governing data responsibly and emerging technologies responsibly, is that we often forget how we used to play when we were kids. And as we were children growing up, we were actually quite excited about experimenting and about thinking about building things, building them, and then kind of destroying them and building something new again. And that flexible, agile mindset that maybe we had when we were children is what we’re often lacking when it comes to building agile regulations and shaping how we’re governing technologies, building technologies, and addressing the complex challenges that we’re facing nowadays. So, sandboxes, I would actually like for us to go to the mentee. Could we look into the answers of that first question that we had? Thank you. So, I’m seeing that people are answering collaboration, solution. That’s what comes to mind when you hear sandboxes, which is an exciting response, I must say. And that’s actually what sandboxes are all about. It’s about flexibility. It’s about collaborating. So, sandboxes are collaborative spaces, safe spaces for collaboration in which, by nature, different stakeholders come together to craft solutions, experiment with technologies. There are different types of sandboxes, as we will be more than happy to share more of later, but regulatory sandboxes are those in which the different stakeholders, the public, the private sector, and hopefully also civil society, experiment and test technologies against an existing or an in-development regulatory framework. And operational sandboxes are those in which different stakeholders test with the data or with existing technologies. Sandboxes can also be and they are all hybrid and we can go more into that. They were originally created within the finance sector to test financial technologies and they are now being used across sectors for AI, for health, for transportation and in many other use cases. And they are a promising methodology in the end that has already been implemented, again, across sectors and is being pretty effective in driving innovation and ensuring that we are doing things as we were when we were growing up. So I’m seeing very interesting responses, testing, collaboration, solution and if we go back to the slides that we had, I also wanted to share at the Datasphere Initiative we have been doing intense and extensive work around sandboxes and we’re sharing here our sandboxes for AI report which is our latest report focused on the potential of sandboxes for AI. We have a mapping that has identified over 66 sandboxes that now is around 150 focused on different topics and particularly on AI innovation and here you can also see a map of the distribution of sandboxes across the world which is a very exciting and interesting methodology that’s being implemented not only in developed countries but also in developing economies and in countries throughout the global south, in Latin America, in different countries in Asia and in Africa. So we’re seeing that this is a tool that’s proven interesting, successful and powerful when it comes to testing bold ideas in collaborative and safe spaces. And at the Datasphere Initiative we also have a methodology on how to do a sandbox that includes not only thinking about how to do them responsibly but about responsible design, effective communication and engagement and making sure that it is not only a space where specific startups or private companies have access to resources and testing and iteration but it’s also a space that in the end creates public value and translates into better technologies for our society in general. So that’s a bit of a snapshot of what we do and back to you Sophie for our interesting conversation today.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you Mariana. So why sandboxes for AI in particular? This is what we want to talk about now in this first session. And I’d like to welcome Meni who is the Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce to share her thoughts on this. So Meni, you’re working at ICC with businesses from all around the world across all sectors. What do you think are the types of AI governance approaches that are needed and how could sandboxes play a role in the context of AI? Thank you. Sorry, just taking this off.

Meni Anastasiadou: Thank you so much Sophie and many thanks for the wonderful invitation to participate at this session today. I am Meni Anastasiadou, I’m the Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce. For the colleagues that might not know us, we are the institutional representative of more than 45 million businesses across 170 countries. So we really have an inclusive membership that goes beyond sectors and geographies. So AI is really an incredible tool. We see it transforming industries all over the world and really providing productivity gains and improving efficiency and lowering costs for various different sectors and again shapes and sizes of businesses. So we also see this as I’ve mentioned being especially true for SMEs which are the backbone of the global economy and how we govern AI particularly impacts SMEs. So I really like the presentation that showed earlier how we should consider AI governance approaches that are fitting to multiple different sizes let’s say of stakeholders including of course businesses and this really speaks to the fact that we should be mindful of the approaches that we take when we’re talking about AI governance to ensure that we are inclusive and supportive to innovation. So to that point particularly, ICC has put forward a proposal for an AI governance framework that we call the four pillar approach. We publicize it through the ICC narrative on artificial intelligence in September of last year and the thought process that we present around this is that in order to ensure that we sustain the use of AI in a safe way that benefits different sectors, economies around the world, we really need to make sure that AI governance frameworks are harmonized with existing global agreements so that they don’t really create a patchwork of regulations which as we know makes it particularly challenging And this can help reduce barriers and compliance complexities. We should also make sure that AI governance frameworks are flexible and do not hinder investment. And of course that they create at the end of the day favorable commercial conditions that can support entrepreneurship. So back to my point on ICC’s four-pillar narrative or four-pillar approach to AI governance. So what we want to show is that by adhering to the ideas that I mentioned earlier, all businesses can really harness the power of AI to drive innovation and ensure compliance and build trust. So if we align AI governance with that in mind, we can really ensure that everyone is equipped to harness AI and accelerate their growth. Now regulatory sandboxes are really a great tool that actually respond to this framework of governance and they can really enable the safe and real-world testing of AI systems and particularly for SMEs. Mariana, you spoke earlier about how sandboxes were first used in fintech, but since then we have seen how their use has spread to cover other areas and covering an inclusive set of geographies. So I really like the mapping that you’ve shown us earlier, which really speaks to what important of a tool AI sandboxes are to the trustworthy and safe AI governance model. So just to give you even an example and speaking to the use of sandboxes and how those are effective for SMEs, just as we know how engineers, when they are in aerospace, they’re always testing on the ground how an airplane works and to make sure that it’s safe before it actually flies. And it’s the same idea, the same principle, making sure that we bring together all stakeholders to have the time to test if AI works, what are the right safeguards to apply, what are the right principles and guidelines to make sure are in place, that we make the complete use of all the benefits that AI has to offer. And this can eventually then help all deployers, developers, and users of AI to really take off and can help eventually also SMEs take off when they’re used just as airplanes do. So perhaps maybe I can stop here.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you for that analogy, I think it’s really helpful. And I’d like to move on to Alex Mosul, who’s the Policy Officer at the European AI Office. Alex, your role at the AI Office has a component which is very much focused on sandboxes. Could you share a bit of background on the role of sandboxes in the EU AI Act and why you are thinking of how we can actually use these tools?

Alex Moltzau: Yes, of course. I would be happy to, Sophie, and also thank you so much for those considerations, Manny. It’s really important, as you say, that we create favourable commercial conditions. I think it’s this balancing act of responsibility, but also innovation and how we get that right. Because as citizens, we want great products, but also safe products and services. So I’m just going to spend three minutes to talk about three things. The first is a bit of my story, and the second is this balancing act, and the third, what are we doing in the European Commission and this implementing act that we are working on. So I have a background as a social data scientist and also with artificial intelligence in public services. So I worked five years with AI policy nationally in Norway with the research community, with machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics. However, I was also involved a lot of the time in this sandbox we had in Norway for privacy, but that had exclusively AI cases. and a lot of exit reports that you can find on the internet if you search for the privacy sandbox in Norway. So being here in Norway and being back, I now work in Brussels, and I’ve been there for one year with my family, working in the European AI office, and it’s been quite a journey to start a new place. But I have to say, it’s a really wonderful place to be if you’re interested in AI policy and law, and it’s brought me to think about the whole European region, right? And how do we get this balancing act right? Because I think as a region, we have an approach, we have certain values that we aspire to, and for us, I think we want to be treated in the best way possible, as citizens, as co-workers, as part of society. So I think it’s the case that if we want to have responsible innovation, we need an evidence basis to inform that policy, right? So if we don’t learn this regulatory learning, kind of like there are regulators that are building their competence on AI as we speak, and try to see what is the right way to ensure that we get this innovation that we want, but also in a way that fulfills citizens’ needs, and it’s not just based on a buzzword, or based on a promise that is unfulfilled. So to not waste money and time, we have to make sure that products actually work as intended, and the sandboxes are, I think, a really good mechanism, a good policy mechanism to do this. So what are we doing in the European Commission right now? We are really working together with member states. We have an AI regulatory sandbox subgroup under the AI board, so we work with member states on a very regular basis. We are writing an Implementing Act for AI regulatory sandboxes, and we are supporting the rollout of the sandboxes across Europe with the Coordination and Support Action EU-USAIR. So I think in that sense, there’s a wide range of things that we are doing, but right now it’s just sort of like, what frameworks are we looking at? And I have to say, in the autumn as well, we will be putting out this, because that’s part of the democratic process, for you to comment as well. So I just encourage everyone who is listening to keep track of when we are releasing this draft Implementing Act, so that you also can tell us about your opinion, because we are not the arbitrators of knowledge in a sense that we just want to understand how to do this in the best way possible, right? So it’s not necessarily true that Europe has all the best solutions. I think we have to look globally at how we can do this together, which is also why I’m here today.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you. Thanks so much, Alex. And as Mariana shared on her map, which maps different AI and data sandboxes around the world, sandboxes for digital policy challenges and new technologies aren’t just being looked at in Europe. It’s also a pretty global tool that’s being explored in Asia, and notably Singapore, also in Latin America, Brazil, Chile, and also in Africa as well. The DataSphere Initiative has a whole component on Africa and sandboxes, the Africa Sandboxes Forum. And as part of this work, we hosted a co-creation lab in Abuja, Nigeria, as part of the African Data Protection Conference that took place in May. And Nigeria itself is looking at developing a sandbox in the context of their data protection law as a way to help companies comply with this new data protection law. And I’d like to bring in Jimson, who is the chairman of AFICTA, which is one of the biggest private sector organizations in Africa and bringing together companies from all across the continent. Jimson, you were there in Abuja and have been working on regulatory innovation and technology for many, many years. Why do you think a sandbox is an interesting way to develop policy and innovation, and could you share a bit about how Nigeria is also thinking about this?

Jimson Olufuye: Thank you very much, Sophie, and good morning, everybody. My name, again, is Jimson Olufoye. I’m the chair of the Advisory Council of the Africa ICT Alliance, AFICTA. AFICTA was founded in 2012 with six countries in Africa, and today we cover about 43 countries in Africa. Our members are ICT associations, companies, and individual professionals across Africa. Well, that is my volunteer work, and for my day work, I run Contemporary Consulting. I’m the principal consultant there, and we’re into data center management, cyber security, integration, software, and research. So it’s really a great pleasure to serve in that capacity of our FICTA chair, our founder at that time, and even right now, I’m still very much involved in it. And I’m very, very happy to be associated with DataSphere and with the topic indeed. Yes, Sophie, we had a great event in Abuja last month. It was really spectacular. We had Morrayne, RISPA, and of course, you also did virtually. So it was a great capacity development event, and I want to congratulate you for that. And I can see Bertrand right there in the public. I appreciate all your work, really. You’ve been on it for quite a while, veteran indeed. So thank you for what you do. The concept of sandboxes is very, very important, very, very relevant, and very, very appropriate, especially in the AI sphere, because we all know that AI is the main thing, the hidden thing, and many people are concerned about kind of ramifications of AI, maybe for ARM. But we believe there’s a lot of good in it if it is properly regulated going forward. We do know that the whole essence of even our gathering here, IGF, as part of WSIS, is so that we can have a people-centered, inclusive information society. And the information society is still evolving, and AI is going to play a very, very important role, and that’s why that workshop, I was happy that I was part of it. We had regulators there. We had the Nigerian Data Protection Commission was there fully, and also the NCC, Nigerian Communication Commission, and also companies, AI companies, civil society people, academics, and quite a number. And it was really very rich. We look at the three aspects indeed, operational, regulatory, and hybrid, and we had case studies. That was quite interesting. And so the meeting aligned with even the expectation of the participants and the broad stakeholders in AFICTA, simply because Nigeria has just evolved its AI strategy. AI strategy was evolved, bringing all stakeholders to work on it. Now we’re going to AI law, and we need a regulation, and also it must start with data governance, basically. And that’s why the Nigerian Data Protection Commission took this very seriously, and they have considered that indeed they’re going to adopt it because it will help with proper regulation. Even some of us that develop applications, we also learned a lot that we can actually use it to be beneficial in terms of market reach, in terms of the kind of product we need to design, in terms of what customers want. And even there, we of course knew that the Central Bank of Nigeria actually adopted some form of sandboxes, even to regulate the financial sector. So it’s a rich concept, and I think we need to enrich it more. We need to keep the conversation going. Because right now, just less than 10 African countries have AI strategy. Less than 10. And from AI strategy, we need to move to AI regulation, and regulation is very key to direct products, because we don’t want products that are for harm. We want products that are for good, that will be beneficial to the people, and also bridge the digital divide, which is the main idea with WSIS and also with GDC. and of course for Sustainable Development Goals. So this lines up with WSIS GDC and the expectation for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. So I think that fully aligns with it. We will continue to support the advocacy and the engagement so that regulators can do the right thing and also our members too can know what is expected of them concerning their products. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you so much, Jimson. Thanks for also putting what we’re talking about here today in the context of the wider world of Internet governance too and within the WSIS process. So now I’d like to actually just go back to the Menti again, if we can have a look at the second Menti question we have for all of our participants. This question is, we’d like you to have a think about the types of sectors and areas where AI is being applied or also the data governance point that Jimson mentioned is in there as an option. But what issue do you think would benefit most from AI sandbox? So what kind of sector do you think could be most helpful? So while those results come in, what I’d like to do now is move on to the next part of the discussion, which is looking at when and how do you actually do one of these sandboxes? We’ve heard in this first part a lot of excitement and interest of the potential for these tools. But if you’re a government and you’re actually starting to think, okay, how do I, do I have the resources to design and set up a sandbox? Or if you’re a company thinking, what are the incentives that I have to actually participate in a regulatory sandbox or set up one myself that could perhaps be an operational sandbox? Where do you start? I’d like to bring in Natalie Cohen, who’s the head of regulatory policy at the OECD to start us off. Natalie, what would you say, based on your research and what you’ve been doing with a diverse group of governments, what is the role of sandboxes within the regulatory process and what sort of challenges might governments face?

Natalie Cohen: Thank you very much, Sophie, and thank you for the opportunity. here today. Just to clarify, I’m Head of Regulatory Policy for Global Challenges specifically, and one of the things that I’m looking at is this answer of how do you regulate for new technologies and how do you regulate in a way that is innovation-friendly? And the OECD’s answer to that, I would say, is the R2021 recommendation on agile regulatory governance to harness innovation. And as part of that recommendation, we have a big focus on regulatory experimentation, and that sandboxes are just one aspect of regulatory experimentation. So I think a first consideration for a government is to look at the specific policy objectives they want to achieve and then what is the best way for them to achieve that, because regulatory experimentation can also mean just policy prototyping, it can mean innovation testbeds, or it can just mean using piloting powers to test different processes. So we think regulatory experimentation is really important, it helps policymakers, regulators and industry come together in a collaborative way, as Mentimeter pulled out, to shape and improve regulatory environments in a way that manages the tensions that can be created between regulation and innovation. And we think sandboxes are particularly well suited to regulatory experimentation, where companies are more towards the stage of early commercialization or on the point of bringing something to market, and they want to influence the regulatory framework around that and remove barriers to actually accessing the market, whereas some other forms of experimentation like innovation testbeds might be more around proof of concept. And as has been mentioned, sandboxes are not new, they have been around for a while and they have been used with success, specifically in the fintech sector, but at the OECD we kind of have two aspects to our work, we provide tools and guidance to help governments develop and build sandboxes, and we also provide technical assistance and support to countries to set up a sandbox, but sometimes also to fix a broken sandbox. So one thing I would like to say is they’re not always the perfect answer, they can be quite resource intensive to manage, they do require governance resources and they do have certain elements that need to be in place to ensure success. So for example, governments need to think about the eligibility criteria for what kinds of businesses and innovations they want to test and make sure that that is transparent, they need to be clear about the testing framework and the evaluation process that will be in place to make sure they actually have good evidence that can then go on to influence regulatory policy, and they also need to have a kind of exit ramp, so at the end of the sandbox, when do you close it down and what is the route for companies to then actually bring products and services to market on the back of that. So all of these things can So, we can require a lot of overheads both for the regulators who need to be funded and resourced and have the capability to manage that process, and also for the participating businesses. So, sometimes one thing governments need to think about is also providing the funding support to businesses, particularly if they want SMEs to come and participate. Some successful sandboxes have been successful in terms of testing products and services and bringing them to market, but they’ve been primarily successful with larger corporates. And so, sometimes what SMEs need support with is part of accessing, could be accessing data, it could be legal and compliance resources as well. So, that’s another thing to think about if you want to create a diverse and sustainable approach to sandboxes. So, I’ve mentioned a couple of the kind of the key issues around things that countries need to think about there. There are various functions to manage within sandboxes around the impact on competition and innovation. So, regulators and policymakers will be keen not to create market distortions, not to kind of overly favor the participants that play in sandboxes, while at the same time there need to be incentives for businesses to participate. They need to have some kind of benefit, whether that’s accelerating their route to market or providing them with enhanced support around some of those resourcing and funding considerations that I have mentioned. So, the OECD is in the process of publishing a toolkit on how to develop and design sandboxes that will come out in the coming weeks. And as I mentioned, we provide technical support to both members and non-member countries. So, we’ve done work on Croatia that has led to the development of this toolkit and we’re about to start a project with Portugal on one of their sandboxes too. So, I think another thing is countries might also need advice and support on how to deploy these things and that’s where they can reach out.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you very much, Natalie. Very helpful and lots of points you made that I really wanted us to come back on. So, we do, can we just get the results of the Menti to see the different sectors people thought could be particularly useful for AI sandboxes? Okay, yeah. I guess finances may be not surprising since thinking of how sandboxes kind of originated as a concept, but we can see health as well being a big one, which is good because we’re going to have some discussion on health a bit later in this session. Now, I’d like to bring into this conversation Moraes Thiago, who is a researcher at VOB in Belgium. Thiago, you’re researching sandboxes around the world and you also have some experience yourself participating and designing one. From what Natalie was saying in terms of some of the challenges that governments can face in actually setting up a sandbox or really deciding. whether or not this is the right type of regulatory experimentation tool. What could you say in terms of how governments can best manage resources to set up a sandbox, include transparency, maybe also bring in different types of stakeholders like civil society? Could you share some of your thoughts on this, please?

Moraes Thiago: Yeah. Hello, everyone. And thanks, Sophie, for the invitation, the invitation. It has been very nice to be engaging with the data sphere and other colleagues that I see here in several forums. And definitely being the IGF, it’s definitely relevant for such a topic. Just before starting as a very clear disclaimer. Yeah, I’m speaking today as a researcher, a PhD researcher at VWB, as you mentioned. But some of you might know me as well as a practitioner from the Brazilian Data Protection Authority. Today, I’m not speaking on behalf of them. But of course, as part of my role there, I’ve been working with several colleagues to launch a pilot sandbox. And hopefully there will be news on that soon. So, yeah, it will be a nice way to see how a young authority is dealing with this challenge of establishing something that can be very resource intensive. But at the same time, it is manageable if some care is taken. And maybe my comment then will be to complement a bit what Natalie said, but also to show the other side of the cup. It’s true that sandbox is not the only experimentation tool. And I think any regulator that wants to establish one has to think and consider if, how, why, right, when. All the questions that we’re discussing here to establish a sandbox. But one thing that we have also learned and I’ve seen based on the experience that different jurisdictions have been doing, is that it’s quite common when you’re still testing the waters, you sandbox the sandbox. So basically, you create a pilot. And these pilots, several times, you deal with the resource that you have to decide the scope and how broad your sandbox will be. This means, for example, if you rely more on your internal staff and the expertise they already have, or if you will have some kind of partnership or some specific experts, consultants, like contracting. So all of this will depend on your conditions, of course. But there are several institutions that are actually supporting such initiatives. So, for example, at international level, we have like development banks, like in Latin America, we have CAF. There’s also CEPAL and other institutions around the globe are also trying to somehow engage in support. So this is a way of dealing with a bit of this challenge of limited resources. So in the end, the word cooperation is really important here. So it makes a lot of sense to be in the IGF discussing about that. And maybe as this first part of my speech, one other thing that I believe it’s very important to consider as you frame who will be your co-partners in this endeavor and how you’re going to establish, for how long, because some sandboxes can be quite short. there are even cases of like three months sandboxes, there are others that go very long, like five years, but in general, and there’s a lot of global reports on that and academic research on that, that shows that on average we are aiming for like six months to one, two years, it really depends on the goal of what you’re testing, right? And you can actually have also flexibility of how many projects, how many use cases you’ll be dealing at the same time. So all of this is part of the design of the sandbox, very important to consider. So my last comment for now would be to touch also what Sophie just mentioned, that many times when we’re talking about several stakeholders that are being engaged, either participants or partners, we actually forgot many times the role that civil society has here, especially when we are now moving to this arena of sandboxing in AI and sandboxing AI in several circumstances. We’re talking about individuals that are having their personal data processed or that will be affected by these AI solutions, regardless if the personal data has been processed or not. And because of that, I think it’s very important to also hear the voice of these individuals and maybe this is something that we need to improve in our framework. So what will be the role throughout all the sandbox experience? Because the civil society and individuals, they might have an important role before, during and after the sandbox is done. And this is actually what I’m researching right now. So for now, I only bring this as a provocation, but I hope in the future, as we continue engaging in this for us, I may be able to also share some insights of what I found, the potential role of civil society here. But I would be glad to know other colleagues’ comments on that. Thank you

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you so much for that, Tiago. You covered a lot, which I think we’re going to have time to come back to. I’d like to also bring in now Maureen. and Amoturine who is our Africa Sandboxes Forum Lead at the DATS4 Initiative. Morrayne has been doing a lot of work researching in Africa how sandboxes are being used, interviewing private sector who have been participating in sandboxes, also government setting them up. And Morrayne, could you maybe give us a bit of a, picking on also what Natalie was saying in terms of some of the barriers and thinking that governments are needing to do on how to actually go about setting up a sandbox and also thinking of the companies themselves joining. What could you say from Africa has been some of your lessons as you’ve been researching this and could you also mention a bit about the types of training and support that the DATS4 Initiative is also providing to governments who are planning to set up sandboxes?

Participant 1: Sure, happy to Sophie, thank you so much and I’m really glad to be here and to see you all who are participating. So, let me start by just sharing a few numbers. So, we’ve looked into sandboxes in Africa and overall, at least from the last time that we updated the mapping, which was sometime earlier this year, we have about 25 national sandboxes. And of these, 24 are in the finance sector. So, which would mean that authorities and public or what we call government authorities are now starting to get into sandboxing. So, it’s a new space, a space which they have to identify quite a number of the core elements of sandboxes. The beauty is from the conversations that are happening on the continent, regulators have really embraced the idea of experimentation when it comes to regulating these emerging technologies like AI. And so they’re really embracing the idea of sandboxes. But from what we are learning is there are still questions, really, when it comes again to the core elements of, you know, the how, who, when. And, you know, all the details that go into sandboxing are some of the things that they are grappling with, because when you realize that it is a new space that they are getting into, because sandboxes have largely been used in the fintech sector. And so part of what we have been doing is, of course, learning from what is available online. Who is sandboxing? Do they have lessons to share with those who are getting into the space of sandboxing? And that we have documented in the report that Mariana shared earlier, the Outlook Africa Sandboxes Outlook report. But we are also going ahead to engage with stakeholders and largely, so far it’s been largely regulators, but we are also starting to engage with private sector and other types of stakeholders to now start thinking about the core elements of sandboxing. I mean, things like the scope of a sandbox, who are the people you’re going to work with, the actors and the stakeholders, then the legal models under which authorities can sandbox, because that is also not yet clear. But also now looking into the resources, which is a huge part of sandboxing, because you will not, we have learned that a number of regulators are indeed grappling with the idea of how does a sandbox get funded? Where does the funding of a sandbox come from? So those are the areas in which we are trying to engage with people. And the idea of raising funds for sandboxing has really had different approaches in different places now. But also what we’re doing as we’re doing the activities of the Africa Sandboxes Forum is we are learning a lot from sandboxes that are being operated outside of Africa to see what has worked. And so you will notice that some sandboxes that are run by public institutions or authorities either have their funding coming from the core operations of an authority, say it’s a data protection authority. So there is that. But what. What we are exploring in Africa, because that’s not yet the case that there is co-funding for experimentation in some of these authorities, is under the co-creation activities that we are doing with different stakeholders, is to get people to put themselves in the shoes of someone setting up a sandbox and think about, okay, who would this sandbox affect when it comes to other regulators or other sectors? If it’s a data protection authority setting up a sandbox, then they are thinking about what other sectors is this sandbox going to affect and can we bring these regulators in and think about some cost-sharing models that are, of course, where there is a shared benefit but also shared costs for the different sectors that are involved in such a sandbox. And then the other thing that we are also trying to make sure that we brainstorm around with stakeholders is the legal models under which they can sandbox, because sometimes it’s not clear and we learned that it’s actually one thing that regulators grapple with. Sometimes it’s not clear that they actually are authorities allowed to sandbox in any way. So, how do they look to find that legal backing to carry out such an experimentation? And if it’s not there, then how can they go about that? So, these are questions that most regulators and stakeholders have not yet started thinking about while they know they want to sandbox. Thinking about how to see how do they actually approach it has been a challenge and that we have seen in a number of people that we’ve been co-creating with. And drawing from, say, the Chigali co-creation lab that we did, we learned from stakeholders that they really would love to use sandboxes to sort of understand. and Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran. So we are trying to understand if indeed some of the hype around AI, for example, is true for Africa, understand the real value of what some of these emerging technologies are bringing so that they are able to take them to the next level. And so part of that is really what’s been taking our time in Africa to sort of engage stakeholders and understand where they are at and how ready they are to implement them. I just wanted to mention that part of what we’re doing are, of course, group co-creation activities, but we are also offering services such as one-on-one coaching journeys for someone who is ready to sandbox, and they want to navigate the journey of all the core elements of sandboxing that are not necessarily direct. That is also what we’re doing. We are conducting master classes with groups of stakeholders that are ready to learn how to technically run a sandbox. That is also part of the activities that we are looking into, because the need for sandboxes is already there and has already been recognized by regulators. So now what’s really missing is that push to the next level. So working with them into creating these sandboxes and navigating these challenges around resources, which we know are key almost everywhere.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you, Maureen. Thank you. Thank you, Maureen. Thanks for also sketching out the different activities and sandbox support that we can also provide at the Datasphere. So I’d also like to, first of all, just to mention, if people in the room want to make a comment or a question, there’s two microphones either side of the room. If you want to go over there, please feel free. While people have a think about that, I’d also like us to bring up the next Menti question we have as well, which picks up on some of this discussion about we want to collect the kind of challenges and barriers that people may have when they’re thinking of whether and how to. And now I’d also like to bring in a perspective from the health sector, and I think this is timely because many of you highlighted this as a key sector where testing AI technologies and policy through sandboxes could be useful. So Jai, I can see you’re online, Jai’s connecting here from the Asia eHealth Information Network. Could you talk to us a bit about where you think the potential for sandboxes are in the health sector, and could you particularly touch on how they could be useful in a cross-border context as well, because I know that you’re doing a lot of this in terms of your convergence work at the Asia eHealth Information Network, so over to you Jai, please, and Jai is the Executive Director at the Asia eHealth Information Network. Jai, can you hear us?

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran: Yes, Sophie, thank you.

Sophie Tomlinson: Great, thank you.

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran: First, I would like to actually quickly introduce about our network, which is Asia eHealth Information Network, which is a regional digital health network with core focus on the Southeast Asia and Western Pacific in terms of the World Health Organization regions, but we do have members across 84 countries, over 2,600 members from 84 countries. Our primary focus is capacity building and then also support for the national digital health programs that we work with the governments in the countries and supporting them in terms of the core health information building blocks, and then supporting them in terms of the gaps that are existing currently in terms of the governance, architecture, people and program management, standards and interoperability. So I think many of the speakers ahead of me have mentioned about various challenges, so one of the… challenges is like who should be involved in the sandboxes and then who is actually qualified to take the decisions of course the regulators mostly and then also from the government point of view they usually are the ones who actually start or decide on the sandboxing criteria but then like we have also had recent discussions how like I think Thiago also mentioned about it how civil society could actually participate meaningfully but then like coming back to your primary question like we have seen like we work extensively with countries now like we have official representations from 15 countries and two more are likely to join in what is known as the working council working council is nothing but representation from countries which advise the AHINTS board of directors as well as our operations in the region so we have seen sandboxes in health sector especially on AI, telehealth and then also for data governance and data sharing but three things have coming up in the recent times one is of course many countries do have the universal health coverage programs where the sandbox environment actually helps them to get the applications developed by private sector also to be getting on the mainstream as long as they confirm to the standards that are set by the regulators in most of the countries as we are aware the digital developments have been very very very fast paced whereas the regulations especially from the health sector has been decades old they are still you know there’s this pacing issue of catching up with the developments in the regulatory space so in these emerging technologies does need the support in terms of the sandboxes but in many countries this is also my experience that they don’t necessarily say a regulatory sandbox sometimes they call it testbed sometimes it’s a living lab testing environment, and then also regulatory sandbox. So many of them use multiple terms, depending on the priorities and the local needs. So the three most sought after needs are, like to get applications, different applications, health applications developed even by private sector into the national mainstream, confirming to the regulations where the regulations are currently still not there. And then also to shape the regulations and policy space. And then the second one is on interoperability because most of the solutions need to be actually interoperable. There are standards, but still there are sandboxes that are set up to make sure that the solutions actually confirm to the standards. So interoperability is the second use case. And the third one is about the data. We have occasions where there are countries from which, like for example, medical tourism, as well as like people going for treatments in other countries. So there is a need for information to be shared at the same time in a very responsible way. So these are the broad areas in which we see sandboxes in our region. And then, in fact, like we do have a country currently discussing with us their need for sandboxes and then probably support. And they have expressed several challenges also. So in fact, we look forward to work together with Datasphere and other partners, especially those who are willing to support us in terms of the funding and capacity building in this space to work together. I hope I answered your question. If not, please let me know. Thank you, Sophie and colleagues.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you so much, Jai. I think that really provides a good kind of snapshot of the different types of considerations, people and experts in the health sector, especially in the Asia region are thinking when it comes to how we can make the most of these different types of technologies for interoperable and cross-border health approaches. We’ve got also now some of the different points that we’ve heard from the Menti in terms of the different barriers. I’d also like to just note a question, a very useful question that we’ve had on the chat from a representative from the Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development in Vietnam. This is a think tank specializing in digital technology policy. Their question is around how do countries design policy packages and govern sandboxes? Should AI and data sandboxes be structured separately or integrated? And what types of legislative or regulatory features have proved the most effective in making participation more accessible to businesses and especially SMEs? So as we go now into our final set of interventions from speakers, I can’t see that anyone in the room wants to make a comment, so I’ll keep going. I’d like to invite Alex again to share some of his reactions to what he’s been hearing throughout the discussion today. The types of barriers that people have looked at when it comes to designing sandboxes and also linking to the cross-border potential of sandboxes that Jai was talking about. Could you tell us a little bit about how you’re also thinking of this in the context of the EU AI Act as well? That could be helpful. Over to you.

Alex Moltzau: Yes, of course. It’s really great to listen to all these different perspectives. And I think I could start with the last questions, I mean, especially relating to kind of like how to facilitate SMEs and startups. And in the EU AI Act, it is fairly explicit as well that the participation for SMEs and startups should be free. So I think this is kind of like, I guess, one mechanism, of course, if it’s if already a startup and SME or SME have kind of overheads, then it could, of course, be challenging to participate. And I think. I think Thiago’s questions about civil society, I think one of the really wonderful things about sandboxes is that and this is also a conception in the AI Act that we have these sort of exit reports so I think like dissemination activities and involving a broad set of stakeholders in kind of thinking about what did we learn, you know because this is, I think OECD outlined as well that this can have a cost, you know so to get value out of the money that is being spent on these sandboxes I think one should not ignore the importance of dissemination activities so I mean in many ways sandboxes were created as a measure to try to ensure responsible innovation and I think just talking about what is the irresponsible innovation or potential for irresponsible innovation, right and in the finance sector, you know, with 2008 and the financial crisis, you know I mean collateralized debt obligations So, there’s something wrong with the sound I’m sure they’ll fix it Okay, things are better Let’s see, this is now hopefully better Yeah, that sounds good Okay, wonderful Yeah, so I think with the financial crisis and collateralized debt obligations and kind of like what are kind of irresponsible innovations in a way as well and what way can you explore this in a sandbox so I think in a lot of ways what we are coming to realize is that AI affects us all, you know, across regions so in a sense, you know, what can we do to really unite across borders, you know and like this is also why kind of like these sort of joint AI regulatory sandboxes as a policy mechanisms I think were conceived of in a sense, you know, to see kind of like can there be really kind of extensive collaborations on like transport or health or like other aspects and could sort of like leading regulatory environments kind of come together to really try to dive into that and figure that out so this is kind of like part of what we are going to explore and this is also rich in data written into the AI Act itself, but also into the Interoperable Europe Act. There was kind of a mention of cross-border sandboxes. So I think we will see over the coming years this new type of experimentation. You know, and I think like what I can say right now is that that we are kind of starting to facilitate that and we will be working on the rollout of that. So kind of like any type of engagement with this always, I think, will be welcome over the coming years.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you. Thank you, Alex. I can see we have one question from the floor, which is great. Before we go to you, I just want to get Jimson to share some reactions to what Alex has been saying and what we’ve discussed so far, especially about business incentives when it comes to participating in sandboxes. Jimson, knowing the members of Eficta, what do you think they, what kind of questions would they have and how could you incentivize business to participate in sandboxes? Would it be, as Natalie’s saying, there would need to be, you know, perhaps funding for some SMEs? Would there be some incentive if the sandbox was actually going to be kind of cross-border in nature? So actually looking at interoperability between different African countries? Where do you see some of these questions that people have been asking?

Jimson Olufuye: Yes. Thank you very much, Sophie. The discussion has been very fluid and very useful and highly relevant. You know, to really operationalize sandboxes, you know, it requires a lot of stakeholders, a lot of interest. And importantly to the SMEs, it needs some coordination, and that’s why Eficta is there. And we are engaged in terms of creating the necessary awareness, especially in terms of members that want to create products that has countrywide and regional wide benefits. So in this regard, of course. We know that we need to fast-track development, and that is why we need all the partners in terms of funding, in terms of engagement, and in terms of appropriate regulatory directive framework, like Alex mentioned, the AI Act, and the process of bringing that together, which is quite well-established in the EU now. We really want a similar thing happening across Africa with AU, UNECA, in terms of their projects, like maybe identity projects across Africa, in terms of data structuring, so that SMEs can be involved at the initial. So meaningful participation, and then we can produce products that are highly relevant and useful for the society. Thank you.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you, Jimson. Could we please go to the question in the room? Thank you.

Audience: Yes. Can you hear me?

Sophie Tomlinson: Yes.

Audience: Perfectly. Okay. Hi, my name is Giovanna. I’m at IGF as part of the Brazil Youth Program. I’m one of the facilitators, and it’s been an amazing discussion. Thank you very much to Datasphere for putting this discussion together. I have a question about the exit reports, and about the documents that might be needed to be drafted during the sandbox implementation. And then asking if you have some advice for governments or other public institutions that might be setting up a sandbox, because I believe that drafting these reports will be a lot of work. And I have some concerns as to, you know, like the authorization of them specifically. Who will do it? What are the roles of the private companies, if any, in drafting those? What are the goals in actually having them not only as part of like creating a history and documenting the activity, but also to propose interpretation and paths forward? Thank you.

Sophie Tomlinson: Great question. Thank you so much. I’m going to take another comment from the floor, and then we’ll address those. Bertrand?

Audience: Thank you, Sophie. I’m Bertrand de la Chapelle, and it’s less a comment from the floor, actually, because for full disclosure, I’m attached with the Datasphere initiative. I’m the Chief Vision Officer. I just wanted to highlight and make an additional comment. There are key words that we don’t dare to use, but that are very important in this discussion. One is mistrust. And we have to recognize that in the last 20 years, a huge amount of mistrust has grown between public authorities, private actors, and civil society. Sandboxes are one of the tools that brings the capacity of dialogue, particularly when the discussions are taking place very early on. And in the mapping that the data sphere has done, we see certain countries that are using sandboxes not only for compliance verification or for pure regulatory aspects, but also to understand better between the different actors what are the parameters of a particular sector. The second thing is, the second word is anxiety. There is a little bit of anxiety about this new tool. The methodology is not completely stabilized and there is a risk. This is not the way operators are functioning. And there are questions of who is taking the lead in one organization? How is the distribution of responsibilities? And I think the work that the European Commission and the AI office in particular is doing in trying to shape how those things are going to be handled. The work that we’re doing at the data sphere through something that we launched, which is a global sandboxes forum, which is a space for exchanging practices around us, is helping in that regard. And I have here something that I’d be happy to distribute regarding the observatory that we have launched that documents all the experiences around the world on sandboxes that we’ve documented. Thank you.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you so much, Bertrand. Jai, I see you have your hand up. We have seven minutes left. So yeah, if you want to perhaps answer some of the questions that Giovanna put forward, that would be great or build on anything. Thanks.

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran: Thanks, Sophie. I just wanted to quickly add what was shared by the speaker from data sphere. I think most of the times we look at sandboxes as something like, OK, regulators are the ones who own it. And then there is a kind of an entry, like a gatekeeping. But then why not look at the sandboxes in terms of being a creative or collaborative space where we actually help the entrepreneurs, because innovation is really required. And then there are funding constraints or resource constraints. I think that’s universal, irrespective. So why not we use this space as a… as an environment where there is a bit of a hand-holding and support that comes from the regulators or the governments or the academy, like how we can help those innovations that are coming in the space to actually meet the requirements or that meet the expectations in terms of trust rather than just being gatekeeping. That’s my thought. And then Aheen also uses this approach known as convergence methodology where we bring the various stakeholders within the country as well as those who are in the country.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you, Jai. Sorry, I just want to pause because we’ve got six minutes left and I just would love Thiago to come in to perhaps answer Giovanna’s point on the different types of exit reports. I think that’s something that I just want to make sure we answer that question and I think Thiago would have some ideas on that. Thiago, do you want to maybe share your perspective on that and as an ending comment from you as well? In one minute, if possible. Yes, of course.

Moraes Thiago: I know time is night. So, going straight to the point, I actually am finding fascinating how different regulators have been dealing deeply with the exit reports. So, in some cases, exit reports have been drafted by the companies and then many times it becomes more internal knowledge for the regulator. But in other contexts, the regulator has decided to take the lead on that. Like I can give as an example the experience in the Norwegian EPA. Also, the ICO, several times they have been the one drafting the main exit report. And then, of course, they do some assessment with the participants to be sure that there’s nothing there that’s being shared that should not be disclosed. But actually, the way these exit reports, these public ones have been published, they really cover more about the experience itself than about sensitive confidential issues, which is what the idea should be. And we also see that in the IAC proposal. So, I think it really depends on how you’re going to deal with the exit report, but there’s definitely room for flexibility here as well.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you, Tiago. And Natalie, I wanted to bring you in as a final kind of wrap-up thought for us since we’re quite short on time. Bertram mentioned And I think that’s something that the IGF this year, there’s a lot of, you know, trying to build trust, build and do a lot of trust building and, you know, kind of support international collaboration as much as we can. How do you think sandboxes can help build this trust at a cross-border level?

Natalie Cohen: Yeah, I think this issue of trust is key. One thing the OECD does is a driver of trust in government survey. And I think on the proportion of countries that reply to say that they have trust that governments will appropriately regulate the new technologies was only about 41%. So that shows that the trust is definitely low. I think regulatory experimentation builds the evidence base for making regulatory reform in an area where the risks are not fully understood regulatory attempts on AI are still early stage. And so a lot is being mentioned about the risk to society to the environment of AI, as well as the obvious economic and innovation benefits. And so I think it’s that collaboration element, it’s creating a space where regulators and businesses and civil society and a range of stakeholders can dialogue and actually build the evidence base together in a way that can then inform and influence a regulatory regime.

Sophie Tomlinson: Thank you. Thank you so much, Natalie. And thank you everybody for taking the time. I know a 9am session is sometimes not the easiest one to get to at the IGF, especially after an IGF music night. So thank you all so much for being here. Thank you as well for all the people who joined us online. Your time and expertise and questions shared was really valuable to us as we try to understand more about how people are thinking about regulatory experimentation, particularly sandboxes. And yeah, thank you for joining us and hope to see you all soon.

Agreement points

Sandboxes are collaborative spaces that bring together multiple stakeholders for experimentation

Speakers

– Mariana Rozo-Pan
– Meni Anastasiadou
– Alex Moltzau
– Natalie Cohen
– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Arguments

Sandboxes are collaborative spaces, safe spaces for collaboration in which, by nature, different stakeholders come together to craft solutions, experiment with technologies

Regulatory sandboxes are really a great tool that actually respond to this framework of governance and they can really enable the safe and real-world testing of AI systems

Sandboxes provide a collaborative space for building the evidence base needed to inform regulatory reform

Regulatory experimentation builds the evidence base for making regulatory reform in a way that can then inform and influence a regulatory regime

Sandboxes should function as collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping

Summary

All speakers agree that sandboxes fundamentally serve as collaborative platforms where diverse stakeholders (public sector, private sector, civil society) come together to experiment with technologies and build evidence for regulatory decision-making

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

SMEs need special support and consideration in sandbox participation

Speakers

– Meni Anastasiadou
– Alex Moltzau
– Natalie Cohen
– Jimson Olufuye

Arguments

Regulatory sandboxes enable safe real-world testing of AI systems, particularly beneficial for SMEs

SME participation should be free according to EU AI Act provisions

Governments need to consider funding support for SMEs and avoid creating market distortions while providing participation incentives

Private sector coordination through organizations like AFICTA is essential for meaningful SME participation

Summary

There is strong consensus that small and medium enterprises face unique challenges in participating in sandboxes and require targeted support including free participation, funding assistance, and coordinated engagement through representative organizations

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic

Sandboxes require significant resources and careful planning to be successful

Speakers

– Natalie Cohen
– Moraes Thiago
– Participant 1
– Alex Moltzau

Arguments

Sandboxes require significant governance resources, clear eligibility criteria, testing frameworks, and exit strategies

Resource limitations can be addressed through pilot approaches, partnerships, and international cooperation

Funding challenges exist, with potential solutions including cost-sharing models between affected sectors

Exit reports are crucial for dissemination and getting value from sandbox investments

Summary

All speakers acknowledge that sandboxes are resource-intensive endeavors requiring careful planning, adequate funding, clear frameworks, and proper documentation to achieve their objectives

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Cross-border and regional cooperation enhances sandbox effectiveness

Speakers

– Alex Moltzau
– Jimson Olufuye
– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran
– Sophie Tomlinson

Arguments

Cross-border sandboxes can facilitate extensive collaboration on transport, health, and other sectors between regulatory environments

Regional cooperation is essential for products with countrywide and regional benefits

Health sector sandboxes address universal health coverage, interoperability standards, and cross-border data sharing needs

Sandboxes are being explored globally as tools for digital policy challenges and new technologies

Summary

Speakers agree that sandboxes become more effective when they operate across borders and regions, enabling broader collaboration and addressing shared challenges in sectors like health and transport

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical need for evidence-based approaches to AI regulation and the role of sandboxes in building this evidence base, particularly given low public trust in government regulation of new technologies

Speakers

– Alex Moltzau
– Natalie Cohen

Arguments

Responsible innovation requires evidence-based policy making, and sandboxes provide regulatory learning opportunities

Only 41% of countries trust governments to appropriately regulate new technologies, showing need for evidence-based collaboration

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for more inclusive and supportive approaches to sandboxes that go beyond regulatory gatekeeping to provide meaningful participation opportunities for affected communities and entrepreneurs

Speakers

– Moraes Thiago
– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Arguments

Civil society and individuals affected by AI solutions need meaningful roles before, during, and after sandbox implementation

Sandboxes should function as collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Both speakers from African contexts highlight the need for inclusive approaches to AI regulation and the practical challenges of establishing regulatory frameworks in developing economies

Speakers

– Jimson Olufuye
– Participant 1

Arguments

AI regulation must be people-centered and inclusive, with sandboxes helping bridge the digital divide

Legal backing for sandboxing authority is often unclear and needs to be established

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Civil society participation in sandboxes

Speakers

– Moraes Thiago
– Alex Moltzau
– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Arguments

Civil society and individuals affected by AI solutions need meaningful roles before, during, and after sandbox implementation

Exit reports are crucial for dissemination and getting value from sandbox investments

Sandboxes should function as collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping

Explanation

Despite representing different regions and institutional perspectives (academic researcher, EU policy maker, Asian health network), there was unexpected alignment on the need for meaningful civil society engagement throughout the sandbox process, not just as beneficiaries but as active participants

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Trust-building as a core function of sandboxes

Speakers

– Natalie Cohen
– Bertrand de la Chapelle
– Alex Moltzau

Arguments

Only 41% of countries trust governments to appropriately regulate new technologies, showing need for evidence-based collaboration

Sandboxes are one of the tools that brings the capacity of dialogue, particularly when the discussions are taking place very early on

Sandboxes help balance innovation with responsibility, ensuring products are both great and safe for citizens

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus across different institutional perspectives that sandboxes serve a crucial trust-building function between stakeholders, addressing broader societal mistrust in technology governance beyond just regulatory compliance

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed remarkably high consensus among speakers from diverse geographical and institutional backgrounds on fundamental aspects of AI sandboxes. Key areas of agreement included the collaborative nature of sandboxes, the need for special SME support, resource requirements, and the value of cross-border cooperation. There was also unexpected alignment on the importance of civil society participation and trust-building functions.

Consensus level

High consensus with strong implications for global sandbox development. The alignment suggests that despite different regulatory contexts, there are universal principles and challenges in sandbox implementation. This consensus provides a solid foundation for international cooperation and knowledge sharing in AI governance, while highlighting the need for coordinated approaches to address common challenges like resource constraints and stakeholder engagement.

Different viewpoints

Exit report authorship and responsibility

Speakers

– Moraes Thiago
– Alex Moltzau

Arguments

Exit report authorship varies between companies and regulators, with flexibility in approach depending on context

Exit reports are crucial for dissemination and getting value from sandbox investments

Summary

Thiago emphasizes flexibility in who drafts exit reports (companies vs regulators) with examples showing different approaches, while Alex focuses on the importance of exit reports for dissemination and stakeholder involvement, suggesting a more structured approach to maximize investment value

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Primary purpose and framing of sandboxes

Speakers

– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran
– Natalie Cohen

Arguments

Sandboxes should function as collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping

Governments need to consider funding support for SMEs and avoid creating market distortions while providing participation incentives

Summary

Jai advocates for sandboxes as supportive, collaborative environments that help entrepreneurs meet requirements, while Natalie emphasizes the need for careful balance to avoid market distortions and the resource-intensive nature of proper sandbox governance

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected differences

Resource allocation and funding responsibility

Speakers

– Participant 1
– Natalie Cohen
– Moraes Thiago

Arguments

Funding challenges exist, with potential solutions including cost-sharing models between affected sectors

Governments need to consider funding support for SMEs and avoid creating market distortions while providing participation incentives

Resource limitations can be addressed through pilot approaches, partnerships, and international cooperation

Explanation

While all speakers acknowledge resource constraints, they propose different solutions that could potentially conflict. The African perspective suggests cost-sharing between regulators, OECD emphasizes government funding responsibility, and the Brazilian perspective focuses on international partnerships. This disagreement is unexpected because it reveals different regional approaches to the same fundamental challenge

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkable consensus on the value and potential of AI sandboxes, with disagreements primarily focused on implementation details rather than fundamental concepts. Key areas of disagreement include exit report management, the balance between support and market neutrality, and funding mechanisms.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers largely agree on goals but differ on methods and emphasis. This suggests a maturing field where practitioners are working through operational details rather than debating fundamental principles. The implications are positive – there’s broad consensus on the value of sandboxes, but more work is needed on standardizing best practices and addressing regional variations in implementation approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical need for evidence-based approaches to AI regulation and the role of sandboxes in building this evidence base, particularly given low public trust in government regulation of new technologies

Speakers

– Alex Moltzau
– Natalie Cohen

Arguments

Responsible innovation requires evidence-based policy making, and sandboxes provide regulatory learning opportunities

Only 41% of countries trust governments to appropriately regulate new technologies, showing need for evidence-based collaboration

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for more inclusive and supportive approaches to sandboxes that go beyond regulatory gatekeeping to provide meaningful participation opportunities for affected communities and entrepreneurs

Speakers

– Moraes Thiago
– Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Arguments

Civil society and individuals affected by AI solutions need meaningful roles before, during, and after sandbox implementation

Sandboxes should function as collaborative spaces with hand-holding support rather than just gatekeeping

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Both speakers from African contexts highlight the need for inclusive approaches to AI regulation and the practical challenges of establishing regulatory frameworks in developing economies

Speakers

– Jimson Olufuye
– Participant 1

Arguments

AI regulation must be people-centered and inclusive, with sandboxes helping bridge the digital divide

Legal backing for sandboxing authority is often unclear and needs to be established

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Human rights

Key takeaways

AI sandboxes are collaborative safe spaces that enable stakeholders to test technologies against regulatory frameworks, with over 150 implementations globally spanning multiple sectors beyond their fintech origins

Sandboxes serve as crucial tools for balancing innovation with responsibility, providing evidence-based regulatory learning while ensuring AI products are both innovative and safe for citizens

Successful sandbox implementation requires significant resources, clear governance structures, transparent eligibility criteria, and well-defined exit strategies

SME participation is critical and should be supported through free participation models and funding assistance to avoid market distortions while ensuring inclusive innovation

Civil society engagement is essential throughout the sandbox lifecycle, as individuals affected by AI solutions need meaningful representation before, during, and after implementation

Cross-border collaboration through sandboxes can address global AI governance challenges, particularly in sectors like health, transport, and data sharing

Trust-building between public authorities, private sector, and civil society is a fundamental benefit of sandboxes, addressing widespread mistrust in technology governance

Exit reports and knowledge dissemination are crucial for maximizing value from sandbox investments and informing broader regulatory frameworks

Resolutions and action items

EU AI Office to release draft Implementing Act for AI regulatory sandboxes for public comment in autumn

OECD to publish toolkit on sandbox development and design in coming weeks

Brazilian Data Protection Authority to launch pilot sandbox with news expected soon

DataSphere Initiative to continue offering one-on-one coaching, master classes, and co-creation activities for sandbox development

Participants encouraged to engage with EU’s public consultation process when the draft Implementing Act is released

Continued collaboration between DataSphere Initiative and Asia eHealth Information Network on health sector sandboxes

Unresolved issues

Whether AI and data sandboxes should be structured separately or integrated remains unclear

Legal backing for sandboxing authority is often unclear and needs to be established in many jurisdictions

Funding models and resource allocation strategies for sandboxes, particularly in developing countries, require further development

The specific role and meaningful participation mechanisms for civil society throughout the sandbox process need better definition

Standardization of exit report formats and authorship responsibilities across different regulatory contexts

How to effectively measure and evaluate the real-world impact and value creation of AI sandboxes

Balancing transparency requirements with protection of commercially sensitive information in sandbox operations

Suggested compromises

Cost-sharing models between different regulatory sectors that benefit from sandbox outcomes to address funding constraints

Pilot or ‘sandbox the sandbox’ approaches to test waters with limited resources before full implementation

Flexible duration models ranging from 3 months to 5 years depending on testing objectives and available resources

Hybrid sandbox models combining regulatory and operational elements to maximize utility

Free participation for SMEs while larger corporates contribute to funding sustainability

Collaborative exit report development between regulators and participants with appropriate confidentiality protections

Regional cooperation frameworks to share costs and benefits of cross-border sandbox initiatives

We often forget how we used to play when we were kids. And as we were children growing up, we were actually quite excited about experimenting and about thinking about building things, building them, and then kind of destroying them and building something new again. And that flexible, agile mindset that maybe we had when we were children is what we’re often lacking when it comes to building agile regulations and shaping how we’re governing technologies.

Speaker

Mariana Rozo-Pan

Reason

This comment reframes regulatory innovation through a powerful metaphor that makes the abstract concept of sandboxes tangible and relatable. It challenges the traditional rigid approach to regulation by connecting it to universal human experience of creative play and experimentation.

Impact

This opening metaphor set the collaborative and experimental tone for the entire discussion. It influenced how other speakers framed their contributions, with many referring back to concepts of experimentation, collaboration, and safe spaces throughout the session.

Sometimes what SMEs need support with is part of accessing, could be accessing data, it could be legal and compliance resources as well… Some successful sandboxes have been successful in terms of testing products and services and bringing them to market, but they’ve been primarily successful with larger corporates.

Speaker

Natalie Cohen

Reason

This comment introduces a critical equity dimension to sandbox design, highlighting how these supposedly democratizing tools might actually reinforce existing power imbalances between large corporations and SMEs.

Impact

This observation shifted the discussion from purely technical implementation questions to broader questions of accessibility and fairness. It prompted subsequent speakers like Alex Moltzau to address how the EU AI Act specifically mandates free participation for SMEs, and influenced Jimson’s comments about the need for coordination and support.

Civil society and individuals, they might have an important role before, during and after the sandbox is done… We’re talking about individuals that are having their personal data processed or that will be affected by these AI solutions, regardless if the personal data has been processed or not.

Speaker

Moraes Thiago

Reason

This comment challenges the typical stakeholder model of sandboxes by highlighting a significant gap – the meaningful inclusion of those most affected by AI systems. It raises fundamental questions about democratic participation in technology governance.

Impact

This provocation introduced a new dimension to the conversation that hadn’t been adequately addressed. It influenced later discussions about trust-building and prompted Bertrand’s comment about mistrust between stakeholders, while also connecting to broader IGF themes about inclusive governance.

There are key words that we don’t dare to use, but that are very important in this discussion. One is mistrust… And we have to recognize that in the last 20 years, a huge amount of mistrust has grown between public authorities, private actors, and civil society. Sandboxes are one of the tools that brings the capacity of dialogue.

Speaker

Bertrand de la Chapelle

Reason

This comment directly addresses the elephant in the room – the underlying trust deficit that makes regulatory innovation necessary. By naming ‘mistrust’ and ‘anxiety’ as key but unspoken factors, it reframes sandboxes not just as technical tools but as trust-building mechanisms.

Impact

This intervention fundamentally shifted the conversation’s framing from technical implementation to the deeper social and political context. It prompted Natalie’s closing comment about the OECD trust survey showing only 41% of people trust governments to appropriately regulate new technologies, providing empirical support for Bertrand’s observation.

Why not look at the sandboxes in terms of being a creative or collaborative space where we actually help the entrepreneurs… rather than just being gatekeeping… why not we use this space as an environment where there is a bit of a hand-holding and support that comes from the regulators or the governments or the academy.

Speaker

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Reason

This comment challenges the traditional regulatory paradigm by proposing a shift from gatekeeping to nurturing. It reframes the regulator-industry relationship from adversarial to collaborative, suggesting sandboxes as spaces for capacity building rather than just compliance testing.

Impact

This perspective added a constructive dimension to the discussion about regulatory approaches, moving beyond the compliance-focused view to consider how sandboxes could actively support innovation while ensuring responsible development.

We learned that it’s actually one thing that regulators grapple with. Sometimes it’s not clear that they actually are authorities allowed to sandbox in any way. So, how do they look to find that legal backing to carry out such an experimentation?

Speaker

Participant 1 (Maureen)

Reason

This comment reveals a fundamental practical barrier that challenges assumptions about regulatory authority and flexibility. It highlights how existing legal frameworks may not accommodate experimental approaches, creating a chicken-and-egg problem for regulatory innovation.

Impact

This observation grounded the discussion in practical realities facing regulators, particularly in developing countries. It influenced the conversation about resource constraints and the need for legal framework adaptation to support experimental governance approaches.

Overall assessment

These key comments collectively transformed what could have been a technical discussion about sandbox implementation into a nuanced exploration of the social, political, and structural challenges of regulatory innovation. The progression from Mariana’s playful metaphor through increasingly complex considerations of equity, inclusion, trust, and legal authority created a comprehensive framework for understanding sandboxes not just as tools, but as mechanisms for reimagining the relationship between innovation and governance. The comments built upon each other to reveal sandboxes as both promising solutions and reflections of deeper systemic challenges in technology governance, ultimately framing them as trust-building exercises in an era of widespread institutional skepticism.

What will be the role of civil society throughout all the sandbox experience – before, during and after the sandbox is done?

Speaker

Moraes Thiago

Explanation

This is identified as an important gap in current sandbox frameworks, especially when dealing with AI solutions that affect individuals and their personal data, requiring better inclusion of civil society voices

How do countries design policy packages and govern sandboxes? Should AI and data sandboxes be structured separately or integrated?

Speaker

Representative from Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development in Vietnam

Explanation

This addresses fundamental design questions about sandbox architecture and whether different technology domains should be handled together or separately

What types of legislative or regulatory features have proved the most effective in making participation more accessible to businesses and especially SMEs?

Speaker

Representative from Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development in Vietnam

Explanation

This focuses on practical implementation challenges and ensuring inclusive participation across different business sizes

How can cost-sharing models work between different regulators or sectors when setting up sandboxes?

Speaker

Maureen (Africa Sandboxes Forum Lead)

Explanation

This addresses resource constraints by exploring collaborative funding approaches when sandboxes affect multiple sectors or regulatory domains

What legal models can authorities use to establish sandboxes when they lack clear legal backing?

Speaker

Maureen (Africa Sandboxes Forum Lead)

Explanation

Many regulators want to establish sandboxes but are uncertain about their legal authority to do so, requiring clarification of legal frameworks

How can cross-border AI regulatory sandboxes be effectively implemented and what collaboration mechanisms are needed?

Speaker

Alex Moltzau

Explanation

This explores the potential for international cooperation through joint sandboxes, particularly relevant for AI systems that operate across borders

What are the specific roles and responsibilities of private companies versus public institutions in drafting exit reports and documentation?

Speaker

Giovanna (Brazil Youth Program)

Explanation

This addresses practical implementation questions about documentation responsibilities and ensuring proper knowledge transfer from sandbox experiences

How can sandboxes be used as collaborative spaces for hand-holding and support rather than just gatekeeping?

Speaker

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran

Explanation

This suggests a shift in sandbox philosophy from regulatory compliance checking to more supportive innovation facilitation

How can sandboxes help build trust at a cross-border level between different stakeholders?

Speaker

Sophie Tomlinson

Explanation

Given low trust levels in government regulation of new technologies (only 41% according to OECD), understanding how sandboxes can build international trust is crucial

Summary

This discussion at the Internet Governance Forum focused on digital inclusion and addressing the global digital divide through international collaboration between policymakers, researchers, and industry experts. The panel explored how to ensure no one is left behind as society becomes increasingly digital, examining barriers to meaningful connectivity beyond basic internet coverage.

Norwegian Minister Osmund Grever-Alqvist emphasized that while 92% of the planet has internet coverage, one-third of the population remains offline due to barriers including infrastructure gaps, affordability issues, and digital illiteracy. He highlighted the importance of digital public infrastructure and open-source solutions in fostering inclusive development. Malin Rygg from Norway’s accessibility authority presented a framework addressing three core dimensions: connectivity, accessibility, and digital skills, noting that 1.3 billion people worldwide live with disabilities and require inclusive design from the outset.

Maja Brynteson discussed the “Nordic and Baltic paradox,” where highly digitalized societies risk deepening inequality as digital participation becomes essential for daily life. She identified vulnerable groups including older adults, people with disabilities, immigrants, and rural communities, emphasizing that digital exclusion is multidimensional and context-specific. Irene Mbari-Kirika from Kenya showcased African innovation in assistive technology, highlighting the continent’s mobile-first approach and the development of Kenya’s ICT accessibility standard.

The panelists agreed that digital inclusion must be framed as a human rights issue, requiring comprehensive legislation, technical standards, and enforcement mechanisms. They stressed the need for universal design principles, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and capacity building in developing countries. The discussion concluded that without closing digital gaps, societies face increased inequality and exclusion from essential services, education, and economic opportunities.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **The Digital Divide Paradox**: Despite high digitalization rates in Nordic/Baltic countries (92% global internet coverage), one-third of the global population remains offline, with meaningful connectivity being the key challenge rather than just coverage access

– **Digital Inclusion as a Human Rights Issue**: The discussion emphasized framing digital access not as a convenience or consumer choice, but as fundamental to human rights including education, employment, healthcare, and democratic participation

– **Multi-dimensional Barriers to Digital Inclusion**: Participants identified interconnected obstacles including connectivity issues, accessibility challenges, digital skills gaps, and the need for inclusive design from the start rather than retrofitting solutions

– **Global South Innovation and Standards**: Strong emphasis on Africa and developing countries as creators and innovators rather than just consumers of technology, with Kenya’s ICT accessibility standard highlighted as a model for global adoption

– **Policy and Regulatory Frameworks**: Discussion of effective strategies including legislation with clear obligations and deadlines, technical standards alignment across countries, and the need for enforcement mechanisms to drive meaningful change

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to foster international collaboration on digital inclusion by bringing together policymakers, researchers, and industry experts to explore practical solutions for closing the digital divide. The goal was to share successful examples from different regions (Nordic countries and Global South) and generate actionable insights for ensuring no one is left behind in an increasingly digital world.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently constructive and collaborative tone throughout. It began with formal presentations but evolved into an engaged, solution-oriented dialogue. The tone was notably inclusive and respectful, with speakers building on each other’s points rather than debating. There was a sense of urgency about addressing digital exclusion, balanced with optimism about innovative solutions and international cooperation. The conversation remained professional yet passionate, reflecting the speakers’ genuine commitment to digital inclusion as both a practical necessity and moral imperative.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Fredrik Matheson** – Moderator of the session

– **Asmund Grover Aukrust** – Norwegian Minister of International Development, responsible for international development in countries outside the OSCE, Middle East and Afghanistan, and Norwegian humanitarian efforts

– **Inmaculada Porrero** – Senior expert on disability at the European Commission, leading work on the rights of people with disabilities with a focus on accessibility and assistive technologies since 1991

– **Yu Ping Chan** – Senior program officer in the Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology at the United Nations, coordinates work on follow-up of the Secretary General’s roadmap for digital cooperation and digital-related aspects of the Common Agenda Report

– **Dan Sjoblom** – Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, appointed by the Swedish government in 2017, previously chairperson of BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications)

– **Irene Mbari-Kirika** – Founder and executive director of Enable, recognized dynamic global strategic leader and executive level innovator bringing assistive technologies and key legislation to Kenya for making digital accessible for all

– **Malin Rygg** – Head of Norway’s accessibility watchdog, the authority for universal design of ICT, working to transform it into a data-driven powerhouse

– **Maja Brynteson** – Research fellow at Nordregio, background in sustainable development and management studies

**Additional speakers:**

None identified – all speakers in the transcript were included in the provided speakers names list.

# Comprehensive Report: Digital Inclusion and the Global Digital Divide – Internet Governance Forum Discussion

## Executive Summary

This Internet Governance Forum panel brought together international policymakers, researchers, and industry experts to address the critical challenge of digital inclusion in an increasingly connected world. Moderated by Fredrik Matheson, the discussion featured Norwegian Minister of International Development Asmund Grover Aukrust, European Commission disability expert Inmaculada Porrero (joining via Zoom), UN Development Program officer Yu Ping Chan, Swedish telecommunications regulator Dan Sjoblom, Kenyan accessibility advocate Irene Mbari-Kirika, Norwegian accessibility authority head Malin Rygg, and Nordregio researcher Maja Brynteson.

The panel explored how despite 92% global internet coverage, one-third of the world’s population remains offline, highlighting that meaningful connectivity extends far beyond basic infrastructure access. The discussion evolved from formal presentations into an engaged dialogue that reframed digital inclusion from a service delivery issue to a fundamental human rights imperative with significant economic implications. Key themes included the shift from “digital divide” to “meaningful connectivity,” the importance of designing accessibility from the start, and the potential for Global South innovation to lead global solutions.

## The Digital Divide Paradox: From Coverage to Meaningful Connectivity

### Global Connectivity Challenges

Minister Asmund Grover Aukrust opened by presenting a stark reality: whilst 92% of the planet has internet coverage, approximately one-third of the global population remains offline. This disconnect reveals that meaningful connectivity involves complex barriers beyond infrastructure gaps, including affordability, digital literacy, lack of relevant local content, and accessibility issues.

The minister emphasized that digital inclusion fundamentally concerns human rights—access to information, freedom of expression, education, and democratic participation. He highlighted the importance of digital public infrastructure and open-source solutions, noting that such approaches encourage competition, foster innovation, and generate spillover effects across society. Norway’s “Alt-in” system for government-to-people interaction exemplifies how countries can build inclusive digital infrastructure.

### The Nordic-Baltic Paradox

Maja Brynteson from Nordregio introduced the “Nordic-Baltic paradox”—the phenomenon where highly digitalised societies can paradoxically deepen digital divides as they advance. As societies become more digital, expectations rise and analogue alternatives disappear, potentially leaving behind those who cannot keep pace with technological change.

Brynteson’s research identifies digital exclusion as multidimensional and context-specific, often affecting overlapping vulnerable groups. She outlined two primary categories of barriers: access barriers (infrastructure and device affordability) and capability barriers (digital skills, literacy, and trust issues). Vulnerable groups include older adults, people with disabilities, immigrants, rural communities, and low-income populations, though specific challenges vary considerably by context.

Importantly, Brynteson emphasized that “not everyone can or wants to be digital,” arguing that maintaining analogue services and alternative options remains essential even in highly digitalised societies.

## Digital Inclusion as a Human Rights Imperative

### Fundamental Rights Framework

Multiple speakers converged on framing digital inclusion as a fundamental human rights issue. Malin Rygg from Norway’s accessibility authority emphasized that digital services are now inextricably linked to basic rights including education, employment, healthcare, and democratic participation. She presented a comprehensive framework addressing three core dimensions: connectivity (infrastructure and devices), accessibility (universal design and standards), and digital skills (literacy and confidence).

Rygg noted that 1.3 billion people worldwide live with disabilities, representing one in six of the global population, and require inclusive design from the outset rather than retrofitted solutions. She challenged paternalistic language often used in inclusion conversations, arguing that talking about “including” vulnerable groups can be condescending—excluded populations want to contribute rather than simply be included.

Yu Ping Chan from the UN Development Program reinforced this rights-based framing, connecting digital access to broader development goals. She warned that the future AI revolution could exacerbate existing inequalities, with projections suggesting only 10% of AI’s global economic value will accrue to Global South countries except China.

## Global South Innovation and Leadership

### African Innovation in Accessibility

Irene Mbari-Kirika, founder of Enable in Kenya, presented a compelling case for African leadership in accessibility innovation. She challenged the conventional narrative of Africa as merely a consumer of technology: “Africa must not only be a consumer, we must be a creator, a manufacturer and a global supplier of accessible technologies, designed and built on the continent by Africans for the world.”

Mbari-Kirika highlighted Kenya’s groundbreaking ICT Accessibility Act, which institutionalises digital inclusion and aligns with comprehensive accessibility standards. She emphasized the economic dimensions of accessibility, noting that the global assistive technology market is projected to reach $32 billion by 2030. With 15% of the global population living with disabilities, this represents significant untapped market potential.

She provided specific examples of African innovation, including SignVerse, which demonstrates how the continent’s mobile-first approach offers unique opportunities for inclusive design. However, she identified specific needs for African innovators including support for data sets, design, packaging, and bringing products to market.

### Reframing the Inclusion Narrative

Mbari-Kirika offered a powerful reframing: “Digital inclusion is not about making room at the table. It is about building a table where everyone has a seat and a voice.” This perspective shifts the conversation from viewing excluded groups as beneficiaries of assistance to recognising them as contributors with untapped potential, emphasizing empowerment and participation rather than charity or accommodation.

## Regulatory Frameworks and Implementation Strategies

### European Approach to Accessibility Legislation

Inmaculada Porrero from the European Commission outlined the European strategy for building comprehensive accessibility frameworks through three key components: building stakeholder awareness, creating specific policies with clear obligations and deadlines, and utilizing existing international standards like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and EN 301549 rather than starting from scratch.

The European model emphasizes legislation with clear enforcement mechanisms combined with technical standards. Porrero noted this approach provides certainty for businesses whilst ensuring meaningful progress on accessibility, applying to both public and private sectors for comprehensive coverage.

However, Porrero identified a critical challenge: the lack of accessibility knowledge among ICT professionals. She emphasized the need to integrate accessibility requirements into university curricula and professional development programs, noting that many developers, designers, and decision-makers remain unaware of accessibility requirements and legislation.

### International Coordination and Standards

Dan Sjoblom from the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority emphasized the importance of international coordination, expressing hope for extending European accessibility standards globally through UN systems. He highlighted Sweden’s work through the IPRES program (formerly SPIDER) with 25 sub-Saharan countries, demonstrating practical approaches to international cooperation.

Sjoblom noted that the cross-cutting nature of digital policies requires collaboration across government ministries and sectors, making coordination particularly challenging but essential. He emphasized the crucial role of trusted community institutions—libraries, civil society organizations, and municipal citizen services—in reaching populations that might otherwise be left behind.

## Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration and Economic Dimensions

### Whole-of-Society Approaches

Yu Ping Chan emphasized the need for comprehensive collaboration involving government, private sector, and civil society organizations. This “whole-of-society approach” recognizes that no single actor can address digital inclusion challenges alone, with each stakeholder bringing unique capabilities and reaching different populations.

The discussion revealed significant challenges in engaging the private sector development community, which often lacks awareness of accessibility requirements. Speakers identified the need for comprehensive education and training programs targeting developers, designers, and product managers globally.

### Economic Benefits and Business Case

Multiple speakers emphasized significant economic opportunities presented by digital accessibility. Mbari-Kirika noted that digital accessibility “is not a sentimental issue, it is a sound investment and a strategic opportunity for growth and innovation.” The business case extends beyond disability-specific markets, as universal design principles benefit broader user bases and accessible products often perform better in challenging conditions.

Minister Grover Aukrust connected digital inclusion to broader development goals, warning that failure to close digital gaps will increase inequality and prevent achievement of employment, education, and development objectives.

## Implementation Challenges and Practical Solutions

### Knowledge and Capacity Gaps

The discussion identified persistent challenges requiring ongoing attention. A fundamental issue is the lack of accessibility knowledge among ICT professionals worldwide. Despite existing legislation and standards, many developers and decision-makers remain unaware of accessibility requirements.

This knowledge gap is compounded by the rapid pace of technological change. Minister Grover Aukrust specifically asked how policy can change as fast as digitalisation is moving forward, highlighting this as a critical challenge for effective governance.

### Innovative Approaches and Adaptive Design

The discussion highlighted innovative approaches to accessibility challenges. Fredrik Matheson shared examples of adaptive technology design, including “The Continent” newspaper’s WhatsApp and email delivery system, which demonstrates how services can be designed to work across different technological capabilities and preferences.

He also provided a practical example of systemic complexity through his daughter’s experience applying for a police certificate, illustrating how even simple processes can create barriers when not designed inclusively.

## Key Insights and Future Directions

### Fundamental Reframing Achieved

The discussion achieved a fundamental reframing of digital inclusion from a charity or service delivery issue to a human rights imperative with significant economic implications. The shift toward viewing excluded populations as contributors rather than beneficiaries represents a particularly important evolution, emphasizing empowerment and participation rather than accommodation.

### Design from the Start

A critical consensus emerged around the importance of designing accessibility from the beginning rather than retrofitting solutions. This “universal design” approach benefits everyone while avoiding the higher costs and limited effectiveness of after-the-fact accessibility improvements.

### Mobile-First and Leapfrogging Opportunities

The discussion highlighted how regions like Africa can leapfrog traditional development approaches by building accessibility into their digital infrastructure from the beginning. The continent’s mobile-first approach offers unique opportunities for inclusive design that could benefit global accessibility efforts.

## Unresolved Questions and Future Research Needs

Several critical questions remain unresolved, particularly around implementation and scaling of successful approaches. How can effective local innovations be scaled to broader implementation? How can the global community of ICT professionals be effectively reached and trained on accessibility requirements?

The challenge of keeping policy frameworks current with rapidly evolving technology requires ongoing attention. Traditional policy development processes may be too slow to keep pace with technological change, suggesting the need for more adaptive governance approaches.

The lack of shared understanding of digital inclusion across regions creates challenges for measuring progress and evaluating interventions. Developing common metrics and evaluation frameworks could help coordinate efforts and identify effective approaches.

## Conclusion

This Internet Governance Forum discussion demonstrated both the complexity of digital inclusion challenges and the potential for coordinated global action. The high level of consensus on fundamental principles—particularly the human rights framing and the economic benefits of inclusion—provides a strong foundation for future action.

The emphasis on comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approaches recognizes the complexity of the challenges while pointing toward practical solutions. Perhaps most importantly, the discussion challenged paternalistic approaches to inclusion, emphasizing instead the need to build new systems that harness everyone’s potential.

The shift from talking about “digital divides” to “meaningful connectivity” represents more than semantic change—it reflects a deeper understanding that access alone is insufficient. True digital inclusion requires addressing multiple, intersecting barriers while recognizing the agency and potential contributions of all users.

The unresolved questions identified provide a clear agenda for future research and action, requiring sustained commitment from multiple stakeholders, innovative approaches to governance and coordination, and continued emphasis on the human rights and economic imperatives that drive the digital inclusion agenda.

Fredrik Matheson: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in the room via Zoom and via YouTube. For those in the room, I want to remind you that you’ll need to put on your headsets to be able to hear. It needs to be on channel one, and the receiver needs to be on the table. It needs to be in line of sight of the transmitter. This is what enables us to have a quiet conference here. Very excited. So in this session, we want to open up a truly international conversation about digital inclusion. So we’ve brought together voices from different parts of the world. We have policymakers, we have researchers, and we have industry experts. And together, we are going to explore how we can tackle the digital divide in very real and practical ways. One of the things we’re going to be talking about today is what does it take to make sure that no one is left behind in the digital world. As our world becomes more closely enmeshed with the digital, how do we make sure that no one is left behind, no matter their background or where they live? We’re going to be hearing examples of what works well from the Nordic region and from the global south. And we hope that this discussion will spark new ideas and shared learnings along the way. We have some questions about what does digital exclusion really mean today? Why does it persist? And most importantly, what can we do to close the gap and make digital inclusion real? If you’re on Zoom, make sure to share your questions via the chat and we’ll do our best to bring them to the stage. There are also microphones here on the side for people who are in us here with the room. So I’m going to briefly introduce everyone. My name is Frederick Matheson. I’m moderating here today. Then we have Osmund Grever-Alqvist, who is the Norwegian Minister of International Development, who is responsible for international development in countries outside the OSCE, Middle East and Afghanistan. He’s also responsible for Norwegian humanitarian efforts. Joining us via Zoom is Ima, who is a senior expert on disability at the European Commission. She’s been leading work on the rights of people with disabilities with a focus on accessibility and assistive technologies since 1991. So if you’ve heard of the European Accessibility Act, we have much to thank her for there. With us, we also have Yu-Ping Chan, who is the senior program officer in the Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology at the United Nations. She coordinates the team’s work on follow-up of the Secretary General’s roadmap for digital cooperation and digital-related aspects of the Common Agenda Report, in particular, the Global Digital Compact, the GDC. With us, we also have Dan Sjöblom, who is the Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. He was appointed by the Swedish government to that role in 2017. Previously, he was the chairperson of BEREC, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications. communication. And I’m super excited to have Irene Mbadi-Kirika with us today, the founder and executive director of Enable, who is a recognized dynamic global strategic leader and executive level innovator who is bringing assistive technologies and key legislation to her native Kenya on making digital accessible for all. Later on, you should check out her website. There’s a film on how the entire project came to be. You will not leave untouched by that film. It’s fantastic. Also super excited to be here on stage with Malin Idig, who is the head of Norway’s accessibility watchdog, so the authority for universal design of ICT. She has been working to transform it into a data-driven powerhouse. So here in Norway, public entities have to register a web accessibility statement, which has had a tremendous impact on making sure everyone actually follows the rules that have been in place for so long. Very, very happy about that. And also joining us is Maja Brintesson, who is a research fellow at Lore de Regio. She has a background in sustainable development and background in management studies. And we’re going to be hearing a keynote from her shortly on digital divides and more. So super excited by that. But first up, I will explain how the format’s going to be. We’re going to have four keynotes. We’re going to have the minister on stage in a moment. After the keynotes are done, everyone’s going to be back on the panel, and I’ll be back up here on stage for a panel discussion, about 30 minutes. We are going to be super strict with the schedule, so anyone who speaks for too long will be stopped. And remember to post your questions on Zoom or in the mics here, and we’ll do our best to bring that to the panel. So minister, I would then like to… invite you up on stage. Let’s have a big round of applause.

Asmund Grover Aukrust: Great, dear friends, from the Norwegian side, we are very proud and honored to welcome you here and to host this very important conference. And also for me personally, as representative for this county in the Norwegian Parliament, I can also say welcome to Lillestrøm and we are very honored to have you here. But most importantly, I have very much looked forward for this debate that our conversation that we will have today and I look forward also to listening to your comments and questions later on. Because despite great progress, and even though 92% of our planet now has internet coverage, one third of our population is still offline. The biggest challenge is therefore not coverage, we have to talk about meaningful connectivity. We need measures that addresses both coverage and usage barriers, such as infrastructure gaps, and policy and regularity, uncertainty, inequalities, limited affordability of devices and services, and digital illiteracy. Meaningful connectivity is a particular challenge in low income countries. Even where coverage exists, barriers remain. Intersectional inequalities across gender, race, age, disability status and rural communities. In addition to this, limited affordability of devices and services, lack of education. and local content and local languages continue to hinder widespread internet usage. Concerns about online health, safety, security and trust may also prevent further adaptation of digital services. Not to mention the risk and harm that can occur online, especially for women and children. Meaningful connectivity is about basic human rights, including the right of information and freedom of expression. I would like to highlight the importance of digital public infrastructure. It encourages competition and fosters innovation and fiscal resilience, and it can generate spillover effects across society, institutions, markets and businesses. Safe DPI can shape systems, public trust and reduce digital gaps and promote inclusive economic and social development for all. DPI is therefore a priority for Norwegian development cooperation. Finally, let me also highlight the importance of open source digital solutions, including open source DPI, like Norway’s Alt-in for government to people and businesses interaction. Digital ID is another essential part of DPI. It opened up for a wide range of government services for citizens and businesses and protect the users. Norway supports digital ID solutions developed in India that is now being rolling out in 26 countries. Now I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate and to. to listening and learning from all of you. Thank you so much.

Malin Rygg: So the digital everyday life is here for most of us. We use technology for big and small tasks alike. At work, in our free time, for school, entertainment, and staying connected with others. The digital solutions that have emerged this last years has given us opportunities that we could only have dreamed of for 20 years ago. But is everyone able to keep up? I’m Malin Rigg, and I’m delighted to be here and to gather with all of you to have this discussion on this important topic. The authority that I head has the obligation and mandate under Norwegian law to help remove digital barriers and prevent new ones for being created. And yet we see many people that are still being digitally excluded. So who are they? Why are they being excluded? And what should we actually do about this? As mentioned, there are 8.2 billion people in the world. Technology is evolving fast, and digital services have become the norm. But this acceleration, as it continues, also accelerates the risk of deepening inequality. Digital inclusion is essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Because without education, decent work, sustainable infrastructure, or equal access to health care, not all can participate. So it all depends on a meaningful digital participation in this age. So, it was mentioned 2.6 billion people are still offline, according to the UNDP. And digital exclusion reinforces social exclusion. It reinforces it in education, employment, but also for democratic participation and freedom of speech. The digital divide is no longer just about access, it is fundamentally about human rights. So did you know that 1.3 billion people worldwide live with a disability? That is one in six of us. It’s a diverse group that includes people with physical, cognitive and sensory impairments or other health conditions. We all bring unique skills, perspectives and contributions to society, but that is only if society is designed to include all of us. And that is why accessibility is foundational to human dignity, opportunity and equality. Ensuring accessibility means building systems that uphold rights and empower all people to participate fully in the digital world. Rights, access and inclusion are interconnected. And to achieve true digital inclusion, we must therefore act along these three core dimensions. Connectivity, building and maintaining infrastructure that ensures everyone has affordable and reliable access to the internet. Accessibility, designing services that are usable by everyone, regardless of ability, language, literacy and trust. And digital skills, enabling people to confidently and safely participate, from using basic tools to navigating complex digital systems. So there’s a gap and that is a gap we have to mind, because the distance between those who are digitally included and those who are not is growing. And we need a framework to help us bridge it. To close this gap, we must work on two levels, the individuals and the societal. And I like to point to this as the gap model that provides a structured way of thinking about this. It shows how we can lower expectations on the societal level and at the same time give individuals that can’t reach the help and support they need. On the connectivity part, from societal level, we can work on infrastructure, broadband, mobile networks and assistive tech compatibility, for instance. For the individual, we can ensure that everyone has a device, that it’s affordable and that they also have the subscriptions and anything that they need to connect. On the accessibility, from the societal level, we can work on universal design, inclusive standards and regulatory frameworks, as the EU has been doing with their directives in recent years. On the individual side, we can help with assistive technologies, adaptable user interfaces, glasses, screen readers and so forth. When we talk about digital skills, from the societal level, we can work on competence among developers, designers, leaders, teachers and so forth. And from the individual side, we can work on digital literacy, user confidence and lifelong learning. This shows that exclusion is not only about physical access, it can also be about lacking tools, trust, usability or the know-how to engage meaningfully. Exclusion must be designed, taught and built into systems, not left to chance. Earlier this month, I attended the Inclusive Africa Conference 2025 in Nairobi. It offered a fresh and important perspective for me and reminded us that the Global South doesn’t need to simply try to catch up, but they can leapfrog ahead and learn from our mistakes. In Kenya, the norm is mobile first, and with a young population, 70% under the age of 30, there are possibilities, but also difficulties that are different from ours. But what stood out is their commitment to standards from the start, enabling accessibility and inclusive innovation from day one. Where we in the north have been kind of stumbling through in the last 20 years, with a design now fixed later, the south can choose to build better from the beginning. Our context may differ, but the goal is shared, digital participation for all. And again, the core elements remain connectivity, accessibility, and digital skills. Before I close, we live in different parts of the world, but we are working toward the same future, a future where everyone, regardless of ability or background, can belong, contribute, and thrive in the digital world. I’m truly grateful to take part in this panel alongside such knowledgeable and committed voices, and to share our experience as part of a shared global effort. So let’s build this future together. Thank you.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you, Malin. Now we are going to welcome Maja Brintesop from Nordregio up on stage. As soon as we get the presentation up.

Maja Brynteson: All right, I have a presentation. I don’t know if it’s… It should be coming. It should be here soon. But in the meanwhile I can just start by presenting myself. As Fredrik has said, my name is Maja Brynsson and I work at Nordejo, which is a research institute based in Stockholm. And we are focusing on regional planning and development. And I will be speaking about the state of digital inclusion in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Over the past few years, Nordejo has led and contributed to several research projects focused on digital inclusion. And in this presentation I will share key insights and findings from that work. So let’s start with why digital inclusion is still an important topic in the Nordic and Baltic region. We often refer to the Nordic and Baltic paradox here to argue for the importance of digital inclusion. And I will try to explain what we mean with this paradox. The Nordic and Baltic countries are among the most highly digitalized countries in Europe. For example, according to the latest Digital Economy and Society Index, Kjellfors DC, Finland, Denmark and Sweden are among the top performers in Europe when it comes to basic digital skills among citizens. And the picture is also positive with respect to government services, with high rates of e-government usage, as well as digital public services for citizens, which are high in Finland and all of the Baltic countries. But as the Nordic and Baltic region becomes increasingly digitalized, Digital tools and skills are now essential for participating in everyday life, and the expectations placed on individuals continue to rise. There is a growing reliance on having digital tools and skills for being an active member of society. We are also seeing an increased use of electronic IDs for secure access and authentication. In some countries, you need an EID to do everything from checking your health records and managing your bank account, to booking a doctor’s appointment, to even booking your apartment building’s laundry room. We are also seeing that digital communication and online platforms have become the norm, shaping how we work, learn and stay informed. But there are still significant disparities in both access and ability. Broadband coverage remains uneven, especially in some of the rural and remote areas in this region. And there are also varying levels of digital skills, both among and within different population groups. And these gaps continue to challenge inclusive digital participation. So it is important to recognize that not everyone is equally included in these digital societies. Certain population groups have been identified as being at risk of digital exclusion. And this slide provides a closer look at the various groups identified as at risk of digital exclusion. And at Nordregio, we have looked more closely at older adults, people with disabilities, immigrants, people with low or no education, rural communities, young people and people with low income. Now it is important to say that not everyone is equally included in these digital societies. And this slide provides a closer look at the various groups identified as at risk of digital everyone in these groups struggle with digitalization. Many are doing just fine. But overall, these are the groups that research consistently identifies as being more vulnerable to digital exclusion. And at NordicU we often describe digital exclusion as being multidimensional and context-specific. And what do we mean with this? By multidimensional we mean that people often become at risk when several factors overlap. For example, an older adult living in a rural area with limited income is likely to face more barriers than someone of the same age that is affluent and living in a well-connected urban area. And by context-specific we mean that different groups face different challenges in different parts of digital life. Some may struggle with access and usage of EIDs due to lack of devices or broadband. While others may find digital platforms difficult to navigate due to language or accessibility issues. So while the Nordic and Baltic countries are at the digital frontier in many areas, we see that a share of the population remains at risk of digital exclusion. So here is the Nordic and Baltic paradox. The more digital our societies become, the greater the risk of deepening the digital divide. And we’re seeing this divide emerge along familiar lines. Age, geography, disability, language and socioeconomic status. These gaps matter and they create significant consequences. So the consequences of this digital divide are profound and far-reaching. And they include, for example, not getting access to important information, missed job and education opportunities, barriers to civic engagement and democratic participation, limited access to health care, and other essential services, challenges in performing economic activities and increased risk of social isolation. So digital exclusion doesn’t just reflect existing inequalities, it can actually deepen them. So in our research, we have looked at what the most common barriers in the Nordic and Baltic countries are for digital inclusion. And you can see them here. And when we talk about digital inclusion, we usually divide them into two main categories. First, we have access barriers. These are about having the physical means to participate in digital life, like access to a stable internet connection or owning a digital device, such as a smartphone or computer. Second, we have capability barriers. And these relate to the skills and confidence needed to use digital tools. And this includes digital skills, but also literacy and language, and a lack of domain knowledge, and even a lack of trust, a feeling of security or willingness. And both types of barriers can prevent people from fully participating in our digital societies. And often, they overlap. So where do we stand today? What is the status of digital inclusion in the Nordic and Baltic region? This region is perceived as digitally advanced countries, and in many ways, that’s true. But the picture is more complex. We are leading in some areas, but we are lagging behind in others. And in our research, we can see that one key challenge is that there’s no shared understanding of what digital inclusion actually means across the region. This makes it harder to coordinate efforts and measure progress consistently, especially when we may not be talking about the same things. We also see that some groups remain at risk of exclusion, whether due to limited access, lack of digital skills, or insufficient support. Another issue that we see is the lack of user involvement in the design of digital solutions. Too often, services are built without input from the people who are most affected, those who are already at risk of being left out. So while we have made great strides, there is still important work to be done to ensure that digital inclusion is a reality for everyone in this region. So how do we move forward? To reach the digital divide in the Nordic and Baltic region, we need a lot of things. For example, we need more targeted policies, we need inclusive design, and we need expanded support systems that meet people where they are. On this note, key enablers of digital inclusion already exist in our communities. Libraries, civil society organizations, and municipal citizen services all play a vital role in reaching those who might otherwise be left behind. These actors often provide not just access, but also guidance, training, and human support. But these actors also need a mandate and support to work with these questions. Lastly, it is important to remember that not everyone can or wants to be digital. Maintaining analog services and alternative options is essential to ensure that everyone, regardless of their digital ability or willingness, can access the services they need and be a part of our societies. On that note, I end my presentation. Thank you so much for your time and attention. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our work in Nordic, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Fredrik Matheson: The final keynote, Irene, please join us on stage, and everyone, you absolutely have to check out the website, because when I was doing research for this panel and looking at the state of accessibility in Kenya, just fantastic efforts done, so I’m really looking forward to your keynote.

Irene Mbari-Kirika: Good afternoon, everyone. All protocol observed. So it’s with great honor that I stand before you at the Internet Governance Forum, a platform that champions open dialogue, shared responsibility and collective progress in our digital age. My name is Irene Barikirika, and I’m the founder and executive director of Enable, a nonprofit organization that’s based in Kenya with a mission to empower African youth with disabilities through technology. So for the last 15 years, we’ve been championing digital accessibility to ensure that persons with disabilities are not left out. At Enable, we believe in a future where no one is left behind in this digital revolution. Our assistive technology labs are located at at least eight schools for the blind in Kenya, provide blind and visually impaired students with essential digital skills to help them navigate the world independently. Using the power of collaboration in advancing accessibility, Enable hosts the Inclusive Africa Conference each year, bringing together local, regional, international stakeholders to co-create solutions for digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. One of the conference’s most significant outcomes has been the development of Kenya’s ICT accessibility standard, which is very important to note. It’s for products and services, and it’s the only one in Africa so far. But we do have plans. We are currently working with other African countries to scale these standards across the continent to accelerate Africa’s progress towards a more inclusive digital future. Last week, we received a powerful affirmation of our work when we were named to the Forbes 100 accessibility list. This global recognition celebrates the world’s most impactful organizations and innovations, driving progress in accessibility and disability inclusion. It validates our unwavering belief that persons with disabilities deserve dignity, opportunity, and full participation in the digital age. Ladies and gentlemen, according to the GSMA Mobile Accessibility Sub-Saharan Africa 2024 report, Africa is a mobile-fast economy. It’s a mobile-fast continent with smartphone penetration of about 52%, and it’s projected to go up to about 81% by 2030. The World Bank also estimates that Africa’s population will reach approximately 1.7 billion by 2030, with 70% of this population made up of young people between the ages of 15 to 24. This will make Africa the youngest continent in the world, and it is a well-established fact that global corporations must establish a strong presence in Africa or risk falling behind in the race for future growth and innovation. In Africa, we are already seeing the Gen Z awakening, where digital tools are driving civic participation, creativity, and most importantly, holding institutions and individuals accountable. These young people are our future, a generation of digital natives poised to shape the world. Yet among them, there are millions of brilliant, creative and determined youth with disabilities who risk being left behind, not due to a lack of talent or ambition, but because we have failed to design new technologies with their needs in mind. We must prepare African youth not for yesterday’s roles, but for the opportunities and demands of tomorrow. In today’s world, AI literacy is essential at every level, a critical tool to transforming the digital divide into a powerful economic opportunity for the next generation, especially for our young people. The global assistive technology market is projected to reach 32 billion by 2030. Africa must not only be a consumer, we must be a creator, a manufacturer and a global supplier of accessible technologies, designed and built on the continent by Africans for the world. Digital accessibility therefore is not a sentimental issue, it is a sound investment and a strategic opportunity for growth and innovation. African governments, including Kenya, have introduced tax incentives to support the development of digital solutions for the export market. Combined with rising literacy rates, increasing internet access and deeper hunger for success, this positions Africa as the next continent from which the world can innovate and where the next wave of digital breakthroughs will be born. Ladies and gentlemen, the journey towards mainstreaming digital accessibility for persons with disability in Africa is already underway. A case in point in my own home country, Kenya, which recently passed the landmark law for persons with disability. Accessibility Act of 2025. This law institutionalizes digital inclusion, aligning with the ICT accessibility standard and setting a strong example for the continent, meaning that compliance now is not an option, which is great for persons with disabilities to be included. Our vision for digital accessibility in Africa will require the expertise, knowledge and resources of everyone gathered here at this forum. The recently concluded 6th Inclusive Africa Conference has launched a series of year-round working groups aimed at sustaining momentum and driving measurable progress ahead of the seventh edition of next year of Inclusive Africa Conference. These groups present a valuable opportunity for individuals and organizations to connect with an established platform, contribute your expertise, resources and innovation to advance digital accessibility across Africa. I warmly invite all of you to join these working groups and actively shape a more inclusive and accessible future for everyone. May this year’s Internet Governance Forum be remembered as the moment when the global digital community came together to decisively champion digital inclusion for all. One second. And to advocate for a universal standard for digital accessibility, one that applies equally to developing countries as it does to the rest of the world. I keep saying that my mobile phone doesn’t change if I go to Africa or I come to Norway or I live in Washington, D.C. It’s the same mobile phone. So digital accessibility standards, we should be able to follow digital accessibility standards across from continent to continent and country to country. As I conclude, digital inclusion is not about making room at the table. It is about building a table where everyone has a seat and a voice. Thank you.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you, Irene, that was wonderful. All Protocol Observed is also the publisher of a newspaper called The Continent that some of you might be getting via email. I love how the ways of building digital technology have been super clever because they have a WhatsApp channel and an email delivery so you get a PDF so you don’t have to consume valuable network capacity. It’s such a brilliant way of shaping the products for local conditions and is super useful for reference later on also. So thank you everyone on Zoom. Remember to ask us questions. We’re going to have a little session now and then we’re going to open up the floor afterwards. So first I’m going to ask our Minister of International Development, Osmond Grever-Alqvist, what do you see as being the most persistent emerging barriers to digitalization? And not only that, what does regulation and how does standardization play books in guaranteeing universal accessibility and inclusive design help?

Asmund Grover Aukrust: Well, thank you for very good speeches that we just heard and I learned a lot from listening to my colleagues up here at the scene. Well I think digitalization creates so many possibilities. It creates so many possibilities for inclusion. As you finished up with, it’s the same mobile phone you can use in Kenya or in Sudan or in Washington D.C. or here at Lilleström. So, I mean, it really creates so many possibilities for inclusion. However, there is also a danger that this will create more inequality, because there will be a bigger division among those inside of the digital world and those outside. So, therefore, I think it’s very important that we are so vocal about this, and this should be a very important part of the discussion. We learned through the other speeches here, I mean, who are the groups that might be the most vulnerable. It could be elderly people, people with disabilities, people living in rural areas, people with lack of education that might be more vulnerable. And, of course, there will be different solutions and different ways to tackle these challenges. But I think, of course, the government has a really important role here, and a really important role of having universal designs and to reach out to its whole population. I know that when we’re talking about disabilities, I know that from the Norwegian side, we have been working together with Kenya in a way to have what we call the Global Disability Innovation Hub in Nairobi, which has created fantastic results. But as I started off with, I think the most important one is that we try to seek the barriers. And this is also, of course, a discussion that we need to have all the time, because the digital solutions, they are changing all the time. And therefore, we also need to change the policy as fast as the digitalization is moving forward.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you. question from Ima who is joining us via zoom. Let’s just make sure all the technology is With us. There you are. Very good so we have a question for you Ima and that is what strategies for regulation and Enforcement have proven effective in promoting digital inclusion across Europe and also What lessons should we take forward as digital policy evolves?

Inmaculada Porrero: Okay, so I mean building building up an agenda for the Accessibility it takes it takes really time and it takes times to prepare the field to Gain knowledge first about what are we talking about? It is not evident for people from this field to know. What do we mean by? digital inclusion and digital Accessibility I think it is What’s based on what we did in Europe? There was a need to have first that building up to identify the stakeholders to raise awareness to better understand The field but then once is done. I think we need to concretize what we mean by digital Accessibility and digital inclusion and the way of concretizing is to have specific policies that address the matters Policies that are reflected in general digital policies so that the general documents reflect well the Commitment and the right to be included in In the digital world by persons with disabilities in the digital development and to do that You need a specific and concrete actions on accessibility at the end What really worked in Europe and I think made really the change is The legislation to have clear legislation with Obligations for the private and the public sector to ensure that certain products, services, infrastructures that are going to be used and are used by people includes also, they comply with accessibility requirements so that persons with disabilities can use them and can access them on equal basis with others. Then, together with the legislation, we also need to have clear technical standards. And the strategy that we have used is really not to start from scratch. I think there is a lot already in this round table, these presentations that we just saw have illustrated this. There is already a lot being done. So should a country wish to advance on this matter and to improve the situation, I would say, look around. We did the same at the time that we were preparing our flagship legislation, the European Accessibility Act, and our standards include mandate EN 301549 resulting from mandate 376 at the time. I’m talking about 2005. We look around and we saw what countries that were more advanced on accessibility at the time were doing. In particular, we partnered with the US Access Board to have standards that were coherent. I’m really happy that now in different parts of the world, like Canada or Australia, the European standard is being used. And also, as Irini was reflecting, also this standard has been at the basis of the developments in Africa and in particular in Kenya. So I would say have clear objectives and put policies that raise awareness, that address and clarify what needs to be done, but then put it in legislation with clear deadlines, clear obligations, and clear enforcement. enforcement mechanism and use technical standards or technical specifications or regulations in order to say what exactly needs to be done. If all this goes hand in hand, we have a bigger chance to achieve the objective of digital inclusion. Thank you.

Fredrik Matheson: Very good. Thank you very much. Next up, we have a question for you, Pink, but I think you might have to hop over to the next chair so we can get you in front of the mic. I’m sorry. I should have told you that earlier. Sorry. I need to make sure we’re accessible and that everyone can hear us. This is Morton. So my question here is, in your work, you’ve emphasized the importance of a holistic multi-stakeholder collaboration involving governments, the private sector, and civil society, the three Ps, really, to tackle the complex and interconnected nature of digital divides. In practice, what does effective collaboration look like, and what are the biggest barriers that we need to overcome to make this work?

Yu Ping Chan: Thank you so much, Frederic. You’d mentioned, actually, part of the work that I’ve done at the United Nations, where I used to be in the Office of the Tech Envoy, and now from the United Nations Development Program, that question that you asked in terms of what have we seen that works and what are the barriers that we see in countries is particularly important, particularly profound. I want to really emphasize the point that Irene had raised, where we’re really looking at challenges that the whole world faces. So for instance, Maya had spoken about the challenges in the Nordic and the Baltic regions. Immaculata had just talked about the European challenges. But think how much more profound the challenges are in the global South and the global majority in developing countries itself, where they don’t have the legislature, the infrastructure, the skills, the capacity, and a lot of these public services that are present in richer, industrialized, and developed countries. And those are the challenges that we as UNDP, serving in 170 countries… and territories around the world have to contend with when we try our best to support the national governments and the developing countries that we work with. So for instance, when we talk about digital inclusion and we talk about inequalities, it’s not just those inequalities within societies and within groups as well. It’s also the divides that exist between countries. And that’s particularly important if we are gathering together as a global community, talking about digital issues and digital cooperation. So for instance, as we talk about the opportunity that AI brings, we also have to recognize that the future AI revolution could also exacerbate already existing inequalities. When for instance, it’s projected that only 10% of the global economic value generated by AI in 2030 will accrue to the global South countries, except for China. When you consider the fact that right now, over 95% of top AI talent is concentrated in only six research universities in the US and China, you think about the fact that perhaps the global opportunity that is posed by AI will fundamentally leave behind many of these developing countries and widen the inaccessibility and the exclusion that they actually currently actually address and feel when it comes to issues such as accessibility, affordability, connectivity, and so forth. So that is a fundamental concern from the perspective of the UNDP and what we would think is a fundamental barrier to considering the question of digital inclusion. And then when you come to the practical level, for instance, right, you also have techno-fragmentation. So the minister emphasized the importance of the role of government, but it’s actually a role of government that needs to be holistic and comprehensive. It can’t be individual tech solutions that are designed by one ministry for a particular case for a particular situation at a time. What we need to think about are digital foundations that cut across the entirety of government, that are interoperable. This is where, for instance, the minister’s emphasis on digital public infrastructure is something that the United Nations Development Programme also focuses on, that we’re creating these digital frameworks that, like the roads, the railway systems, that allow the burgeoning of a society and economy must also undergird the entirety of delivery of public services in a country. So that kind of inclusion needs to be intentional from the start. Then also, for instance, Frederick, you had mentioned the importance of all of society, the different Ps that you mentioned. So indeed we need a whole-of-society approach, where it’s the private sector also working with government, with a people-centered focus, to ensure this type of delivery. So these are all important aspects where we as UNDP really think that we need to have a more comprehensive, holistic approach to supporting national governments, both in developed countries, but particularly for developing countries as well. The last point I want to underscore is really the importance of local ecosystems. We need to build capacity in developing countries to, exactly as Irene said, be co-creators in this digital and AI future. And that requires skills, investments, global capacity building and upskilling, and as well as additional resources that are put into these types of efforts around the world.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you. Thank you very much. We’re going to head on next to Dan Hjörblom, Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. And my question for you is, what policy levers are most effective to reach underserved populations? And what can regulators do to drive this kind of equitable access without stifling innovation? And this is something I see in my neighborhood where we have kids come over and they need Wi-Fi because they have old phones, but they don’t have a subscription. Their parents can’t afford to have a subscription for each of their kids. And then they’ve come up with this hack where they call via Snapchat or FaceTime. FaceTime doesn’t work because there’s no ID connected to it. So there’s sort of these workarounds. But my question is more, what about like at the policy level? What can we do?

Dan Sjoblom: Yes. Thank you for that question. I’d like to say, I think, three things. How we have addressed some of those things in my authority and things. we do. First, I’d like to say just that being a telecom regulator has changed dramatically over the last years. I think anyone who works in that business in the room will recognize that we are drifting from telecoms into ICT and into digital, and it’s a whole new environment and a much, much more complex one where also from a government standpoint, it’s getting more and more difficult because these policies are cross-cutting in a way that we haven’t seen before. So a lot of collaboration needed at local, national and international levels, which makes me happy to be here today. Now on connectivity, which is the first step, everyone needs to be connected. We have had for a long time a policy where we want to establish stable market conditions for private entrepreneurs to build out connectivity, both fixed and mobile, and that has taken us very far. We have now, I think, above 98% connectivity. People can connect to high-speed internet, over 98% of everyone in the country. But that is just the first step, and we want to get to 100%, so there’s also a subsidy program which we are running with the aim of getting everyone up to be able to connect. But as we’ve heard other speakers in this panel mentioning, we see that with the 98% able to connect, there’s a much lower percentage of actually connecting. And why is that, and how do you address that? We heard the currently weaker groups. We also heard, I think, good comments about this is an ongoing development, so those who are in the weaker groups today, or not in the weak groups today, may well find themselves in weak groups tomorrow and AI is of course a very big challenge for anyone to become connected and work with. So we have developed or we have a program which is called Digital Today at the regulator in Sweden which we are very happy and proud about. It works with other government services, it works with municipalities, it works with academia, but most importantly it works with civic society which I think is really the key message here. Because when you find those who can connect but have chosen for various reasons not to connect, it often links to feeling unsafe on the internet. It’s a dangerous place, online safety is not where it should be and cyber security is, I think we’re all working very hard on cyber security but it’s not getting easier to keep up with those who are trying to defraud us of our funds or create problems of many kinds on the internet. And we have come I think to the stage where many of us don’t pick up the phone if we don’t see that the caller is somebody you know and that’s very different from 20 years ago when you of course never knew who called when you used to pick up the phone. But working with the trusted institution like libraries were mentioned earlier but also working with the civic societies associations that are there for these weaker groups is a very powerful means. So we have in this digital today program we have close to 400 of those organizations that come together and we create platform material that can be used by everyone and we go out and we meet people with their trusted representatives, and that’s very powerful. And the last thing I wanted to mention, coming back to international collaboration, is that we are very proud as well to have been, for over now seven years, in a program called IPRES today, it used to be called SPIDER, where we collaborate with 25 sub-Saharan national countries, and we run peer-to-peer learning and sharing development issues projects. I think they are presented out here in the stands, so anyone interested in the IPRES program run by the regulator, us, and the Stockholm University, please go out and have a chat with them, and there are many good stories from that, and experiences. Thank you.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you very much. Irene, okay, so now I’m super excited. So we’ve seen how local and community-driven innovation can make a real difference. One thing is the practical application of it, but then also there’s the next-level effects that can come from it. So from your experience, what are some promising examples of such solutions, and how can we build them in a sustainable way, so it’s not just a one-off, it’s something that can really run over time?

Irene Mbari-Kirika: Thank you for that question. So first off, I’ll say that at Inclusive Africa, as part of Enable, what we did is we realised that Africans are coming up with solutions, assistive technologies, accessibility solutions, but they have no way of pushing these products out to market or promoting them for more people to use. So at the conference, we started something we call the AT Village, and AT stands for assistive technology. And really what happens every year is we do a call for proposals where people submit are the innovations they’ve developed. And most of the time we get about almost 100 innovations from various African countries. And like this year, I think we had about 15 being showcased. And the whole idea is to make sure we showcase these innovations at Inclusive Africa and online so that the innovators can get the support they need. So a good example, you’ll find the person who came up with the idea for the innovation may just be a developer who has maybe a sibling or a cousin who has a disability. And they were trying to figure out, how do we make this happen? And I’m going to speak an example of one product called SignVerse. SignVerse, it was due to lack of communication between the innovator and a friend who was deaf. And because of lack of sign language interpreters, he was like, how can we come up with a solution? And they came up with an AI-based solution to help at least bridge the gap. Because we all know sign language interpreters are very critical, but that model is not scalable. And if you think about Africa, most countries, and just starting with Kenya alone, there are different versions of sign language depending on what your tribe is, what your dialect is, whether you speak English, whether you speak French, Portuguese, and all that. So by the time you have all those sign language interpreters lined up for you, it becomes very complex and very expensive. But this young man developed a product that now it works for Kenya, for the Kenyan market. And now what he’s doing, he’s using AI. In Rwanda and other countries, trying to see what can I do to make sure that my solution for sign language interpretation can be used in various African countries. Because of the difference in sign language, he’s trying to gather a lot of data to be able to at least come up with a good solution. And currently it’s working. Of course he has challenges. Data sets are a big challenge. And that’s where we come in. How do we help African innovators meet their needs? Some of them are just developers with great ideas and it ends there. and they’ll develop a great product. They need to take this product to market. How do we help them design, package, and bring this product to market? How do we help with financing? So those are some of the issues I believe we can help and we can support the African community and African innovators when it comes to really helping bridge this digital divide. Thank you.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you. I’m so glad to hear he’s also traveling around to figure out what are the local dialects and flavors of it. Every time I pick up my phone, which was made by somebody in California, the software, I have to contend with all sorts of cultural issues. Like, no, you don’t write that way. Yes, I do. That’s how it works in our language. And that kind of thing is just incredibly important to tackle from the start. Okay, Malin, a question for you. So digital inclusion as a human rights issue, how should we understand that? And why do you think it’s critical to frame it in that way in today’s digital landscape? Like inclusion is important, then you frame it as human rights. That’s really interesting. What’s the effect?

Malin Rygg: Well, I think one of the big, or what we’ve seen the last years is that before we talked about digital services and we talk about people like they’re consumers of digital services and they can maybe opt out or if they can’t use them, we’re gonna train them and give them digital skills so they can use them. But at the moment, you see digital services so intertwined with education, with work, with just being able to express yourself in a debate or in newspapers. So by kind of dividing this into connectivity and digital skills, I think we are also losing one part in the middle, which is what Yuping was talking about, how are these services made? A lot of them have just grown from tech companies. from public entities that are making, you know, trying to solve their problem. But when the effect is that you actually, you educate through them, you make it, you know, you have to use them in the workplace, you have to use them to do anything, analog services might be off the table. We see that very clearly in Norway, that if you are actually digitally excluded, for instance, if you have a disability, although you might be digitally very skilled, but the service just doesn’t work for you, or if you don’t have the ID, for instance, that you can use, you actually are in some areas so excluded that you are not able to participate at all. And we did a report with the authority for a survey of a digital education in the primary school in Norway, where we see that, you know, children with dyslexia or visual impairment, they are sometimes actually so digitally excluded that they don’t have the equal right to education that other children have. And that is in a very digital society as ours. So that is why we have to kind of change the mindset, not just talking about digital services being offered to the public, but you actually have to talk about this as one of the key components that you have to have in place for people to participate in all kinds of life. And just to add, it was very interesting, Jyping, with your perspective of, you know, we are also actually excluding parts of the global population, not only the individuals in each country. So thank you for that. It’s very interesting.

Fredrik Matheson: There is a really neat thing in Norway when your kid is getting ready to go to high school. You as a parent will want to check out the different study offerings and, you know, what can they do. And the thing I absolutely love about it is that the agency that handles all the information has translated it to pretty much every language spoken in Norway. So not just the official languages. So if you only speak Filipino, like some of the parents at our school, and you want your kid to study design, you can actually go and check out the curriculum at quite a detailed level. And that kind of inclusivity, so it’s not just the individual who is able to access some system, but it’s also their parents, people around them, ability to frame and anchor those things. There are so many incredibly important parts of this, and for those of you living in Norway who have kids, the sort of rite of passage, I will jokingly say, is getting your EID, because that enables you to actually do stuff. So we have a mobile payment app here, and the kids are like, when can I start using it? Because before that everything is impossible, because nobody will take cash, so you just have to have it. And that’s a very good framing, I think, to use human rights, because then you have individuals who are not, they’re not old enough to be able to drive or vote, but they still have these rights that need to be met by the systems that we have. And I think human rights is a much stronger way of framing it, as opposed to, oh it’s convenient that you could, you know, buy a ticket for the bus when you’re a kid. All of that. Which leads us to Maja, loved your presentation, and you showed us some of the groups that were at risk of exclusion. So are there any particular groups you would like to highlight? Because we see that, you know, the Nordics and Baltics, we can call ourselves front-runner countries, but in many ways it means we’re lifting up to a level where a lot of people are potentially being left behind. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, exactly, I agree

Maja Brynteson: with that. And so across the Nordic and Baltic countries, there are three groups who everyone is talking about, and it’s older adults, it’s people with disabilities, and immigrants. And then in some countries, such as in Sweden and also Norway, I think it is. we do talk more about the rural communities because we have this connectivity issue that maybe Denmark doesn’t have because it’s a much smaller country compared to Sweden and Norway. And so we see that there are these groups that we and other research consistently identify as being more vulnerable and as I said not everyone in these groups are actually at risk. Many are very very digitally capable. But I think what we need to talk about as well is that these groups they often face similar challenges. So whether you’re an immigrant with lack of domain knowledge that’s also true for some youths that we see they also lack this domain knowledge. So even though there are different groups there are similar challenges across these groups. And some of the countries especially in the Nordics they have stopped actually talking about target groups. They talk more about like the common barriers common solutions approach that we need to identify the most common barriers and then implement solutions that cut across all of these population groups. And I think that’s going to be interesting to follow the next five or ten years how that will work out.

Fredrik Matheson: Fantastic. The necessity of understanding systems in society that are highly digital is something which is very very complicated. So I remember I studied in Finland and all I had to do was call an office on the phone. My boss said call this number you’ll get a national ID. And like a day later I had a national ID. I didn’t have to do anything. The same when I studied in Singapore I just met up. Of course there was somebody to help out do this stamp here look here sign that boom everything works right. It’s fantastic. We have some of the same things in Norway but when you don’t fit in that system. good luck, because then nothing works. You can’t get a phone, so any idea about connectivity, you’re not, nobody’s going to be able to call you, any other sort of rights things or logging into a public website, good luck with that. None of that works anymore. And even if you do have these things, just yesterday, so my oldest daughter is an athletics coach for kids this summer. It’s her first job, she’s 16, and of course Norway is a very well regulated society, so there has to be a so-called police certificate of conduct that can be applied for by the sports group at the athletics team. And to do this, she has to go to a website, she has to sign up with her national ID number, she has to use her bank ID, she has to sign different things, and of course the digital public infrastructure is in many ways very helpful, because it’s all digital. But then there’s something inside that process that required my signature, like a photo of my signature, where me as a designer developing these kinds of services thinking, what’s happening here? But then I look over at her and she’s just completely confused by what are these alien concepts that I’m referring to, because I can sort of see the invisible rules behind all of this. This needs to happen, this needs to be approved, this is going to be the flow. Whereas the screen design is not appropriate for it, there’s not enough supporting information, and many times you can go through the flow and you’ll get it to work, just like you’ll be able to book a plane ticket, but you don’t come out with any understanding of the overall system, it doesn’t upskill. And this is a really important thing in the digital playbook here for inclusion, that the fact that we need to upskill and help people understand. And this is one thing I always find to be lacking, that it goes back to legislation. The legislation has typically not been written to be usable, so there are some experiments with that in Norway now to make them more usable. But these are the things I worry a lot about, because society being so digital means that also people who are… They are connected, they have phones, they have enough money to have a subscription with enough data, and they are fully able to use the devices in all sorts of ways. But then conceptually, they will struggle to understand, how do I apply these different rules? And that’s just like the really skilled ones. Then we have everyone else. So a question for you as a group is, if we don’t close these digital gaps now, what kind of long-term consequences are we facing socially, economically, imagine politically? Any takers?

Malin Rygg: Well, I just want to, because your story just reminds me of a very important point that I didn’t say before, but that is that when we talk about these groups that are vulnerable, and we are talking about like including them, it’s very paternalistic kind of viewpoint, kind of talking, we are all in this bubble and we can include more people and they are just sitting out there and it’s just like faceless groups. These are people that are young people, they are people able to work, they are also older people that all have potentials, all have things to, they just want to do their, you know, everyday life. It’s not like they’re useless and just needs to be included so that, you know, more are included. These are people that are needed in society as your 16-year-old daughter. So I think it’s very important that we kind of really shift the focus, you know, although inclusion is a good term, it mustn’t kind of cloud the point that people just want to contribute and be a part of society and we want them to contribute. These are very important contributions. As Irene was saying about innovation in Africa, we want them to innovate, you know, for the whole international community. So we have to make. more of an effort to make that happen, not just go along and then just say okay and maybe we could include some more. We actually have to kind of see that this

Irene Mbari-Kirika: is the potential going forward. Thank you and just to add to what Malini is talking about, if you think about it for me it’s more of a business, if you think about your business, it’s more of a business benefit. Think about it this way, 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability, 15 to 20 percent depending on where you are and today I’ll name one industry, financial services is the most difficult, the most, the one that truly leaves person with disabilities behind and I’ll give an example. Most people, let me talk about Africa and even the US, what happens is if your banking products are not accessible, online banking or on mobile money applications and stuff like that, if someone is blind and they’re not able to access that product using their assistive technology, they have to get their friend or their neighbor or somebody to transact for them and really when we talk about safety and security in the whole financial process, that goes out the door but also just the independence and dignity that someone has. So what we are saying is it’s important we invest in that space because if you make your digital products accessible, if it’s in financial services, you will have more people with disabilities using your products independently. So focusing on the needs of the users, not what we perceive it to be, really designing and building products with users with disabilities. Get them to be part of the process from the beginning till the end. I always say you cannot go ahead and manufacture a shoe for someone and sell it in the market if someone, no human being has ever tried that shoe. So if you have people with disabilities testing the product and giving feedback, by the time you’re done with that product a lot of people with various abilities will be able to use it because you’ve taken care of some of the most difficult challenges they may be able to experience. So I’m saying this to say that we need to think of it as a business benefit and a way to capture that 15% of the market share that no one has tapped into. Thank you.

Asmund Grover Aukrust: Thank you, and an excellent question. And I think, I mean, the main answer for what you’re asking, if we’re not able to close the digital gap, is that we will have increased inequality. And the consequences will be very dramatic, I mean, both for each individual, but also for our society, because we will not reach our other goals in society concerning employment, education, and so on. If people are not able to fill out an application for getting to school, I think in Norway, if 15 years old, they are not filling out their application, I mean, the system will bring them back in. But for higher education, or for employment, or also to register for paying taxes and so on, or creating your own businesses, I mean, you are on your own. And so I think it’s extremely important, especially when it’s talking about digitalization, that we have this principle of leaving no one behind. And now we are talking about, this is from a Norwegian perspective, but in other countries, I mean, the inclusion is even more dramatic concerning the access to, I mean, just think about access to electricity. In so many countries, you don’t have electricity, it’s almost impossible to be digital without electricity. So therefore, digitalization should be very much higher also on the development agenda. And therefore, it’s important for me to be here and also to be listening to this discussion, because the digital solution… are creating so many possibilities, but it might also create so many problems if you’re not dealing with this in the right way and also with the principle of leaving no one behind.

Yu Ping Chan: Just to say again that I, from the United Nations Development Programme, we fully subscribe to what the minister has just said. Digitalization and digital transformation is truly part of development. If we see the potential of digital and AI, we need to recognize its potential to be an accelerator of development and achievement of the SDGs itself. And this fundamentally means that we have to look to what it means for developing countries. I particularly like this human rights framing around digital inclusion, because if you think about other parts of human rights, the right to information, the right to education, the right to employment in some cases, the right to the highest level of physical and mental health, all of this is inextricably tied up to digital technologies these days, right? And so perhaps it was COVID that brought that realization home to everyone, how intrinsic the need is to have these types of digital services and platforms and how it’s fundamental to these achievement of these basic rights. So the more we understand the way in which our lives are now tied up with this particular device that we use all the time, the more we’ll anticipate the need for governments, all of sector and all of these different stakeholders that are present here today to be part of that conversation around how we actualize a more meaningful digital society for everyone. And that is something that it’s not just a challenge for Norway and Europe, but also for the rest of the world and the international community that we function in.

Fredrik Matheson: Don?

Dan Sjoblom: Yes, no, I fully subscribe to what everyone has said. I just wanted to make maybe one comment and one little hopeful thought. First comment, I think we need to realize that we are in the beginning of a digitalization. This is not something which will be done in a few years time. And I think this has to remain high on the agenda. And I think we have come to the stage where we have realization that this is cross-cutting. It affects every minister’s portfolio, which is very clear back home. I mean, I report to one of the ministers, but everyone has digital in his or her portfolio. And then the importance of standard has been mentioned. And I think that’s something we need to continue to have very high up on the agenda. I think we have, within Europe, we have the accessibility directive, as was mentioned earlier on. We have the work on the digital wallet, which is ongoing. And I’m just hoping that those can, within the UN system and globally, be reached out so that we can see a future where we have universal design, which is really universal, or global at least. It’s not so hopeful maybe today with the global situation being what it is, but we have to keep working on it.

Fredrik Matheson: So a fun fact about Norway is that in the 1960s, there was very limited connectivity. It was difficult to have enough budgets to actually roll out telecommunications. And one of the impacts was, number one, when a village was connected, that was a huge celebration because finally there was a phone. And if you were a doctor, you could get one extra upstairs. It was very hard to get hold of. But there was a thing happening among the telcos, which is that companies would be acquired for their phone lines. So if you had a company in Oslo, for example, and it had like 40 lines going in, then a company might buy you and then take 30 of them and then sell you again, because that would be a way to get more connectivity. And it seems impossible to understand, but this is how they would optimize for business at the time. The same in the Philippines where I grew up. The big parole for all the politicians was water, power, and phone. That was the big thing. Now, I work in an energy company, and the energy future is changing with solar and wind. And one thing I’m very excited to see that I think will be happening in many places is that power can become… available, and then computing can become available, and then telecommunications can become available in ways that might seem unfamiliar to people in Scandinavia, in the Nordics, in the Baltics, in the Global North, and that there could be completely different ways of doing this where we can learn how these technologies can be made accessible. But I keep coming back to one really important point which is hard to solve. This is actually to get people who, like me, develop digital systems to, number one, know what accessibility is and be familiar with the WCAG or EN 301549 standards. This is surprisingly difficult for those people because I think, as some of the other panels today and throughout the week will point to, much of the private sector development of technology happens in a context where people are completely unaware of legislation even existing, like the idea that there should be a requirement. So this, I think, might have a point on how we can get even more developers, designers, product managers, technologists to take this very seriously. From what I understand, in the Irish version of accessibility rules, it’s a corporate law, so if you don’t follow it, you go to jail. Maybe. Any more comments? We just have to unmute you.

Inmaculada Porrero: Okay, sorry, I’m muted now. So let me tell you, first of all, that the line is not very good in terms of hearing what you were saying, so I hope that what I’m going to tell you really fits into the precise moment of the discussion. But before doing that, and I understood you were asking me how can we reach the knowledge gap, I would like to say that I fully agree with the fact that digital inclusion, accessibility as a precondition for digital inclusion for persons with disabilities should be in all digital developments that are going to be used by people because otherwise, de facto, we are excluding persons with disabilities. And it is not only about having a specific policy setting what the accessibility requirements are but really to mainstream also these requirements in other policies, whether we are talking about procurement, issues have been mentioned here about funds, development funds, well also internal funds. Also when we talk about imports, imports in our all different countries, conditions should be set to ensure that we have a common level playing field so that companies inside our countries that have to comply with accessibility requirements, compete on equal conditions with those that are maybe coming from countries for which they have no requirements but they want to enter countries in which they have requirements. So it’s really important in that context to set coherent requirements across the globe. We said technology is global and this is really essential. Now, we have now, I mean, we have seen an important evolution in the field of accessibility. While several years ago a lot of work was happening, what is accessibility? How do you define, how it relates to the products, how it relates to the services? Now that is pretty clear. We have accessibility requirements for different types of components of digital elements, whether it is the website, the user interfaces, the content, requirements are clear and those requirements are going to be usable also in new digital products and services because they all would have a user interface. interface, maybe a different user interface, but from a functional point of view those requirements would be there. Now, what is the problem now? The problem now is, I would say, or the challenge now is to have that knowledge that there is available about what is accessibility translated into laws and into policies that are enforceable and that are checkable so that it is possible to see whether the products and the services and the infrastructures comply with those requirements. That’s one thing. The other challenge that we have is indeed having the persons, the experts, the engineers, the manufacturers, the service providers, competent on accessibility so that they really have the capacity to implement to that end. I mean, we are undertaking a big effort in Europe to train, to provide training, to raise awareness, but at the end of the day, in order to have this sustainable, we need to turn out to those institutions which are providing training in digital technologies, in ICT. If those institutions, whether it’s university, technical high schools, professional organisations, would not embrace accessibility as part of their curriculum, as part of their efforts to train and upgrade the knowledge and bring competencies to the professionals in the field, it will be very difficult to implement accessibility. And I know it’s a challenge on one hand because you are facing the freedom of universities, for example, to decide what curriculum they have. But there should be something that needs to be done, that can be done, by authorities in order to make sure that the new generations of professionals are equipped with accessibility knowledge and skills and competencies. and that current professionals can upgrade their knowledge in order to be able to deliver on accessibility as it is required. So I hope I have addressed the point that you were concerned with.

Fredrik Matheson: Thank you so much. Thank you. We are at the end of our keynotes and panels and discussions. I’m hugely grateful to the panel. A few things that you should all go off and read is the digital inclusion playbook from cover to cover, essentially, from the UNDP. You should also go and check out the Kenya standard for accessibility. Because just as Ima was talking about, the fact that we can have standards that are conformant with each other, that are in sync with each other, makes sense. Because once you know how to do things in one place, you’ll know how to make it work in other countries as well. And also, this connection of innovation and insight from across the world is incredibly exciting. Because accessibility and inclusiveness is something we need to do globally. So we need to be set up for that. And everyone who works on software, owns, or funds, or helps make software and digital services happen need to take this to heart. Because we are, in many ways, reshaping society. So let’s not do it inclusively. Let’s have a big round of applause for our panel. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement points

Digital inclusion is a fundamental human rights issue

Speakers

– Asmund Grover Aukrust
– Malin Rygg
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

Meaningful connectivity is about basic human rights, including the right of information and freedom of expression

Digital exclusion reinforces social exclusion. It reinforces it in education, employment, but also for democratic participation and freedom of speech

If you think about other parts of human rights, the right to information, the right to education, the right to employment in some cases, the right to the highest level of physical and mental health, all of this is inextricably tied up to digital technologies these days

Summary

All three speakers frame digital inclusion not as a convenience or service issue, but as a fundamental human rights matter that affects access to information, freedom of expression, education, employment, and democratic participation.

Topics

Human rights | Development

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for effective digital inclusion

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan
– Dan Sjoblom
– Asmund Grover Aukrust

Arguments

We need a whole-of-society approach, where it’s the private sector also working with government, with a people-centered focus, to ensure this type of delivery

Libraries, civil society organizations, and municipal citizen services all play a vital role in reaching those who might otherwise be left behind

Digital public infrastructure encourages competition and fosters innovation and fiscal resilience, and it can generate spillover effects across society, institutions, markets and businesses

Summary

Speakers agree that addressing digital inclusion requires coordinated efforts across government, private sector, and civil society organizations, with each playing crucial complementary roles.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Failure to address digital divides will increase inequality and have severe societal consequences

Speakers

– Asmund Grover Aukrust
– Maja Brynteson
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

If people are not able to fill out an application for getting to school, or for higher education, or for employment, or also to register for paying taxes and so on, or creating your own businesses, I mean, you are on your own

Digital exclusion doesn’t just reflect existing inequalities, it can actually deepen them

The future AI revolution could exacerbate already existing inequalities

Summary

All speakers warn that unaddressed digital divides will not only perpetuate but actively worsen existing inequalities, creating cascading effects across education, employment, and social participation.

Topics

Development | Economic | Human rights

Standards and regulatory frameworks are crucial for ensuring accessibility

Speakers

– Inmaculada Porrero
– Irene Mbari-Kirika
– Dan Sjoblom

Arguments

What really worked in Europe is legislation with clear obligations, clear deadlines, and clear enforcement mechanisms, combined with technical standards like EN 301549

Kenya recently passed the landmark law for persons with disability Accessibility Act of 2025. This law institutionalizes digital inclusion, aligning with the ICT accessibility standard

The importance of standard has been mentioned. And I think that’s something we need to continue to have very high up on the agenda

Summary

Speakers agree that clear legal frameworks combined with technical standards are essential for making real progress on digital accessibility and inclusion.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Rights of persons with disabilities

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the significant size of the disability community globally and the importance of designing accessible systems from the start rather than retrofitting, viewing this as both a rights issue and business opportunity.

Speakers

– Malin Rygg
– Irene Mbari-Kirika

Arguments

1.3 billion people worldwide live with a disability. That is one in six of us

15% of the global population lives with some form of disability

Topics

Rights of persons with disabilities | Economic

Both speakers recognize that digital exclusion operates at multiple levels – within societies affecting vulnerable groups, and between countries creating global inequalities that could be exacerbated by emerging technologies like AI.

Speakers

– Maja Brynteson
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

Digital exclusion is multidimensional and context-specific, affecting vulnerable groups like elderly, disabled, immigrants, rural communities, and low-income populations

Global inequalities exist between countries, with only 10% of AI economic value projected to accrue to Global South countries except China

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers see the Global South, particularly Africa, as having the opportunity to build better, more inclusive digital systems from the ground up rather than retrofitting accessibility later, with local innovation being key to this process.

Speakers

– Malin Rygg
– Irene Mbari-Kirika

Arguments

Africa can leapfrog ahead by learning from others’ mistakes and building accessibility standards from day one

African innovators are developing assistive technologies but need support for market access, financing, and scaling solutions

Topics

Development | Innovation and Local Solutions

Unexpected consensus

Business and economic benefits of accessibility

Speakers

– Irene Mbari-Kirika
– Asmund Grover Aukrust
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

The global assistive technology market is projected to reach 32 billion by 2030. Africa must not only be a consumer, we must be a creator, a manufacturer and a global supplier of accessible technologies

Digital public infrastructure encourages competition and fosters innovation and fiscal resilience, and it can generate spillover effects across society, institutions, markets and businesses

If we see the potential of digital and AI, we need to recognize its potential to be an accelerator of development and achievement of the SDGs itself

Explanation

Unexpectedly, speakers from different sectors (advocacy, government, UN) all emphasized the economic and business case for digital inclusion, moving beyond just moral or rights-based arguments to highlight market opportunities and economic development benefits.

Topics

Economic | Development

Need for analog alternatives and choice

Speakers

– Maja Brynteson
– Dan Sjoblom

Arguments

Not everyone can or wants to be digital. Maintaining analog services and alternative options is essential to ensure that everyone, regardless of their digital ability or willingness, can access the services they need

Working with trusted representatives and peer-to-peer learning programs can effectively address digital exclusion

Explanation

Surprisingly, even in a discussion focused on digital inclusion, there was consensus that maintaining non-digital alternatives is essential, recognizing that full digitalization may not be appropriate or desired for everyone.

Topics

Development | Human rights

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkably high consensus across multiple dimensions of digital inclusion, agreeing on its status as a human rights issue, the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration, the importance of regulatory frameworks and standards, and the severe consequences of inaction. They also shared views on the economic opportunities presented by accessibility and the need to maintain alternatives for those who cannot or choose not to engage digitally.

Consensus level

Very high consensus with strong alignment on fundamental principles and approaches. This level of agreement across speakers from different sectors (government, UN, academia, advocacy, regulation) suggests a mature understanding of digital inclusion challenges and broad support for comprehensive, rights-based solutions. The consensus implies strong potential for coordinated global action on digital inclusion policies and initiatives.

Different viewpoints

Approach to supporting vulnerable populations – targeted vs. universal design

Speakers

– Maja Brynteson
– Malin Rygg

Arguments

Digital exclusion is multidimensional and context-specific, affecting vulnerable groups like elderly, disabled, immigrants, rural communities, and low-income populations

Digital services are now intertwined with basic rights like education, work, and civic participation, making exclusion a rights violation

Summary

Maja advocates for identifying specific vulnerable groups and their particular challenges, while Malin emphasizes moving away from targeting specific groups toward universal human rights-based approaches that benefit everyone

Topics

Human rights | Development

Role of analog alternatives in digital societies

Speakers

– Maja Brynteson
– Malin Rygg

Arguments

Maintaining analog services and alternative options is essential for those who cannot or choose not to be digital

Digital services are now intertwined with basic rights like education, work, and civic participation, making exclusion a rights violation

Summary

Maja argues for maintaining analog alternatives for those who cannot or choose not to be digital, while Malin’s framing suggests digital access is so fundamental to rights that analog alternatives may be insufficient

Topics

Human rights | Development

Unexpected differences

Framing of inclusion – paternalistic vs. empowerment approach

Speakers

– Malin Rygg
– Other speakers

Arguments

Digital services are now intertwined with basic rights like education, work, and civic participation, making exclusion a rights violation

Various arguments about including vulnerable groups

Explanation

Malin unexpectedly challenged the entire framing used by other speakers, arguing that talking about ‘including’ vulnerable groups is paternalistic and that the focus should be on people wanting to contribute rather than needing to be included

Topics

Human rights | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus on core issues with only subtle disagreements on approaches and framing. Main areas of difference were around targeting specific groups vs. universal approaches, maintaining analog alternatives vs. digital-first strategies, and gradual vs. immediate implementation of universal standards.

Disagreement level

Low level of disagreement with high consensus on fundamental goals. The disagreements were primarily methodological rather than philosophical, suggesting strong potential for collaborative solutions. The unexpected challenge to paternalistic framing was constructive and helped refine the discussion toward more empowering approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the significant size of the disability community globally and the importance of designing accessible systems from the start rather than retrofitting, viewing this as both a rights issue and business opportunity.

Speakers

– Malin Rygg
– Irene Mbari-Kirika

Arguments

1.3 billion people worldwide live with a disability. That is one in six of us

15% of the global population lives with some form of disability

Topics

Rights of persons with disabilities | Economic

Both speakers recognize that digital exclusion operates at multiple levels – within societies affecting vulnerable groups, and between countries creating global inequalities that could be exacerbated by emerging technologies like AI.

Speakers

– Maja Brynteson
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

Digital exclusion is multidimensional and context-specific, affecting vulnerable groups like elderly, disabled, immigrants, rural communities, and low-income populations

Global inequalities exist between countries, with only 10% of AI economic value projected to accrue to Global South countries except China

Topics

Development | Economic

Both speakers see the Global South, particularly Africa, as having the opportunity to build better, more inclusive digital systems from the ground up rather than retrofitting accessibility later, with local innovation being key to this process.

Speakers

– Malin Rygg
– Irene Mbari-Kirika

Arguments

Africa can leapfrog ahead by learning from others’ mistakes and building accessibility standards from day one

African innovators are developing assistive technologies but need support for market access, financing, and scaling solutions

Topics

Development | Innovation and Local Solutions

Key takeaways

Digital inclusion must be framed as a human rights issue rather than just a convenience or service delivery matter, as digital services are now essential for education, employment, healthcare, and civic participation

The ‘Nordic-Baltic paradox’ demonstrates that even highly digitalized societies can deepen digital divides as expectations rise and analog alternatives disappear

Meaningful connectivity goes beyond infrastructure coverage to address usage barriers including affordability, digital literacy, trust, safety, and accessibility

Digital exclusion is multidimensional and context-specific, often affecting overlapping vulnerable groups including elderly, disabled, immigrants, rural communities, and low-income populations

Effective digital inclusion requires a three-dimensional approach: connectivity (infrastructure and devices), accessibility (universal design and standards), and digital skills (literacy and confidence)

Clear legislation with enforcement mechanisms, combined with technical standards and multi-stakeholder collaboration, is essential for sustainable progress

Local innovation and community-driven solutions, particularly from the Global South, can leapfrog traditional development approaches and create scalable accessibility solutions

Digital accessibility represents significant untapped economic potential, with 15% of the global population living with disabilities representing an underserved market

The private sector development community often lacks awareness of accessibility requirements and legislation, creating a critical knowledge gap that must be addressed through education and training

Resolutions and action items

Participants were invited to join year-round working groups launched by the Inclusive Africa Conference to sustain momentum and drive measurable progress

UNDP’s digital inclusion playbook and Kenya’s ICT accessibility standard were recommended as resources for global implementation

Need to integrate accessibility training into university curricula and professional development programs for ICT professionals

Recommendation to mainstream accessibility requirements across all digital policies including procurement, funding, and import regulations

Call for universal digital accessibility standards that apply equally across developing and developed countries

Emphasis on building local capacity and ecosystems in developing countries for co-creating digital and AI solutions

Unresolved issues

How to effectively reach and train the global community of developers, designers, and product managers who remain unaware of accessibility requirements and legislation

Balancing the push toward digitalization with maintaining analog services for those who cannot or choose not to be digital

Addressing the fundamental inequality between countries in AI development and economic benefits, with 95% of top AI talent concentrated in six universities in the US and China

Resolving the tension between university academic freedom and the need to mandate accessibility education in ICT curricula

How to scale successful local innovations and community-driven solutions to broader regional or global implementation

Managing the cross-cutting nature of digital policies across multiple government ministries and sectors

Addressing the challenge that digital exclusion often reinforces existing social inequalities rather than solving them

Suggested compromises

Adopting a ‘common barriers, common solutions’ approach that addresses shared challenges across different vulnerable groups rather than targeting specific populations

Using existing international standards (like WCAG and EN 301549) as building blocks rather than creating entirely new frameworks from scratch

Implementing a gap model that works simultaneously at societal level (infrastructure, standards, regulations) and individual level (devices, assistive technologies, skills training)

Maintaining both digital-first approaches for efficiency while preserving analog alternatives for inclusion

Leveraging trusted community institutions like libraries and civic organizations as intermediaries to reach digitally excluded populations

Focusing on digital public infrastructure that can serve as a foundation for multiple services rather than creating isolated solutions

The more digital our societies become, the greater the risk of deepening the digital divide… So here is the Nordic and Baltic paradox. The more digital our societies become, the greater the risk of deepening the digital divide.

Speaker

Maja Brynteson

Reason

This comment reframes the conventional narrative about digital progress. Instead of viewing digitalization as inherently positive, it highlights how advancement can paradoxically increase exclusion. This challenges the assumption that technological progress automatically benefits everyone equally.

Impact

This concept became a central theme that other speakers referenced throughout the discussion. It shifted the conversation from celebrating digital achievements to critically examining their unintended consequences, leading to deeper analysis of who gets left behind in highly digitalized societies.

Digital accessibility therefore is not a sentimental issue, it is a sound investment and a strategic opportunity for growth and innovation… Africa must not only be a consumer, we must be a creator, a manufacturer and a global supplier of accessible technologies, designed and built on the continent by Africans for the world.

Speaker

Irene Mbari-Kirika

Reason

This comment powerfully reframes accessibility from charity to economic opportunity, challenging paternalistic approaches to development. It positions Africa not as a recipient of solutions but as an innovator and global supplier, fundamentally shifting the power dynamic in the conversation.

Impact

This perspective influenced subsequent speakers to move away from ‘helping’ language toward recognizing untapped potential and market opportunities. It elevated the discussion from inclusion as moral imperative to inclusion as economic necessity and competitive advantage.

Digital inclusion is not about making room at the table. It is about building a table where everyone has a seat and a voice.

Speaker

Irene Mbari-Kirika

Reason

This metaphor fundamentally challenges the traditional inclusion paradigm. Rather than asking existing systems to accommodate more people, it calls for redesigning systems from the ground up to be inherently inclusive.

Impact

This comment crystallized a key tension in the discussion and influenced other speakers to critique paternalistic approaches. Malin Rygg later echoed this sentiment, noting how inclusion language can be ‘paternalistic’ and emphasizing that excluded groups want to contribute, not just be included.

By multidimensional we mean that people often become at risk when several factors overlap. For example, an older adult living in a rural area with limited income is likely to face more barriers than someone of the same age that is affluent and living in a well-connected urban area.

Speaker

Maja Brynteson

Reason

This introduces the crucial concept of intersectionality to digital exclusion, moving beyond single-factor analysis to understand how multiple disadvantages compound. This adds sophisticated nuance to understanding exclusion patterns.

Impact

This framework helped other speakers move beyond simple categorizations of ‘at-risk groups’ to understand the complex, overlapping nature of digital barriers. It influenced the discussion toward more nuanced policy solutions that address multiple factors simultaneously.

When for instance, it’s projected that only 10% of the global economic value generated by AI in 2030 will accrue to the global South countries, except for China… you think about the fact that perhaps the global opportunity that is posed by AI will fundamentally leave behind many of these developing countries

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Reason

This comment introduces hard data about global inequality in AI benefits, shifting the discussion from individual-level exclusion to systemic global exclusion. It highlights how current trajectories will entrench rather than reduce global digital divides.

Impact

This broadened the scope of the discussion from national digital inclusion policies to global structural inequalities. It added urgency to the conversation by showing how emerging technologies like AI could dramatically worsen existing divides if not addressed proactively.

It’s very paternalistic kind of viewpoint… These are people that are young people, they are people able to work… These are very important contributions… We actually have to kind of see that this is the potential going forward.

Speaker

Malin Rygg

Reason

This comment directly challenges the framing used throughout the discussion, calling out the paternalistic language of ‘inclusion’ and reframing excluded groups as contributors rather than beneficiaries. It’s a meta-critique of how the conversation itself was being conducted.

Impact

This self-reflective moment caused the discussion to become more conscious of its own language and assumptions. It reinforced Irene’s earlier point about building new tables rather than making room at existing ones, and influenced speakers to emphasize contribution and potential rather than need and vulnerability.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed what could have been a conventional discussion about digital inclusion policies into a more sophisticated examination of power dynamics, economic opportunities, and systemic inequalities. The ‘Nordic paradox’ concept established that progress itself can create exclusion, while Irene’s economic framing and table-building metaphor challenged charity-based approaches. The intersectionality framework added analytical depth, and Yu Ping’s global inequality data expanded the scope beyond national boundaries. Malin’s critique of paternalistic language created a moment of self-reflection that elevated the entire discussion. Together, these comments shifted the conversation from ‘how do we help the excluded’ to ‘how do we redesign systems to harness everyone’s potential’ – a fundamental reframing that made the discussion more empowering and strategically focused.

How can we ensure that digital solutions change policy as fast as digitalization is moving forward?

Speaker

Asmund Grover Aukrust

Explanation

The minister emphasized that digital solutions are changing constantly, requiring policy frameworks to adapt at the same pace to remain effective

How can we help African innovators with data sets, design, packaging, and bringing products to market?

Speaker

Irene Mbari-Kirika

Explanation

She identified specific gaps in supporting African developers who create great accessibility solutions but lack resources for market entry and scaling

How can we scale Kenya’s ICT accessibility standard across other African countries?

Speaker

Irene Mbari-Kirika

Explanation

She mentioned current work to expand Kenya’s accessibility standards to other African countries, which requires further development and coordination

How can we address the projected inequality where only 10% of AI’s global economic value will accrue to Global South countries (except China)?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This represents a critical challenge for ensuring AI development doesn’t exacerbate existing digital divides between developed and developing nations

How can we build local ecosystems and capacity in developing countries to be co-creators in the digital and AI future?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This addresses the need for developing countries to move beyond being consumers to becoming creators and manufacturers of digital solutions

How can we integrate accessibility requirements into university curricula and professional training programs?

Speaker

Inmaculada Porrero

Explanation

She identified the challenge of ensuring new generations of ICT professionals are equipped with accessibility knowledge and skills from the start

How can we create coherent accessibility requirements across the globe to ensure fair competition?

Speaker

Inmaculada Porrero

Explanation

This addresses the need for international coordination to prevent unfair competition between companies with different accessibility compliance requirements

How can we develop a shared understanding of what digital inclusion means across the Nordic and Baltic region?

Speaker

Maja Brynteson

Explanation

She identified this as a key challenge that makes it harder to coordinate efforts and measure progress consistently across the region

How effective will the common barriers, common solutions approach be compared to targeting specific groups?

Speaker

Maja Brynteson

Explanation

Some Nordic countries have shifted from targeting specific vulnerable groups to addressing common barriers, and the effectiveness of this approach needs evaluation

How can we better involve users in the design of digital solutions, especially those at risk of exclusion?

Speaker

Maja Brynteson

Explanation

She identified lack of user involvement as a key issue, particularly for those most affected by potential exclusion

How can we make legislation more usable and understandable for citizens?

Speaker

Fredrik Matheson

Explanation

He mentioned experiments in Norway to make legislation more usable, recognizing that complex legal frameworks create barriers to understanding digital systems

How can we reach universal design standards that are truly global rather than regional?

Speaker

Dan Sjoblom

Explanation

He expressed hope for extending European accessibility standards globally through UN systems to achieve truly universal design