Uncategorized

Summary

This discussion focused on youth-led digital futures, data cooperatives, and the Global Digital Compact (GDC). Participants explored how to engage youth in digital governance and innovation across different global regions. Key challenges identified included lack of funding, limited youth representation in decision-making processes, and the need for better digital literacy and skills development, especially in Africa and Latin America.

Speakers emphasized the importance of recognizing youth as a distinct stakeholder group in internet governance. They discussed the potential of data cooperatives to empower communities and promote equitable data usage, while highlighting barriers such as high costs of data collection and lack of regulatory frameworks. The conversation touched on the unique challenges faced by indigenous communities regarding data protection and access.

The Global Digital Compact was presented as a timely initiative to address digital inequalities and promote inclusive participation. Participants stressed the need for grassroots-level implementation and harmonization between global and regional efforts. The discussion also covered the importance of adapting education systems to prepare youth for the digital economy and future of work.

Speakers shared various initiatives and best practices for youth engagement, including school outreach programs and local innovation projects. They emphasized the need for continuous efforts to involve younger generations in digital governance discussions and to make these topics more accessible and relevant to youth. The discussion concluded with a call for more opportunities for youth to develop their own innovations and technologies, particularly in marginalized communities.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The need for data cooperatives and digital governance frameworks that prioritize youth leadership and participation

– Challenges in funding and resourcing youth-led digital initiatives

– The importance of including youth as a distinct stakeholder group in internet governance

– Implementation of the Global Digital Compact and its potential impact on digital inclusion

– Barriers to youth participation such as lack of digital skills and access in some regions

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how youth can be more effectively engaged in digital governance and data/digital cooperative initiatives, particularly in the context of the Global Digital Compact.

The tone of the discussion was largely constructive and solution-oriented, with speakers offering insights from different regional perspectives. There was a sense of urgency around the need to better include youth voices, but also optimism about youth-led initiatives already underway. The tone became more action-oriented towards the end as speakers discussed concrete steps to improve youth participation.

Speakers

– Dana Cramer: Leader of Youth IGF Canada, 2024 Internet Society Youth Ambassador

– Natalie Tercova: Representative of IGF Czechia, member of ALAG within ICANN, researcher

– Denise Leal: Latin American Caribbean representative in the youth coalition

– Tabitha Wangechi: Online participant

– Turra Daniele: Youth IGF Italy, online moderator

– James Amate: Speaker from Ghana

– Keith Andere: African Civil Society Group, IGFR leader for Kenya Youth IGF

– Vlad Ivanets: Internet Society Youth Ambassador, session organizer

Additional speakers:

– Gael Van Weyenbergh: Session organizer

– Sienna: Audience member from United States

– Lina: Audience member, works with Council on Tech and Social Cohesion

– Aaron: Rapporteur (mentioned but did not speak)

Youth-Led Digital Futures: Exploring Data Cooperatives and the Global Digital Compact

This comprehensive discussion brought together youth leaders and representatives from various global regions to explore critical issues surrounding youth engagement in digital governance, data cooperatives, and the implementation of the Global Digital Compact (GDC). The session was structured around introductions of speakers, followed by focused blocks of questions addressing different aspects of digital futures.

Key Themes and Discussion Points:

1. Data Cooperatives and Digital Innovation

Dana Cramer introduced the concept of data cooperatives as a model for empowering communities and promoting equitable data usage. Data cooperatives were described as member-owned, member-controlled organizations that collect, process, and share data for the benefit of their members and communities.

James Amate, from Ghana, highlighted the challenges in implementing data cooperatives, particularly in developing regions. He emphasized the high costs associated with data collection and the need for community support, advocating for an open data model where stakeholders have a vested interest in data quality and production.

Denise Leal, representing Latin America and the Caribbean, stressed the importance of considering traditional communities in data regulations. She shared an example of a successful initiative from Brazil called the Local Innovation Agent programme, which implements innovation at the local level. Leal also highlighted the significance of community networks in bridging digital divides.

Tabitha Wangechi, an online participant, emphasized the need for fair compensation models for data collection, stating, “We need real data from real people, bringing members together, pulling data together, defining these revenue models that work for us, that make people trust that they can give their data and be compensated.”

2. Youth Engagement in Digital Governance

A central theme of the discussion was the importance of recognizing youth as a distinct stakeholder group in internet governance. Keith Andere, representing the African Civil Society Group, emphasized the need to institutionalize youth engagement beyond individual initiatives. He cited the African IGF’s efforts to ensure youth have a dedicated seat as stakeholders, highlighting the importance of sustained representation.

Andere also pointed out the mismatch between university education and job market needs in Africa, calling for more relevant digital skills training.

Natalia Tercova, from IGF Czechia, stressed the need for robust educational frameworks on digital literacy. She argued that current curricula, from elementary to university levels, lack comprehensive digital skills training, including media literacy and programming. Tercova suggested engaging youth through schools and workshops to increase participation in digital governance discussions.

The discussion also touched on the challenges of maintaining youth engagement as participants age out of initiatives. Speakers emphasized the need for continuously involving younger generations and developing sustainable models for youth participation.

3. Global Digital Compact and Regional Approaches

Vlad Ivanets, an Internet Society Youth Ambassador, initiated the discussion on the Global Digital Compact (GDC), presenting it as a timely initiative to address digital inequalities and promote inclusive participation. Speakers emphasized the need for careful implementation, particularly at the grassroots level.

Keith Andere stressed the importance of harmonization between UN initiatives and regional bodies like the African Union. He argued for a balance between innovation and regulation for emerging technologies, particularly in the African context.

Ivanets highlighted the opportunity for the African region to be active in the digital economy. This sentiment was echoed by other speakers who emphasized the need for regional approaches to digital governance within global frameworks.

4. Challenges and Opportunities

Throughout the discussion, several key challenges were identified:

– Lack of funding and resources for youth-led digital initiatives

– Limited youth representation in decision-making processes

– Need for better digital literacy and skills development, especially in Africa and Latin America

– High costs of data collection and lack of regulatory frameworks for data cooperatives

– Balancing innovation with regulation for emerging technologies

– Outdated employment laws that don’t protect digital-era workers

Despite these challenges, speakers also highlighted opportunities and potential solutions:

– Engaging youth directly through schools and local initiatives

– Developing more inclusive funding models for youth-led digital initiatives

– Implementing technological education to enable innovation among youth and marginalized groups

– Creating regional data cooperatives that balance local needs with broader policy frameworks

– Developing hybrid models of youth engagement that combine institutional support with grassroots initiatives

Audience Questions and Closing Remarks

The session concluded with audience questions addressing topics such as:

– Strategies for reducing duplication of efforts in data collection and solution development

– Practical implementation of data cooperatives for non-tech-savvy individuals

– Understanding funder priorities for supporting data cooperatives

– Ensuring grassroots-level input in the Global Digital Compact stakeholder consultation process

In her closing remarks, Denise Leal emphasized the importance of involving teens and marginalized groups in innovation and technology development, calling for more opportunities for youth to develop their own solutions.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the complex and multifaceted nature of youth engagement in digital governance, data cooperatives, and the implementation of the Global Digital Compact. It underscored the need for continued dialogue, action, and innovative approaches to address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, with a particular focus on developing regions and marginalized communities.

Dana Cramer: introductions from each speaker. We will then move into an overview of digital or data cooperatives and what they are. They are a new policy innovation idea. So we’ll be exploring that. Then we’ll begin working through the questions I just read, but as blocks, as in these different separated blocks, we’ll then invite a room participation for feedback so that we can have that ongoing conversation throughout this session. To that, I’m going to give the mic over to Natalie to introduce yourself.

Natalie Tercova: Thank you so much, Dana. I hope everyone can hear me well. Thank you so much. So my name is Natalia Tercheva. I am here as the representative of the IGF Czechia, but I also work as a member of ALAG within ICANN and I’m a researcher as part of my day job. And recently I’ve been following some of the youth initiative, not only in my region, but also global ones, fostering some forms of events or cooperation through workshops and events. So I hope that today we can all share some of our insights, maybe challenges we were facing and what next steps we can all take to improve these forms of initiatives and gathering to empower the youth as equal stakeholders in the internet governance ecosystem. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much.

Dana Cramer: Denise, we’ll flip over to you online if you wouldn’t mind giving an introduction of yourself.

Denise Leal: Hello everyone. I hope everyone is okay and hearing me well.

Dana Cramer: We can hear you.

Denise Leal: Thank you. I am happy for being here today, sharing a little bit about youth-led digital futures. This discussion is going to be very interesting and we are going to not only talk about youth and digital innovation, but also marginalized people, global south. And I am very excited because of these thematics. I am the Latin American Caribbean representative in the youth coalition and I… Hope to share a little bit about these topics and I hope you enjoy it.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much. And we especially thank you for battling time zones to be with us here this morning, but I think it’s quite late for you over there right now. Wonderful. Tabitha, would you like to introduce yourself. I think that as we wait for some participation. Daniele, you’re not a speaker, you’re an online moderator, but would you like to say hi just so that our room understands your role in this session.

Turra Daniele: Hi everybody. This is Daniele Tura from Youth IGF Italy. I’ll be moderating the sessions today. So even if you are here on site or online wherever you’re connecting from, please feel free to use the chat so that we can better engage if you have any thoughts, comments or questions. I’ll be here to make those inputs heard here on the panel. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much. And we also have our organizers. I’d like to recognize Vlad who’s on the stage.

Vlad Ivanets: Yeah, it works. My name is Vlad Ivanets. I’m this year Internet Society Youth Ambassador and actually I was working on preparation of this session. We actually planned to cover some important issues with the emergence of the Global Digital Compact, which is a big thing I think and everyone is talking about this on this event and I hope we will be able to cover some perspectives that it brings with it, but also we have a few more topics to focus on and I hope that our speakers will be able to cover them as well.

Dana Cramer: Wonderful. Thank you very much and I just want to recognize Gail as our organizer for this session and our rapporteur which is Aaron to the end if you want to give a wave Aaron just as rapporteur. Wonderful. So, thank you so much. So, we’re going to start with our data cooperatives or digital cooperative section. And I’ll be introducing that. Again, my name is Dana Kramer. I am from Canada. I lead an organization called Youth IGF Canada and I’m a 2024 Internet Society Youth Ambassador as well as my purpose for being here this week. So, data cooperatives are a type of data intermediary that leverages the longstanding cooperative model to manage data for the benefit of its members who are both data producers and stakeholders. Rooted in democratic governance, collective ownership, and fiduciary accountability, data cooperatives empower individuals and communities to enhance privacy by ensuring the data usage aligns with member-defined rules, to improve insight and foresight capabilities, enabling a larger pool of stakeholders to innovate with shared data resources, foster equitable data usage, ensuring fair distribution of value among members, and unleash a new wave of innovation by creating transparent data flows that can be leveraged for research, development, and societal good. So, data cooperatives are more of an idea. They are not widely in practice. However, some historical parallels and relevance to these cooperative models include trade unions and cooperative banks. So, during the industrial era, these institutions redistributed power and resources, creating more equitable systems. Data cooperatives today, similarly in the digital economy, these cooperatives balance individual and collective interests, addressing the monopolistic tendencies of centralized platforms and the pitfalls of tokenized economies that we do tend to see as an issue of concentration within network effects. So, by aligning with different types of cooperative alliance principles, including democratic member control and concern for community, data cooperatives provide a resilient framework for addressing digital inequalities. And this brings us to the first question that we will address today as a panel. Oh, and we have James online. So James, if you wouldn’t mind un-muting yourself so you can give an introduction as our final speaker for this panel.

James Amate: Hi. Thank you very much. Took me some time to set up. I am James Amate. I am speaking from Ghana. I am joining this session where we operate on a more, let’s say, open data, open governance level. But I’m speaking in my personal capacity by using that experience to bring a new perspective to this conversation. So I do hope that we do have a very nice conversation around global digital compacts and then data competence. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thank you. Thank you very much. So we’ll be starting with our first question, which is, what governance frameworks are needed to support the successful propagation of youth-initiated digital or data cooperatives across various global contexts? And how can global institutions champion these initiatives? So some sub-questions that we’ll be working through as we explore this broad policy question will begin with, where do you think youth are building up digital networks in your respective region? And Natalie, I’ll start with you as our in-person speaker.

Natalie Tercova: Thank you so much, Dana. So for the context, as I mentioned, I’m here representing the IGF in Czech Republic, which is looking at… in Central Europe. So of course in my region we are facing some very specific issues and challenges that might not have been the same in other regions and in other countries. And currently the main topic for what we see is the issue of digital divide but not on the first level which might be the access or the access to technologies in terms of laptops, devices, but also to be connected when it comes to Wi-Fi connection and Internet coverage. But more focusing on the lack of skills when it comes to the effective usage of technologies. We currently lack some robust frameworks when it comes to education, educating young people in terms of media literacy, digital literacy, championing skills such as programming and so forth. These things are not yet embedded within the curricula through the educational system from elementary, spanning universities, schools. And this is something that we currently see as a big challenge that we have to overcome in a way. Because only thanks to this then we can see the youth initiatives specifically in the area of Internet governance and in digital, let’s say in the digital discussions in general, really thrive and make a difference. So this would be currently the biggest challenge we are seeing. However, there is a big emphasis on making this happen. There are already some initiatives from companies, companies that are operating on a global level, but also those who emerged directly in the Czech Republic, trying to champion the skills in young people, trying to offer them some forms of fellowships and programs. The education system is not offering these forms of solutions. So we can see that they are trying to learn, they are trying to improve this. However, we still miss some form of a robust framework to make this happen. This would be probably my opening. statement to this. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Wonderful, thank you. I think what I’m hearing from you is the importance of organization and a recognition of multi stakeholders coming together to really champion these so that it can become more institutionalized. And to that, I will ask Denise, in your region, what are some examples of global institutions championing youth initiatives? So building off what Natalie was saying of that importance, what do you see in your area for how this is actually playing out?

Denise Leal: Okay, perfect. So it’s very interesting when we bring the topic of data across Latin America, specifically because we need to improve a lot. We do have the legislation and well, we are signatories for the treats that brings these discussions but we don’t consider the specific traditional communities when we start to discuss the regulations. So the biggest improvement that we would need to work with would be how we consider traditional knowledge and the data that comes from these communities in terms of natural resources and genetic data and how we do protect and consider the sovereignty of these groups. Because in reality, we are not really we are not in fact considering their sovereignty in terms of data here in Latin America and Caribbean region. We need to improve this but as a good topic to our discussion, not only a call to action, I would like to say that in terms of innovation, we do have some work on it across Latin America and Caribbean. I can say about a program from Brazil called Local Innovation Agent, who works bringing innovation and implementing it in a local level, which I think is very interesting and impactful. Well, I have a lot to say about the topic, but to start, I think these two discussions could be interesting. The local innovation is important and this specific program is implemented by government and private sector together, so it can really have a impact on different people. And the interesting part of it is that it works with people who doesn’t know in ESG and data framework and data collection, and we start to teach them through this project. So I will stop here because I think it’s just a small talk right now, and then I will speak more on these topics. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much, Denise. That’s wonderful. James, what types of opportunities do you think other stakeholder groups can help build up digital or data cooperatives in your region specifically? So we get kind of that starting with Europe, moving to Latin America, and then hearing the African perspective as well. Or you’re muted right now. You need to unmute. Happens to all of us.

James Amate: All right, so thank you very much for that question. I’m going to speak from the African perspective. So in Africa, the data gap is very wide. So there’s a huge discrepancy between the data we need, the data we collect. and then the data we are allowed to share, right. Now there’s challenges in collecting the data that makes it difficult to share or there’s always these very rigid frameworks about how data is collected, how data is shared. Now I come from a community background where we do a lot of community-led initiatives. So for example, I sometimes contribute to Wikipedia and in that space, it’s a community-driven approach where members of the community come together to collect data on specific topics. It’s the same with the OpenStreetMap Foundation and the OpenStreetMap community where we are constantly contributing to a particular data source. Now we need to be able to understand what the data harmonization processes are, how do we collect the data, how do we validate the data and also where is it going to be stored and who has access to it. Because I do a lot of open data, I strongly advocate for an open data and open governance model where everybody has a stake in the data because the more people have a stake, the more we are likely to increase the quality of the data we produce and then the more useful the data becomes to everybody. Because when we take a look at my work with the OpenStreetMap community, we can see that the data we collect has various advantages and uses for humanitarian organizations, inversion, flood detection and we also do a lot of of disaster response with that data. So you could see that because the community came together to produce that data, it becomes more meaningful and people are more passionate about it. So I personally advocate for an open data model where you have a stake in the data and the quality of producers. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thanks for really highlighting that importance to ownership of data, as well as the peer production model. And with a very concrete example with Wikipedia as well. Keith, thank you for making it here today. I’m not sure if you would like to introduce yourself and potentially discuss how digital and data cooperatives are working in your region and being championed by youth. Keith, are you able to hear me on the headset? Okay. As we continue to sort out a few technical difficulties, the digital and data cooperatives have been the first block that we’ve had to really think more on a theoretical level for these youth-led futures. And we’d like to invite the audience for any questions and Gail will be able to run the mic around the room to help ensure that we have, again, that peer production in how we understand too. So if you have a question or would like to provide any form of intervention that can help formulate our report, we ask you to raise your hand so that we can get a microphone to you.

Audience: Thank you for this. My name is Lina, and I work with the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion. And my question is, what actually needs to change? Is there a policy or is there a way for cooperatives to come into existence? Like, is there a barrier that you need to overcome? Because the idea itself clearly has value.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much for your question. Kies, I’m not sure if you would like to start that off, as well, to introduce yourself for the panel, so you can get that conversation rolling.

Keith Andere: Thanks so much. Sincere apologies, one, that I came late. I forgot my badge, so I had to go and look for another one. And then when I got in, I think I tuned to Channel 1, and I was looking and feeling lost, because there was another sound that seemed like it was off. But nonetheless, I’m happy to be here. Thank you so much for accommodating me and for the organizers putting this together. My name is Keith Andere from Kenya African Civil Society Group, an IGFR leader for Kenya Youth IGF. And so very pleased to be here today and to contribute to the discussions that are very pertinent, especially for us from Global South. Because now this speaks to, one, I come from a continent where it is believed to be the most youthful continent. And so the issues of data, the issues of digital future, the issue of privacy are things that are very dear to the youthful population from Africa. And I believe, you know, not only just to the Global South, but to the rest of the world. And so, as I said, I’m happy to take up the questions and contribute. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much. So for our first question from Lina, what types of policy or business models will need to change to allow for data and digital cooperatives to potentially flourish in our online environment?

Keith Andere: Super, that is a very fantastic question. So I think, and again, my reflections are going to largely come from Africa, at least where I come from. You’ll find that even before we get to the level of data cooperatives and policies, we are still grappling with very basic fundamental policies, of data privacy and data protection. We’re also seeing a lot of gaps in terms of harmonizations between countries, because the policy, for example, in one country is not speaking to the other, and therefore there’s a little of gap. So we see this as a challenge when it comes to things like data flow, where data is hosted, where data is resting in Africa, for example. Now pushing for Agenda 2063, which is anchored on what we are calling the Africa Free Continental Trade Area. So making Africa one trading block. So the opportunity there is the digital economy and the digital businesses, but then these barriers are a hindrance in terms of how do we govern our data? And this data is data that, one, being produced by businesses, two, data that are sitting either from government and these are all manner of data, be it biometric, be it IRS, be it all this manner of data. And so the kind of policies that would unlock this, I think, are more regional policies, as opposed to national policies, so that this creates an even playing ground to ensure that cross-border data flow, ensure that data for citizens who are moving from one country, data portability. is something that we can plug in and we can use, but at the same time ensure that this data from a regional perspective is already harmonized. I think EU and the global North is already doing very well in terms of data harmonization and the policy that are being harmonized from an EU level and the rest, but Africa is lacking behind as far as this harmonization is concerned, but we also need to strengthen and back up this data protection kind of laws with security kind of laws that in, whether transnational crime also is something that can be covered because data is, as they say, is the, you know, the currency is the 21st oil, century oil, you know? So how do we take it as the only asset, you know, that can drive economies to the future? So just to answer the question again, I think the point here is harmonization, not only at a national level, but at regional level, and also how do we support countries that do not have resources to put out this kind of data, be it technical resources, be it financial resources, because that for me is still a big challenge right now. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: No, thank you very much. And I think that teasing out your answer is the importance of regionalism within data and digital cooperatives of recognizing yourself as part of a broader block. And in a current geopolitical competition that’s rising and creating less free trade, where you get such innovative free trade agreements that you see in the European Union as well, now in the African Union, that that could be a disruptor for it. So now resting back in that European element, because we’ve been talking about Europe now suddenly, Natalie, could you also provide input to the speakers or to the panelists question so that we can also have that pluralistic, multi-regional recognition of answering it?

Turra Daniele: And before you answer that, we also have… a question that I would say you are the best person to answer to. And the other question of online is, she wants, she’s an academic researcher, Anjude Alwis, wants to find out if you think there are advantages to harmonize education data and, for example, higher education certificates accreditation, and do that also for other regions, for example, for the African region.

Dana Cramer: Thank you. So combining those two approaches of policy, but also including this educational policy element too within the answer.

Natalie Tercova: Thank you so much. I think it actually makes perfect sense. And I thank so much for the online question, because this is pretty much what I also wanted to touch upon, which brings me back to the fact that as well, I am active as a lecturer at university. And that is why also I see that there are still some gaps also in the understanding how we can actually take back the ownership of our own data. And sometimes people still lack the knowledge what is happening with the data. And also personally, myself, I sometimes don’t know, you know, there are all sorts of terms and conditions. And we can all ask ourselves, honestly, if we actually read them and if we know the consequences, once we say as we accept. And then the problem is also, as my colleague said about the harmonization, that is definitely one thing. But taking a step back, we have to ensure that we understand what it means and where the data goes and what is actually the real barrier between us owning them and knowing where they’re now circulating, who are these parties who have the access to them and what they’re going to do with it. So I believe taking it back to the question on education and raising some form of awareness and maybe creating a framework that would span various levels of education would make perfect sense, because if we are not aware of the consequences and the terms and so forth, then how can we even ensure that everything is in order and everything makes sense, but also why should we even be interested in the first place in this issue if we just don’t understand what it means and what it encompasses. And it is not something secret that currently the data that we all own and we provide, sometimes we just provide it and we don’t know about it and we don’t know how actually important and rich all this information are we are just putting out there, because we just don’t understand the consequences or how some specific third parties are using it to their benefit and sometimes this benefit is very, very big and it’s very pricey so we are putting all these, our specific forms of values out there without actually knowing how they’re gonna be used and how maybe if it would be different and we would be still the owners of them how we can make sure that they are used in a sense that we would be happy about it and we would be encouraged to use it in a different way and then maybe building some form of communities or hubs where these data we agreed to use would be used if it makes any sense, I hope. So thank you so much for these two questions, I hope I touched on both of them in a sense and I agree that education as well here as in other discussions revolving around internet governance and data handling is the most important and crucial one and this is where we should start. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Thank you for also bringing out that business model perspective of how we need more transparency in how data is used and decomplexifying business models to ensure that we can understand how data is formulated, used and then how that peer production can be mutually beneficial opposed to concentrated. James, I saw you had your hand up earlier, but I’m not sure if Natalie maybe touched on what you were planning to say, which is why it might have gone down or if you would like to speak.

James Amate: Yes, she basically took the thought out of my mouth. But just to add a bit, I think we need to look at data interoperability, touching on the educational question in the chat, because we need data to be able to sync to each other, talk to each other. It should not be difficult for me to take data that’s generated here in Ghana and make it useful in Kenya. But it looks very much like the current state of data harmonization. So even locally, we sometimes have gaps in how we collect data and how data between even government organizations talk to each other. And that is very difficult for us to unify data and then protect it more secure. Because the more data spreads, the more complexity it has. So we need to be able to reduce those complexities to make sure that it’s our probability is prioritized. And then we can be able to build the cooperatives that drive development. I do hope I’ve answered that question.

Dana Cramer: No, thank you. I think that really teases out business models as well for interoperability and needing businesses to work together potentially through enforced memorandum of understanding agreements or enforcement of entering into trade associations with specified goals to allow for more data justice. Denise, I think that you had a comment on this. And I know that you also had some context about how Indigenous governance models can also be reflected into digital and data cooperatives. If you could speak to your planned perspective on that and also adding that in too, please.

Denise Leal: Perfect. Thank you. So when it comes to Indigenous data, there are a lot of questions that we have to answer to make sure that we’re able to build the cooperatives that are going to be able to support the business models that we have in place. And I think that’s something that we need to be able to work on. And I think that’s something that we need to be able to work on. And I think that’s something that we need to be able to work on. thing is that most people don’t really understand, is that some of this data are public in the internet, so you can access it and it doesn’t have regulations that says that you have to take it out of the internet or be careful with it. Just an example, we have all the locations of the indigenous groups on internet and it’s not categorized nor as a sensitive data, neither as a personal data, because it’s the location of the families and the ethnicities, and it’s the specific location of each one, so it’s not the location of a house, but a whole group. So how you can ask for it not to be there, because, well, in which category of data is it considered? It’s not, this is the thing, it’s not considered in any category here in Brazil, and you cannot ask for it. An example of what problem it can lead is the Yanomamis genocides, their locations and information were accessed in the internet, and also other platforms were used to map their activities, and then the people that worked with mining went to these groups, these families, and they have killed, raped and committed other crimes against these families. Well, we can see that the disposition, that the fact that the indigenous data are internet and other spaces, so freely and easily to access really leads to real problems. These are just some examples of problems, but we do have another kind of problems, just like the natural resources data is also available through the DSE. DSIs in internet and it cannot be, it doesn’t have any kind of regulation about it. So how can you really care about the natural resources data because it’s related to history, culture and other aspects of indigenous families and it doesn’t have a way to protect it. So you have, we have many problems related to this kind of data because it is, these data are sensitive, but they are not considered, not even as personal data because they are related to a collective group. So the thing is, the person here in our audience made the question which is very interesting about the, what should we change to allow data cooperatives and what are the regulations related with it. So here we could say that data cooperative could be an answer to indigenous data because if they could regulate and, well, the people managing their data, they could have a data cooperative to manage the natural resources data, for example, but we don’t have regulations enough to support data cooperatives here. So I believe it’s, it would be, data cooperatives could face some problems here in Brazil because we don’t have enough considerations in the law that to have this model of governance and to allow people and groups to manage and to own the, some kind of data. That’s it, what I wanted to, to add to this discussion. I am worried that we need to better improve our regulations to encompass data cooperatives and also to encompass DSIs, data, resources and to consider specific groups and their sensitive data and their specific cases so that we don’t promote exclusion through the law, because we are not promoting inclusion, we are promoting exclusion with our data regulation here in Brazil and also in other countries.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much, Denise. Before we end this specific block of our workshop, are there any further questions from the floor over here? Gail, if you wouldn’t mind running the mic.

Audience: This is a super interesting topic and definitely one of my favorite workshops so far. Thank you. Sorry, name and obligation. Oh, sorry. My name is Sienna and I’m from the United States and I’m here independently. And my question is for people who don’t really know much about data cooperatives, think you’re average everyday person, how do you get them on board with this? And then what does implementation actually look like with people who aren’t in the tech space or aren’t in this kind of space?

Dana Cramer: Thank you. And then, Daniela, is there a question in the chat that also builds on this to help our panelists combine their answers?

Turra Daniele: There isn’t a specific question about this in the chat. I would just have a short comment on that, even if I’m not technically a speaker. And then I’d like to have maybe Tabitha for a quick comment because she would be interested in giving a comment as well. So I will try to be very brief. So I’ve discussed during these days with Gail about the actual implementation and what kind of shape it could have as a concept. The main incentive for local businesses and civil societies organizations to get into data cooperative could be actively to get digitized, first of all. So the point is, if you do not have the source of data, data cooperatives as a concept kind of fall down. So I believe that the key word in there is, again, digitalization of processes of both businesses, and very also, in a way, normal and traditional businesses, think about constructions, agriculture, everywhere around the world. All of these organizations need to digitalize their processes through ERPs or CRM of any kind. And the key revolution here could be about who’s providing the tools for them to get digitized. And in particular, I’m thinking about the products and the concept of having that data getting managed through an intermediary that could be, for example, an NGO itself, where all the organizations receiving those digitalization products and skills could get a stake in. And then that intermediary that is collectively and cooperatively managed could decide where that data could go, right? So in that sense, think of having, first of all, a digitalization of businesses as step one. Step two could be having a platform that could allow all these organizations to gather outreach or sell their products and services to a larger audience. And the third step is about having that intermediary actively sell or manage that data on behalf of all the members. This is kind of the idea, but first of all, you need a strong implementation of digital processes in all of these organizations. And with cooperatives, we have the chance to do this responsibly. I hope this is clear.

Dana Cramer: And Tabitha, as one of the organizers for the panel, you had some comments you want to weigh in? Okay, so we’ll move on to our next area, closing the block right now for this section, so we can get through each of the policy questions. So our next policy question broadly is, how can current digital governance frameworks be adapted to prioritize youth leadership in decision-making, ensuring effective tracking of funding and resource allocation, and what lessons can be learned from other internet governance spaces involving youth digital leaders? So we have some sub-questions for the panel to also approach, which first and foremost will be, in your youth-led initiatives, how many funds do you need to engage youth? Have you experienced barriers in developing digital governance frameworks due to lack of financial support? And we’ll start online for this with James, if you would be able to unmute yourself to speak to this point.

James Amate: Yes, thank you for the question. I think the cost of data collection is one of the most underestimated parts of building a data cooperative, right? So it’s not just the cost of maybe hosting the data, like infrastructure, it’s the cost around setting up the community. maybe, you know, devices for collecting data, modes of collecting data, duration of collecting data, right? Support for the individuals who collect the data, right? So, all of these things are an important part of, you know, building a data cooperative. Now, most of my work is done around volunteer-led data collection, where volunteers come together to collect data at their spare time on their own time, right? But sometimes, even that, you know, you still need to spend money on, you know, building capacity, right? Building skills on how to properly collect data, how to properly validate the data, and how to properly store the data. So, these costs can sometimes stifle the progress we try to make around these data cooperatives, right? Because it’s the people that are cooperating to build the model. So, if the people are not supported in one way or the other, you know, sometimes in stipends, sometimes, you know, getting internet, right? Because most of these data collection models, you’d have to upload the data online, and we look at things like internet costs, which is one of the very key, should I say, barriers to active participation of community members. So, how do we look at supporting the communities that collect data that we hopefully wish to rely on in the future? And how do we also look to support organizations that are coordinating these communities to be able to do more work.

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much. Natalie if you wouldn’t mind also discussing this because on this element of funds to engage, because you’re in quite a few different digital leadership initiatives and stages and all of this costs money so I know with your robust experience that you could potentially shine some light to it, and kind of build that history of when you work on one initiative. What the cost for that so we can better understand like what James was just discussing about the cost for initiatives that don’t yet exist yet with the digital and data cooperatives.

Natalie Tercova: Thank you so much. Well, it’s no surprise that the issue of money and funds is always the most crucial one when it comes to effectively engaging the youth so I would maybe start by saying that I personally perceive that the biggest issue is that we are not perceived as a specific stakeholder group in many forms. Sometimes there is this categorization that we have government and we have the technical community and then there’s the rest, and the rest is like civil society with academics and with youth, and just personally me coming from the academia sphere and I’m coming from the researcher point of view I, I really don’t think that our insights and our angles to certain topics are in line with those what young people have children or broader, this big bag of civil society so I think that whenever we talk about effectively engaging youth and supporting the initiatives, we should not treat them as this broad civil society, civil society bag, because then whenever we want to highlight certain initiatives and make someone understand that it is really needed to bring them somewhere to bring them as equal stakeholders to debates on the GDC or on other processes or on the topics of digital governments. or just simply being here, getting them here to IGF, having the voice and speaking it is so important not to treat them as just civil society because we have many other representatives already so usually they just don’t receive any forms of support or mentorship or funds because usually there is someone else already taking the spot and it’s usually not that pricey because they probably have their own connections already and this is already this, let’s say, shortcoming when it comes to treating youth initiatives they just basically don’t have the support usually that they need they still need to build these networks and generate some form of support as they go and it’s like a vicious circle so if we would have them here with us or at any other forums and events then it would be probably easier for them to raise up why their voice is important then get some connections and then eventually generate enough support for them to come but if they don’t have this opportunity in the first place then there’s not much we can do about it so usually we struggle with getting them somewhere we always see from the government some options like oh you can actually submit a paper or you can submit a report or like your opinion written somewhere but you never know actually how and if even it is implemented which is of course an issue and another thing is that if you’re not in the room and we all know how this is you are low-key excluded from those discussions that are very important happening outside the rooms we all know this over coffee this is usually where the real work is happening and so if we don’t engage them engage them really where these things are happening they’re losing the equalness in this debate eventually so with this I want to say that I was part of many also youth-focused initiatives in the internet governance ecosystem also when I was starting being interested in all these topics myself spanning from ITU, the European Dialogue on Internet Internet Governance, where I actually met Daniela, and then being part of ICANN’s program when we worked with each other with Dana, planning the NextGen, which supports people who are still also studying in high schools and then having some forms of fellowship on again various levels. We can see that this is a very good praxis coming from the big organizations and initiatives that already understand that they need a new perspectives of young people, because if we keep on talking about the Internet for the future, we should include those who will be living in the future. And I think this is fundamental to understand that there are a specific form of stakeholder group. We need to have them somewhere as equal partners to the discussions. However, if we don’t provide them the opportunity to come, then we are excluding them.

Dana Cramer: No, thank you. I think that perspective of youth as a stakeholder group is so important, especially as we’re heading into WSIS plus 20. Maybe to put in a recommendation for this to update the definition of the multi-stakeholder model as part of WSIS to include youth as a stakeholder group, which wouldn’t be too obtuse considering the technical community wasn’t recognized in that first iteration. And so it wouldn’t be abnormal to request another stakeholder group. But also, as you were saying, that youth initiatives, and they really rest within opportunities for youth as well. We can’t have youth-led initiatives if we don’t also grant youth opportunities and create multiple points where you can be in the room. And as we’re seeing also with WSIS and the GDC, a question of if the GDC’s review is tagged with WSIS in Geneva each year, does that create funding issues to try to get to Switzerland once a year to be part of those conversations? And what does that mean for different stakeholders around the world who do not have the financial resources to do so most prominently youth? of potentially a better venue that travels around the world as we all travel with it. Denise, I know you had some responses as well to this question. And in addition, could you also tell us a bit about your journey into becoming a young digital leader and explain how using digital governance frameworks can benefit from other youth coming through the leadership pipe similar to you?

Denise Leal: Yes, sure. Thank you. So I’ve been part of some youth programs. I started with the Brazilian youth program, then got involved with the youth like IGF, and now I am in the youth coalition. And we can see that these organizations, these youth organizations are strong in their discussions. What we need to be stronger is to be more involved in policymaking processes, I think, not only here, but also worldwide. And I can see on the other hand, in the other side that we already have, we do need to be more involved in policymaking, but we already have some good results of our work in digital governance and related to internet governance and other spaces. And I am really trying to bring the discussion on traditional communities this year. So if I’m speaking about it, I can say that some young people and the younger youth organizations, along with other stakeholders, have achieved a very special thing that I wanted to share here. We have some traditional language in Google Translator and in other platforms, which allows them and other groups to share data from these communities that speak these languages and online informations. And well, This is a result of a work of young people, not only this, but we can see other improvements. We have been proving how the discussions on internet governance works across Latin American Caribbean and we are trying to have a more dynamic way to guide and to lead these discussions so that we can really hear everyone and where and encompasses everyone in the in every aspect that needs to be in the discussions. We do have some local initiatives that are impacting youth and other people’s lives and I can see that the young leaders have worked well and have the knowledge they need, the knowledge to be…

Turra Daniele: Sorry Denise, I think we have some technical issues because we cannot, we can not… Okay, it’s okay now?

Denise Leal: You cannot hear well?

Turra Daniele: No, no, it’s okay.

Denise Leal: It’s okay, all right. Well, anyway, I was almost ending my topic. I just wanted to say that youth leaders have been doing a great work by making the digital governance more inclusive and effective in this aspect. So we do need to keep this work and we’ll keep looking for these groups that are not usually part of the discussions. When we involve these groups and work for them, we are really making a great impact. I can see it here in Latin American Caribbean. This year, if I speak from my experience of youth like IGF, I can say that we had many sessions that brought these discussions and we’ve got a chance to work with people that are working with community networks and this is very important in terms… of the GDC, it should be more there, more considered in the document, but it is in the document, not as much as it should be, but it is, which is a victory, we think. Community networks are also an answer to places where we don’t have access to internet. So here in Latin American Caribbean, we have not only young people, but other groups working with it, but specifically talking about young people, we have an organization like KIST, which is an indigenous organization that works all across Latin America, implementing community network in indigenous places where it’s really far and it’s really difficult to access internet, so they are doing a great job. So we have these examples of youth work and youth involvement in digital governance. So we’ve got to value them, to give support and also to involve them in policymaking because we do have practical work to show and results to show. I wanted to say this, I am feeling that I am giving a lot of cultural actions, but I hope that I gave some good examples to you of what our youth work here in Latin American Caribbean looks like. Thank you.

Gael Van Weyenbergh: Yes, thank you, Denise. That’s very useful indeed. So I want to turn over to you, Keith. What is the situation in Kenya? Can you give us some insight?

Keith Andere: Thanks, Gael. I’ll not only just give the situation in Kenya, but I’ll also touch up in an African situation, having been a youth leader and led up an African youth movement. I think, number one, I agree with what colleagues have said, but most importantly I want to highlight that there’s need to institutionalize youth engagement, because what we’ve seen especially in these digital spaces, I think youth engagement has almost been kind of hand-picking kind of engagement, you know, either because the interest is personal and so the people who come into kind of the spaces are more personalized and not institutionalized kind of, you know, youth engagement. So there isn’t, I haven’t seen much of engaging youth institutions, and youth institutions here are youth networks, youth organizations, especially those who are working at the grassroots level, and they have the aspect and elements of, you know, digital inclusion, digital rights as it. So maybe one aspect that we really need to do is look at how do we support youth networks, how do we support youth organizations themselves to grow the capacity so that they become our change agents, in the sense that there’s continuity. I’ve seen situations where in Kenya, for example, there’s a lot of opportunity to engage young people, but as we grow older other things come in, so we tend to drop off, yeah, either because now I have a young family or now I’ve got another opportunity, I’ve gotten a job, so we tend to drop off and think about advocacy and this kind of engagement. It’s a long-term kind of game, if I was gonna put it that way, and so by the time we realize a very minimal milestone, you know, some of these colleagues who understood the process have already dropped off. I do agree, you know, with what also the colleague said about having youth as a standalone, you know, stakeholder group. I think from an African IGF perspective, this is something that really pushed a few years ago to ensure that youth are considered as a standalone stakeholder group. And what that meant is that, you know, there was a seat of youth as a stakeholder in the mug of the African IGF. But what has happened over the years is, you know, that progressive thinking has been reversed back. And now they’re saying, look, we don’t need a youth seat at the mug, but we can get youthful people into the mug, which I think is detriment to the kind of progress that we already want to see. Then lastly, I think, again, we cannot underscore the issues of resources. And it’s a twofold thing. One, there is a lot of resources to be tapped, but on the flip side, there isn’t any resources that, you know, gets down to the people. And I think one way we can ensure that young people are getting these resources is to also look at the stringent donor expectation of youth organizations. Some of them operate as loose networks. And so by the time, you know, you’re getting some little funds to go and do, you know, something, they want a whole list of things, you know, make sure you have audit for three years, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Yet this is just a coalition of young people who are coming and they’re operating as loose networks. So how do we, in our funding models, look at ways to fund the unfunded and the unfundable so that we include those people who don’t have the usual structure, but they’re actually doing the work at the community level. So I’ll stop here.

Gael Van Weyenbergh: Thank you so much. Thank you, Kees. These are very meaningful points. So yeah, the first one to recap is how can we ensure that, like we heard several times during this event, that the use is not on the menu, but at the table, and that you cannot kick them out of the table. And also how to ensure a sense of continuity. And lastly, you mentioned the question of resources that we all experience every day. And especially last week, two weeks ago, we had an event and we experienced firsthand how to fund these loose networks of organizations. James, is this something you want to react on?

James Amate: Yes, I think the problem we currently have in the multi-stakeholder engagement is differentiating priorities. So each stakeholder has their own priorities when it comes to data cooperatives. Yes, we may align on the vision, but the priority might be different. So you could see that the commitments may wait as time goes on. Now, what I would have loved is to have maybe certain funders of data cooperatives in the building. If there are some, maybe they can tell us their perspective of what they look out for in sponsoring these cooperatives. What’s their mission? What’s their goal? And how can we work together with the grassroots to be able to align properly? Because yes, they have the funds, but we need to be able to align that correctly with the people at the grassroots level, on the youth level, and be able to get the message from the bottom up. Because sometimes it’s very difficult for you to be up there and then have a feel of what it takes to be a leader. you know, at the grassroots level, right? So I think maybe if we can get some funders, some governments, if they’re in the building to help us understand their perspective or what they’re looking out for in joining these cooperatives and how we can better work together.

Turra Daniele: Thank you so much, James and Keith, for your valuable inputs. I think the theme and the topic about opportunities for youth are very important. As we mentioned so, so many times, youth is very hard for youth as a stakeholder group to get actively represented because they do not have the experience, they do not have working experience. Most often they are in a way residual stakeholder group and instead we need more and more opportunities and also independent coalition and initiatives to get them involved. And in terms of opportunities, I would like to let Tabitha Wangeci that is an online participant to give her some time, just an input. Just please be aware of time. We are expected to finish this session in a few minutes and we would like to move to the next item. So please Tabitha, the floor is yours.

Tabitha Wangechi: All right, hi everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I think I’ve been trying to speak for a very long time, but finally I’m able to speak. I actually wanted to point it out, the fact that in Africa, we have very limited access to quality, trusted and reliable data. And that’s why it’s very hard to create this, you know, cooperatives in Africa and even policies. starting from there. For example, I have worked as, let me say, a gig worker, not a member of a cooperative, a data cooperative in Kenya. And at the time, it was foreign led, but it was coming to Kenya to pay us to collect data and submit to them. And at the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know I was getting involved in this business of a data cooperative. So having this conversation and looking back, I see how much data we collected and the amount we were paid. It makes me think that in Africa, we don’t even need policies for data cooperatives. We need updated laws on employment. For example, our employment laws are 20 years old. They don’t address the digital era. They don’t address the plight that workers go through, for example, in digital cooperatives, to be able to gather that data and be paid the amount that you deserve. It’s not clear because we don’t have laws for that. So there’s a huge room for exploitation. And aside from that, let’s not forget that we are in a role with big tech, because they have a lot of our data that they are hoarding. And for us to access it, we need to pay to have it. So this conversation is very timely, because I see data cooperatives as the future for the data markets. It’s going to be big, it’s going to be highly valued. But my question is, as Africa, where are we? Where are we positioning ourselves to be able to capture this moment and not be left behind and be exploited by big tech and the global North? So we need to up our game number one by securing the finances that we need, because it’s actually very expensive. Number one, if you’re establishing a reasonable, a well-established business model in the data world. It’s very expensive, resource extensive. You need people who are educated who can get you data that is quality, reliable. You cannot just gather data from anyone. And also we’re not looking for academic data. Dana, I’m sorry, I know she’s a researcher in the academia. We also need to shy away from that. Avoiding data that is too academic in data cooperatives. We need real data from real people, bringing members together, pulling data together, defining these revenue models that work for us, that make people trust that they can give their data and be compensated. We can build a future where data is easily accessible, reliable, and we can now sell our data for a profit and not just be exploited for data by big tech and not be paid anything. So as Africans, we need to come back home, have the conversation, refine our labor laws, number one, protect our data, and also harmonize data between countries in the continent. I know the African Union has been working very hard on that. So big up to them on that. But still, we have a very long way to go when it comes to building sustainable data cooperatives in Africa. Thank you for the opportunity.

Gael Van Weyenbergh: Thank you, Tabitha. It’s very insightful to have your insights from a first-hand perspective and not only as a theoretical concept. Vlad, you want to add something on this?

Vlad Ivanets: Yeah, I would probably answer Tabitha’s question as well as I would like to raise the talk on Global Digital Compact a bit, because I think that the implementation of this document is really enabling the African region and the South region to be an active part of the digital economy will all live in currently and with its very enthusiastic goal of connecting 2.6 billion people who still remain not connected to the internet by 2030 seems quite doable if the whole world will join this program and if we will have the collaborative work in this regard. So I think this document is big and it is really discussed throughout the forum, throughout the communities and it provides a lot of opportunities for those who are really searching for help, I would say and it really highlights the problems that younger generation is facing right now because we all know that young people who are using the internet, they sometimes have the problems connected with sexual abuse and misinformation and many, many other problems that they are struggling from living in digital cyberspace. I would like to open the floor for the discussion of Global Silk Compact, if I may, because I think we kind of ignored this one and this one is important. I mean, I would invite our speakers to speak on this one. Thank you.

Natalie Tercova: Thank you, Vlad. I am more than happy to kickstart this conversation because one of the core principles we see within the Global Digital Compact is that we want to have inclusive participation. and we want the Internet to be as inclusive, but also to be a trusted space. There’s a lot of discussions within the idea and values within the GDC is to provide a trusted platform for everyone to feel safe online. And from my perspective, the European perspective, and on topics I’ve been working on in the past few years, I’m constantly focusing on children and youth as the end users of the Internet and digital platforms and what types of opportunities but also risks they currently face online. And in the past days here at IGF, I’ve been delivering several talks on the problematics of child sexual abuse materials and all sorts of harmful content that are circulating online. And yet, until today, it is still unclear and it’s not harmonized who should be responsible for, let’s say, hosting these forms of materials online. What happens to those who reshare these things, those who download these things? And there are still so many question marks and real threats in the online environment, not only for youth, but also for other vulnerable groups. And I really hope and wish that through GDC and maybe other frameworks, we can do more for those who are very much at risk of being vulnerable and having their well-being negatively affected due to the limited frameworks or also maybe regulations within the online environment. Because currently, unfortunately, we still cannot say that the online platforms and Internet per se is a space that can be trusted and it can be safe for everyone. So I’m really having high hopes that GDC might be maybe a good start, a good kickstart to having more robust and rigorous frameworks to ensure that we can really one day say that the Internet is here for us, to help us, help us thrive, help us use the opportunities they provide while making us able to… mitigate the risks, and stay safe as much as we can. Keith, maybe if I can do this move, and then put the floor over to you, so you can add up on whatever you have to say to the Global Digital Contact.

Keith Andere: Yeah, sure. Thank you so much. I think the DGDC is a very timely kind of cooperation that has come up, you know, talking about data justice and the inequalities that come with it. But most importantly, what we see as a very progressive aspect also from us, from Africa, is the development and the adoption of the Africa Digital Compact, you know, which then aligns very closely with the Global Digital Compact, but then it speaks to the African, you know, priorities. And I think the biggest question here is the implementation, right? If we don’t figure out how best do we have this implementation, especially in Africa, then we’re going to have a challenge. It speaks about, you know, stakeholder consultation. How do we ensure that the stakeholder consultation, for example, is not a high-level stakeholder consultation, but a very low-level, grassroots kind of consultation, so that we are able to move together, ensuring that nobody is left behind. I mean, in the sense of SDGs leaving no one behind. I think also that we really need that. Again, I speak a lot from an African perspective. We really need to see the harmonization itself between the UN-led process and also the regional INGO, which in our case is the African Union, making sure that we have synergy between these two entities, so that the African Union also owns up this Global Digital Compact, becomes a key player in terms of implementation and making sure that… You know, we are bridging digital divides, ensuring that we have affordable and accessible digital technologies. I think one also of the challenges that Africa is being faced with is skills development and digital literacy. That still remains a huge challenge and the digital literacy comes also with a level of general literacy, right? In Africa, we have a number of young people who are still illiterate. So even though we want to go into the digital literacy and skills development, there’s a lot of skill gaps, skill mismatch. If you go to the education systems, a very unfortunate that many African countries are already, you know, using now and where the future is going in terms of future of work and the skill of the future, there’s a whole mismatch. It’s not new, but universities are also producing half baked people, you know, graduates. So you go to the university, finish your degree, whatever. Learn obsolete things that, you know, there are 20, 30 years ago when I was in a computer science school, the kind of technologies that I was learning, you know, visual basic. And by the time I got, everybody’s looking at me, those are the, boy, is this something for the, you know, past 20 years. So learning again on the market. So I think those was one of key issues. And again, balancing innovation and regulation, especially for emerging technologies is something that from an African point of view, we really need to pay a close attention to because all these emerging technologies, AI, you know, and all of these things that are all coming in, we are quick to sit in a regulation for AI. Let’s try and make sure that there’s, you know, some sense of regulation, but sure that that does not stifle innovation, you know, using AI, of course. to bridge the gaps that we are talking about, either the skills development, either digital literacy, becoming an African, you know, context where we have a lot of indigenous and native languages, how then do we ensure that the data that is in this native and indigenous languages are also recorded, they are kept, they are translated, you know, and vice versa. You know, Wikipedia, for example, I would like to see it in Luya, which is my local dialect, for example, so that I’m able to share this to my grandmother, for example, and she can understand. Because if you look at taking religion, for example, we have Bibles and Quran even that has been translated into the local dialect to make sure that, you know, my grandmother back in the village, even though she cannot read English, but she can read her local dialect and she can understand. So I think these are some issues that we really need to think about. For me, I’m into the implementation. Everything on paper looks good, but how do we go to the ground and implement this?

Dana Cramer: Thank you very much. In our last six minutes, we’ll work through audience questions. And I’d also really like to thank Gail and Vlad for taking over. Unfortunately, I had some food poisoning that came at an opportune moment. Daniele, do we have any questions at all in the chat to address in these final few minutes? No, okay, then we’ll move to audience questions. I think we have, we’ll start with the woman to the side here in these last five minutes, and then we’ll move to Erin afterwards in front.

Audience: Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed the conversation a lot, a lot of learnings, but I have like two concerns. One, when it comes to data collection, but secondly, integrating youth, like it has repeated from two speakers how, when you have the youth on board, eventually they go out because they get older. And I’m thinking, maybe while we’re looking at challenges, the current challenges that are here, is it not, is it wanted, how do I put it? Does the youth not have a responsibility on pulling other youth while they know that they’re moving out? I think that is something you should also consider because, like I would be very interested to know you as youth, what do you think about that? Because sometimes we tend to think like on governance level, they’re not including us. So what are you guys doing to include the others? By the time you’re done, you have nurtured the other group of actors. And the second aspect, I also learned in data protection. I’m very interested in the topic of data protection. And one of the things I’ve learned is that in technology right now, we are so much pushed to solving problems, but instead of solving the problems and learning about what has been done, we go ahead, we leap ahead and start solving the problems, whether it’s collecting data, whether it’s finding solutions, and you find a lot of duplications. So you have a limitation of resources and you’re duplicating something which is already existent. Like you might find you’re collecting data, which has already been collected somewhere. You are solving a solution, a kind of solution, which has already been solved somewhere. And to be honest, most of the solutions provided by the youth are usually very unique because they sort of represent the youth themselves. I’ve shared an observation on the question. That was mine. I would really like to hear from them. Thank you.

Dana Cramer: Great. Thank you. I think Nathalie wants to start us off with this question, and then we’ll move to one of the online speakers just for a balance between. in the room in person and those virtually.

Natalie Tercova: Yes, thank you so much. I would love to give maybe my perspective on your first question. And I actually had these discussions with many of my colleagues also in the previous days about how we make sure that we are not the most youth in the room and not really representing what let’s say 18 years old want and what challenges they face because it can differ very much if you’re close to your 30s or if you’re 18. And I believe that what can be done and what I’m personally trying to do in my region is to go to schools also at the, let’s say last years of the elementary schools but also high schools and do some forms of workshops or lectures tackling the issues we also deal with in the internet governance fields because saying internet governance in GDC and all these weird abbreviations or shortcuts, it can be very scary. And sometimes young people feel like it doesn’t concern them at all or they just don’t understand what it means. So what I’m trying to do is also always think about the real implication, for instance of the GDC, how it’s gonna affect me as a person or maybe if we have these forms of discussions, how I can benefit as a young person or what about my family or friends or younger siblings, how they can personally be affected about these forms of legislations or generally we hear we are discussing so many real life issues but we have some form of code names for them, more fancy ones sometimes. And we are creating this not very inclusive barriers just because of the language we’re using. So what I would suggest is to go always back from the bottom up approach, go back to the schools, go where the youth is gathering and tell them this is actually your place to shine. We’re actually willing to listen and these all sorts of weird terms and abbreviations, all these actually have some real form, physical form and eventually some outcomes and to try provide some real examples. and through this make them excited about it and hopefully bring them on board. Because as you say, if we don’t have really young people represented, then we are missing the point. And eventually someone who is trying to make sure that they’re at the table will say, oh, well, they’re not interested. So let’s not invite them anymore. So this would be just my insight on this first question you’re asking.

Dana Cramer: Thank you. And then to kind of give our closing comment and answering the question, I want to give the floor to Denise, who I believe has the most largest time zone difference and has really taken time out of her sleeping time. So I want to give the closing remarks to her to also conclude the question.

Denise Leal: Thank you. Well, I think the discussions are pretty interesting here today. We’ve got the chance to hear lots of different opinions and we see that the situation of not only data, but also youth participation in digital governance and innovation is similar, but also different across the world. And bringing this youth perspective from Latin American, Caribbean, and also speaking about teens participation. This year, I was involved in a dialogue about how we could involve teens and people that don’t really have access to innovation and digitalization, how we can involve them in these processes. And I heard an answer that I think that I could bring here that is we have to give the chance to these groups, these teens, and also other youths to develop and to create innovation. So by understanding that our educational system is not the better, the best one that we could have, we are beginning this discussion. to be like effective. We should implement a more technological education that could provide teams from different places and also when it comes to traditional people to give them the opportunity to create their own innovation and their own technology. I believe that this could be an answer, an effective answer to really involve these other groups and to make the discussion of how we can make not only youth, but other marginalized people really involved in the process of the digital governance and how we are developing our innovation and why do you need to be involved in this?

Dana Cramer: Thank you so much, Denise. Unfortunately, we are getting a signal that we have to end and our transcription has also ended with the hour. So I’d like to thank the panelists both in person and online for taking the time today, as well as our tech support team and all the participants, as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting this session in the Internet Governance Forum this week. We hope you have a great rest of your day. Aaron has been collecting much comments for the final report sent to Secretariat in early January. If there are any lasting remarks you would like, please feel free to reach us. You can find our contact information through the IGF by searching our names and affiliations. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Agreement Points

Need for improved digital literacy education

Natalie Tercova

Keith Andere

Denise Leal

Need for robust educational frameworks on digital literacy

Challenge of skills development and digital literacy in Africa

Need for more technological education to enable innovation

Multiple speakers emphasized the importance of enhancing digital literacy education, from elementary to university levels, to prepare youth for the digital future.

Importance of youth engagement in digital governance

Keith Andere

Natalie Tercova

Denise Leal

Importance of youth as a distinct stakeholder group

Need to institutionalize youth engagement beyond individual initiatives

Importance of going to schools to engage youth directly

Importance of giving youth opportunities to create their own innovations

Speakers agreed on the need to actively involve youth in digital governance processes, recognizing them as a distinct stakeholder group and providing opportunities for their participation and innovation.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the financial challenges in supporting youth initiatives and data collection efforts, emphasizing the need for more flexible and supportive funding models.

Keith Andere

James Amate

Need for youth-specific funding models

Challenges of data collection costs and community support

Both speakers emphasized the need for updated regulations to protect vulnerable groups in the digital era, including traditional communities and digital workers.

Denise Leal

Tabitha Wangechi

Importance of considering traditional communities in data regulations

Lack of updated employment laws for digital era workers

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of regional approaches to digital governance

Keith Andere

Denise Leal

Vlad Ivanets

Importance of harmonization between UN and regional bodies like African Union

Importance of considering traditional communities in data regulations

Opportunity for African region to be active in digital economy

Despite coming from different regions, these speakers all emphasized the importance of regional approaches to digital governance, suggesting a broader consensus on the need for localized strategies within global frameworks.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement centered around the need for improved digital literacy education, increased youth engagement in digital governance, and the importance of regional approaches to digital issues.

Consensus level

There was a moderate level of consensus among the speakers on key issues, particularly regarding youth engagement and education. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for developing youth-focused digital governance strategies, but also highlights the need for more specific, actionable plans to address regional differences and implementation challenges.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to youth engagement

Natalie Tercova

Keith Andere

Need for robust educational frameworks on digital literacy

Importance of youth as a distinct stakeholder group

Natalie Tercova emphasizes the need for educational frameworks, while Keith Andere focuses on recognizing youth as a distinct stakeholder group in governance structures.

Focus of data protection efforts

Denise Leal

Tabitha Wangechi

Importance of considering traditional communities in data regulations

Lack of updated employment laws for digital era workers

Denise Leal emphasizes protecting traditional communities’ data, while Tabitha Wangechi focuses on updating employment laws for digital workers.

Unexpected Differences

Approach to data harmonization

James Amate

Keith Andere

Challenges of data collection costs and community support

Importance of harmonization between UN and regional bodies like African Union

While both speakers are from Africa, James focuses on local community-level data harmonization, while Keith emphasizes the need for high-level harmonization between international and regional bodies.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to youth engagement, focus of data protection efforts, and the level at which data harmonization should occur.

difference_level

The level of disagreement is moderate. While speakers generally agree on the importance of youth involvement and data protection, they differ in their specific approaches and priorities. These differences reflect the complexity of implementing digital governance frameworks across diverse regions and contexts.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for sustainable support structures, but Keith focuses on institutionalizing youth engagement, while James emphasizes financial and community support for data collection.

Keith Andere

James Amate

Need to institutionalize youth engagement beyond individual initiatives

Challenges of data collection costs and community support

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the financial challenges in supporting youth initiatives and data collection efforts, emphasizing the need for more flexible and supportive funding models.

Keith Andere

James Amate

Need for youth-specific funding models

Challenges of data collection costs and community support

Both speakers emphasized the need for updated regulations to protect vulnerable groups in the digital era, including traditional communities and digital workers.

Denise Leal

Tabitha Wangechi

Importance of considering traditional communities in data regulations

Lack of updated employment laws for digital era workers

Key Takeaways

Data cooperatives are a promising model but face implementation challenges, especially in developing regions

Youth need to be recognized as a distinct stakeholder group in digital governance

There is a need for more robust educational frameworks on digital literacy and skills development

The Global Digital Compact presents opportunities but requires careful implementation, especially at the grassroots level

Balancing innovation and regulation for emerging technologies is crucial, particularly in Africa

Resolutions and Action Items

Engage youth directly through schools and local initiatives to increase participation in digital governance

Work towards harmonizing data protection laws and digital policies across regions

Develop more inclusive funding models for youth-led digital initiatives

Implement technological education to enable innovation among youth and marginalized groups

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively maintain youth engagement in initiatives as participants age out

Addressing the lack of updated employment laws for digital era workers, especially in Africa

How to balance data collection needs with privacy concerns and resource limitations

Strategies for reducing duplication of efforts in data collection and solution development

Suggested Compromises

Develop hybrid models of youth engagement that combine institutional support with grassroots initiatives

Create regional data cooperatives that can balance local needs with broader policy frameworks

Implement tiered approaches to digital literacy education, addressing both basic and advanced skills

We currently lack some robust frameworks when it comes to education, educating young people in terms of media literacy, digital literacy, championing skills such as programming and so forth. These things are not yet embedded within the curricula through the educational system from elementary, spanning universities, schools.

speaker

Natalie Tercova

reason

This comment highlights a critical gap in digital education and skills development, which is fundamental for youth engagement in digital governance.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards the importance of education and skill-building as a foundation for youth participation in digital initiatives.

We need to improve this but as a good topic to our discussion, not only a call to action, I would like to say that in terms of innovation, we do have some work on it across Latin America and Caribbean. I can say about a program from Brazil called Local Innovation Agent, who works bringing innovation and implementing it in a local level, which I think is very interesting and impactful.

speaker

Denise Leal

reason

This comment introduces a concrete example of a successful youth-focused innovation program, providing a practical perspective to the discussion.

impact

It moved the conversation from theoretical challenges to practical solutions and examples of successful initiatives.

I personally advocate for an open data model where you have a stake in the data and the quality of producers.

speaker

James Amate

reason

This comment introduces the concept of open data and stakeholder ownership, which is crucial for data cooperatives.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include considerations of data ownership and quality, emphasizing the importance of community involvement in data production.

I think from an African IGF perspective, this is something that really pushed a few years ago to ensure that youth are considered as a standalone stakeholder group. And what that meant is that, you know, there was a seat of youth as a stakeholder in the mug of the African IGF.

speaker

Keith Andere

reason

This comment highlights the importance of recognizing youth as a distinct stakeholder group in governance structures.

impact

It sparked a discussion about the institutional recognition of youth in decision-making processes and the challenges of maintaining that recognition.

We need real data from real people, bringing members together, pulling data together, defining these revenue models that work for us, that make people trust that they can give their data and be compensated.

speaker

Tabitha Wangechi

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for practical, grassroots-level data collection and the importance of fair compensation models.

impact

It shifted the focus to the practical aspects of implementing data cooperatives and the importance of trust and fair compensation in data collection.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from theoretical concepts to practical challenges and solutions. They highlighted the importance of education, institutional recognition of youth, and grassroots involvement in data collection and governance. The discussion evolved from identifying problems to exploring concrete examples and potential solutions, emphasizing the need for a multi-faceted approach to youth engagement in digital governance that includes education, policy changes, and practical implementation strategies.

How can data cooperatives be implemented in practice, especially for people who aren’t in the tech space?

speaker

Sienna (audience member)

explanation

This question addresses the practical implementation of data cooperatives for the general public, which is crucial for widespread adoption.

What are funders looking for when sponsoring data cooperatives?

speaker

James Amate

explanation

Understanding funder priorities could help align grassroots efforts with available funding opportunities.

How can Africa position itself to capture the future of data markets and not be left behind or exploited by big tech and the global North?

speaker

Tabitha Wangechi

explanation

This question addresses the need for strategic positioning of African countries in the emerging data economy.

How can we ensure that stakeholder consultation for the Global Digital Compact includes grassroots-level input?

speaker

Keith Andere

explanation

This is important to ensure that the Global Digital Compact reflects the needs of all stakeholders, including those at the grassroots level.

How can we balance innovation and regulation for emerging technologies in Africa?

speaker

Keith Andere

explanation

This question addresses the need to foster innovation while also ensuring appropriate regulation in the African context.

How can youth initiatives ensure continuity and involve younger participants as current youth leaders age out?

speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

explanation

This question addresses the sustainability of youth initiatives and the need for ongoing engagement of new young participants.

How can we avoid duplication of efforts in data collection and problem-solving, especially among youth initiatives?

speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

explanation

This question highlights the need for better coordination and knowledge sharing among youth initiatives to maximize limited resources.

Summary

This discussion focused on Network Operator Groups (NOGs) and their role in maintaining internet infrastructure. Speakers from various regional NOGs shared insights on the evolution, challenges, and future of these organizations. NOGs were described as volunteer-driven communities where competing companies collaborate to solve technical problems and ensure internet stability.

The discussion highlighted the importance of NOGs in keeping the internet running smoothly, despite their low public profile. Speakers emphasized the need for NOGs to adapt to changing needs, with examples from SANOG and MENOG on how they’ve evolved over time. Challenges faced by newer NOGs in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Maldives were explored, including political instability and lack of resources.

Sustainability emerged as a key concern, with speakers suggesting strategies such as starting small, focusing on community building, and gradually developing leadership within the group. The importance of making NOG meetings enjoyable and accessible was stressed to encourage participation.

A significant point raised was the disconnect between network operators and policymakers. Speakers advocated for increased NOG involvement in policy discussions at forums like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact. They emphasized the need for NOGs to educate policymakers about technical realities while also becoming more aware of policy implications.

The discussion concluded with calls for elevating the status of NOGs, bridging the gap between technical and policy communities, and ensuring the next generation of professionals becomes involved in NOGs. Overall, the session highlighted the critical yet often overlooked role of NOGs in maintaining a stable, open, and interoperable global internet.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The role and importance of Network Operator Groups (NOGs) in maintaining internet infrastructure and fostering collaboration between technical experts

– Challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, especially in developing regions

– The need to evolve NOGs to meet changing community needs and engage with policy discussions

– The disconnect between technical operators and policymakers, and how to bridge that gap

– Ways to increase NOG participation in internet governance forums and policy development

The overall purpose of the discussion was to raise awareness about NOGs, their critical role in internet operations, and how to strengthen and sustain them going forward. There was a particular focus on highlighting NOG activities in developing regions and exploring how NOGs can have more influence in policy discussions.

The tone of the discussion was largely collaborative and forward-looking. Speakers shared experiences openly and offered constructive suggestions. There was a sense of urgency around the need to elevate the status of NOGs and ensure their voices are heard in policy forums. The tone became more action-oriented towards the end as participants discussed concrete next steps.

Speakers

– Rajnesh Singh: Moderator, from APNIC Foundation

– Rupesh Shrestha: Representative from SANOG (South Asian Network Operators Group)

– Osama Al-Dosary: Representative from MENOG (Middle East Network Operators Group)

– Vahan Hovsepyan: Representative from RIPE NCC (Regional Internet Registry)

– Mohibullah Utmankhil: Coordinator of Afghanistan Network Operators Group

– Harisa Shahid: Representative from Pakistan, described as “next generation” in the industry

– Niuma Faiz: Representative from Maldives

Additional speakers:

– Mery Henrica: Representative from Timor-Leste Network Operators Group (TLNOG)

– Karma Donnen Wangdi: Co-chair of Bhutan Network Operators Group (BTNOG)

Network Operator Groups (NOGs) and Their Role in Internet Infrastructure

This comprehensive discussion focused on the critical role of Network Operator Groups (NOGs) in maintaining internet infrastructure and fostering collaboration among technical experts. The session was structured into three segments: NOG ecosystem, NOG practitioners, and sustainability and future of NOGs. Representatives from various regional NOGs shared insights on the evolution, challenges, and future of these organizations.

1. The Importance and Function of NOGs

NOGs were described as volunteer-driven communities where competing companies collaborate to solve technical problems and ensure internet stability. These groups play a crucial yet often unrecognized role in maintaining a stable, open, and interoperable global internet.

Speakers provided examples of how NOGs contribute to internet development and capacity building in their regions, including:

– Promoting IPv6 deployment

– Establishing internet exchanges

– Offering technical training and knowledge sharing

2. Evolution and Adaptation of NOGs

The discussion revealed how NOGs have evolved over time to meet changing community needs. Rupesh Shrestha shared SANOG’s journey: “We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make SANOG as a more training platform as well.” He also highlighted SANOG’s future plans, including a focus on gender equality and a fellowship program to support participation from underrepresented regions.

Osama Al-Dosary discussed MENOG’s development, emphasizing the importance of starting small and keeping meetings informal and fun. This approach has helped MENOG grow and adapt to the needs of its community.

3. Challenges in Establishing and Sustaining NOGs

Several challenges were identified in establishing and sustaining NOGs, particularly in developing regions:

– Reliance on volunteers, leading to sustainability concerns

– Political instability hindering NOG development and activities (e.g., Afghanistan)

– Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities (e.g., Maldives)

– Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals (e.g., Pakistan)

Osama Al-Dosary highlighted a critical issue: “Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers.”

4. Bridging the Gap Between Technical and Policy Communities

A significant point of discussion was the disconnect between network operators and policymakers. Rupesh Shrestha described this as a “0 degrees to 180 degrees” gap between the technical community and the governance community. Speakers agreed on the importance of NOGs having a voice in policy forums like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact.

Approaches to bridging this gap included:

– Direct participation in global forums (Vahan Hovsepyan)

– Simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals (Osama Al-Dosary)

– Using ‘interpreters’ to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities (Rupesh Shrestha)

5. Future Directions and Sustainability

The discussion concluded with a focus on ensuring the future sustainability and relevance of NOGs. Key points included:

– Encouraging next-generation participation: Harisa Shahid emphasized the importance of involving younger professionals to become future leaders.

– Adapting to changing needs: Speakers agreed on the need for NOGs to continually evolve their services and focus to remain relevant.

– Increasing visibility: There was consensus on the need to improve branding and outreach to increase NOG recognition.

– Sustainable funding models: The need for more sustainable funding models, especially for regional NOGs, was discussed.

– Emphasizing human connections: Speakers highlighted the importance of socializing and building relationships at NOG meetings.

– Integrating with regional IGFs: A suggestion was made to make NOG discussions a regular part of regional Internet Governance Forums.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the critical role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure while emphasizing the need for adaptation, policy engagement, and sustainability. The session concluded with a call to action from the moderator, Rajnesh Singh, emphasizing the importance of “action, not words” in moving forward.

The overall tone was collaborative and forward-looking, with a clear emphasis on the continued importance of NOGs in the global internet ecosystem. As NOGs continue to evolve, their ability to bridge technical expertise with policy considerations will be crucial in shaping the future of the internet.

Rajnath Singh: All right, good morning, and welcome to workshop number 223, Communities of Practice, NOGs Driving the Local Internet. We have a small gathering here this morning. I guess it’s too early. Some have started leaving, but that’s okay. Just to give you a quick overview, we’re not using any presentations or slide decks. It’s all interventions by our esteemed speakers. I’m hoping we stick to the time, and I’m also hoping we can get some interaction from the audience. And hopefully the room fills up a little bit more as the day goes on. So first of all, I’m Raj Singh from the APNIC Foundation. Most of our speakers are in the room here today, except for one, Mohib Ullah, who’s joining us from Afghanistan, I believe. The way we’re doing this session is divided into three segments. First, we’ll cover a little bit about the NOG ecosystem, then we’ll go and hear from NOG practitioners who are out there on the ground setting up NOGs. And then to wrap it up, we’ll talk about sustainability and the future for NOGs. Now, if you don’t know what NOGs are, NOGs are network operator groups. And I thought I’d start a little bit with my own experience with NOGs. Back in the day when I was doing startups, I was asked by one of my team members to go to a meeting in Singapore. I had no idea what it was. He said, it’s like a NOG meeting. I had no idea what NOG meant. So when I arrived at the meetings, he introduced me around, APNIC meeting, by the way. And my first question was, and I started to understand a little bit how NOGs work, why is it that people from competing companies are collaborating and discussing and trying to fix problems together? Because from a business perspective, it didn’t make sense to me. Why would I collaborate with them? my competitors, right? It took me a while to understand why that was the case. And today, of course, I’m a big supporter of the NOG ecosystem, as Rupesh will allude to. So the key thing there is that NOGs, they may come from different companies and different organizations. They may be competing with each other at the business level, but they work together to solve problems, to address issues, to ensure that the internet keeps on operating the way it needs to operate. It’s stable, it’s secure, it’s resilient, it’s robust. And therein, the NOG groups perform a very important function in the internet ecosystem. The problem, however, is that hardly anyone knows about NOGs and us, right? NOGs are basically those that work in the background. They keep things running, they collaborate, they coordinate, but the outside world never really knows you, right? Even when things go wrong, they go to the ISPs or retail providers or whoever they may be. There’ll be lots of social media chatter that, you know, this is not working, internet’s down, speed is slow. But behind the scenes, it’s the NOG operators, you know, people from NOGs who work in these companies who try and make sure that those things don’t happen. So I believe this is the first time the Internet Governance Forum has actually had a session on NOGs. That, I thought, was quite amusing in the manner of speaking, because if it’s the Internet Governance Forum, the internet basically depends on NOGs to keep things up and running. And we’ve never brought up these issues at an IGF, you know, in the 20, what, nearly 20 years that it’s been around. So I’m glad that we’re doing this session. And at least it’s on the agenda, you know, we have some online participants. And, you know, we’ll have some outputs out of this, which I hope can be shared with the wider community. So to start off, we’ll talk a little bit about the NOG ecosystem. So I’ve asked a couple of my speakers a question each on what their experience has been in setting up NOGs and being involved with them. I’ll get each speaker, you know, as I turn to you, please just introduce yourself in two sentences. Let’s not do long bios. And then, if you could answer the question that I put to you. So I’ll start off with Rupesh. Rupesh, in many respects, SANOG, the South Asian NOG, is one of the more mature NOGs in the Asia Pacific region, with more than 20 years of history. Can you share some thoughts on that 20 plus year journey, and in particular, how SANOG has contributed to the South Asian technical community, which keeps the internet up and running, not just in the region, but outside it as well?

Rupesh Shrestha: Thank you, Raj. Thank you very much. Raj, as you mentioned, this is probably the first time that the NOG has been part of this IGF program, and I’m really very thankful to the APNIC Foundation for facilitating this and bringing us together with the governance side of the internet. As Raj mentioned, the NOG people are working in the background to keep the internet stable, secure, as well as kind of open, but we work in a stealth mode for the governance team, right? So, SANOG, we started in 2003 through the initiative of a few people, like Gaurab Razapad there, and then Dr. Phyllis Smith and Champika, and then a few other people. And later on, other people started joining the movement. We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make the SANOG as a more training platform as well. So, over the period, I mean, if I have to break down this 23 years of journey of SANOG, we would basically, on a broader way, we just break it down into three different parts. The initial movement was like some of the people were like very enthusiastic people coming together to share their knowledge, share their experience, and get along, and getting that satisfaction and motivation of being with the team of good technical people who are thriving to keep internet secure and then resilient, as well as getting the knowledge transferred to the new generation. And I always say during the SANOG events that a lot of people who were trained by SANOG in the earlier days are now in various leadership positions and are the key members of this internet community. Initially, it was basically a training program, workshops that we used to do. Since 2003, we’ve done, we’ve trained probably around 3500 people. Hardcore training, right? So five days of hands-on training on how you should work on the internet. And when we started in 2003, it was more of a static routing days, right? So you give a command in the router saying, oh, send this network, subnet, to this network, and it’s more static. And we started this through the SANOG, we started training on the OSP, BGV, and then things of that sort, and then gradually moved to DNSSEC and security, and then now more on the automation side of the network as well. The initial journey was towards like training this, making the SANOG as a workshop, a training platform, where a lot of people were trained. And at the same time, we were also providing fellowship to more deserving candidates, and then those fellow people who’ve got the fellowship has come back to the SANOG as a trainer now. So they’re more of the senior trainer for SANOG community, and then it’s all done through the volunteer way, we don’t pay to the trainers. It’s all the volunteer trainers that come to the community and share their experiences, share their hand, just as SANOG initially gave them a hand to start their career. Then, the second phase of SANOG, we started to think that, okay, probably the SANOG being a regional network operators group in these various countries, we do two events, we’ve been doing two events every year in different cities of South Asia, in Kathmandu, Bhutan, Thimphu, Paro, Mumbai, or Kolkata. or Dhaka, Colombo and various places. So we realized that, okay, maybe we should not only do this event on an international basis, we should also carry the localized part of the content. And we started to encourage the local content providers, local providers to come up with their challenges. And then we built onto the process and then thought process of creating this local NOGs. And we started supporting the creation and then handling of the local NOGs, where in 2014, the BD NOG started in Bangladesh and 2016 NP NOG started in Nepal. And now that we have all the NOGs in different countries now so all the South Asian countries have their own local NOGs. And that’s like very, very interesting to see that. We’ve covered SANOG in six different countries and then it’s very interesting and very happy to see AFNOG. I was part of the opening ceremony in AFNOG last week and then I’m happy to see MNNOG also coming up. So through this initiative, we plan to cover all the regions, countries and happy to see that the local NOGs are carrying the content and carrying the thought process that SANOG initially covered. And it’s more on the localized basis, right? So SANOG will come as a regional platform but the local NOGs can, through their local language communication, through their local needs, will come up with their local, to address the local challenges. For example, in Nepal, they came up with the optical fiber training which was the local need at that time. And then that curriculum is nowhere found. So they developed their own curriculum, started the training and then there was like catered to their own community’s requirement. Similarly in Bhutan, same thing happened. I think Afghanistan, the last AFNOG was in local language. I was very happy to see that. Sri Lanka is doing it in the local language. NPNOG is just did the last event partially in a hybrid mode with the Nepali language as well as English language. So the second part of SANOG’s journey over this last 20 plus years, 23 years to be more specific has been, first phase was more of a community building. Second phase focused on the local NOG creation. And we are at the brink of starting our third phase, which I’ll talk later on, what next for SANOG. Now that all the countries have their own local NOGs, that we are going to move to the next phase. Also through the SANOG movement, we’ve been able to create and then do the training or to start the journey of various internet exchanges as well. And this movement was contributed by a lot of people. Raj was part of the community which contributed to SANOG. Aftab was there, Jichen from Bhutan, and a lot of people, a lot of people. So we were a part of this to make the SANOG a NOG community, a strong community. And it’s like completely, I mean, it’s a very selfless job. You know, I mean, like Raj talked about like why competing organization will come together and then showcase their challenges or success stories or the difficulties that they’re facing in the business. It’s more of a family, you know? You come to a family’s environment where you feel free to share your challenges. You feel free to share your successes so that the bonding becomes bigger for the greater interest of internet in overall, right? So we are more of a, well, SANOG is basically, I mean, as initially Raj also mentioned, I also mentioned we are like working on a background like a guardian of a South Asian galaxy, but a lot of people do not realize that and in the governance side of that. Maybe my five minutes is up. So probably I’ll continue in the later part of this. Thank you, Rupesh.

Rajnath Singh: So guardians of the South Asian galaxy. So that could stick, eh? Osama, so the Middle East NOG has been around for… over 15 years, I believe, you have evolved in that time, of course, to meet community needs. So that’s another important aspect of NOG, that you need to meet the community’s needs. Could you share some thoughts on the Meenak journey and how it has helped contribute to internet development in the Middle East, which itself, of course, has been rapid in these 15 odd years?

Osama Al-Dosary : So kind of similar to SANOG, actually, I attended the SANOG No. 4, and I really enjoyed the experience there. And for me, it was a new experience in terms of how people came together and were able to help each other, and also how valuable the sessions were, because they were from people that actually have real hands-on experience, as opposed to the typical training you may get from vendors, where it’s just professional trainers, without respect to them, but they don’t have the operational background to explain the challenges that people may face, or you may face on a daily basis. And that was very enlightening. And similar to SANOG, we were actually founded initially, led by Dr. Philip Smith, I think this was 2007, and a couple of other local members, including Fahad and Shiaoun. And I was part of that team, part of the program committee from that initial meeting. And we kept on going, and it was mostly in the beginning, it was mostly grassroots efforts, and the effort to kind of gain more awareness of MENAG and more awareness of the challenges and the importance of focusing on internet operations, to make sure that the internet operates and continues, and trying to reach out to not only the community, but also to the, let’s say, executives and telecom operators, and also to reach out to government, the regulators, and so forth, to kind of raise their awareness of the different issues, and also things similar to, for example, the need to roll out IPv6, or get their support to kind of roll out IPv6. And that was kind of the initial phase that we went through in the beginning. And part of the success is also, you know, part of the local successes that we had in the region, for example, is in Saudi Arabia, the regulator actually took upon themselves to kind of promote IPv6, and we’re kind of, the adoption of IPv6 in Saudi Arabia was one of the best, not only in the region, but globally. And that was kind of the early phase. Later on, we went through some other changes in MENAG, and the RIPE NCC kind of took a more bigger role in the leadership of the NCC, Dr. Philip Smith had to step away a little bit, and we, it took a kind of different role, not the kind of same level as it did, but it took like a higher role of engaging governments more, and trying to raise more awareness on a government level, and also conducting, we continue to conduct the trainings that we did. So we had a similar format in terms of, we had hands-on workshops, and we were actually modeled after SANOG, so very similar format in terms of, we had hands-on training workshops, whether on IPv6, whether on DNS, DNSSEC, security, and then we would have, we used to have tutorials, one day full of tutorials, and then we would have another day, we’d have two days of plenary sessions, where we would accept submissions from a region and globally to present in the conference. And then after that, we kind of, we had to roll back a little bit, so we’re not, we weren’t doing twice a year as we first started, initially started, but then we started doing once a year, and we’ve been continuing on the once a year format since then, and I’m happy to say that I think it’s going very well. We had a recent meeting in Oman just a few weeks ago.

Rajnath Singh: Right, thanks Osama. Thanks for that overview of how you’ve developed MINOG, and you know, again, the key thing between both MINOG and SANOG is it’s about community, right? You’re building a community of practice, and people are there to help each other, rather than, you know, compete. The competition comes later, right? Okay, if I can turn to Vahan, who is of course with RIPE NCC. Vahan, RIPE NCC is one of the five regional internet registries, and the RIPE region itself of course covers multiple sub-regions. As RIR, you enjoy a higher level view of how the internet has been developing at the technical level, and you work with multiple stakeholders to ensure that internet remains open, available, and accessible. Could you share some thoughts on what you see from a RIR perspective, and in particular, what are some of the challenges that the network operator community faces?

Vahan Hovsepyan: Okay, good. Yeah, nice. So actually, NOCs are one of the priority groups in the RIPE technical community, and we do support the creation and the activities of NOCs in our service region with many, many, many instruments, sharing, and this is not only financial. We do share in many cases also our personal, let’s say, history of cooperation, or even history of creation of the NOCs. I was, I had the personal experience prior to joining RIPE NCC, I was the creator of Armenian Association of Operators that has initiated first Armenian NOC, and that is why I have my own personal, let’s say, history of things happening, why, and understanding why NOC should happen, and what it can bring to the community. But I can share here some experience we had with many NOCs, and what issues they have, and what kind of opportunities they have, and some uniqueness of work with them in these regions. So, so far, I have participated in, well, participated in kind of creation and supported them of Georgian, Armenian, and Kazakhstan NOC, and the interesting thing with Kazakhstan NOC is that it is not even an event, but it is a community. So, sometimes we have some similarities with IGF, you know, we have the IGF as an event, but this is kind of not an event, this is a process, this is a procedure of internet governance, and this is also a process of network operators to discuss their issues, and not to discuss it once a year or twice a year. but also have the platform where they can discuss the current issues and get the current answer. So Kazakhstan NOC started from the Telegram chat group. And they have decided to go to the NOC kind of year after they have started very proactive communication via Telegram. And not only Kazakhstan network operators gathered there, but also some operators from neighboring countries, from Russia, from other places, and myself as well. So what they do, they do this very proactive communication on current issues each day. They have hundreds of messages each day in this Telegram group. And they started communicating at the conference with the government itself. And this was already a second step of their development. The third step of their development was that the state has recognized them as an organized group. And they have advised them to come and asked them to come to the advisory group under the ministry. And one of their initiators is already in the public council at the ministry. And third step they had is the creation of association, a legal body. And they have created now the association of legal bodies that has also an ability to legally support these processes. What we do with them and how it can be also beneficial for other multi-stakeholder community to cooperate with them. Okay, we do also this, we try to do at least these trainings because there is a gathering of network operators. It’s a good place to go and deliver their prior to the event or after the event, the trainings that can be beneficial for this technical community. What is quite interesting, they are not only discussing now the technical questions. They are not now discussing only the how they can operate the internet, but they now also discuss all the questions that can be interested for the operators. Should it be commercial, marketing, sales, all these questions. And as it was mentioned here, it is not a place for competition there. They are quite free to share their experience. They are quite free to share their advices, how they can do with this or that product. And it creates quite a unique environment where they can openly talk about their problems, even the state that is called to be very close. It goes there and take participation in these discussions. How it can be also helpful to others. We see a lot of our counterparts also working with technical community. So should it be ISOC with their programs to support community? Should it be state or multi-stakeholder other bodies like we have, for example, the IT also providing some conferences and sites on how they can develop the internet or support to develop the internet and standards, etc. So they are also coming sometimes to these meetings. And this is as we see for IXPs, for NOCs, for policy players, this is also can be also a future place for them to grow and represent their questions to the state and have this negotiation with the state immediately and not to wait for, I don’t know, four months or a year to have the NOC gathering. We are closely cooperating with them and supporting them, not only for the creation of or for the organization of event itself, but also in the development of that. And I guess the brightest example of this combined cooperation or successful cooperation can be Minoc where my colleague, you might know him, is quite widely engaged and our manager Hisham was playing quite a significant role. I have participated at two Minocs. They are brilliant and they are bringing all the questions that are very actual for the community, for the development of community. And this can be also the place where you can understand these issues of the community and bring it to the upper level, like to regional level or to the international level. That’s what is maybe missed sometimes for the discussions at IJF, where we can bring what we have discussed

Rajnath Singh: at Minoc. Thank you. Thank you, Vahan. So, what we heard from those three speakers is how the NOC ecosystem has been evolving, at least in the wider Asian part of the region and, of course, the European side as well. Needless to say, the NOC community plays a very important role and I think I’m hoping it will continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you very much, Vahan. In the following segments or in the last segment today, we can talk a little bit about how we can raise that voice in other fora as well. One good thing to hear from Vahan and Osama both was the fact that governments are also interested in the work of the NOCs. I think that’s not equal across the world. I think it depends on the economy or the region or the sub-region. I think maybe we could do a little bit more work there as well. So, we’re doing very well for time. Thank you to my speakers for listening to me, being on time. I absolutely am impressed. Thank you. I’ve got a few minutes allocated for some questions and answers. I wanted to make this interactive and not just have a series of talks by our speakers. So, why don’t we first go to my good friend, Kahil, if we have anyone online with any questions or comments? Oh, no comments thus far. Okay, all right, fine. So, we can turn to the room itself. Anyone in the room would like to ask a question, have a comment? Mary, yes, please. Please take a mic so that, yeah. If you could also introduce yourself very quickly. Maybe it’s off.

Audience: Hello, everyone. I’m Mary from Timor-Leste. Sorry, I’m a little bit nervous because this is my first time to attend an international discussion like this. In the room, I also want to say that Timor-Leste also has a NOC this year. So, we just started this year and we got the support from the APNIC and the initiative we started the NOC is from the APNIC staff. So, we are very happy to be here. This year, we started the NOC with three days for workshop for internet routing basic and then for conference one day and we got a sponsor from the international company also and from APNIC and then we got support also from our government that facilitated us with the with the building to held a conference, held a workshop. So, here I want to ask to the SANOG, what’s your input for our TLNOC? We just started. So, maybe SANOG may have more experience with the NOC. So, maybe you can share or you can give us the idea or a suggestion to the TLNOC. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: So, in fact, the next segment talks about how new NOCs are starting up. So, our three colleagues from Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan are going to cover a little bit of that but Rakesh, maybe you can share some brief comments. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mary,

Rupesh Shrestha: for the question. Basically, when you start a new NOC, what as a SANOG through our experience, what I would like to recommend is focus on two things. One, understand what the local community requires from this community, right? So, local requirement has to be clearly spelled out before you start to listen to the outside world. Second part of the responsibility for a TLNOC would be to get the success stories and the scenarios from the outside world. For example, when the IPv6 deployment was required, SANOG was part of it to provide training to its community and then get the regional people, regional engineers ready to get the deployment of IPv6. When the wave came for internet exchange, SANOG was helping the community to get the knowledge transferred to establishing the internet exchange, the BGP and all those things. The DNA set, right? So, now the RPKI or low implementation and all those things. So, focus on two things. Understand what the local community wants or the requires and help facilitate through the outside world or through the local resources itself. Second, whatever is happening worldwide in terms of making the internet more secure and resilient and then stable, get those things processed to the community through whatever internet foundation or whatever help we can get from the outside world. SANOG will be happy to extend our resources for the upcoming NONs as well. So, we would be happy to get those things facilitated as well. So, just focus on those two things. Apart from that, there will be a lot of challenges. Funding will be challenges and getting the papers, presentations, there will be so many other challenges. But just try to focus on these two key areas for the success and stability of getting the operations rolled for the benefit of the community.

Osama Al-Dosary : Thanks, Rupesh. I’d like to add. So, it may differ a little bit from my colleague here. I would actually recommend that you start simple and focus on the community. So, the people that are involved, just try to have this in a way that’s very simple, that doesn’t cost anything, be very frugal and maybe start very small. Somehow, getting together, maybe it could be just getting together over a meal and then maybe talking about one topic. You don’t have to make it very big from the beginning. You can reach the stage where it’s big, but initially, you should focus on the community aspect and focus on the technology and the operational aspect. So, the people that are interested in NONs, the best people that are interested in NONs are the people that are very interested in technology and operating technology. So, have that as the core goal of the group. So, when you gather together, you gather in a more social manner and talk about these different issues and then maybe you can start by having discussions on certain points. You don’t have to have something very formal or anything like you don’t have to try to rent out a location to set up something. Just have it as a normal, like a simple discussion. So, you create a very simple structure. We get together once a week, once a month, it’s like that and some regular cadence and then you, it could be over a meal, talk and then you may have something simple as like, okay, for the next 30 minutes, we’re going to talk about or the next 20 minutes, we’re going to talk about one topic or if someone has something to share, please share it and then when you start doing that over time, then you can start doing something a bit more formal. If someone has, let’s say, a topic they want to present, you know, maybe get to a point where they actually prepare a presentation. So, very often, people in our communities, the technical people, people that run routers and switches and DNS and so forth, they’re very, very uncomfortable presenting. So if you tell them, can you make a presentation about this and talk to people, that is very scary. It’s extremely scary. But if you start in a very casual fashion, OK, please tell us about this topic or can you share this experience without any presentation, just have it very informal, very casual. And then over time, you can start to make it more structured. When the team gets bigger to the stage where you can’t have a normal conversation like this, then at that point, it becomes very obvious that people need to actually put some slides together, like have something more formal to do. But I would recommend avoid cost, avoid incurring any additional cost in the beginning. Because the more cost you have in the beginning, the more difficult it can be to maintain. So for example, if you get used to getting funds from Sanhok or whatever other organization, or let’s say one of the companies come sponsor you, and then you get used to doing that, if that fund is not available, then it becomes difficult to actually manage your group. So that would be my recommendations, is start small, start casual, social, and then gradually build up the engagement.

Rajnath Singh: I think that’s some useful advice there. Yeah, Van, I’ll just come to you in one more.

Vahan Hovsepyan: Yep. Yeah, small one, really a small one. So it is on, yeah. Don’t forget about the human basis of all of us. This is about socializing, yes, but this is about fun and the event should be attractive to everybody. So if you have a fund there, well, it should be interesting. It should be interesting and not very full of technical details, et cetera, but with also human conversation, really fun, attractiveness. Don’t think much about money itself. So either RIPE NCC or IPNIC or IPNIC Foundation will help you or ISO. Okay, that is not an issue, but to create a unique environment where they have a fund, where they have an opportunity to talk and express themselves. And if it is interesting, they will come.

Rajnath Singh: So for those who may be unaware, Timor-Leste is one of the newest sovereign countries in the world. It’s based in Southeast Asia. It’s a small country and we’ve been doing a lot of work trying to support them over the last several years. I had a question at the back there, perhaps. Can someone run a mic? Thanks.

Audience: Yeah. Hi, can you hear me? I’m Karma from Bhutan. I just have a few comments with regard to the NOC. I’m also one of the co-chair of the Bhutan Beta Group. We established in 2014. And since then we have had over 11 BGNOC events every year. For the last 10, 11 years. My question is on the sustainability part and it’s just a comment, basically. The NOCs, like the few speakers have already mentioned, drives on the volunteerism, right? And there are only group of volunteers that come forward, organize these meetings, but also at the same time deliver trainings, help the community with the training, specific requirements within the country, within the region. And these volunteers are basically, they volunteer. So we get a fund. So what we do is we heavily rely on the sponsorship, not just from the international, but from the local as well. And I think we have a great opportunity here right now for all these NOCs, IGF, ISOC, country-specific chapters to co-exist, basically. And each of the players has an opportunity to complement each other to achieve the outcome, the goals of the respective IGF, ISOC, or the NOCs. And also with regard to the, now with NOCs coming up more prominently for the last five, six years, the way the regional NOCs approach this whole new community building, capacity building, the whole regional NOCs has to change. And I’m very much looking forward to hear from Rupesh Day on what would be the next step for the salon. This is very important so that there is no duplication in efforts and we grow together. Just a comment. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. I am a big believer in no duplication. So, and indeed the last segment is about sustainability. So we’ll cover that a little bit later. So we’ll go to the next part of the session today, which is actually hearing from NOC practitioners. It just so happens we had a nice segue. We had from Timor-Leste and Bhutan before we hear from the other three economists. So I’ve ended up with five economists, which is a good thing. Let me first turn to Mohibullah from Afghanistan. Mohibullah, Afghanistan is one of the newer NOGs, NOG efforts in the region, and you have had your fair share of challenges in many dimensions. Can you share some insights on what you have had to do to set up a NOG and the challenges you have faced?

Mohibullah Utmankhil: Thank you, Raj. Am I audible?

Rajnath Singh: Yes, you are.

Mohibullah Utmankhil: Okay, that’s good. Good morning, everyone. I’m Mohibullah Utman Khair. I’m the coordinator of the Afghanistan Network Operators Group, and currently I’m based in Germany. I just wanted to say that as well. Let me give some context about Afghanistan before addressing your questions, Raj. We are a landlocked country located at the crossroads of the South and Central Asia. Despite the rich history, we have faced challenges in the past 50 years, including political instability, infrastructure gaps, and economic constraints. All of which have impacted the development of the country and also the Internet ecosystem. So, though the Internet penetration has been improving over the years, from almost no connectivity in the early 2000s to having an internal fiber ring in the country and five to six national-level telecommunication service providers and around 60 to 70 network operators all over the country at the moment. Although we don’t have direct access to the subsea cables, however, we have fiber connections to almost all of the neighbor countries. And despite all of these, there is still much work to be done, particularly in addressing infrastructure gaps and capacity building and digital divide. AFNOG was conceptualized as a response to these challenges. So the idea for establishing a network operators group in Afghanistan began back in 2018 during discussions with regional leaders. leaders, including Dr. Philip Smith and APNIC engineers at the SANOG meeting in Kolkata, India. And the goal was to create a platform for Afghan network operators to collaborate, share experience and also learn from original and global best practices. One of the tasks back then we wanted to work on was to have an instance of the DNS root server hosted in Afghanistan. And I had the honor of leading the SANOG establishment back then and discussions and also following the communication between about the DNS root server instance with the Ministry of Communication and IT at those days. However, turning that vision into reality was not easy and we were not able to follow up things during the COVID pandemic and later the political situation changed in Afghanistan, which made things worse and we were not able to stick to our plans. Later in 2022, when I was living in Pakistan, I was also one of the fellows of the APNIC Foundation’s Afghanistan project, which is a capacity building program and now it’s extended to digital leap South Asia and included other countries. The idea of having SANOG in Afghanistan was raised in our mailing list by Mr. Omar Ansari and I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to follow up on the idea of having a SANOG in Afghanistan again. And from 2023 that we officially launched Afghanistan Network Operators Group, we recently had our second AFNOG meeting in December this year and it was organized remotely for two days and we had around seven sessions and panel discussions. with around 60 participants. So of course, we are a young community and there are still many things that needs to be done to make the community more inclusive and stable. And at the moment, some of the key challenges that we are dealing with is, for example, the community engagement is a challenge for us, bringing together a fragmented community of network professionals and experts is a challenge. Sometimes, especially when over the past four years, majority of the experts and leaders left the country and reaching out to them in different regions with different time zone and bringing them together in discussions with local experts inside Afghanistan is a challenge that we are dealing with. In addition, due to the lack of pre-existing collaborative culture, getting stakeholders to actively participate and sharing knowledge has also been a challenge. So though we have seen progress through last two years to consistent outreach and engagement efforts, but there’s still, there are other things needs to be done in this specific task. And other challenge is the political situation in the country. Sometimes we find it challenging to actively engage local experts who are inside Afghanistan in our community discussions. And since the situation is complicated and they don’t wanna risk their positions and it’s understandable for us. And as a community, we also prefer sometimes to be adaptive and they do join our webinars and communications, but they prefer to have their co-operations in the background and not actively. And another challenge is the political situation. capacity building. We also have training and skill development programs to address the technical expertise gap within the local community. We organize monthly webinars and discussions while our priority is to have local presenters and panelists, which is sometimes a challenge to have their engagement. I mean, despite all of these challenges so far, the journey has been rewarding. We have learned that collaboration is key, not just within the country, but regionally and also globally. Organizations like APNIC Foundation, APNIC RIPE, and South Asian Network Operators Group have been invaluable partners so far, and I’m thankful today. Thank you

Rajnath Singh: very much. Thank you, Mohibullah. And of course, thank you for also plugging the work of the APNIC Foundation and how we’ve been helping build capacity. Of course, Afghanistan, as you heard, has its own challenges. Mohibullah is sitting in Germany trying to coordinate and organize Afghanistan. We have some of our colleagues from Afghanistan here in the room today as well. And, you know, in another session, I mentioned that, you know, whenever conflict or political issues happen, media and the world pays attention for a little bit of a while, and then they move on to something else, right? The problem still remains in Afghanistan, though, so I think, you know, there’s still a lot more to be done. Okay, I’ll turn to Harisa now from Pakistan. Harisa, Pakistan has a vibrant technical community, and I’ve been a frequent visitor, but the NOG group also has had its challenges through the years. However, in more recent times, there’s been a flurry of activity locally. As part of the newer generation in the industry, how do you see what NOGs do and what has your experience been? So, Harisa is one of our next generation leaders, I can say. So, I was keen to hear what she would contribute to this discussion. And, you know, the voice of the next generation, I think, is equally important, not just the old-timers like myself and Rupesh and Osama and Vahan. So, Harisa, please. Thank you

Harisa Shahid: so much, Raj. Am I on? Yes, yes, you are. Okay, that’s great. First of all, thank you so much for like bringing this up and having this discussion. And as you said, indeed, Pakistan is a vibrant community of multi-talented people and has a huge technical spectrum. But the weakest challenge in this chain has been observed the inter-organizational collaboration. As you said that I have been a part of the next generation, like I was not involved as much in the previous years. But from the time since I have been involved in the Pakistan NOG and have discussion with the people there. So, I’ve like come to know that the organizational collaboration has been the main challenge. And it starts from the ISPs with the last. So, but it needs the discussion to it needs the people for us like us to come and discuss these issues. If I talk about the earlier times, I believe that in the earlier times, the meetups were being organized by some, like the government entities or the government technical wing to bring up the stakeholders and the interested parties to collaborate and gather and discuss the issues. But the organizational interaction or the collaboration has been the weak point, because maybe they were not being being able as Sama and Sama said that the technical people are very shy to discuss to come up and to discuss the issues. So, maybe that that could be the reason or maybe they don’t want to like to share their hidden trade secrets, which can be understandable, but which is truly, truly understandable. But in those events, now, if I talk about recent times with the help of organizations like APNIC and other organizations, new ways of engaging these technical experts, these organizations have been put into play. And talking about nowadays, industry has a positive outlook towards these meetups and isn’t shy to discuss the discuss the technology or present any issues. And with, if Vahan both said that the events and we should start from the smaller steps, and it for the technical experts to discuss and engage freely, it should be like it should be a have to have something fun. So, social events have been observed to be have the board attendance and we utilize those events to come up and discuss the technological aspects of the issues. And in these events, the people gather and discuss these technical expertise, any technological issues. And if the discussion is not more, continue later on to to have like to have the troubleshooting, knowledge sharing and technological discussions. If I talk particularly, if I talk about the Pakistan NOG, Pakistan NOG is not like running in in the way like typical NOGs are right now, but baby steps are being taken to to to have a strong base before it is launched nationwide, and, and becomes one stop for collaboration and knowledge sharing expertise.

Rajnath Singh: So yeah, that’s all I think. Thank you. So I think one key message I’m getting here is that, you know, first, let’s learn how to crawl, then walk, then we run, right. And then after we start running, we can start to sprint. Yeah. The other bit, of course, that resonated for me in just a few contributions, including what Vahan said earlier was that, you know, we are building network connections, but it’s humans doing right. So we need that human connection to make those network connections work as well. So that social interaction and human beings by nature, they like interaction and socializing, right. So, right. So let’s go to Numa from the Maldives. I had a very interesting chat with her earlier in the week. So I’m keen to hear what else what other insights she will share with the wider group today. So the Maldives NOG is also in the early formation stages, Numa. You have recently also held a number of activities, including a local IGF. How difficult or easy for that matter, has it been to try and bring the community together? And what are some of the challenges going forward? And of course, some of you may be aware of the Maldives has also had its political challenges in recent times, right? So, Numa, thanks.

Niuma Faiz: Thank you. Thank you, APNIC, for this opportunity. As Raj mentioned, we just had this year’s IGF in Maldives on October, and the initial NOG discussions were kick-started during the IGF this year, with the assistance from APNIC as well. We brought together people from ISPs, public-private sector and network operators as well, to come up and we organized, with the help of APNIC, we organized an introductory session to this community, technical people, just to introduce them to the community just to introduce what NOG is, because when we reached out to the community, what we found out was most of them are not actually familiar with the concept of NOG itself. First, we are taking very baby steps just to let them know what NOG is about, and what kind of support is in the community, and what is a community, what is missing out in the digital age. So, we are at the start of formation of MPNOG, and I would say the kind of challenges that we have… Okay. Am I audible now? Okay. So… Okay. So, we have identified that in Maldives, there is a skill gap, especially we have a huge need of building capacity within the country in terms of network security, or even in network operators as well. So, in order to build the capacity, we need resources to conduct professional trainings as well. So, in order to build the capacity, we need human resources as educators as well. So, to fill in that gap, I think organizations such as APANIC, CENOG, and as we have received comments from most of the NOG operators in the community, I think we need to work together and collaborate to fill in these resource gaps. And the other approach that we are looking in MPNOG establishment is we have established local community organizations such as Women in Tech who are very actively engaged in the community, who are working with network operators and government and public sectors who have a very good connection with the local community, technical sector, as well as the government and public sectors. So, organizations such as Women in Tech, civil society organizations, and MBICF will be a very good help to bring these multi-sectorial communities together and start this kind of conversation. So, we are trying to, as Osamu also mentioned, we are trying to start the discussions and works of MPNOG in a very small scale because, as we all know, the technical communities are not very open. They like to have close group discussions. In order to come up with a very comfort discussion and to start with the initial discussions, we need to have fun activities, close group discussions, maybe just a coffee meetup will help because they need to come together and start to work as a community to bring in these benefits. And also, I think the other challenge that in a country like Maldives would have is because we are scattered in different islands, the resources, if we need to conduct workshops or trainings, the logistics and the cost that would be a bit expensive. We need to bring in people from different islands, the travel expenses, these kind of things are going to be there. So, I think an approach that we think is very effective in Maldives, as a friend from Bhutan also mentioned, to partner with the local ISPs and partner organizations who can support as sponsors to support these kind of initiatives within the Maldives. So, I think with the formation of MPNOG, it will bring in a lot of new discussions and positive aspects in the technical community and internet provision because currently, we do not have such an ecosystem in the Maldives. So, if you bring them all together to bring about a change, not only in the capacity building in terms of policy formulation, regulatory aspects and to push the government to establish and provide more capacity building because we are going to move towards a more digital future and new emerging technologies are going to come. So, if you want to catch up with the technological advancement, we need to be ready to work together and collaborate. This is not going to happen with a single body working towards. We need to work towards a common goal to address the challenges that we all face together. So, I think the NOG formulation would be a very positive thing for Maldives and we look forward to work together with APNIC, APNIC Foundation and SANOG and all the NOG communities in the region. Thank you so much.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you, Neema. So, what we’ve heard in the past two segments is, of course, what NOGs are, how they have evolved over time and we’ve heard from some of the newest NOGs that are trying to establish themselves in the region and in some countries which have also gone through some upheavals recently. So, it’s not an easy task and I think any support we can provide. So, I do appreciate Rupesh saying that, you know, even though Timor-Leste is not in South Asia, they’re happy to provide whatever support they can and I’m pretty sure other NOG and regional groups have a similar sort of attitude towards this and it’s all about helping others to ensure that the global internet itself keeps on functioning the way it should, right? So, let’s not forget what we are here for is an open global internet, right? And one that is interoperable. Okay, so we’ve got just under half an hour. left. The third segment is sustainability in the future for NOGs. Some of those questions have actually already been raised and some have slightly been answered, some slightly haven’t been. I know we’ve got a few comments online as well but I’ll just first go to Rupesh, Osama and Vahan with a couple of questions and then after that we’ll see what we have on the online comments and then we’ll go to the floor, have a bit of discussion. So Rupesh, Osama, Vahan, if I can ask whatever interventions you make now if you can make it a bit short so we can get into a wider discussion with people in the room and online. Rupesh, most NOGs are largely volunteer-driven as we’ve already heard yet fulfill an important role to ensure internet infrastructure keeps running. I know Sinog has recently been looking at its own future and you and I have had some discussions on that in the past as well. Can you share some thoughts on the challenges and the future and maybe also address some things that our friend from Bhutan brought up? Thank you Raz,

Rupesh Shrestha: thank you again. Yes, we’ve had a fair bit of challenges in over the period and as I said initially, the Sinog’s journey we’ve tried to divide in the phases, phase manner. The initial phase was successfully executed and like we have a good community of people with trained people attending the Sinog and as Omar said I mean he was part of Sinog and a lot of other people were part of Sinog and got some background to start this thing. And then second part, local NOGs have already been started. Now the third part, I’ll come to that as well, the third phase we had a long discussion, long meeting regarding what Sinog should be doing and I thank you Karima for bringing that as well. So I’ll talk about that, we are yet to come up with the formal report for that but probably this would be the platform that I’ll be sharing some of the information outcome of that meeting. Just before I start that part, I mean let me also add a small thing about how Sinog is helping. I think last October we did Sinog in Lamma, Pakistan and PKNOG was a part as a co-host and a lot of PKNOG including Harisha was part of the Sinog and the PKNOG event and that gave them a kind of initiative to come onto the floor and I agree with Osama and Van as well that the NOG starts on a probably on the tea table or coffee table or coffee talk right or online. You don’t need to have that expensive thing to start with and that’s how the journey starts. One of the initiatives that through SANO we’re also trying to do is we’re trying to reduce the cost of trying to help the NOCs to reduce their cost. We’re facilitating the different NOCs in South Asia with the streaming devices, streaming equipment, so that they don’t have to pay for the expensive audio-video system to the streaming system, including camera, streaming mixer, and everything. So we’re going to give that away to all the NOCs so that they can reduce their cost in terms of their operation. So that’s what we are trying to start. Now the future of SANO, I have put a few points because I have not prepared the report for that. Over the period, as I said, we’ve been doing two events every year. Now with all the local NOCs coming up, and we’re covering in the different countries of South Asia, we’ve decided that we’ll just do one event every year, and we’ll be more focusing on the conference and tutorial part only. We’ll be more supporting as an umbrella organization for all the local NOCs for the workshop part of it, wherein we will not be conducting the workshop, but we will be doing the train-the-trainer program for all the trainers who will be training in the local NOCs. So the SANO will be doing the training program for the trainers of the local NOCs so that we can add the value to their own skill part of it. So that’s one thing that we’ve decided to do. Also on the second part of it, through SANO, we will be more focusing on the challenge that we-one of the challenges that it’s getting more difficult to organize SANO as an event. So I know that I can understand the challenge of the local NOC, but the SANO being the regional platform, a lot of funding and support is needed. The sponsorships in the past has been more of the technical people from the different organizations would contribute to us the sponsorship, but nowadays the thing’s becoming more tighter and tighter for the organizations. They would want-they want more visibility on their branding, sales, and all these things. So we are kind of like very volunteer-driven, very open platform kind of an organization, not supporting any vendor-based presentations or vendor-based system. It’s getting very difficult for us to organize that. So in view of that, we are going to do a couple of other things as well. So we are going to improve our branding. We’re going to improve our outreach. As Varun said, in South Asia, it’s a very sensitive issue to reach out to the government, right? So being-maybe the country-wise you can do that, but as a regional organization, you cannot intervene and influence or communicate with the-to the government of every country. So maybe indirectly, we have some strategies around that. So we will reach out to different media, government, and then we’ll build our branding and marketing activities. That’s something we will be, again, working on. So we’re also changing on the organization structures, right? So we had a lot of advisors, core committee was there from different parts. So our core committee now onwards from 2025 would be-will constitute a representative from all the NOCs, one individual from all the NOCs. So that will form a core committee of SANOG. And they determine how the SANOG should be moving forward, right? So based on the regional requirements. So that’s basically how we are going to proceed further. The next event, probably, we’re planning to finalize the date, which probably Karma Jamyang and the team in BTNOG will also be working on. So we’ll be doing one event in Bhutan, the next one, will mostly be a conference and tutorial event, whereby the workshop will be done by the BTNOG team, and we’ll be facilitating on that. So the SANOG’s role as a regional going forward for at least for the next five years will be more towards even further strengthening and empowering the local NOCs, helping them to grow even to the higher level. And also like building the brand of SANOG as a more of a regional conference similar to like BTC or Apricot or Nano of that sort. So we’re aiming for a higher branding platform, branding visibility. But that is the something that we are doing to help the local NOCs, right? So the whole strategy that we built, we had a meeting last month, thanks to APNIC Foundation for supporting us to have that meeting successfully conducted. And we did that and had very, very good feedbacks. I cannot go through all the pointers, but some of the major bulleted pointers in terms of organizing structures, and in terms of like branding, in terms of how we are still being part of the SANOG and how SANOG will be structured going forward, is something that I just wanted to give as a highlighted point for the future of SANOG. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: Thanks, Rupesh. I’m glad to hear the progress that’s been made. Of course, I’ve been constantly asking what next? What next? Where to next? And I’m glad to hear that you’ve actually addressed some of the issues that have been existing. I want to point out something here. Just because you’ve done something for 20 years doesn’t mean you keep on doing it, right? And the internet itself has evolved. And I’m really glad to hear that SANOG is now going to evolve itself. It’s going to see how it can better serve the wider community. And if an organization doesn’t do that, then I think there’s something really wrong. You haven’t moved the needle. You haven’t really made the impact. What I’m hearing from SANOG here is that I think they have made the impact, and now they’re going to see what is the next part in their evolution and how they can continue supporting the internet in the region. How are we doing for time? Okay, 20 minutes. Osamah, some thoughts from you, from ENOG? What are the key factors for sustaining ENOG, or indeed, if you want to make some other comments that you may have heard, please feel free to do so.

Osama Al-Dosary : So in terms of sustainability, when we’re talking about NOGs, I think regional NOG is very different than a local NOG. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s very different. Regional NOGs are very different than local NOGs. And I think the real value comes from local NOGs. It’s more important than regional NOGs in my opinion. And sustainability is a challenging question. It’s not something that can easily, you know, be maintained. Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key thing is that, or the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers. And when volunteers, for some reason, they change roles, they progress, they go somewhere else, or they, you know, it could be for many reasons, they move away, then that kind of weakens the NOG and causes it to kind of dissipate. So what I would recommend in terms of sustainability, if we’re talking about the local NOGs, is that I think the ones that are leading right now, right, the ones that are leading right now, they need to kind of keep that sustainability in mind. And that sustainability can be achieved, I think, in a couple of ways. One, what we discussed about earlier, which is trying to be as frugal as possible, and not to be very dependent on sponsorships or enormous kind of funding needed. But the other aspect is trying to develop the people that are joining the NOGs and participating to play a greater role over time. So, very, very often, NOGs are led by one person. So the one person is active, they set up the meetings and people come, and they’re happy to come and join. But in terms of participating and organizing, or leading, sometimes people are shy to do that. So, over time, once you’ve established a level of rapport with your people, with the community that you have, you need to reach out to them and say, I need help. I need more people to step up and take a more active role in the organizing. And that’s, I think, very important that you need to create, once you have that rapport and that comfort with your community, you need to start to kind of ask for more commitments to the group. And always maintaining fun, obviously, not making it something that’s unenjoyable, but you need to kind of create that community. And it can be something simple, right? So one person is responsible for finding the location where we meet. The other person is responsible for, let’s say, finding, you know, reaching out to the different members to find out who’s going to talk about a topic, or managing the topics. The other person is responsible for the scheduling and coordination. Simple things like that. So, once you start to create that kind of team-level commitment, over time, that helps maintain that sustainability. Because if one person, for some reason, is the initial leader that started driving the meetings, for some reason needs to step away, or needs to move on, or anything like that happens, then over time, you have others that can step forward. And so you need to always be aware of the people that seem very eager to help, very eager to participate, to always encourage them, encourage their participation, encourage their help. So if you see someone always attending and always eager, ask them if they can actually do more. Can you help me with that? And then also, over time, once you get bigger, once you get more active, volunteering is always, you know, challenging and can also always be challenging to manage. So if you’re leading and you find that you’re doing most of the work, right, and yet you still have a large activity going on, but you’re doing most of the work, don’t be afraid to say, guys, you know, I’m a bit overloaded. Can someone help me with this? Or during the meetings that you have, ask, okay, so this is a great suggestion. Who can do this? Don’t take everything on yourself. Try to find people that will help out. And you’ll find people that will help out, but you need to speak out. You need to kind of encourage that, encourage that participation. And when you see, and once you get to a stage where, let’s say there’s a committee for that NOG, and the committee, each one has work to do, has roles, whether it’s reviewing programs, whether it’s finding people to speak or finding sponsors, you need to, you know, kind of a little bit, although they’re volunteers, you need to a little bit, you know, point out, okay, I really need your commitment. We’re suffering here, maybe not in a group setting, but maybe on an individual level saying, hey, I really need your help. We’re kind of slow. Can you guys, you know, you know, step up a little bit. So that will be my two cents on this topic in terms of sustainability.

Rajnath Singh: Thanks Osama. Vahan, one thing I guess we haven’t, I think it’s been alluded to, but we haven’t really discussed yet and I think we should do it now. I often see a disconnect between the work of network operators and policy and regulatory interventions that a government may make. Often such interventions do not consider wider implications. Can you share your thinking around that? be a key consideration you would ask policy makers to take into account. And, of course, an added question there, and I’ve noticed a few comments online as well, is about, you know, how do we contribute to discussions like this at IGF? This is the first time an IGF has talked about NOGs, which is bizarre. And then you’ve got things like GDC and WSIS plus 20 and others as

Vahan Hovsepyan: well. So, Vahan? Exactly. And I wanted just to talk about that. Well, why we are here. We have talked about how to initiate or stimulate people to come to the NOGs, but we don’t talk about how NOGs can be engaged, how their voice can be casted in similar events in the WSIS plus 20, in Global Compact, at IGF, etc. And here is a really huge gap. Because they have their own problems. They have their issues of interconnection, of peering, of working with this or that state regulatory, of getting the access, and all this. But they think that this WSIS plus 20 Global Compact is very far away in Saudi Arabia, somewhere that we have never visited or never heard of, maybe. But no, we should be very detailed with them, so they can understand if they don’t participate, if they don’t cast their votes, if they don’t think about that, this might be very painful for them. Not only fruitful for the future development of the internet, but if they don’t participate, if they don’t share their concerns for many, many things, it can be also painful for the internet, it can be painful for them. Because when you don’t participate in the policy, the policy is still participating with you. So that is the main idea. And what we are going to do with that, we are already organizing the NOC sessions and tribe meetings. We are going there and trying to discuss with them these global policy issues. Because they know quite well, much better than we, how to get engaged with their local regulator or ministry itself. But we know better how to deal with these global issues. But we need also their voice, we need also their concerns. So this mechanism should work to both phases. We should and we are requested to provide this information to them, so they can understand what is this global development. And they should tell us what they are thinking. And maybe we should think now how to enable their voices to come there and to represent it there. Thank you.

Osama Al-Dosary : Thank you, Vahan. Osama, you speak. Can I add to that? I think that’s very important what Vahan said. And also, I think sometimes the idea of, if you talk to an engineer, a NOC engineer, and say, hey, I need you to help in policy development. That sounds scary. That sounds like, okay, that’s really too high level, right? So it may not be something that they’re motivated to do because they don’t really feel the impact. But we need to kind of simplify the concept. It’s not, when we’re talking about policy development, we’re not talking necessarily, yeah, it could be something legislative, but we’re really talking about something simpler that may affect you. And we need to also encourage the awareness. So these engineers or the NOC or the NOG members may not necessarily be the people that will develop the policy, but they are the people that need to educate the people that will develop the policy. So the people that might be involved in developing a policy, they need to listen to the NOGs and these technical people. And the other side of it, the technical people need to be a bit more open and reach out and try to educate those that are involved so that they have a full awareness of the challenges and the issues that we’re taking. Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Yeah, Rupesh, just a quick one.

Vahan Hovsepyan: Just a small addition. There are two approaches to sell some product. One is just to make this very attractive so a person can go and wants to go and buy it. Second approach is to show the person that without this product, it will be very painful for him to leave. So in that case, he will buy this product with any price. And the product here is the NOG.

Rupesh Shrestha: Thank you for bringing up this issue. Yes, I mean, right now. The idea for the governance team is looking at this zero degree and then the technical team is looking at the 180 degree so there’s not coming together there has to be a breeze between these two kind of interpretation of what technique technology can impact the policy and what policy can impact the, these people do not understand each other. So, again, I thank you very much to rather than the opening foundation for having knowledge session in this idea, and then I believe that we need to have some kind of outcome out of that, in terms of like how can we cooperate with each other. And then, just as I said we need to kind of an interpreter and I believe. But I’m over here is also a right person he’s a lawyer by profession, and also a very good advocate in the in the governance side and somebody who understand the technology and whatever we had some issues in Nepal, in terms of a technology or any kind of it be learning comes across. He’s the person who facilitates the meeting and we all of us to give him the technical input on part of that. So maybe people like him would also have to breathe this kind of gap between what the technical people is looking for, and what the governance people are looking for just to give you a brief difference of this thing. The first time I attended every court. I was all suited like this. So, maybe a tie as well sorry with a tie and everything and then I once I entered the record venue, everyone’s wearing like short torn jeans and then like the, the t shirts. I was a kind of a different person in different universe. And had I come over here with the t shirt and then half shirt, I would have been a different person in different universe. So this is the kind of a difference that we have in two different universe and that has to be an interpreter who. I was the most ugliest guy over there. Like somebody who was like really formal and it’s like different. I’m a very smart over here with the suit and all, but not in that community probably. But things are changing, but this is just an outlook that I just wanted to give. Also, one more thing I forgot to mention earlier. Sanhok has been providing fellowship for a very, very long time. We’ve so far given like around 400 fellowship so far. And recently we’ve, last five, 10 years, we’ve started to focus on more gender equality as well and giving like a 40 to 50% fellowship to female participants also. So that’s something that I forgot to mention earlier. And that’s, thanks Raz for mentioning that as well.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. So, you know, you talked about zero and 180 degrees. The problem is if someone said 90 degrees, both fall off, right? Any online comments that we need to, I know we’ve got just five minutes left. So anything that strikes, catches your attention there?

Audience: There are a few, two questions, but one comment. So do you want to take the questions one by one or read all of them? Last one is the comment. Maybe read the comment. First we will go with the comment. Yeah. And I think the policy one we’ve already covered. Okay, sure. Yes. Fahad Khan from APNOC says, being the lead volunteer for the APNOC, sorry, for the PKNOC, they take care of me from the session, especially the pinpointing of keeping the meetups and online sessions simple, and less dependent on financial factors by Osama. Another one is to keep it humane and fun as much as possible. Thanks to Bahan for this. Hopefully PKNOC will flourish with our contributions in near future. So.

Rajnath Singh: So that was Fahad, right? That was Fahad Khan, yes. He’s done part of my job for me. So we have one takeaway from the session already. Thank you, Fahad.

Audience: Thank you. So here is a simple question, like how we can ensure more passionate in the structure of the engagement of NOGs to the public policy discussions and IGF?

Rajnath Singh: Okay, so that’s the one maybe we can end with, and it’s, you know, we’ve just got a few minutes left. So I think, so this is my suggestion to the people in the room and people online. You know, I think we have to elevate the status of NOGs and what they actually mean. But I think, you know, we’ve all been working in the background behind the scenes, but we also see that there’s potential things happening on the internet, which could, you know, which have implications on your work, right? Which makes your work much more difficult. Maybe this was a good first step. You know, maybe we should make this a regular thing at the regional IGFs as well. But I think it’s not just the IGFs, right? There are other policy fora where we need, NOGs need to have a voice, right? Some in the UN system, some in the ITU system, and some are completely outside of our typical internet technical community ecosystem, where these discussions need to be raised as well. So maybe that’s something we could consider as we, you know, see what the outcomes of this session are. We’ve got like three minutes left. Can I ask all my speakers for just a one sentence round off, you know, what is your key takeaway and or key suggestion for the future? Where do we go from here? So can I start with you, Vahan?

Vahan Hovsepyan: I think in a nearest future, in one or two years, we’ll have a lot of challenges, a lot for the internet, for the development of new digital society. And we need to have the consolidation. We need to have the consolidation of all the systems that we have in the world. We need to have the consolidation of all the systems need to have the consolidation of all our counterparts from technical community, but we also need an understanding from other counterparts coming from other parties. And that is what we should work. That is why we should empower NOCs, IXPs, other units of technical, let’s say unions and associations. And that is why we should find the ways to bring them the information about current processes and find the ways to get their feedbacks and cast their words to these instances, let’s say.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. Osama?

Osama Al-Dosary : I would say the key takeaway from my perspective is it’s important to talk to people and understand their experiences and try to put yourself in their shoes. And this could be whether we’re talking on a NOG level where one engineer is talking to another engineer, trying to understand their perspective, their challenges, or it could be when we’re talking on a different level, when we’re talking a policymaker needs to put their selves in the shoes of someone else, of an engineer or people running the internet and they need to talk to them, they need to reach out to them and vice versa. Those engineers need to reach out to others. So I think that’s my key takeaway is simply put, talk to people and try to understand them, understand what they’re going.

Rajnath Singh: Mukesh?

Rupesh Shrestha: Yeah, I think I think that it’s been a very fruitful discussion today. Something that I wanted to say that the digital channel being a regional platform in Oregon. So we need to help. We need to go deep down to the local knobs and then maybe further down from there to help the root people in the area to be to help themselves to build that. Stable internet across the internet internet is not just run by one, one country or one person but it has to be stable across the region, or across the globe to make, make it work. And that’s what Sano is doing and I think we know another partners across the world are also doing, they’re going in the right direction, the good good takeaway from this is the helping the local North, as well as having the more closer relationship with the governance and government people. And maybe not only like having this not meeting in every reason, regional as well as the internet governance meetings but also like how the governance IGF and other API GF can also you and for that matter or any donor agencies can help that not regional as well as local enough in terms of having their, their voices heard, and how the technology should evolve, and how the policy should, what kind of a policy should be shaped up for for the betterment of the internet.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you very much. Thanks for pressure I’ll give the last word to her research the next generation. What’s your key takeaway and vision for the future.

Harisa Shahid: I believe that the key takeaway for me being the next generation is that the next generation should really come up because, and if I see in the, in the north, especially, there are more professional and the professional what experience. So I believe that the next generation who is struggling with the early, early career professionals should really come up and get advantage of having a discussion with those professionals, and like, and have their place so that they can be the leaders of tomorrow.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. Well, I think we’re just on time I’m being told that we need to basically shut the session down so thank you to all my speakers, thank you for all of you being here. Thank you for the audience participation and and the support team who helped us. Thank you. So current as a way forward and, you know, one thing very clear for me as a message was that you know we need to bring you know the unsung heroes of the other logs right and I think we need to elevate their status, and we’ll see what. how we can do that going forward. We need to be a part of those policy discussions, but I do agree with Rupesh, there are two ends of the spectrum really, and he’s given a very visual description of how things actually are. So I think we need to find that bridge in the middle somehow. And the APNIC Foundation, of course, is here to help and facilitate, but we can’t do it alone. We will be looking to our colleagues from across the regions and maybe we’ll make something out of it going forward. So once again, thank you very much for being here with us. Stay connected. And our organizational slogan these days is action, not words. And that’s what we did here today. Thank you. Yeah. Can we have a quick picture of the speakers in the front, please? You want to have one now on screen? Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you both. Great, great work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you

Agreement Points

Importance of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

Mohibullah Utmankhil

NOGs keep internet infrastructure running smoothly behind the scenes

NOGs provide a platform for competing companies to collaborate on technical issues

NOGs contribute to internet development and capacity building in their regions

NOGs play a crucial role in addressing local technical challenges

Speakers agree that NOGs are essential for maintaining and developing internet infrastructure, providing a platform for collaboration and addressing technical challenges at both regional and local levels.

Need for NOGs to adapt and evolve

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

Vahan Hovsepyan

NOGs need to adapt to changing community needs over time

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

Speakers agree that NOGs must evolve to meet changing community needs, focus on building strong communities, and engage more in policy discussions to remain relevant and effective.

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers emphasize the need to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities, highlighting the importance of NOGs participating in policy discussions and educating policymakers about technical realities.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Disconnect between network operators’ work and policy/regulatory interventions

Need for NOGs to have a voice in policy forums like IGF and ITU

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

These speakers highlight common challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, including reliance on volunteers, lack of awareness, and difficulties in community engagement.

Osama Al-Dosary

Niuma Faiz

Harisa Shahid

Sustainability issues due to reliance on volunteers

Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities

Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of social and fun aspects in NOG activities

Osama Al-Dosary

Vahan Hovsepyan

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

While discussing different aspects of NOGs, both speakers unexpectedly emphasized the importance of making NOG activities social and enjoyable, suggesting that this approach can lead to better engagement and sustainability.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the crucial role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure, the need for NOGs to adapt and evolve, and the importance of bridging the gap between technical and policy communities.

Consensus level

There is a high level of consensus among speakers on the importance and challenges of NOGs. This consensus implies a shared understanding of the critical role NOGs play in internet governance and the need for their continued development and adaptation to remain effective in a changing digital landscape.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to starting and sustaining NOGs

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

NOGs need to adapt to changing community needs over time

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Rupesh Shrestha emphasizes adapting to changing needs and focusing on regional conferences, while Osama Al-Dosary advocates for starting small and informal to build community.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to establishing and sustaining NOGs, and the methods for engaging NOGs in policy discussions.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the importance of NOGs and the need for their involvement in policy discussions. The differences mainly lie in the specific strategies and approaches to achieve these goals. These minor disagreements actually contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and potential solutions for NOGs, rather than hindering progress on the topic.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the need for NOGs to engage in policy discussions, but they differ in their approaches. Vahan emphasizes direct participation in global forums, Osama suggests simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals, and Rupesh proposes using ‘interpreters’ to bridge the gap.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Osama Al-Dosary

Rupesh Shrestha

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

Importance of simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers emphasize the need to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities, highlighting the importance of NOGs participating in policy discussions and educating policymakers about technical realities.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Disconnect between network operators’ work and policy/regulatory interventions

Need for NOGs to have a voice in policy forums like IGF and ITU

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

These speakers highlight common challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, including reliance on volunteers, lack of awareness, and difficulties in community engagement.

Osama Al-Dosary

Niuma Faiz

Harisa Shahid

Sustainability issues due to reliance on volunteers

Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities

Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals

Key Takeaways

Network Operator Groups (NOGs) play a crucial but often unrecognized role in keeping internet infrastructure running smoothly

NOGs face challenges in sustainability, community engagement, and adapting to evolving needs

There is a significant disconnect between the technical work of NOGs and policy/regulatory interventions

NOGs need to have a stronger voice in policy forums and internet governance discussions

Starting small, focusing on community building, and encouraging next-generation participation are important for NOG success

Resolutions and Action Items

Consider making NOG discussions a regular part of regional IGFs and other policy forums

SANOG to focus on empowering local NOGs and act as an umbrella organization

SANOG to conduct train-the-trainer programs for local NOG trainers

NOGs to work on improving branding and outreach to increase visibility

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively bridge the gap between technical and policy communities

Sustainable funding models for NOGs, especially regional ones

How to increase NOG participation in global internet governance discussions

Strategies for NOGs to influence policy without becoming overly political

Suggested Compromises

NOGs to simplify policy concepts for technical professionals to encourage their participation in policy discussions

Policy makers to actively seek input from NOGs and technical communities when developing internet-related policies

Regional NOGs to focus more on conferences and tutorials while supporting local NOGs for hands-on workshops

NOGs are basically those that work in the background. They keep things running, they collaborate, they coordinate, but the outside world never really knows you, right?

speaker

Rajnesh Singh

reason

This comment highlights the critical but often unrecognized role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure, setting the stage for the importance of the discussion.

impact

It framed the entire conversation around the need to elevate the status and recognition of NOGs in the broader internet governance ecosystem.

We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make the SANOG as a more training platform as well.

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

reason

This provides insight into the evolution of NOGs from informal knowledge sharing to more structured training platforms, showing their adaptability and growing importance.

impact

It led to further discussion on the developmental stages of NOGs and how they adapt to meet community needs over time.

Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers.

speaker

Osama Al-Dosary

reason

This comment brings attention to a critical challenge in sustaining NOGs, highlighting the vulnerability of volunteer-based organizations.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards discussing sustainability strategies and the need for more structured support for NOGs.

We need to have the consolidation of all our counterparts from technical community, but we also need an understanding from other counterparts coming from other parties.

speaker

Vahan Hovsepyan

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for collaboration not just within the technical community but also with policymakers and other stakeholders.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include the importance of NOGs engaging with policy discussions and other internet governance forums.

The next generation should really come up because, and if I see in the, in the north, especially, there are more professional and the professional what experience. So I believe that the next generation who is struggling with the early, early career professionals should really come up and get advantage of having a discussion with those professionals, and like, and have their place so that they can be the leaders of tomorrow.

speaker

Harisa Shahid

reason

This comment brings a fresh perspective on the importance of involving younger professionals in NOGs for future sustainability and leadership.

impact

It introduced the topic of generational transition and the need for mentorship within NOGs, adding a new dimension to the sustainability discussion.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by highlighting the critical but often unrecognized role of NOGs, their evolution and challenges, the need for sustainability strategies, the importance of engaging with broader policy discussions, and the necessity of involving younger professionals. The conversation progressed from defining NOGs and their history to addressing current challenges and future directions, emphasizing the need for greater recognition, sustainability, and engagement with both policy makers and the next generation of professionals.

How can NOGs be more engaged and have their voices heard in global policy discussions like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact?

speaker

Vahan Hovsepyan

explanation

This is important to ensure technical perspectives are considered in policy decisions that affect internet operations.

How can we bridge the gap between technical network operators and policymakers?

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

explanation

There is a disconnect between these groups that needs to be addressed for more effective internet governance.

How can NOGs ensure sustainability and continuity when they are largely volunteer-driven?

speaker

Osama Al-Dosary

explanation

Sustainability is crucial for NOGs to continue fulfilling their important role in maintaining internet infrastructure.

How can regional NOGs like SANOG evolve to better support local NOGs while maintaining their relevance?

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

explanation

As local NOGs develop, regional NOGs need to adapt their role and structure to remain effective.

How can NOGs attract and engage more young professionals and next-generation leaders?

speaker

Harisa Shahid

explanation

Engaging the next generation is crucial for the long-term sustainability and evolution of NOGs.

How can NOGs in developing countries or regions with political challenges (like Afghanistan) overcome unique obstacles to their establishment and growth?

speaker

Mohibullah Utmankhil

explanation

Understanding and addressing these challenges is important for ensuring global internet stability and inclusivity.

How can NOGs better collaborate with other stakeholders like civil society organizations, government bodies, and the private sector?

speaker

Niuma Faiz

explanation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is key for addressing complex internet governance issues.

Summary

This discussion focused on secure IoT practices, data governance, and emerging technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. The session began with an overview of current IoT security developments, highlighting the U.S. Cyber Trustmark program and efforts towards international harmonization of IoT labeling schemes. Participants emphasized the importance of consumer awareness and education regarding IoT security.

The conversation then shifted to IoT data governance and privacy concerns. Experts stressed the need for robust policies balancing innovation with privacy protection, acknowledging the challenges of managing vast amounts of data generated by IoT devices. The discussion touched on the complexities of data categorization, cross-border data flows, and the potential risks of data colonialism.

Emerging technologies, particularly quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI), were identified as critical factors shaping the future of IoT governance. The importance of implementing post-quantum cryptography (PQC) solutions to future-proof IoT systems against potential quantum threats was highlighted. Participants also explored the interconnected nature of AI and IoT, noting the need for a holistic approach to their development and regulation.

Throughout the session, speakers emphasized the importance of international cooperation, standardization, and multistakeholder engagement in addressing IoT challenges. The discussion concluded by acknowledging the rapid pace of technological advancement and the need for flexible, forward-thinking approaches to IoT governance that can adapt to future developments.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– IoT security labeling and certification programs being developed in different countries

– Data governance and privacy challenges related to IoT devices and systems

– Impact of emerging technologies like quantum computing and AI on IoT security and governance

– Need for international cooperation and harmonization of IoT standards and regulations

– Importance of considering societal impacts and ethical implications of IoT technologies

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore current developments and future challenges in IoT security, data governance, and emerging technologies. The speakers aimed to share insights on global efforts to improve IoT security through labeling programs, address data privacy concerns, and prepare for impacts of quantum computing and AI.

The tone of the discussion was largely informative and collaborative, with speakers sharing updates on initiatives in their respective areas. There was a sense of urgency around the need to address IoT security and privacy issues, balanced with optimism about ongoing efforts. The tone became more speculative and forward-looking when discussing future impacts of quantum computing and AI on IoT governance.

Speakers

– Maarten Botterman: Moderator

– Jonathan Cave: Alan Turing Institute and Warwick University

– Wout de Natris: Coordinator of the Internet Standards Security and Safety Coalition (IS3C)

– Renee Roland: Special Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

– Nicolas Fiumarelli: Chair of IS3C Working Group 1 on IoT security by design, Co-founder of IoT CyberSEC Latin American and Caribbean

– Jimson Olufuye: Chair of the Adversity Council of the Africa City Alliance

– Wisdom Donkor: Director for Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation

– Martin Koyabe: GFC Africa

– Elif Kiesow Cortez: Chair of IS3C Working Group 9 on emerging technologies

Additional speakers:

– Audience

IoT Security, Data Governance, and Emerging Technologies: A Comprehensive Discussion

This summary provides an overview of a discussion on secure IoT practices, data governance, and emerging technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. The session brought together experts from various fields to explore current developments, challenges, and future implications of IoT governance.

US Cyber Trust Mark and IoT Security Initiatives

The discussion began with Renee Roland, Special Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introducing the US Cyber Trust Mark program for IoT devices. This voluntary initiative aims to provide consumers with clear information about the security features of IoT products. Roland explained that UL Solutions and other Cybersecurity Label Administrators (CLAs) will be responsible for testing and certifying devices under this program.

Nicolas Fiumarelli, Chair of IS3C Working Group 1 on IoT security by design, discussed the work being done by IS3C on IoT security. He emphasized the importance of security by design principles and the need for consumer education regarding IoT security labels. Fiumarelli also mentioned an upcoming workshop focusing on IoT security, RPKI, and post-quantum encryption.

Data Governance and Privacy Challenges in IoT

Jonathan Cave from the Alan Turing Institute and Warwick University highlighted the complexity of IoT data governance. He emphasized that IoT devices generate various types of data beyond personal information, including environmental and operational data. Cave pointed out that IoT systems are often self-documenting, creating metadata about their own operation and environment. This characteristic poses unique challenges for data governance and privacy frameworks.

Cave also raised concerns about the difficulties of obtaining meaningful consent for data collection in IoT environments, given the pervasive and often invisible nature of these devices. He noted that data generated by IoT devices frequently crosses categories, blurring the lines between personal, environmental, and other types of information.

In the chat, Cave further elaborated on the risks of “data colonialism” in developing countries, where data generated by IoT devices might be exploited by external entities without adequate local control or benefit. He also highlighted the challenges of mutual recognition in regulations across different jurisdictions.

IS3C and AFNIC Collaboration on IoT and Post-Quantum Cryptography

Elif Kiesow Cortez, Chair of IS3C Working Group 9 on emerging technologies, discussed a collaboration project between IS3C and AFNIC focusing on IoT and post-quantum cryptography. This initiative aims to address the potential vulnerabilities of current encryption methods in the face of future quantum computing capabilities.

Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on IoT

The discussion then turned to the impact of emerging technologies, particularly quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI), on IoT security and governance. Kiesow Cortez emphasized the importance of implementing post-quantum cryptography (PQC) solutions to future-proof IoT systems against potential quantum threats. She explained that current classical encryption algorithms, such as RSA, are vulnerable to attacks from powerful quantum computers, which, while not yet existent, pose a credible future threat.

Jonathan Cave introduced an intriguing perspective on the relationship between AI and IoT, noting that the lines between these technologies are increasingly blurring. He pointed out that smart devices not only make decisions but also learn from their environment and users, meaning that the device and its algorithms may be significantly different in use than when they left the factory. This observation led to a discussion about the challenges of regulating rapidly evolving technologies and the need for flexible, adaptive governance frameworks.

Regulatory Challenges in IoT

Renee Roland concluded the discussion by highlighting the challenges of regulating medical devices and other equipment in the IoT space. She emphasized the need for a balanced approach that ensures security without stifling innovation or impeding the benefits that IoT technologies can bring to various sectors.

Throughout the session, speakers emphasized the importance of international cooperation, standardization, and multistakeholder engagement in addressing IoT challenges. The discussion revealed the complexity of creating unified global standards for IoT governance and security, highlighting the need for continued dialogue, research, and collaboration to address the evolving landscape of IoT technologies and their societal impacts.

Maarten Botterman: Hello. Do you hear me? Five. I hear myself.

Jonathan Cave: I hear you.

Maarten Botterman: I can hear you. Good. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the joint session by the Dynamic Coalition on IoT and IS3C. This morning, we’re going to focus on secure IoT practices for resilient and secure IoT by design. IoT has been on the agenda of the IGF since 2008, and more and more work is done. At that time, there were more people online than devices. This is definitely the other way around today, and increased importance to also the use of IoT devices and networks and services in our environments has become true. Hence, also, the criticality of making sure it’s more secure than before because we rely on it more than before. So, very short introduction because we only have an hour. Global good practice for IoT, so finding a multi-stakeholder view on what that means, what that entails. In very short, it comes down to Internet of Things good practice principle that we believe that Internet of Things good practice aims at developing IoT systems, products, and services, taking ethical considerations into account from the outset. Legal is obvious. Ethical hasn’t always been that obvious. Both in the development, deployment, and use phases of the life cycle, thus to find the ethical, sustainable way ahead, using IoT to create a free, secure, and enabling rights-based environment with a minimal future we want for us and our future generations. So, this is where we’re working towards, and we’re very happy to work with IS3C who has also done some work in the past, and we’ve done some work together before. I’m asking Wout de Natris, coordinator from IS3C, to shortly introduce the IoT activities of IS3C.

Wout de Natris: Thank you, Maarten. My name is Wout de Natris, and I’m, as I said, the coordinator of the Internet Standards Security and Safety Coalition. We work in a few fields, and I’m not going to go into them, but I will mention that you understand how broad our work is. We do security by design on IoT. We do education and skills in the tertiary cybersecurity sector, procurement for governments, data governance. We created tools, and we’re going to do things on post-quantum encryption in combination with IoT, and that is what Nicolas Fiumarelli, our working group one chair, and hopefully Elif Iso-Cortes, our working group nine chair, will be talking about. And we do that all with one specific goal, is making the Internet more secure by design to make sure that security-related, second-generation Internet standards are adopted by the industry to make us all more secure and safer. Thank you for the opportunity to introduce, Maarten.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you, Wout, and thank you for assisting also for online moderation. Online questions are very welcome. We will only have an hour, so what we decided to do is to have three topics that we’re going to talk about. The first topic is, so what are the current IoT security developments? A mini-panel focused on that. A second one on data governance related to IoT. IoT is creating an enormous wealth of data, and they’re dealt with in different ways how to do it well, also in context to privacy. And then, last but not least, we also talk about emerging technologies and the impact on IoT governance. Without further ado, I’d love to introduce to you a lady who’s at the core of these activities in the U.S., Renee Rowland from the FCC, who’s been overseeing this work there and has been seeing that the U.S. has created some standards, and now also has the pleasure and honor of starting to exchange experiences with countries other than the U.S. on mutual recognition and things like that. Renee, very welcome. After you, Nicolas from Rally will speak, and then we’ll have space for some questions. Renee, thank you for getting up at this amazing early hour for you.

Renée Roland: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And please let me know if my volume is high enough.

Maarten Botterman: It’s high enough.

Renée Roland: Okay, good. Renee Rowland, Special Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission here in the United States. And as you said, I am leading the implementation of the Internet of Things Cyber Labeling Program, the U.S. Cyber Trustmark. The Federal Communications Commission has established rules laying out the foundation and the framework for a voluntary cybersecurity program for wireless consumer IoT products. That happened in March of this year, and then in September, those rules became effective. Under this qualifying consumer smart IoT products, we’ll have a cyber label that’s going to include the new U.S. Cyber Trustmark that indicates to consumers that the product meets critical minimum cybersecurity standards. Now, the IoT products for our program include an IoT device and any additional product components, for example, a backend or gateway or mobile app that are necessary to use the IoT device beyond basic operational features. The device is a product that is also capable of intentionally emitting radio frequency energy, as that is under our jurisdiction, and also capable of having at least one transducer for interacting directly with the physical world. So a sensor, for example, or an actuator, and at least one network interface for interfacing with the digital world, so an Ethernet or Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. So smartwatches, for example, smart light bulbs, baby monitors, et cetera, are included under our program. Now, while the product is defined as including data communication links to external components, it does not include external components or any external third-party components that are outside of the manufacturer’s control. Under our program, the commission is the program owner and will be supported by a lead administrator, who we recently announced a couple weeks ago as UL Solutions. They will be responsible for collaborating with stakeholders and with making a number of recommendations, most notably regarding standards and testings. We will also have cybersecurity label administrators that we call CLAs, responsible for the day-to-day management of the program, including accepting and reviewing and approving or denying the use of the trademark. We also just recently announced the selection of 10 CLAs for the program. And finally, we have part of the program, our cyber labs, that are going to be responsible for testing products to ensure manufacturers meet the program’s requirements to use the label. Now, the products will display the U.S. Cyber Trust mark and a QR code, and that QR code will direct the consumer to a decentralized public available registry. That registry will link to additional information that’s consumer-friendly about the securability of the product, such as how to change the default password, how to configure the device securely, et cetera. Excluded from our program are medical devices, motor vehicles, and there are a number of provisions that we have that address national security threats. NIST’s core baseline is 8425, serves as the basis of our IoT along with the NIST 8259 series of reports that provide guidance for designing securable IoT products. Finally, the program recognizes that international harmonization of cybersecurity standards really brings an immense value to manufacturers. In that regard, we really have been meeting with a number of different countries over the past several months, learning about their respective labeling programs. We do have an arrangement with the EU to commit to achieving mutual recognition of our plans, and we’re in the process of doing comparative analysis of our plans. We’ve been working closely with NIST in that respect on comparisons. Singapore has also been very eager to begin comparative analysis of our plans once our standards and scope are in place. As you may know, we have a cybersecurity labeling scheme for smart consumer products and have already stood up. They’re benchmarked up against the European Standards Organization and have some mutual recognition agreements with Finland and Germany. We have also met with a number of other countries, including Australia, Canada, Israel, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and the U.K. And we expect once our standards are in place to move as expeditiously as we can on development. developing a mutual recognition of the SDC’s IOT label, a recognition of international labels, and we look forward to continuing that dialogue. I’m happy to answer questions with respect to next steps, but we’ll mention that we have kicked off a 90-day engagement stakeholder period that will begin in earnest after the holidays, during which time the lead administrator, in collaboration with the CLAs and other stakeholders, will submit recommendations to us, most notably the recommendations on developing technical standards and procedures for our program. Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you, Renee. Thanks for that excellent layout. Two quick questions. One, is the public comment period, is that the public one, or is that restricted to certain bodies?

Renée Roland: The 90-day stakeholder engagement process has not yet had sort of an official, official start because of the holidays. We expect it to start in January, and we are working with the lead administrator right now on how we will ensure that there is a diversity of stakeholders engaged, but we will also be putting out the recommendations from the lead administrator to the public so the public has an opportunity to comment on them.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you very much. And the other one is, you mentioned a lot of multilateral contacts. Is there also harmonization, or how do you call it, looking at the IEEE work on this area, et cetera, the global standards models?

Renée Roland: Yeah, I think part of our coordination with NIST is to sort of start off the process with the EU, understanding that they’re going to be working with the CRA, and then coming up with a process so that we can develop a mutual recognition with the other countries as well. So I think we’re trying to be as flexible as possible, keeping in mind.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you very much for this. For now, move on to Niklas. Niklas, you have been overseeing a lot of work on this for IS3C. What is your latest view and your input? Where are we and what’s next?

Nicolas Fiumarelli: Thank you so much, Martin. Good morning and afternoon, everyone. For the ones on site and online, my name is Niklas Amarelli, a chair of the DCIS3C, working group one on IoT security by design, and also the co-founder of IoT CyberSEC, Latin American and Caribbean. As mentioned by Vaud, at IS3C, our mission is to ensure security becomes integrated into every IoT device design and lifecycle. In 2022, our report from the Dynamic Coalition Saving the World from an Insecure IoT analyzing policies from 18 countries, identifying 442 best practices across four key areas that were data privacy, secure updates, user empowerment, and operational resilience, all about IoT, right? Despite this, some gaps remain, particularly in regions lacking enforceable policies, you know, and global standards are some kind of fragmented. On the topic of… These are gaining a global recognition as a key mechanism for addressing IoT security challenges. These schemes by design aim to inform consumers about the security features of IoT products, thereby empowering them in some manner to make more informed decisions while driving manufacturers to prioritize secure by design principles. At our research at IS3C, we have underscored this critical role of labeling schemes in bridging the gap between consumers and manufacturers. But however, the implementation of the schemes remains uneven globally, right? While regions like Europe, Asia Pacific, and USA have made significant strides, other regions, particularly in the global South, in American Caribbean, we still face challenges in adopting and enforcing such mechanisms. In our report, we have analyzed some of the global labeling initiatives. One of them is the Singapore Cybersecurity Labeling Scheme, or CLS, as mentioned by Rene. Singapore has pioneered, we think, one of the most comprehensive labeling schemes available globally. They use a tiered approach, rating devices on a four-level scale based on the security features. Devices must meet rigorous benchmarks as well, such as secure software updates and unique authentication protocols. Another one is the Finland Cybersecurity Labeling Initiative. Parency and trust by mandating independent, third-party testing for these IoT devices, ensuring in some manner that the manufacturers provide a clear and more verifiable security claims, thereby fostering maybe a culture of accountability and trust. Another one is the United States Cyber Trust Mark, as mentioned by Rene. The FCC recently launched this labeling program, highlighting operational resilience. Also, aligning with the update in NIST, under layer 8.425a, the initiative represents a mature step towards standardizing this minimum IoT standards in the North American market. Just to mention another one, because in our report we analyzed several regulatory document and policy documents talking about IoT security specifically. So the other one is the Korea Regulatory Framework that takes a multi-layered approach. It’s a technical perspective offering detailed requirements on how to address diverse stakeholder needs. Also, this provides examples such as protocols and device illustrations that other standards does not provide are more like high-level. This is more like practical. We found not only clarifies on the complex regulatory language, but also accelerating the compliance and implementation. So despite these advancements, we think that challenges remain. Was very great to hear Rene on advancing our harmonization issues, as you mentioned, because in our report in 2022, we were recognizing that the lack of this harmonized global standard sometimes create inconsistencies. And this limit the reach and impact of the labeling programs. Additionally, consumer awareness about labeling schemes remains low in many regions, as I have mentioned. So this is why this cyber labs approach that Rene mentioned are so desired in the industry. So from our report, we have a number of IS3C recommendations, specifically on labeling. One is that these voluntary frameworks, while valuable, sometimes fail to achieve widespread adoption, as I already said. So the IS3C recommends that the governments to introduce mandatory labeling policies to ensure more consistent implementation. Then on the labels, they should not only reflect a device current security state, but also thinking in the future, like they need commitments. That is very important for us, such as ongoing updates and details on the end of life consideration, because IoT devices and the state of the art of security, also in the light of the quantum advancement, is always changing. And finally, robust consumer education campaigns. We think that that was one of our recommendations from the report that we identified, and this is a future work that IS3C is focusing on, that the labeling skills can only succeed if consumer understands and value them. So how the consumers will understand this? So governments and industry stakeholders, we think it must invest in public awareness, right? The initiatives to reach this knowledge gap. So adopting these measures, we think that we can transform the labeling into a more powerful fostering trust, costability, security in all the IoT ecosystem. Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you very much, Nico. And having witnessed the work of IS3C from very closely, one of the things that strikes me is that when this work was, much of it was done a year ago, how much has happened since? And Renee’s presence here is a very clear testimony of that. And the collaboration in particular from individual initiatives, so individual country initiatives coming to what is beginning to be harmonized today. So Renee, also very much thanks for your work in there. And as you pointed out, up and beyond the labeling, which is useful to inform consumers, they still need to know how to deal with it. And very much appreciate that input. Any questions in the room? Please. Please introduce yourself, Jimmy.

Jimson Olufuye: Thank you very much. My name is Jameson Olufoye, Chair of the Adversity Council of the Africa City Alliance. I run a company, cyber security focus organization. So this is a very, very important panel, and I really appreciate the presentations. You raise concern about harmonization and about relating with the stakeholders, the customers, the users. And so my question is, why are we not going through, say ISO, International Standard Organization, we know that encompasses all standard. Well, why can’t we get into them at first so that we can streamline the process going forward? Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you for that. And I’ll ask Renee to come with an answer on that. While saying that one of the reasons why we try to come to a common understanding of global good practice is that it would be to inspire around the world and to provide a common line. And in the ideal world, there’s interaction between the understanding that we develop here at IGF and the initiatives that are rapidly developing around the world, both in the international standard institutions as in the countries. A few on this, please.

Renée Roland: Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, I think that, you know, you have countries like Singapore that had started obviously before the United States have started and they have, you know, the four-tier system. And then in terms of our system, we determined the best system for us was to have a system that is not a tiered system. You either get the label or you do not get the label. There is no tiering. And there are some other obvious differences between out there in the scheme that the United States has determined to come up with. So I think that that’s part of the problem is just the difference in timing in terms of when these programs have initiated. But I think the goal is ultimately to be able to have some sort of either mutual recognition or otherwise harmonization of the programs going forward. And I think that’s the intent of the countries, at least that we have spoken with.

Maarten Botterman: Yes, thank you very much. Last remark from Wout.

Wout de Natris: Wout, this is RICC to come back to your question on the harmonization of the sort of the official. But my experience is from the past three years that I’m working in the four years in RICC is that internet standards are made by people who represent the internet. So in the IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force. And that is totally separate from the institutions like ISO or NEN that you have. And they don’t do these internet standards. But the internet standards is what makes the internet work. And I have one example where it failed. I understand that the European Commission had a group of people that had to decide to officially recognize IP version six or DNSSEC or something like that. After King, they just decided to stop because they couldn’t agree whether that was the right standard or not. But it’s what made the internet work. It’s not about recognizing it officially. It is about making sure that you understand that it’s just there, it’s not going to change. So you have to start working with it and not recognize it because there’s no need to recognize it anymore. It is the standard. And that’s with IOT more or less the same is my opinion. Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: So I think the natural evolution of this has standards that are not only available to the countries who have to be front runners like Singapore, US, EU, but that this would be shared with the world. And as Rene expressed clearly, it’s the intent. So for the sake of time, I’d like to move on to the next part. We’re exactly on time. So thank you for the speakers and the questions. This is a first step into the work of the way of the work to come, but I think we’re on track and your question was right on. So with that, we move on to IOT data governance and privacy. I would like to invite Jonathan Cave from the Alan Turing Institute and Warwick University to address the data governance issues that relate to IOT, acknowledging that many live data related to persons are collected 24 seven and through analysis may be even relatable to people and AI will strengthen that process as well. But Jonathan, please your opening remarks here.

Jonathan Cave: Thank you very much, Martin. And thank you everyone for attending this in whatever time zone you happen to be in. Just to begin, I wanted to note that both the resilience and the security and indeed the functionality of the Internet of Things depend on how the Internet of Things is used in the awareness that people have of them. They also depend on a range of different participants, obviously designers, but all intermediates that link them in between. And one of the things that flows between them and enables them to decide who does what or one of the attributes are the data that are collected. The Internet of Things like many other things in the internet is self-documenting. It collects data as it goes along and these data can be retained and processed and used to provide and protect all the things we want from the Internet of Things, which include privacy and security. But it’s worth noting that privacy as we normally understand it nowadays is data privacy referring to personal data. That it’s really only the tip of the iceberg. However, that tip of the iceberg has been used to create legal and regulatory structures that may get in the way of some of the ways we come to understand and use data. One obvious example is proprietary data or data that can be shared. They’re not private to the individual, but they’re useful in sharing in smaller groups and they link people together through networks of trust, what lawyers might call privity. And so it’s important to governance, not simply to project into the Internet of Things, things that came from a world of individuals whose individual privacy was being protected. The second point relating to that is that data privacy is only a part of the privacy we want individuals to have. If we want individuals and indeed devices to be able to act on the basis of the information that they receive, they have to have a certain responsibility attached to them. Now with individuals, we do that through mechanisms like consent and awareness. So in other words, we ask people to consent to the collection and processing of their data. But as Martin mentioned, many of the data on which the Internet, not data that are asked for, to which people can give informed consent, they are simply collected in the process of people going about their normal interactions. And that applies not just to the people, but to the different devices in the Internet of Things that receive data and take actions. And these things are only imperfectly observed and their implications may not be fully understood. Now, another thing that happens in this world is that when people interact with the Internet of Things, they receive devices as well as supplying data to them. The data they receive from them, the prompts, for example, and query responses and so on, change the understanding and change the behavior of those people. So it’s not necessarily correct to say that all people in all parts of the world have the same degree of sovereignty and understanding or should be made responsible in the same way as the others. So the final point about this is that many of these devices are becoming smart devices. Smart devices, among other things, they not only take decisions, but they learn and learn from the people around them. And that change means that the device itself and certainly the algorithms within the device are different when they are in use than they were when they left the factory. So the putting the responsibility on designers and saying we must correct these things by design may miss the most essential element, which is you may have an algorithm that is perfectly innocuous, but based on what it learns, it can wind up making decisions about which people might have concerns and which they might want to be able to monitor, if not exactly control. This is algorithmic collusion in the case of pricing algorithms, although that’s a slightly different issue. But it is true that some of the players here, the manufacturers, the platforms, and so on, have special responsibilities. The final thing I want to mention is that these data that are collected will be retained and used. And through the longitudinal study of these data, the repositories that are created, we can come to understand many of these complex phenomena that the law at present and regulation are inadequate to deal with. But part of that generations will come forward. And one of the kind of meat and potatoes data governance issues is the fact that new generations of devices are entering the Internet of Things all the time. And with these new generations come new protocols for storing those data. So they may not be understandable or accessible by later generations. And they may not function properly when fed with data collected by later generations of devices. So the formats, the level at which these things are retained and access to long-term repositories may be very important. And the conclusion of that is that many of the rules that we have on the privacy and proprietary nature of these state way of having an Internet of Things that is capable of retaining enough data to be able to understand the problems that it may create or to be able to back away from or modify the standards and methods that it use when things cease to be a problem. Okay, those are my remarks.

Renée Roland: Jim, I can’t hear you.

Jonathan Cave: No, no sound from the room here either.

Maarten Botterman: In the room they’re waiting, working on it. In the room we can hear me, but can you hear me online now?

Jonathan Cave: Yes, we can, although you’re slightly reduced.

Maarten Botterman: Slightly what?

Jonathan Cave: Quieter than you were before.

Maarten Botterman: Quieter than I was before, oh, that’s exceptional for me. The technical team has been doing wonders over the week and learning every step how to interact with this setup and the room. Thank you for that. So, and yesterday in this room we also talked about the consciousness of equipment that can be on the ability of the users that they’re serving. So to adapt to, for instance, kids or elderly in the way they interact. So I think that relates to the point you just made too.

Jonathan Cave: I think just one small comment on that, and that awareness also includes whether or not about what their devices are collecting from them. And it is quite possible that the population of users may fragment into people who basically don’t trust having data collected in ways and used in ways that they know they don’t understand and people who become unaware of the collection that’s taking place so that as with smart speakers and so on, they sort of fade into the background and you take them for granted the same way as you do any of the other things that we use normally. So I think that splitting in the population may have concerns, particularly in terms of privacy.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. On this, Nicolas, the work of IC3C on IoT as it relates to privacy, please.

Nicolas Fiumarelli: Yes, as well. Because you know IoT ecosystems generate these vast amounts of data and often personal and sensitive that can be managed responsibly. So this requires more robust policies, as mentioned, that balance the innovation with the privacy. And as Jonathan emphasized, in data governance and categories of data, it’s not appropriate to treat them all the same. Each category requires tailored security measures to address a specific characteristic and risk. I would also like to highlight something that Jonathan raised about that it’s not only about the user using devices, right? But also there are thing-to-thing. It means devices communicating and actuators interoperating between them. So different areas as well. Some of the recent developments in IoT data governance, EUCRA, that emphasizes the lifecycle security mandating that manufacturers as well address vulnerabilities throughout the device operational life. We also have seen the NIST providing a specific recommendation for secure consumer-grade routers, a critical component of these IoT ecosystems. And also, why not to highlight the work of the thing-to-thing research group, the IRTF, the Internet Research Task Force, that is focusing more on exploring these advanced technologies as also raised by Jonathan. Because new generation of devices, are there protocols and architectures for this seamless communication and this interoperation among the IoT devices, as stated in their website, the thing-to-thing research group, the mission of this group is to identify and address these challenges and opportunities related to device-to-device communication and related ecosystems. So it’s really about the user. This is very important for policymakers. We also need to mention that this cannot be left behind. The Global Digital Compact is fostering international cooperation to harmonize these data governance standards, particularly for the IoT devices that operate across borders in the Internet. In our report in 2022 and 2023 on the I3C, we revealed significant gaps in IoT data governance, particularly in regions, again, in the South, lacking these enforceable privacy laws. Many countries relied on voluntary guidelines. What are our recommendations, the I3C recommendations? We want the government to adopt holistic privacy laws that address IoT-specific challenges, such as data encryption, access controls, minimization of data exposures, different things that are also about lifecycle data protection, about user empowerment mechanisms, and finally, this global standardization, right, because we have different working groups and protocols. At the IETF, I can mention, you can explore the IETF website, and harmonizing these data governance standards is essential for us to have consistent protection across these jurisdictions. This may be required, as I mentioned, the Global Digital Compact is multilateral cooperation and alignment more with the frameworks like the GDPR, right, but now with more advanced technology. So, to translate these recommendations into action, the I3C is always emphasizing the role of the multistakeholder collaboration, government, industry leaders, the civil society must work all together to create these policies that are both enforceable in some manner and adaptable to emerging technologies. So, it’s not just about connectivity, it’s maybe about trust. We need to deal with that, and embedding these strong governance and privacy measures into the IOT landscape, we can create this future where the technology serves the humanity without compromising our security, and I’m looking forward to questions on critical issues here.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you on this. I don’t see questions in the room still, right? So, Jimmy, very quickly.

Jimson Olufuye: You know, you’re talking about smart regulation. The data is going to be huge, so what do you recommend? What’s the period for data to be stored, two years, three years, five years for ISP and all those in charge of data storage, and then secondly, will you consider the NetMundia guidelines for multistakeholder engagement, because you mentioned in…

Maarten Botterman: Please introduce yourself.

Wisdom Donkor: Yeah, my name is Wisdom Donkor, the director for Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation. I just want to understand the difference between AI and IOT. Now, we realize that, let me say, in Africa, government are beginning to regulate or initiate that process to regulate AI, so I want to know the difference, is IOT AI or AI IOT?

Maarten Botterman: I appreciate that question, but for the sake of time, we’ll discuss that outside of the meeting, but a quick response on Jimmy’s question, and Wisdom, very happy to talk further.

Nicolas Fiumarelli: Yes, I will address your question about the digital cooperation mechanisms, NetMundial, for promoting this digital inclusion, IOT is almost most related with AI, but not like the same, because we are talking about constrained devices. For me, the most important part here is that, as different from the ICT technologies, when you have more computational power, these IOT devices are restricted, are constrained in terms of energy, in terms of batteries, so they are a different approach. That is why we differentiate from the ICTs, but advancing global cooperation, this is something that is important for the nation to have these global challenges, as well as what we do with cybersecurity for the ICT, or misinformation, or digital fragmentation, these huge IOT devices that will be millions and millions of devices need to be addressed, so this also aligns with the digital transformation we are seeing at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, so at the end, it’s all about harmonization, digital cooperation, and also, you know, these devices are promoting, we have other problems that are addressed globally, such as the climate change, we are talking about health and education with these devices, so at the end, we need to have a more holistic approach to understand how to have a global picture of all of this.

Maarten Botterman: So, I’m sorry, Martin, but we have 15 minutes left, so very quickly, but then we move on. Tapping doesn’t help, switching on does.

Martin Koyabe: Martin Kayabe, GFC Africa. The question that I wanted to raise is not actually a question, it’s something that we need to emphasize. There are two areas that are very difficult. One is the way IOTs operate, especially when you look at the ecosystem, which is isolated, so for example, the decentralization of the IOT ecosystem brings with it some challenges, especially when it comes to manufacturing, the equipment, and also the geopolitics of equipment as we know it very well, so there will be some specific parts of the world that will develop very many tools and very many equipment that are not allowed to be in some specific parts of the world as well. The other thing also is that we need to emphasize on regulation, because regulation is one of the most difficult. IOTs are in isolation, they are in specific jurisdictions across borders, and how do we make sure that we harmonize that regulation, because it’s different, and even if we do anything as far as global settings are concerned, regulation will always have a different impact. difference. And that is something that we really need to look at, because if we don’t look at regulation, then how do we actually have users using it, monitoring and so forth. Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: Okay, I’ll park that. It’s very true. It’s true for IoT governance, it’s true for AI governance, and it’s essential issues. Rene touched upon a little bit on it. What drives the positive there is that there is an international recognition that mutual recognition will help, because things come across borders all the time, whether it’s data or even devices. So that is the positive stimulants. And yes, we have different actors with different incentives in the world. Very much recognized. I just wanted to really also open the floor for the next one, which is IoT governance and emerging technologies, with a focus on quantum, the impact of quantum and AI. It’s about the thinking ahead of the issues that we’ll be facing tomorrow or a couple of years from now. And for that, very happy to have Elif Kizilkortes online, who is also with the IS3C as chair of the working group. Elif, please, the floor is yours.

Elif Kiesow Cortez: Thank you, Martin. And I will just jump right into the subject. So today we know that the security community highlights that the post-quantum cryptography, or PQC, is very important for maintaining data security and data privacy as quantum computing capabilities advance. Research shows that our current classical encryption algorithms, like RSA, is vulnerable to attacks from powerful quantum computers, which do not yet exist, but remain a credible threat for the future. PQC provides a set of cryptographic techniques and algorithms that are designed specifically to ensure long-term protection of sensitive information and also secure communication channels. And implementing PQC solutions now allows organizations to future-proof their security measures against potential quantum threats over the coming decade, preventing possible data breaches and national security risks. Governments and standards bodies like NIST are actively promoting PQC standards, emphasizing… Sorry?

Maarten Botterman: Excellent, you were gone for 10 seconds, but you’re back because you were cracking before. You’re clearly speaking now. Thank you. Please continue.

Elif Kiesow Cortez: Okay, so I would not know where it broke. So I was explaining the importance of implementing PQC solutions so that the organizations proofing their security. This is both for data breaches and also for national security risks. And governments and important organizations like NIST, they are actively promoting PQC standards to be adopted and emphasizing the urgent need for this widespread adoption across the industries, also to safeguard against the emerging quantum computing threat. And today, of course, we are also very happy to announce a new project of our dynamic coalition. This will be for the DC-IS3C. We will be collaborating with AFNIC from France on a new project that is very relevant to this session. We will work on a collaboration between the Working Group 1, that is on IoT security, as well as Working Group 9 on emerging technologies. Our research will have two different areas to focus, one dedicated to the societal impacts of IoT, and the second one on those of post quantum cryptography. And we will be providing a brief combined analysis of these domains as well. In this research, we will make sure to include a multidimensional look for this. And we will be looking at impact on societal, legal, economic and environmental levels. And we will be also including policy recommendations both at the state level and organization level. Next year in IGF 2025, we will be also enabling stakeholder engagement on these issues through a common workshop that will be promoting dialogue on societal implications as well as future directions. And we will be finalizing the combined report that will be looking at both IoT security and PQC, where we will be also exploring some cross-cutting themes like digital transformation and future-proofing against emerging threats. And we will include references to international cooperation and economic competitiveness aspects within the broader context of global cybersecurity efforts. This project will be conducted and concluded within the next six months. So please reach out to Wout, who is in the room, if you would like to hear more on this, or if you would like to work with us on similar projects in the future too. Thank you, Martijn.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you, Elif, for that. I think this is also capacity building and awareness raising around the world is important. So everybody gets involved, or at least all cultures are understood when moving ahead in this area. So the global dialogue is crucial in these areas, I think. There’s a broad recognition that and we talked about the data from different generations, Jonathan raised that, that they may also have different levels of encryption that may be affected by quantum computing, the power of those. So standing ready for that is, as Elif raised, we need to look to moving forward. The other element is very much related also to AI. AI is not a global concept. AI is very much about how you apply it in your region for your purpose. And that can only happen if you know how to do it. So even if the device measures temperature or whatever, what you want to do with that may be different whether you’re in Africa or in the North Pole, for instance. Just one of the examples. So really looking on how you ensure that you can adopt what we learn on AI, what we develop in IoT, and help to what in the end matters, impact on the people in your region is something that clearly need to be considered moving forward. Therefore, also, I think both at all stakeholder levels, governments, how to stimulate the development industry, how to see the opportunities, how to be able to grasp the opportunities, technical community to support this, whether it’s focused on the internet or on the car industry, and the users in the end of what do we really want to be involved in how this progresses. Jonathan, anything to add?

Jonathan Cave: A couple of very tiny points. Thank you very much, Adolf. That’s really provocative. Among the things that may be of concern, and you’re probably already thinking about them, but they have implications beyond that specific initiative, are the proliferation aspect, that is quantum computing becomes cheaper and more ubiquitously available. The nature of the problems and the nature of the solutions themselves may change. For example, with a decentralization, as opposed to a concentration on platforms that can see what’s going on and respond to it. And that movement of intelligence from the edge to the center or from the center to the edge should probably change a lot of the ways we think about these things from a regulatory point of view. Another one is the domino thing, because that is a killer application at the moment, which is strong cryptography and very smart ways of breaking cryptography. But the use of quantum computing probably goes beyond that to a greater complexity of how the IoT will function. And with that complexity come types of behavior, emergent types of behavior that we’ll need to think about not just from a security, but from a safety perspective. And even to be able to detect these things may require a different kind of thinking than thinking about how systems operate to do by the people who use them. And the last part of that is that this in the security world, we tend to think about things in terms of attackers and defenders. Obviously, the multi stakeholderism of the implications of quantum computing goes far beyond that. And a lot of the things that we worry about or place our hope in don’t come from a kind of zero sum perspective, but involve the interaction of many, many people. So the game theorists should get a look into. But thank you. That was really provocative.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you for that. So thinking of the future, any questions in the room? Nicholas, please. Your microphone is gone.

Nicolas Fiumarelli: No, just to highlight that comment with the subject of the quantum, because you know, as IoT becomes more foundational to smart cities, we are seeing healthcare devices, critical infrastructure, having IoT sensors. So implementing quantum resistant standards is like future proof. You know, these systems are against emerging threats. So for those interested, just one hour from now in workshop room nine, we will have hosting an interesting workshop on the topic of the critical important that is on secure routing, internet resilience, it’s called advancing IoT security, RPKI, and post-quantum encryption. So we’ll dive into this intersection of post-quantum encryption, IoT, and routing security, right into that session as well.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you very much. Bart, please.

Wout de Natris: Yes, there are some interesting comments that Jonathan made in the chat, so do we want to read them, Martin, or do we leave it there as it is?

Maarten Botterman: Please summarize.

Wout de Natris: It’s a lot, so I will try.

Maarten Botterman: Shall we ask Jonathan, because he’s online, otherwise.

Wout de Natris: There is another option that Jonathan, please make your, a few of your points that you’ve made in the chat that we have one or two minutes left that you can use for that.

Jonathan Cave: Thank you, Bart. I’ll just summarize them. If people want to come back to me on the mic. Hello?

Maarten Botterman: They can be here, corrects only.

Jonathan Cave: All right, well, I’m hearing you.

Maarten Botterman: Technical support. Please give me your thumbs up if it should work.

Jonathan Cave: Is that any better?

Maarten Botterman: Yes, it’s better. Thank you.

Jonathan Cave: So the first one was the data may cross categories. One of the things here is that, for example, automobile sensors have nothing to do with the operation of the car. They can reveal the driver’s political preferences, their gender, etc., etc., etc., and this crosses regulatory boundaries and therefore is a separate thing that we may need to think about. In relation to the supply of technologies, particularly to developing countries, the issue of data colonialism should be mentioned, where people from developed countries give devices to developing countries which help them, but also siphon data out of them, and they can use those developing countries as almost as labyrinths to harvest their data, and an equitable sharing of those data and equitable control of how those data are used will be very important. The trust network is obviously very important, but also the trustworthiness of the data. When it’s human data, we worry a lot about disinformation, misinformation, malinformation. The same thing is true with devices, but may be much harder to detect. Devices can spoofer off, they do. To the devices and the people behind them, or the IoT and AI element of it, if the AI is the brain, the IoT are the eyes, the ears, and the hands. And just as it’s hard to think about a mind without thinking about the senses and capabilities of the person, the distinction between AI and IoT, particularly when the devices themselves may have some degree of what we used to call ambient intelligence, but where the intelligence of the system comes through the interaction of all of these devices, we may want to be careful about whether we retain that distinction. Oh, and a final thing on mutual recognition is a good thing. We have it in free trade agreements and things like that. It can be very helpful, but it can also be very harmful. Mutual recognition can be a backdoor for bypassing the regulations of countries and for denying the people in those countries access to information that they may need. And this is particularly true between high-tech and low-tech countries. And we’re seeing it already in the world, that if you accept devices and services on the grounds of mutual recognition, there has to be some degree of verification before the trust that lies behind that mutual recognition can be fully implemented. Great, thanks.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you. Thank you again for being here with me in this ugly hour. Your final takeaways.

Renée Roland: I did want to talk a little bit about regulations and some of the challenges that we have. Certainly as I mentioned at the commission and under our program medical devices are not included. So I think that’s something that we should consider in terms of flexibility in the future. Other. I think that part of the issue is there are already regulations. By other agencies, right. For for equipment. Automobile equipment and then medical devices. So there’s a whole other stream of work that is going on with the regulations and, and some of the inconsistencies that there may there, there may be or overlap that there may be. So I think that’s a different stream of, of work that, that we’re also doing. And part of it, the commission.

Maarten Botterman: Thank you so much.

Elif Kiesow Cortez: I will just echo I think Renee’s comments and saying that all of those issues that we are seeing about standardization will be now also applicable to the PQC space. So I think we will be seeing a lot of movement there too. Thank you.

Maarten Botterman: Yes. Thank you. And it’s time. So we run off this session. Even if you talk to them, we started with labeling and certification. We can also see that, that evolves throughout the international process of, of mutual recognition throughout the multi-stakeholder input. That emerges over time and adoption. Across the world. If we keep it sharp. It’s a kind of reflection on what’s happening. There’s many things moving and let’s try to keep that clear for all of us so we can move together. One of the other evolutions that may be is that. In the labeling. So it’s likely that to evolve as well. And overall, I think I’m really happy with the understanding that we got all the systems, but we also got the data and let’s not forget that. And last but not least. So let’s think ahead because what we’ve seen over the last year, how quickly things move. We will see towards the future. My expectation. It will be maybe not what we expect, but we will move very fast. So let’s stay on the ball, stay on the ball together and move this together. So thank you all very much for your inputs, your thoughtful comments and questions. And we look forward to publishing the report and, and from there, this is for us a step in the process and a good step. Thanks to all of you. Sorry. This is the end of the session. Thank you for all your help technical section.

Renée Roland: Thank you.

Jonathan Cave: Thanks.

Agreement Points

Importance of IoT security labeling and certification

Renee Roland

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Maarten Botterman

US Cyber Trust Mark program for IoT devices

Global labeling initiatives like Singapore’s CLS

Need for harmonization of labeling standards

Speakers agreed on the importance of implementing IoT security labeling schemes and the need for international harmonization of these standards.

Need for comprehensive IoT data governance

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Jonathan Cave

Need for holistic privacy laws addressing IoT challenges

Complexity of IoT data types beyond personal data

Speakers emphasized the need for comprehensive data governance frameworks that address the unique challenges posed by IoT devices and data types.

Importance of addressing emerging technologies in IoT governance

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Elif Kiesow Cortez

Jonathan Cave

Need to future-proof IoT systems against quantum threats

Importance of post-quantum cryptography for IoT security

Blurring lines between AI and IoT technologies

Speakers agreed on the importance of considering emerging technologies, particularly quantum computing and AI, in IoT governance frameworks.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for a more nuanced understanding of IoT data and the importance of educating users about the complexities of IoT ecosystems.

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Jonathan Cave

Importance of consumer education on labels

Complexity of IoT data types beyond personal data

Both speakers highlighted the challenges associated with cross-border data flows and the potential for inequitable data practices, particularly affecting developing countries.

Martin Koyabe

Jonathan Cave

Challenges with cross-border data flows and jurisdictions

Risks of data colonialism in developing countries

Unexpected Consensus

Integration of AI and IoT in regulatory frameworks

Jonathan Cave

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Blurring lines between AI and IoT technologies

Need to future-proof IoT systems against quantum threats

While coming from different perspectives, both speakers unexpectedly converged on the need to consider the integration of AI and IoT in future regulatory frameworks, highlighting the interconnected nature of emerging technologies.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the importance of IoT security labeling, comprehensive data governance, and addressing emerging technologies in IoT governance. Speakers also shared concerns about cross-border data flows and the need for user education.

Consensus level

There was a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on key issues. This consensus suggests a growing recognition of the complex challenges in IoT governance and the need for collaborative, multistakeholder approaches to address them effectively. The implications of this consensus point towards potential international cooperation on IoT standards and governance frameworks, but also highlight the need for flexible approaches that can adapt to rapidly evolving technologies and diverse regional contexts.

Different Viewpoints

Voluntary vs. Mandatory Labeling Schemes

Renee Roland

Nicolas Fiumarelli

US Cyber Trust Mark program for IoT devices

Global labeling initiatives like Singapore’s CLS

Renee Roland presented the US Cyber Trust Mark as a voluntary program, while Nicolas Fiumarelli emphasized the need for mandatory labeling policies to ensure consistent implementation.

Unexpected Differences

Approach to International Standardization

Renee Roland

Jonathan Cave

US Cyber Trust Mark program for IoT devices

Risks of data colonialism in developing countries

While Roland focused on mutual recognition of labeling schemes between countries, Cave unexpectedly raised concerns about data colonialism and the need for equitable data sharing, highlighting potential conflicts in international standardization efforts.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement centered around the implementation of labeling schemes (voluntary vs. mandatory), the scope of data governance (personal data vs. broader data types), and the approach to international standardization.

difference_level

The level of disagreement was moderate. While speakers generally agreed on the importance of IoT security and data governance, they differed in their approaches and emphasis on specific issues. These differences highlight the complexity of creating unified global standards for IoT governance and security, potentially leading to challenges in implementing consistent international policies.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agreed on the need for comprehensive data governance, but differed in their approach. Fiumarelli advocated for holistic privacy laws, while Cave emphasized the need to consider various data types beyond personal data.

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Jonathan Cave

Need for holistic privacy laws addressing IoT challenges

Complexity of IoT data types beyond personal data

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for a more nuanced understanding of IoT data and the importance of educating users about the complexities of IoT ecosystems.

Nicolas Fiumarelli

Jonathan Cave

Importance of consumer education on labels

Complexity of IoT data types beyond personal data

Both speakers highlighted the challenges associated with cross-border data flows and the potential for inequitable data practices, particularly affecting developing countries.

Martin Koyabe

Jonathan Cave

Challenges with cross-border data flows and jurisdictions

Risks of data colonialism in developing countries

Key Takeaways

Resolutions and Action Items

Unresolved Issues

Suggested Compromises

The Internet of Things like many other things in the internet is self-documenting. It collects data as it goes along and these data can be retained and processed and used to provide and protect all the things we want from the Internet of Things, which include privacy and security.

speaker

Jonathan Cave

reason

This comment introduces the important idea that IoT devices inherently generate data, which can be used both for functionality and security purposes. It challenges the typical view of data collection as solely a privacy concern.

impact

This shifted the discussion to consider the dual nature of IoT data – as both a potential privacy risk and a security asset. It led to further exploration of data governance issues.

Smart devices, among other things, they not only take decisions, but they learn and learn from the people around them. And that change means that the device itself and certainly the algorithms within the device are different when they are in use than they were when they left the factory.

speaker

Jonathan Cave

reason

This insight highlights the evolving nature of IoT devices and their algorithms, challenging the notion that security can be fully addressed at the design stage.

impact

This comment deepened the conversation by introducing the complexity of securing devices that change over time. It led to discussion of lifecycle security and the need for ongoing updates and monitoring.

The FCC recently launched this labeling program, highlighting operational resilience. Also, aligning with the update in NIST, under layer 8.425a, the initiative represents a mature step towards standardizing this minimum IoT standards in the North American market.

speaker

Nicolas Fiumarelli

reason

This comment provides concrete information about regulatory developments, showing how standards are being implemented in practice.

impact

This shifted the discussion towards more practical considerations of how IoT security standards are being implemented and harmonized across different regions.

Research shows that our current classical encryption algorithms, like RSA, is vulnerable to attacks from powerful quantum computers, which do not yet exist, but remain a credible threat for the future. PQC provides a set of cryptographic techniques and algorithms that are designed specifically to ensure long-term protection of sensitive information and also secure communication channels.

speaker

Elif Kiesow Cortez

reason

This comment introduces the critical issue of quantum computing threats to current encryption methods, highlighting a future challenge for IoT security.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion towards future challenges and the need for proactive measures in IoT security. It led to further discussion about post-quantum cryptography and its implications for IoT.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening its scope from current IoT security practices to future challenges and complexities. They highlighted the multifaceted nature of IoT security, encompassing data governance, evolving device capabilities, standardization efforts, and emerging technological threats. The discussion evolved from addressing immediate security concerns to considering long-term, proactive approaches to IoT security in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

How can we achieve harmonization of IoT security standards globally?

speaker

Jimson Olufuye

explanation

Harmonization is crucial for ensuring consistent IoT security across different jurisdictions and reducing fragmentation of standards.

What is the appropriate retention period for IoT-generated data?

speaker

Jimson Olufuye

explanation

Determining an appropriate data retention period is important for balancing data utility with privacy and security concerns.

How can we effectively implement the NetMundial guidelines for multistakeholder engagement in IoT governance?

speaker

Jimson Olufuye

explanation

Ensuring inclusive multistakeholder participation is crucial for developing fair and effective IoT governance frameworks.

What are the key differences between AI and IoT, particularly in the context of regulation?

speaker

Wisdom Donkor

explanation

Understanding the distinctions and overlaps between AI and IoT is important for developing appropriate regulatory frameworks.

How can we address the challenges of regulating IoT devices that operate across borders?

speaker

Martin Koyabe

explanation

The decentralized nature of IoT ecosystems poses unique challenges for regulation and governance across different jurisdictions.

How can we ensure equitable sharing and control of data collected from IoT devices in developing countries?

speaker

Jonathan Cave

explanation

Addressing potential ‘data colonialism’ is crucial for ensuring fair benefits and control over IoT-generated data in developing nations.

How can we verify the trustworthiness of data generated by IoT devices?

speaker

Jonathan Cave

explanation

Ensuring data integrity and detecting potential misinformation or manipulation in IoT-generated data is crucial for the reliability of IoT systems.

How should regulations adapt to include medical IoT devices?

speaker

Renee Roland

explanation

Medical IoT devices present unique challenges and risks that may require specific regulatory approaches.

Summary

This discussion focused on the implementation of Article 29C of the Global Digital Compact, which commits to preventing internet fragmentation. The panel, consisting of representatives from government, technical community, and civil society, explored how to operationalize this commitment and address risks of fragmentation.

The speakers emphasized that internet fragmentation occurs at different levels – technical, governance, and user experience. While the technical layer remains largely unfragmented, there are emerging risks like alternative naming systems and restrictive national policies. The user experience is already fragmented in many ways, with access and content restrictions varying globally.

Panelists stressed the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation in addressing fragmentation risks. They suggested leveraging existing frameworks like the Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation (PNIF) and Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to facilitate inclusive dialogues. Capacity building and education were highlighted as key strategies.

The discussion touched on the need for measurable indicators to track progress on preventing fragmentation. Speakers proposed developing a framework to assess the state of fragmentation by the next IGF in 2025, which could inform the WSIS+20 review process.

Participants also raised concerns about proposals for new internet protocols that could enable centralized control and surveillance. They emphasized the importance of civil society engagement in technical standard-setting processes.

Overall, the panel agreed on the continued relevance of addressing internet fragmentation risks. They called for strengthened multi-stakeholder collaboration, increased capacity building, and development of assessment frameworks as next steps in operationalizing the GDC commitment.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of Article 29C in the Global Digital Compact, which commits to preventing Internet fragmentation

– Different perspectives on Internet fragmentation, including technical, governance, and user experience layers

– The need for metrics and measurement to track progress on preventing fragmentation

– The role of multistakeholder cooperation and the IGF in addressing fragmentation risks

– Opportunities to engage on this issue leading up to WSIS+20 and IGF 2025

The overall purpose of the discussion was to examine how to interpret and operationalize the commitment to prevent Internet fragmentation in Article 29C of the Global Digital Compact, and to explore next steps for the Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation.

The tone of the discussion was constructive and forward-looking. Participants acknowledged the complexity of the issue but expressed optimism about opportunities to make progress through multistakeholder cooperation. The tone became more action-oriented towards the end as participants discussed concrete next steps and “dreams” for the future.

Speakers

– Wim Degezelle: Consultant with the IGF Secretariat

– Bruna Martins dos Santos: Global Campaigns Manager at Digital Action | Member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group to the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

– Sheetal Kumar: Co-facilitator of the session (remote)

– Gbenga Sesan: Paradigm Initiative

– Amitabh Singhal: ICANN Board of Directors

– Alisa Heaver: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in the Netherlands

Additional speakers:

– Anriette Esterhuysen: Association for Progressive Communications, South Africa

– Hosein Badran: Member of Canadian IGF and Arab IGF

– Kunle Olorundare: Nigerian IGF

Internet Fragmentation: Operationalising the Global Digital Compact Commitment

This discussion focused on implementing Article 29C of the Global Digital Compact (GDC), which commits to preventing internet fragmentation. The panel, consisting of representatives from government, technical community, and civil society, explored how to operationalise this commitment and address fragmentation risks.

Understanding Internet Fragmentation

The speakers emphasized that internet fragmentation occurs at different levels – technical, governance, and user experience. While there are over 70,000 networks, there is currently no fragmentation at the technical level. However, Anriette Esterhuysen from the Association for Progressive Communications argued that fragmentation already exists at the user experience level, stating, “How you, whether you think of the Internet as fragmented or not, really depends on whose Internet you think it is”. She highlighted that for billions of users, the internet is already fragmented due to access limitations and content restrictions.

Gbenga Sesan from Paradigm Initiative emphasized that fragmentation contradicts the goal of connecting everyone by 2030, underscoring the tension between technical unity and user experience fragmentation.

The Global Digital Compact Commitment

Alisa Heaver from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in the Netherlands emphasized the importance of Article 29C in providing a basis for preventing fragmentation. She stressed the need for a framework to measure progress on the GDC commitment by the 2027 review.

Implementation Strategies

The speakers agreed on the crucial role of multi-stakeholder cooperation in addressing fragmentation risks. They suggested leveraging existing frameworks like the Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation (PNIF) and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to facilitate inclusive dialogues. Wim Degezelle presented the PNIF framework at the beginning of the session, highlighting its relevance to the discussion.

Amitabh Singhal from the ICANN Board of Directors highlighted that the IGF platform bridges technical and policy discussions on fragmentation. He also mentioned the potential renewal of the IGF’s mandate, emphasizing its continued importance in addressing internet governance issues.

Gbenga Sesan emphasized the importance of civil society engagement in technical standard-setting processes and suggested that governments should include diverse stakeholders in technical delegations. This view was echoed by audience members who stressed the need for private sector involvement alongside government and civil society.

Measuring and Tracking Fragmentation

A key theme that emerged was the need for measurable indicators to track progress on preventing fragmentation. Alisa Heaver emphasized the necessity of measuring and tracking fragmentation to assess progress, stating, “My dream would very easily be that we wouldn’t have to have this discussion on Internet fragmentation and everyone would perfectly be fine with this Internet that we have. But more realistically, a takeaway for me is that the research that we want to do as governments, as Dutch government, we really should do and that the need to start measuring Internet fragmentation is more necessary than ever”.

Heaver also highlighted the need for research on the economic impacts of fragmentation.

Future Work and Next Steps

The panel agreed on several action items and next steps:

1. Develop a framework to measure progress on the GDC commitment by the 2027 review

2. Conduct research on the economic impacts of internet fragmentation

3. Utilize national and regional IGFs (NRIs) to facilitate local discussions on fragmentation

4. Prepare for the upcoming IGF in 2025, which was mentioned as a significant milestone by multiple speakers

Sheetal Kumar, a co-facilitator of the session, emphasized the importance of utilizing national and regional IGFs for ongoing fragmentation discussions.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the continued relevance of addressing internet fragmentation risks. The panel called for strengthened multi-stakeholder collaboration, increased capacity building, and development of assessment frameworks as next steps in operationalising the GDC commitment. While there was general consensus on the importance of preventing fragmentation, the discussion revealed the complexity of the issue and the need for ongoing dialogue and research to address emerging challenges.

The panelists concluded with their dreams or takeaways from the discussion, emphasizing the importance of continued work on preventing internet fragmentation and the need for inclusive, multi-stakeholder approaches to address this global challenge.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Internet Governance, and what should happen on things such as the GDC implementation and other things. So it might feel sometimes that it’s a session about the GDC, but it’s the other way around. We want to take a look at what happened with the Global Digital Compact based on the PNIF framework that discusses within other things the fragmentation of coordination spaces. I’m joined today by an amazing set of speakers. Their names are all in the screen right now. I’ll introduce them later. But I’ll also say hello to my co-facilitators Wim and Shitao, who is joining us remotely as well from London. And without further ado, I’ll hand the floor to you, Wim.

Wim Degezelle: Thank you, and good morning to everyone. No, she’s there. Now we can say hi to Sheetal, our co-facilitator, waving to us from a very early hour in London. So my name is Wim De Gezelle. I’m actually a consultant with the IGF Secretariat and supporting this policy network. No, I can do it. Thank you. So policy networks are inter-sessional activities of the IGF. That means in the beginning of the year, the MAG decides on a number of topics where they want the community to work on during the months and the weeks before the IGF meeting. They come together, organize meetings, organize sessions, and then my role as a consultant with the Secretariat is to help support the work. The positive thing about inter-sessional activities is that we have a little bit more time. to prepare for the IGF meeting, and as you will see, where we are today with the Policy Network is actually the result of three webinars we had during the year, where we discussed more or less the same questions, but in a way that they build up, build up, build up until the meeting today. And we hope to share some of the findings, some of the input we received during those webinars and share it with the audience, with the panel, and so in a way get new input, but also get the feedback and confirmation that we understood things right. So the Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation is in its third year already. It was started as an initiative suggested from the community or as a follow-up on an existing initiative in the community that aims to raise awareness of actions and measures that risk to fragment the Internet. The Policy Network itself wants to serve as a platform to foster a holistic and an inclusive discussion on fragmentation and, more important, how to avoid fragmentation of the Internet. On the next slide, you will see the framework for discussing fragmentation that is the output of the PNF work in the previous two years. Just take a minute, because we have been discussing this for two years. This framework is built on the input we get and the discussions we had with the community, and it’s a little bit different than the normal approach you would take. We tried at the beginning, at the first meeting of the PNF two years ago or three years ago, to come up with a definition of what fragmentation is, what fragmentation isn’t. is not. Very quickly, we ran into long discussions, discussions that were turning around, focusing just on that question, black, white, yes, no, what is fragmentation, what is not, and we had a feeling that we didn’t move forward. Therefore, we came up with a framework that we can use to discuss fragmentation, a framework where we say, well, there are different views, different ideas on what is fragmentation or what could be fragmentation of the internet, and we put them, but we can somehow put them in different baskets, and that’s why we came up with this framework where we say, based on the conversations we had, you can make a difference between fragmentation of the user experience, from people using the internet, fragmentation of internet governance and coordination, and fragmentation of the internet’s technical layer. As you will see, we don’t see that as very fixed categories, because there are the relations between all those baskets, because one, there can be, the baskets can be, there might be some overlap, but there’s also definitely a relation between those things, and more important, there is also the relation between technical, political, and commercial developments, things that can be decided that might influence different kinds of fragmentation. I wanted, we thought that it would be important to have this framework, show it again at the beginning of our session, but the aim of our session is not to have that discussion again. The aim is to, as it was intended, to use this framework as a background, so if we have a discussion, and if people do not necessarily agree, or not necessarily talk about the same definition of fragmentation, we still have it in the background that we can park, or situate where the people are, but continue. the discussion and that was exactly why also we call it a framework for discussing fragmentation and not a framework for defining fragmentation. So the PNF in 2024, like I said we have been discussing for two years building up that framework. In 2024 we wanted to discuss something else, we wanted to make a step further. But we started the year with the questions what is fragmentation or is avoiding internet fragmentation still a matter of concern in 2024 and how should a PNF contribute to having an inclusive discussion and holistic dialogue. When we asked that question we really wanted to hear from the people participating in the policy network should we actually continue the work. It was almost an existential question we were asking. Does it make sense? We because there were in documents also UN documents that were published two years, three years before mention of fragmentation but at that moment we were asking is this still a topic on people’s agenda. Already in initial discussions we got the feedback well it is maybe not that on top of all discussion but the discussion is still relevant. Then of course through the years we had the summit of the future and the global digital compact and you will see on the next slide that there is a very interesting commitment that let’s call it accidentally is exactly the same I would say job description the PNF was given for itself a commitment that member states took. So that’s how we end the year at this meeting with having, as one of the important questions we have, how should we understand the commitment that was taken by the GDC or in the GDC and how can the PNF further contribute to this operationalization? It’s in very small print, but I have it a little bit larger. So in the Global Digital Compact that was agreed in September, one of the commitments the Member States take says, it’s Article 29C, a commitment to promote international cooperation among all stakeholders to prevent, identify and address risks of fragmentation of the Internet in a timely manner. I will leave it there, because that’s exactly the point where we want to start the discussion, see how this relates to our work as a PNF, but also how we have to interpret and how we have to understand this commitment. But then I hand it over back to Bruna and the panelists to share their thoughts. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks. And as Wim was saying, the goal is really discussing the operationalization and to understand what 29C means and how actually the multistakeholder community can work together towards its implementation. So this is also going to be an interactive session. We do hope to hear some input from all in the audience, but starting to introduce our panelists, just a quick mention to their names, because I do trust they have some more things or hats to add. But we have joining us today Alisa Heaver from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in the Netherlands, Amitabh Singhal from the ICANN Board of Directors, welcome, and Gbenga Sesam from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in the Netherlands. from Paradigm Initiative. Thanks a lot for joining us. And I guess my first question to you is how do you react to what PNIF participants said regarding the GDC commitment? What is your view as to how we should interpret and operationalize it and ensure implementation of the commitment in Article 29C? And if there are inventory examples useful in that sense. So I don’t know who wants to take the floor first, but I’ll leave it free for you.

Amitabh Singhal: So should I go?

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Yes, please take some time.

Amitabh Singhal: Good morning, and thank you for having me here. And thank you, Wim, for the summarization of the discussions that PNIF had during the webinars. Gives us a background to go on and to consider things going forward and how the multi-stakeholder, if I understand your question correctly, how does the multi-stakeholder community go forward and how does it operationalize or look at operationalizing the GDC commitment mentioned in Article 29C. So I think in Article 29C, the UN member states commit to promote international cooperation among all stakeholders to prevent, identify, and address risks of fragmentation of the internet in a timely manner. I think as an ICANN board member and as a part of the technical community, I would say that we are very supportive of such a commitment by the UN member states. We all have a role to play in preserving the internet. We acknowledge that the GDC’s Article 29C involves elements that the technical community has actually addressed in the past and has been working on for some time. The risk of internet fragmentation on a technical level has been steadily increasing in recent years due to geopolitical tensions. This trend is reflected in regional and national legislations on data protection, for example, evolving concepts. of digital sovereignty, and some of the discussions we see at multilateral and international fora. Speaking for the technical community, ICANN’s mission is to ensure a stable, secure, and unified global internet. When the technical community works together in support of this mission, it helps to avoid internet fragmentation and advances the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance, which is where the multi-stakeholder model actually has a contribution going forward. ICANN has been facilitating inclusive dialogues and collaboration since its foundation. The technical community has expertise and extensive experience in working with and advising governments, civil society groups, and commercial entities on the technical aspects of the internet. It employs inclusive multi-stakeholder governance processes that include diverse and relevant perspectives. These organizations exemplify the GDC principles and elements dealing with the internet governance. So there are some concrete steps we have already taken, and we encourage other stakeholders to do so, which is aligned with the text of the paragraph 29C. The multi-stakeholder community plays a central role by fostering inclusive discussions that represent diverse regional perspectives, particularly from the global south and marginalized communities. This includes leveraging the IGF platform as a bridge between technical expertise and policymaking to foster common understandings of internet fragmentation risk and ways to address them. So we are happy to see that the UN member states are committed to promote such international cooperation, and we are happy to share our expertise and experience with them. Capacity building programs provide training to policymakers and stakeholders, equipping them to navigate internet governance challenges effectively. These programs support informed decision making and promote sound policies that support the internet’s continuous development. So ICANN has initiated and is engaged in such programs through the work we do regionally, including through the Coalition of Digital Africa. So the multi-stakeholder community has been doing a lot of work described in Article 29C as well, for example, promoting open standards and collaboration and cooperation with standards organizations and other relevant entities, organizing briefings for policymakers to better understand the technical and economic consequences. of measures that risk fragmentation, developing monitoring frameworks to track Internet fragmentation risks and the effectiveness of global and local measures. So I’ll stop there for the time being and then we’ll carry on the conversation. Let’s hear from other participants and panels. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks. Thanks a lot for joining. Yeah. And especially for highlighting the role of the multistakeholder community in that sense. Fragmentation is a key part of this community, right, and the long-term contribution to the Internet governance space and being one of the main models of multistakeholder model we have been addressing and quoting as an example. It’s really good to highlight. So thanks a lot for joining us. Alisa, can I hand it to you? Thanks.

Alisa Heaver: So good morning, everyone. Good evening or afternoon. Yeah, so I’m coming from the Dutch government and I’ve been working there for four years now, or at least at the Ministry of Economic Affairs where I’ve been dealing with Internet governance issues. And the PNIF has also inspired us partly in our international cybersecurity strategy that was published last year. So in the Dutch international cybersecurity strategy, we mentioned Internet fragmentation specifically and we said that interference with the structure, management and administration of the Internet jeopardizes global interoperability. We saw that if a country or a group of countries would no longer recognize the authority of multistakeholder organizations, we didn’t mention any specifically, but well, to be specific here at least, I would definitely mention ICANN, or if countries no longer recognize the importance of the multistakeholder model, we believe that this could lead to to fragmentation to the core of the internet. And the Netherlands has always been very focal on protecting the public core of the internet, which the cyber ambassador, Mr. Ernst Norman, spoke on a panel about this week. And so the internet fragmentation, not recognizing the multi-stakeholder model, it would lead to a coexistence of different internet systems, as we said, a free one. And a free one, and one that is more state controlled. We think that such a split would significantly disrupt interstate communications and internet services, such as email or messaging apps. And that’s obviously then on a different layer, and more focusing on user experience. But if that fragmentation would become so deep, it could affect, as I said, the user experience. And another part that we don’t touch upon very often is the possible economic effects of internet fragmentation. If we could not email freely together anymore, or not use the same messaging apps, we very much believe that that could have a significant effect on global trade. I think I’d like to leave it here, but we’ll get back to the GDC article, so I’ll touch upon that later.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks, Elisa. And also for, I think, the fact that we have you here is also another proof of government’s long-term commitment to this space, and to digital cooperation, broadly speaking. And also to helping avoid internet fragmentation for that matter. So we do appreciate you joining us. and we’ll come back to you soon. Benga, I’ll bring the question to you as well. Just as a reminder for everyone, since I asked it a couple of seconds ago, how do you react? The question is, how do you react to the PNIF participants’ ideas around the GDC commitment? And what’s your view as to how we should interpret it and operationalize it?

Gbenga Sesan: Thanks. Thank you. So I had a chance to participate in the webinars, and that, for me, was very useful, not just to share what my own thoughts are, but also to listen to what people are saying. And in the spirit of multistakeholderism, I think there are three different sides of me sitting on the stage today. There’s the engineer in me thinking, the entire reason for the internet is to have an international network of networks. So if, for any reason, there is a threat to that, then what we then have is not the internet. In fact, when you fragment and create a national internet, it is not the internet. It is not an internet. And so I think the idea behind fragmenting and scaling to a level where you can have more control, and to be honest, there’s a reason why 29D talks about shutdowns. One of the very likely things that would happen with a segmented, fragmented, and disconnected, in quotes, internet is that you can flip the switch at any point in time. And that is not the essence of it. What that does is it disconnects people from opportunities, disconnects people from even reaching services that could be critical to their lives. And so for me, looking at the original design of that, it is strange to have ideas of fragmentation as a proposal of making progress by any government. That’s one side of it. The other side of it is. is I’m looking at this as over the last 19 years, we’ve had conversations at the IGF. When the leadership panel was set up, the first thing we did was to summarize all of the conversations that we had had for 16 plus years. And all of that conversation is what informed what eventually became the Internet We Want paper. And the Internet We Want paper summarized all that stakeholders have been asking for in five broad areas. And the first one is a complete or whole and open Internet. You cannot speak of a complete or whole or open Internet if we have conversations around fragmentation. And when we had this conversation earlier in the year, and the question was posed, do you think it is still a threat? One of the things I was thinking was, well, we’ll find out during the GDC conversations. And then during the GDC conversations, as we were saying yesterday, with women, others, the question is, was this 29C, was it not controversial because people were not paying attention or because everybody actually agrees that, well, to be honest, this is a challenge. This is a threat to the real definition of the Internet. And I think it’s the latter. I think that even people who have made proposals for fragmentation know themselves that when you fragment, what you have is not the Internet. When you fraction things, you don’t have the whole. The third stakeholder in me sitting on the stage today is the user. I’m an Internet user myself. I’ve got kids who learn online, coming in this morning, it’s two hours ahead here. I had to say good morning to my family. I’m using the Internet. So as a user, my user experience and the user experience that everyone has is very different. In an environmental, we talk about fragmentation. We do know in real terms that there are communities in our world today where people are prevented from seeing what is happening in other sides of the world. And it is one of the strongest instruments of manipulation. You can literally tell people various. things about other parts of the world, let me crack a joke. And I hope this is funny. Parking for Saudi Arabia, somewhere in the corner of my head, and I suspect this happened to many other people, somewhere in the corner of my head was, well, it’s Saudi Arabia. It’s going to be warm. And then I got here. Bam. This, and I said to someone, this is not the weather that we ordered. But that was based on my perception of Saudi Arabia that I’d been to only once. Imagine that on a grander scale, where someone is fed with certain information about certain processes, about certain geographies, about certain things over and over again and prevented from seeing the whole or the complete Internet. That is dangerous. I’ll stop there for now.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much, Benga. I think you answered a question we had for you guys. We promised there would be no surprises on this stage, but I think we, what we had in mind as you guys were doing your initial interventions is whether you had different perceptions what an unfragmented Internet was. But maybe, like, going forward on that, I would maybe ask you guys, and I know you want to come back on the floor, Amtab, but before you come in, I would just maybe ask you if you still think that the initial idea of the Internet is still valid, right? And I think the reason why we’re asking that is not just because user experiences tend to be very different, but policymakers’ approaches to the Internet is also very different, right? Especially if you look at spaces like trust and safety or platform regulation, people tend to refer to Meta or Facebook platforms as the Internet when we know there is a much broader aspect to the conversation than just that. But just food for thought, and I’ll hand the floor back to you, Amtab.

Amitabh Singhal: Thank you for that question, Bruna, and I think I will take my cue from what Benga said about the network of networks. So we all know that, and I think it’s important to understand. and be very clear about when we talk about fragmentation, what is really the fragmentation. And you talked about technical fragmentation and other stuff. So let me just kind of get to that first and make it very clear as to what we think about what fragmentation is and whether it should be a concern now. So I think, as you rightly put, it’s transformative technology that has become such an integral part of our daily lives that we can go online and we expect it to work all the time. So a fragmented Internet is not an Internet and contradicts the technical community’s perception of what an Internet should be or a globally interoperable, single, open Internet should be and is. Internet fragmentation occurs when the Internet breaks down at the technical layer, resulting in a loss of interoperability among various networks. We know there are 70,000-plus networks, and any break between the two which are speaking the same language, that would be Internet fragmentation. However, technically speaking, there is no Internet fragmentation at that level. So let me qualify further. There are threats that undermine the interoperability of the Internet. So for ICANN, avoiding Internet fragmentation remains a critical concern, and therefore it closely monitors emerging risks that could potentially threaten or undermine and technically impregnate the domain name system, that is, the DNS. And you refer to emerging government legislations and stuff, so I’ll come to that. So for example, there are technologies like alternative namespaces based on blockchain technologies. Now widespread adoption of these technologies could result in disparate and compatible Internet ecosystems. Further, increased consideration of restrictive national legislations, policies, and regulations attempting to assert digital sovereignty at the technical layer can undermine the seamless functionality of the Internet. We have seen examples in certain regions where they are trying to control the root servers and stuff like that. I’m not going into details there, but those are the kinds of risks that one has to keep track of. And these complicated efforts to sustain a unified Internet ecosystem are not going to network. For example, top-level domain names could stop resolving or resolve differently within the borders of a country, and that could be the result of some of these control mechanisms that are discussed at the national and government levels. There are also risks posed by having duplicative Internet standards, which could subsequently result in compatibility and interoperability issues across various networks during implementation. These are some of the risks that we need to be very, very clear about. And I think from that standpoint, your framework is very clear, and I think it makes it very clear that there’s a technical layer, there’s a user experience level of fragmentation, as you can understand it, which Benga referred to, and also at the governance level. So we have to see those silos and then decide what inter-fragmentation is and how it should be read or understood.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much. Alisa, Benga, do you guys want to come back on this question? Just feel free to, but you don’t have to as well. But just giving you both the opportunity, because I think it’s a little bit of what Amitabh was saying, right? The framework talks about different perspectives around this issue, right? So when we started the PNIF, I think the whole idea was to see what are the perspectives that were besides just the technical community perspective on fragmentation, and how could we implement those ideas into the broader aspect. And I think you spoke a little bit, you both spoke a little bit on that, as to how the actors, they might have their own role, but also, as you were saying, Benga, how certain types of interventions on access to the internet can also be meaningful or could also harm users in a broader sense. So if you guys want to come back, just flag to me. Yeah, Alisa?

Alisa Heaver: Thank you. Well, maybe coming back to the Article 29C first, when it was negotiated in the GDC, if you look closely, between So there have been five versions of the GDC before the final one was published. This paragraph has not been changed, and I think that’s what Gbenga was referring to, and just to clarify a bit more, I honestly don’t know if everyone agreed or if everyone just didn’t care, but I hope to say that everyone agreed, because in the end everyone has agreed with the GDC, and I think it’s a very important international document now that we can use. Also, if we see countries, well, mostly countries, taking steps towards fragmentation, that we can say, hey, that’s something we agreed upon with each other that you should not do. And maybe looking forward towards WSIS, I hope that maybe something of this could also be used for the WSIS action lines, because the WSIS obviously focuses on connecting everyone to the internet, so the other way around, disconnecting, that’s something we definitely do not want, and maybe 20 years ago people were not thinking about this fragment, or this integrating with the internet, and nowadays I do still think it is an issue, and it’s good that we’re talking about it, and when we look at the framework that the PNIF produced, I can definitely agree with ICANN, or with Amital on behalf of ICANN, that technical internet fragmentation, or on the technical layer, we still use TCPIP, so in that sense, we’re not fragmented, but definitely at a user experience there is fragmentation. In some countries you cannot use TikTok, you cannot use WhatsApp or other messaging apps or any other app, and that definitely affects your internet experience. So yeah, I think it’s an important article to have in the GDC, and I really commend the work of the PNIF on this.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks, Alisa, and thanks for mentioning the magic work for the week that is WSIS, right? And how will this part play a role in WSIS, and I think the question in the room is also like how do we promote better coordination between the GDC process and its implementation, and what’s going to happen next year? But Benga, I know you also want to come in. Yes, thanks.

Gbenga Sesan: I’m thinking of the three key words in 29C again. The first is to prevent, identify, and then address the risks of fragmentation. And I think, I mean, those three words play various roles, but in terms of addressing the risk of fragmentation, one of the risks is that it is a direct attack on one of the major goals of inclusion, which is that we’ve given ourselves, and to be honest, we all agreed on this. It’s too late for anyone to say, oh, I didn’t agree. We set a target to say that by 2030, and yesterday I did put another date to it, the last day in 2030 is December 31, right? So by December 31, 2030, to connect everyone. If we say we want to connect everyone to a global Internet, then any attempt, or as my colleagues in the university would say at the time, attempted attempt, to walk towards fragmentation or to do that will be a direct contradiction of what we have agreed on. And I think it’s really important. While this, you know, as we’ve both, you know, mentioned, while this wasn’t exactly one of the most popular phrases in, you know, in all the various versions, it’s one of those things that you look at all versions and you’re like, oh, this one didn’t change, but the others are changing in length and in words. Even if it’s not as popular, it is a direct message to everyone that we have agreed So, I think it’s important for us to make sure that we don’t have a fragment of the Internet. Literally, not a fragment.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks, Benga, and I think it’s safe to say that in the same way the Internet wouldn’t work without the CIP or the multi-stakeholder wouldn’t work without one of the stakeholder groups, it shouldn’t, you know, we shouldn’t think that the mission has been achieved if there are still people facing financial matter. First I want to come to Lisa since her microphone was connected. Lisa, do you want to come back?

Alisa Heaver: So, Benga mentioned addressing the the risks of fragmentation and article . Lisa is going to address that. » So yes, I believe we should reply to which link do we find important in English. » Yes, that’s nice. ≫ I’m from APLASA. Later on I would like to try the diagram from the saving of the land. Because as it is, fragments have been looked in to often. If one would fragment, what would be the cost of fragmenting? And maybe, well, in the end, I think that it could be a possibility that the land would be lost. And so, I think that we have come across a study that has already mentioned this. So, if anyone knows this study, please come up to me. Then we can save ourselves some money. And that’s very welcome always. But if not, then we hope to do this study. Thanks.

Wim Degezelle: Yes, it’s a call for more studies in that sense as well, right? Thanks, Elisa. Sheetal, I know we have a comment from remote, right, so I’m bringing you to the floor as well.

Sheetal Kumar: Thank you, Bruna. Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to see you there in Riyadh and I hope you’ve all had an excellent IGF so far. It’s also been a pleasure to be a co-facilitator of the PNIF over the last few months and to see this discussion progress and to be so relevant as well to the ongoing multi-stakeholder and multilateral processes happening and really great to hear the discussion mature even more there on the stage today. Looking forward to taking it forward even further, we do have a couple of comments from remote participants which I can convey over to you in case you do want to react to it as I know we’re also moving forward to the next part of the session considering the implementation mechanism for that commitment on avoiding internet fragmentation. So we have input which states a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance enables more voices to be heard and coming together as a community amplifies our message. The importance of educating and raising awareness amongst communities about internet governance processes has been emphasized as a vital role and there was this outcome of multi-stakeholder and intergovernmental internet governance marked a success and then we have a response which says we need to examine if those among the unbalanced of the multilateral and lobbying actors influence the design and flow of the IGF sessions so as to leave the multi-stakeholder participatory process as that of being an appearance only where there are substantively different points of view. So I think those really speak to the importance of maintaining the multi-stakeholder approach and the value of the IGF in that regard which we’ve heard of course a lot of this week and and this morning as well. And then we also have someone saying greetings from Pakistan where my humble view, fragmentation of low-income countries without digital culture, proper infrastructure affects all private sectors. We have a question actually that’s just come in about how building the digital divide, how do we achieve the 100% connectivity by all in 2030? So I think that speaks to Benga’s recent point about the fact that if we’re moving towards the target of connecting everyone by 2030 as is a global commitment, that is directly in contradiction of course to fragmentation trends and so it’s very important to keep that in mind as well. Okay, so back to you on the stage Bruna and happy to come in later. Thank you. I hope that has complimented the discussions there.

Wim Degezelle: Thanks a lot Sheetal. I would like to give the opportunity to the folks in the audience as well. If anyone would like to add a comment or a view as to how we should be operationalizing or implementing Article 29C. We have two microphones on both sides of the stage. The two podiums. So if anyone would like to comment, feel free to come to it and just add your thoughts. If not, then I think we’re gonna move on with the session but just taking some time to see if anyone comes to the stage. But then that brings us to part two then and hopefully folks in the audience can join in part two. And my question to all of you is also what are the opportunities to engage in future discussions and how are you guys looking at yet another pivotal year, yet another inflection point that’s gonna be 25 and all of the implementation conversation around. I’m going to ask you to take the floor. I think we have a lot of questions coming in from the audience, not just the GDC but what might happen in this space as well. I don’t know who wants to take the question first, but let’s go with you, Benga. Thanks.

Gbenga Sesan: You had me at 2025. It’s probably going to be one of our most interesting, and I use the word interesting vaguely, years in terms of many conversations, conversations, but specifically on the opportunities we have, I had assumed in making a recommendation earlier that we would have about a year, you know, between two IGFs. Now we have six months. And while that sounds like a short time, I think it is still possible, and this is my proposal, that now there’s a global agreement on a conversation we’ve been having for a very long time. So, I think, you know, we have a lot of opportunities. We have a lot of opportunities to address risks, and IGF-29C is very clear. Prevent, identify, address risks. We have an opportunity to return to the next IGF with a report that speaks to the exact state and compares where we are at as of May or June 2025, and where we were by June 2025. So, I think, you know, we don’t have as much, you know, details as it would be if it was an entire year, but I think, as a community, we need to start measuring, because, if we don’t measure, we will make assumptions, or we may not be able to grow what needs to grow or what needs to be reduced. So, I think we have a unique opportunity of asking ourselves what is the state of proposed fragmentation by various countries right now? What is the state of the world? What is the state of the world in the next five years, and convert to PDF. In those five months, has anything changed? Are we sliding towards less conversations? Are we sliding towards more people agreeing with 29C? I think that is an opportunity. And one other thing we must do is to to name names. And what I mean is the report should identify who is still talking about fragmentation. Because I think in naming names, in identifying who is talking about it, we can get the view of why they are talking about it. In fact, for all you care, they may not be thinking of it as fragmentation. And I say this from research that we have done at Paradigm Initiative, where we’re talking to certain governments who have shut down the internet. And in their explanation, they absolutely had no idea. Well, to be honest, they did. But in their diplomatic responses, they, in quotes, had no idea what the risks were. They were doing this to protect the same people that we were asking them to respect their rights. And I think it’s a very valid view to see. Because then you can have a real conversation. Otherwise, we’re going to be talking at ourselves. We’re going to say, no fragmentation. Someone is going to say, it’s not fragmentation. But we must have those difficult conversations. I mean, this is reality. Why are you intent on doing this? And is there another option? We’ve got all those principles of legality, necessity, proportionality. Is it legal? To be honest, right now, it’s not. Is it necessary? Let’s have that conversation. And is it proportional? Is it worth disconnecting everyone, literally, just because you want to address something that could be addressed culturally or in another way?

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you, Benga. And I think, just as a comment, as a come back in that point, I think the observation or the, let’s say, KPIs part on this conversation is really relevant. Especially because when the GDC review comes up, we will also address what’s the stage of the commitments with 29C. So that’s the point that’s important. Sorry, Amitabh, please come in.

Amitabh Singhal: I think I would underline what Benga said about continuing the conversation, which is very important going forward. And I think the PNF’s role is very important here. I mean, it could actually help deepen the dialogue on the internet fragmentation with the IGF stakeholder community. The network’s framework for discussing internet fragmentation provides a good foundation for the dialogue there. And you can build on these efforts by promoting inclusive participation, encouraging diverse perspectives. For example, ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are engaged in discussions to identify risks to fragmentation, as Benga said. And contribute meaningful suggestions on how to prevent it, or you can also do something like facilitating multi-stakeholder exchanges. a knowledge exchange, for example, and by supporting policy coherence, because people have different understanding of what fragmentation is. So there’s a certain amount of coherence that one can bring about in terms of understanding what it is all about. And then capacity building. So this is where PNF’s role is pretty important. And it can also facilitate the sharing of impact assessment tools which exist, resources and best practices, for example. Internet Society has an Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit. And the ICANN’s organization provides assessment on emerging technologies and tracks proposed legislations and regulations that could have implications on the DNS. So these are some of the ways to consider going forward for PNF to meaningfully engage its stakeholders to deepen discussions on fragmentation. So that’s a good way to move forward towards 2025.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Amazing. Thank you. And just on the impact assessment as well, I think, although it wasn’t mentioned yet, the Sao Paulo Motor Stakeholder Guidelines are another of the mechanisms or tools that we can also use to assess exactly this point about inclusion and diversity that’s so relevant. And it’s going to be relevant for next year’s IGF and for the mandate renewal or for the IGF to be set, hopefully, as a permanent mechanism. But Alice, I’ll hand the floor to you as well.

Alisa Heaver: Yes, thanks. This discussion made me think. So we have the 2027 review of the GDC. And that will have to review, actually, what has been done to prevent, identify, and address fragmentation. But I guess today here, well, we’re also slightly struggling on measure. We don’t have any statistics here with us today. So I’m kind of wondering, how will, actually, the UN review this article 2027? So, I think it would be really interesting to see if, in the next six months, until the next IGF, we could put down a framework to actually measure, or to install kind of a KPI for the UN to be able to measure what has happened in the last six months, and what has happened in the next six months. So, I think it would be really interesting to see if, in the upcoming six months, until the next IGF, we could put down a framework to actually measure, or to install a framework to be able to measure what has happened in the last six months, and what has happened in the last six months, and what has been done to prevent, identify, and address those risks of internet fragmentation.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: the community should do in terms of like given the 29th, oh, we have Henriette, please introduce yourself, Henriette.

Anriette Esterhuysen: Thank you very much, Bruna and everyone on the panel and the organizers and the policy network on Internet fragmentation. My name is Henriette Esterhuisen, I’m from South Africa and I work with the Association for Progressive Communications. Just a quick sort of cross-cutting comment. Maybe addressing ICANN, but not only. How you, whether you think of the Internet as fragmented or not, really depends on whose Internet you think it is, and I think if we think of it as the Internet of people who can access all aspects, all applications, all content, then the Internet is fragmented. If you think of the Internet as people who can afford mobile data, who have good infrastructure, who don’t just depend on using hand-held devices to interact with the Internet, then that’s a very different picture, and I think we just have to be very careful , I mean, I agree with the definition of fragmentation and the dimensions of fragmentation that the policy network has identified, but I think we as an Internet governance community need to also be aware of our own elitism, the own privilege, how our experience of the Internet shapes how we see Internet fragmentation, and be very careful that that doesn’t actually make us blind to the extent that that user experience fragmentation is the reality for billions of people.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much, Henriette. I have Amitabh.

Amitabh Singhal: I think we also made it very clear that when we say that Internet is not fragmented, there was a technical layer, it could be a DNS layer, a unique identifier system layer, but what is helpful is to also look at the PNF’s framework, where you actually create these frameworks, and then you can actually use those frameworks, and then you can use those PNF’s framework, where you actually create these three different baskets and the layers, and, you know, there would be issues about fragmentation at the user level and at the governance level, and I did allude in my So I think it’s very important to make sure that there is a clear understanding of what is happening and what is not happening, and I think the earlier points that I made in the first point was about the emerging legislations and the other technical developments of alternate name systems, which could create a problem of fragmentation even at the technical layer, but those are emerging risks one has to keep track of, and not necessarily currently affecting the technical layer.

Audience: The third thing that has crossed my mind is that the internet’s strength is heterogeneity. Any ideas about fragmentation must go hand in hand. If I may be permitted to use the term geopolitics as the best envelope on heterogeneity, because even money is fragmented, it is also fragmented in the sense of the way the political groupings of the nations are forming. Thank you, Gopal. Thanks for the comments, and thanks, everyone, for the comments so far. I don’t know if the microphone cut in the middle, or if you would like to add anything, but if you would like to, please type on the chat, and I’m sure Shitao will be able to add some more things in case your comment was cut in the middle of it. Also, thanks to our panellists. I don’t know if you would like to add any last kind of comments in that sense, but I do think we had a fairly good discussion. question in terms of what are the challenges, what are the questions that everyone is asking each other, and again, if there is anyone in the audience still that would like to add on what can we as different groups of stakeholders can do into this conversation and so on, please come to the mic. We have two microphones on both sides of the stage. Thank you. And remember to introduce yourself. Actually, I have a different idea about the Internet governance and fragmentation. I think if we more practice governance, Internet governance, and fragmentation, I think we’ll stop the innovation. If we want to manage the future, we have to make little rule about control anything in content of Internet. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much. Have we got a second comment?

Audience: Yes. Okay. Yes, thank you so much. I’m sorry for waiting until the last minute to come up to the mic. My name is Hossain Badran. I’m a member of the Canadian IGF and the Arab IGF. My comment relates to the technical layer and its relationship also to the governance of the Internet. We have seen over the last several years that there are proposals coming to centers organisations, particularly the ITU-T, that will result to a new protocol stack, new addressing scheme, new QS allocation scheme, identification scheme of end users and full visibility of content, so really non-interoperable approaches. to the global Internet architecture. Of course, this will cause fragmentation at the technical layer, but not only this. The capability to completely identify end users and their content, make it very visible to a central authority, makes it a mass surveillance mechanism set in by default. So I think this is a danger that we, in compliance with this paragraph, need to look into very closely and also follow its development under different names, under different keywords or buzzwords, because such approaches to standardize new protocol stacks and also their implications on how the Internet is governed, instead of a decentralized, heterogeneous architecture being governed by a central authority that has full visibility on the content and the end users, and also embed mass surveillance to be done by default, is very dangerous. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much. Sheetal, how is the remote? Oh, we have another speaker here. Yes, please. Can you introduce yourself?

Audience: All right. Thank you very much. So my name is Kunle Olorundari from Nigerian IGF. I’m so much excited about this conversation, and I think one good thing about the IGF is the fact that we’re able to come together to have a conversation about issues like this. And I think this is a very important issue, and I can see that we are trying to balance what the GDC is saying with respect to the SGD number 16. And for me, I think if we’re going to have this kind of conversation, it is very important, not just important, very important, mark the word very, to have, you know, the government involved in this kind of conversation. What I’m saying is that, yeah, we are talking about preventing Internet fragmentation, and eventually if there’s going to be anything that has to do with, you know, fragmenting the Internet, you know, most of the time it comes from the government side, and the arguments, one of the arguments would be, yeah, maybe because of security, you know, reasons and so on. So I think we need to advance this conversation and we need to start looking at, okay, yeah, if the issue that is always coming when it comes to fragmentation is about the security, so how do we solve the problem of, you know, security without tampering with the Internet? I think that’s one of the things we really need to be looking at. So what I’m proposing is, okay, let’s do what we call reverse engineering. I’m an engineer, I’m sorry, so let’s do reverse engineering. If we’re talking about the problem, then let’s try and focus on the solutions while we’re trying to solve the problem. I think that will make a lot of sense and that will add value to this conversation. Thank you very much.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you, I appreciate it. Do I see a live speaker here? Please come in and introduce yourself.

Audience: Okay. Can you hear me? I’m a youth representative from Sudan. I’m a youth representative from Sudan. I actually have a question. So the global digital compact commitment is operationalized, so how do you see the collaboration evolving between government, the private sector and civil society to prevent fragmentation?

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you. Do we have any quick answers to this question? Would anyone like to take the implementation and the role of stakeholders in the GDC and so on?

Alisa Heaver: Sorry. Okay. Maybe to start with the last question about collaboration between government, private sector and I think it was civil society. For me in the Netherlands, I’m also part of the Netherlands IGF and there we come together every, well, at least every year and also we have in between, well, we have moments that we meet each other in between and very recently we had a multi-stakeholder discussion about Internet fragmentation, so we sat together with approximately 20 people from academia, from civil society, the public sector and the private sector and there we discussed what to do about Internet fragmentation, and we were discussing the research that we will be commissioning very soon. And I would definitely encourage all NRIs to organize such a debate on Internet fragmentation and bring in all stakeholders. And obviously internationally, well, we’re having this debate here, and the Dutch government has been chairing the Freedom Online Coalition over the past year. The focus may not have been Internet fragmentation, but it has definitely been the flip side of Internet fragmentation, addressing the risks of not working or not collaborating with each other and ensuring that the Internet remains open, free, and secure. And maybe regarding the new IP, I interpreted it as new IP question, my colleagues are definitely following this discussion in ITUT, and we’re very much in favor of keeping this protocol, the IPv4, IPv6 protocol that we have right now, and we’re not in favor of changing that protocol.

Wim Degezelle: Thanks. And Benga, you wanted to add something?

Gbenga Sesan: I was thinking a bit more about the security question, and I know that we do not have an immediate answer. There’s no magic wand to solve all security problems, but one way not to solve it is fragmenting. Because to be honest, if you’re trying to solve cross-border problems, because many of those problems are cross-border. you do not isolate networks, because when you do that, what you may be doing is you may be chasing things into the shadows, and I think that is even more dangerous. So while we do not have all the answers about how there are challenges, you know, there are challenges with the Internet, there are bad actors, but while we’re looking at how communities can get better in identifying and, you know, isolating, while we’re looking at community standards that would make people call out bad practices, we do not. And this is why I mentioned earlier the three-part test. Is it legal? Is it proportionate? Is it necessary? I think that when you even apply the necessity test, fragmentation is not at all on the table of solutions when it comes to security. In fact, I think what we need is even more cooperation across silos, and speaking of across silos, the question about what is happening at the ITUT and the implications of that, I think increasingly in this year 2024, we saw a lot more interest by civil society in technical conversations, and I think we need a lot more of that, because it is one thing for you to suddenly find out that there is a change in the standards by the ISTARs, and then you on the ground as an advocate now need to start fighting with governments and say, hey, respect human rights, but instead of doing that, we could, you know, rewind a bit and participate in certain conversations, including technical standards. Yes, it’s a bit complex, because the conversations are not, I mean, the ITUT is not a multi-stakeholder, you know, body, but increasingly we have governments who include civil society on their delegations, so that you can have a complete view, and I think this is really important, and I will make this case very strongly again, that governments should remember that the mandate you have is to represent the people, and the people you represent are made up of government, private sector, civil society, technical community, and others, so government delegations need to stop being government alone, because when you do that, it gives you only a myopic view of the issues you’re trying to address at these technical conversations, and I think one of the things we must see in 2025 is many more governments must include a wholesome perspective, because it is in your own interest. In fact, reality is, you’re literally getting free consultants when you include other stakeholders on your delegation.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thanks.

Amitabh Singhal: I think that is the reason why I think IGF platform is a bridge between the technical expertise and the policy-making and make us to foster common understanding of the Internet fragmentation, you know, and the ways to address them. And that’s, I think, a conversation that has been happening, as I heard, about the fact that whether the IGF mandate itself will be extended or not. And I think going forward, we would fully support that IGF gets the mandate to continue and it’s a platform where all these elements of academia, technical community, policy-makers, the governments, for example, the private sector, they all converge together to exchange knowledge. And that’s going to be very important to clear some of these issues around understanding of Internet fragmentation and how to address that issue going forward.

Wim Degezelle: Thank you all for the comments and inputs and thanks to the folks in the audience too. I’m going to hand the floor back to Sheetal as she’s going to do a short summary of our conversation and hopefully we’ll have time to bring it back to you, to the three panelists on the floor. Sheetal?

Sheetal Kumar: Thank you so much, Bruna, and no pressure there to try and keep it short so that we can hear some last thoughts from the panelists. This has been, I think, a really great discussion building on what the webinars in the Policy Network already discussed. So what I’ve heard is a few key points, really reiterating the importance of the commitment in the compact of Article 29C and the point was made regarding how much support and consensus there was on that commitment, which provides a really good basis for moving forward, but not just that commitment. It’s also connected to others, like the target to connect everyone by 2050. And then another key set of points related to the risks that we’re seeing at the technical layer to the Internet and to the unfermented Internet, but the very real and ongoing fragmentation of the user experience, and the importance of also realizing that there are risks by, for example, proposals for standards at the technical layer as well, that really reinforce the importance of addressing this issue. And finally, we spoke quite a lot here about what the policy network can do and what the wider multi-stakeholder community can do, and the importance of 2025 in that regard is a key here, and so we don’t, as we often heard during the conversation, need to start from scratch. We have the policy network’s framework as well to utilize, to assess the state of fragmentation as we work towards the next IGF in 2025, but also the WSIS Plus 20 review. We also had heard ideas of the importance of using the NRIs, national and regional IGFs, as a space for continued discussion on the topic. So I hope that was helpful, simply a very important article and a strong basis. There continue to not only be risks, but real lived experiences of fragmentation, lots of opportunities to address this in a role for the IGF and for the policy network within that. So back to you, Bruna, and to the panelists.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you very much. Maybe just as a closing remark, I’ll ask the three of you to share with us probably either one takeaway from this discussion or perhaps a dream or a wish for next year as we go into WSIS Plus 20 review, we go into new discussions around the IGF mandates renewal and many of those things around the GDC implementation still unanswered but hopefully will be a year of answers in a lot of ways. So if each of you could share with us either a dream or a takeaway based on this conversation, I would be very happy to hear.

Amitabh Singhal: I think just to summarize from whatever we have discussed, going back to the webinars and what the participants have said at the time, I think what comes out to me clearly is we need more collaboration, we need to strengthen capacities, we need to ensure accountability, stakeholders can contribute to meaningful discussions during the WSIS 20 review and beyond. So this is all going to be very, very useful in our efforts to maintain a resilient, interoperable and globally connected Internet and that is aligned with the commitment of the UN Member States also as outlined in 29C.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: Thank you. Alisa?

Alisa Heaver: Well, you asked different questions. What would be my dream? Well, my dream would very easily be that we wouldn’t have to have this discussion on Internet fragmentation and everyone would perfectly be fine with this Internet that we have. But more realistically, a takeaway for me is that the research that we want to do as governments, as Dutch government, we really should do and that the need to start measuring Internet fragmentation is more necessary than ever.

Bruna Martins dos Santos: So, I’m going to turn it over to you, Alisa, and I’m going to hand it over to you, Benga. Thanks, Alisa. Two dreams. First, the, I can already see in my hands the report from the PNI. I’m flipping through the report and June 2025, that’s a dream. My second dream is a truly, truly multi-stakeholder model, and I’m hoping that we can have a conversation, learn from ICANN multi-stakeholder model, the IGF multi-stakeholder model, and truly get the best of all aspects of our society when we have these conversations. Thanks, and thanks for dreaming high as well. It’s important in these days. Thanks for everyone that was with us in the room or remotely. Thanks to our panellists, Wim, as usual, thanks a lot to both of you for being great and amazing partners. And most of all, thanks to the PNIF community for giving us such a great year. We hope to continue this conversation in 2025 as we go into new steps and a new report that Benga is looking forward to reading, and I’ll just give the floor to you, Wim, if you want to add anything.

Wim Degezelle: No, the only thing I wanted to add, not that we don’t forget, to thank you, Bruna, for leading the panel and also the work during the year. Thank you. And, of course, Sheetal for doing the same online. So, thank you. And we finished exactly right on time. So, perfect. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of measuring and tracking Internet fragmentation

Alisa Heaver

Gbenga Sesan

Need to measure and track fragmentation to assess progress

Opportunity to measure and report on fragmentation state by IGF 2025

Both speakers emphasize the need for concrete measurements and reporting on the state of Internet fragmentation to track progress and inform future actions.

Significance of Article 29C in the Global Digital Compact

Amitabh Singhal

Alisa Heaver

IGF platform bridges technical and policy discussions on fragmentation

GDC Article 29C provides basis for preventing fragmentation

Both speakers highlight the importance of Article 29C as a foundation for addressing Internet fragmentation and fostering collaboration among stakeholders.

Need for multi-stakeholder collaboration

Amitabh Singhal

Gbenga Sesan

Unknown speaker

IGF platform bridges technical and policy discussions on fragmentation

Governments should include diverse stakeholders in technical delegations

Importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in implementation

Multiple speakers emphasize the importance of involving diverse stakeholders in discussions and decision-making processes related to Internet fragmentation.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the existing disparities in Internet access and use, emphasizing how fragmentation affects user experiences and contradicts global connectivity goals.

Anriette Esterhuysen

Gbenga Sesan

User experience fragmentation already exists for billions due to access limitations

Fragmentation contradicts goal of connecting everyone by 2030

Unexpected Consensus

Role of national and regional IGFs in addressing fragmentation

Alisa Heaver

Sheetal Kumar

National IGFs can facilitate local discussions on fragmentation

Utilize national and regional IGFs for ongoing fragmentation discussions

There was unexpected agreement on the potential of national and regional IGFs to play a crucial role in facilitating discussions on Internet fragmentation at local levels, suggesting a decentralized approach to addressing the issue.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the need for measuring and tracking Internet fragmentation, the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the significance of the Global Digital Compact’s Article 29C in addressing fragmentation. There is also consensus on the role of IGFs at various levels in facilitating discussions on this issue.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the importance of addressing Internet fragmentation and the need for collaborative, multi-stakeholder approaches. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for future work on preventing and mitigating Internet fragmentation, particularly in the context of implementing the Global Digital Compact and preparing for the WSIS+20 review.

Different Viewpoints

Current state of Internet fragmentation

Amitabh Singhal

Anriette Esterhuysen

Technical fragmentation risks from alternative naming systems and restrictive national policies

User experience fragmentation already exists for billions due to access limitations

While Singhal focuses on potential technical risks to fragmentation, Esterhuysen argues that fragmentation already exists at the user experience level for many people due to access limitations.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the current state of Internet fragmentation, approaches to measuring and addressing fragmentation, and the role of different stakeholders in preventing fragmentation.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the importance of addressing Internet fragmentation and implementing the GDC commitment. The differences mainly lie in their focus areas and proposed approaches, which could be seen as complementary rather than conflicting. This level of disagreement suggests a generally unified direction in addressing Internet fragmentation, with potential for collaborative efforts in developing comprehensive solutions.

Partial Agreements

Both Sesan and Heaver agree on the need to measure and track fragmentation, but they propose different approaches. Sesan suggests creating a report by IGF 2025, while Heaver emphasizes the need for a framework to measure progress by the 2027 GDC review.

Gbenga Sesan

Alisa Heaver

Opportunity to measure and report on fragmentation state by IGF 2025

Need to measure and track fragmentation to assess progress

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the existing disparities in Internet access and use, emphasizing how fragmentation affects user experiences and contradicts global connectivity goals.

Anriette Esterhuysen

Gbenga Sesan

User experience fragmentation already exists for billions due to access limitations

Fragmentation contradicts goal of connecting everyone by 2030

Key Takeaways

Internet fragmentation remains a significant concern, with risks at both technical and user experience levels

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) Article 29C provides an important commitment to prevent fragmentation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is crucial for addressing fragmentation risks

There is a need to develop frameworks and metrics to measure and track fragmentation

The IGF platform plays a vital role in bridging technical and policy discussions on fragmentation

Resolutions and Action Items

Develop a framework to measure progress on the GDC commitment by the 2027 review

Conduct research on the economic impacts of internet fragmentation

Utilize national and regional IGFs to facilitate local discussions on fragmentation

Prepare a report on the state of fragmentation for IGF 2025

Strengthen civil society engagement in technical standards discussions

Unresolved Issues

How to balance security concerns with preventing fragmentation

Specific implementation mechanisms for the GDC commitment on fragmentation

How to address ongoing user experience fragmentation while maintaining technical unity

The role of emerging technologies like blockchain in potential fragmentation

How to ensure truly inclusive multi-stakeholder representation in technical discussions

Suggested Compromises

Governments should include diverse stakeholders in technical delegations to balance perspectives

Focus on addressing security concerns without resorting to network isolation or fragmentation

Use the PNIF framework to accommodate different views on fragmentation while advancing discussions

Internet fragmentation occurs when the Internet breaks down at the technical layer, resulting in a loss of interoperability among various networks. We know there are 70,000-plus networks, and any break between the two which are speaking the same language, that would be Internet fragmentation. However, technically speaking, there is no Internet fragmentation at that level.

speaker

Amitabh Singhal

reason

This comment provides a clear technical definition of fragmentation while also noting that it’s not currently occurring at the technical level. This helps frame the discussion by distinguishing between technical fragmentation and other types.

impact

This comment shifted the conversation to focus more on user experience fragmentation and policy/governance fragmentation rather than purely technical fragmentation. It provided a foundation for discussing different types of fragmentation.

How you, whether you think of the Internet as fragmented or not, really depends on whose Internet you think it is, and I think if we think of it as the Internet of people who can access all aspects, all applications, all content, then the Internet is fragmented.

speaker

Anriette Esterhuysen

reason

This comment challenges the panel to consider fragmentation from different perspectives, particularly those of users with limited access. It introduces an important equity dimension to the discussion.

impact

This comment broadened the conversation to include considerations of user experience and access inequalities. It prompted reflection on how fragmentation is defined and experienced differently by various groups.

We have seen over the last several years that there are proposals coming to centers organisations, particularly the ITU-T, that will result to a new protocol stack, new addressing scheme, new QS allocation scheme, identification scheme of end users and full visibility of content, so really non-interoperable approaches to the global Internet architecture.

speaker

Hosein Badran

reason

This comment highlights specific technical proposals that could lead to fragmentation, providing concrete examples of potential risks. It also connects technical standards to governance and surveillance issues.

impact

This comment refocused the discussion on emerging technical risks and their broader implications. It prompted consideration of how technical standards processes relate to fragmentation concerns.

My dream would very easily be that we wouldn’t have to have this discussion on Internet fragmentation and everyone would perfectly be fine with this Internet that we have. But more realistically, a takeaway for me is that the research that we want to do as governments, as Dutch government, we really should do and that the need to start measuring Internet fragmentation is more necessary than ever.

speaker

Alisa Heaver

reason

This comment balances idealism with pragmatism, emphasizing the need for concrete research and measurement of fragmentation. It moves the discussion from theoretical concerns to practical next steps.

impact

This comment helped conclude the discussion by pointing towards future actions, particularly the need for research and metrics to assess fragmentation.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by refining the definition of fragmentation, broadening perspectives on how fragmentation is experienced, highlighting specific technical risks, and emphasizing the need for concrete research and measurement. The conversation evolved from defining fragmentation to considering its various dimensions (technical, user experience, governance) and finally to discussing practical steps for addressing and measuring fragmentation risks. The comments collectively deepened the analysis by introducing nuance to the concept of fragmentation and connecting it to broader issues of equity, governance, and technical standards.

How will the UN review Article 29C of the Global Digital Compact in 2027?

speaker

Alisa Heaver

explanation

This is important to establish a framework for measuring progress on preventing, identifying, and addressing risks of internet fragmentation.

What is the current state of proposed fragmentation by various countries?

speaker

Gbenga Sesan

explanation

This is crucial to establish a baseline and track changes in fragmentation trends over time.

How can we measure the economic effects of internet fragmentation?

speaker

Alisa Heaver

explanation

Understanding the economic impact is important for assessing the full consequences of fragmentation.

Is there an existing study on the cost of internet fragmentation?

speaker

Alisa Heaver

explanation

This research could provide valuable data on the economic implications of fragmentation.

How can we solve security problems without fragmenting the internet?

speaker

Kunle Olorundare

explanation

This is important to address government concerns about security while preserving an open internet.

How will collaboration evolve between government, private sector, and civil society to prevent fragmentation?

speaker

Audience member (youth representative from Sudan)

explanation

Understanding this collaboration is crucial for implementing the Global Digital Compact commitment.

Summary

This discussion focused on aligning Internet-based technologies with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ITU’s digital innovation strategy. Panelists emphasized the importance of effective multistakeholder governance models to ensure inclusive and responsible innovation. Key points included promoting transparency, accountability, and collaboration among diverse stakeholders.

The conversation highlighted challenges in stakeholder engagement, particularly the need for greater involvement of technical communities and civil society in ITU initiatives. Participants stressed the importance of capacity building and knowledge sharing to empower youth and underserved communities in the digital space. The role of NGOs in stimulating innovation and bridging gaps between different sectors was discussed, with emphasis on the need for better collaboration between NGOs, governments, and the private sector.

Strategies for addressing skills gaps and building human capacity were explored, including promoting digital literacy, incentivizing youth participation, and creating community internet hubs. The discussion touched on initiatives like the ITU’s Partner to Connect coalition and the Giga Project as examples of effective investment strategies for connecting the unconnected.

Participants also addressed the importance of including marginalized communities, particularly women and rural populations, in digital innovation efforts. The need for equitable access to technology and capacity building in underserved regions was highlighted as crucial for achieving the SDGs. The discussion concluded by emphasizing the importance of multistakeholder engagement in informing decisions made in multilateral spaces and the need for continued efforts to bridge digital divides.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of inclusive multistakeholder governance models for aligning internet innovation with sustainable development goals

– Challenges in stakeholder engagement, particularly for youth and civil society, in ITU and other multilateral processes

– The need for capacity building, digital skills training, and knowledge sharing to empower youth and underserved communities

– Strategies for NGOs and youth to meaningfully participate in and influence internet governance processes

– Investment and policy approaches to drive innovation for sustainable development, including public-private partnerships

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how to align internet-based technologies and innovation with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ITU’s digital innovation agenda through multistakeholder collaboration.

The tone of the discussion was constructive and solution-oriented. Panelists and audience members shared insights on challenges but focused on proposing concrete strategies and mechanisms to improve inclusivity and drive innovation for sustainable development. There was an emphasis on the importance of youth engagement and empowerment throughout.

Speakers

– Athanase Bahizire: Moderator, from DRC

– Jasmine Ko: Affiliated with HKYIGF, ISOC Hong Kong, and Asia

– Umut Pajaro Velasquez: AI researcher on ethics and governance, coordinator of Jude IGF, from Jude Coalition on Internet Governance

Additional speakers:

– Peter Joziasse: Founder of Digital Child Rights Foundation

– Nermin Selim: Secretary General of Creators Union of Arab, expert on intellectual property

– Matilda Mashauri: African Youth Ambassador in Internet Governance

Expanded Summary of Discussion on Aligning Internet Technologies with Sustainable Development Goals

Introduction

This discussion focused on strategies for aligning Internet-based technologies with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ITU’s digital innovation agenda. The panel, moderated by Athanase Bahizire from the Democratic Republic of Congo, featured speakers from diverse backgrounds in Internet governance, youth advocacy, and digital rights. The conversation explored challenges and opportunities in multistakeholder governance, youth inclusion, and investment strategies to drive innovation for sustainable development.

Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Multistakeholder Governance for Sustainable Development

A central theme of the discussion was the importance of effective multistakeholder governance models in aligning Internet innovation with sustainable development goals. Umut Pajaro Velasquez, an AI researcher on ethics and governance, emphasised that such models must promote inclusivity of all stakeholders, ensure transparency and accountability in decision-making, and foster collaboration.

Jasmine Ko, affiliated with HKYIGF, ISOC Hong Kong, and .Asia, highlighted the need for increased engagement of the technical community and civil society in ITU initiatives and other multilateral processes. Ko introduced the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholder (TCCM) form, an initiative aimed at enhancing the technical community’s participation in global digital policy discussions. This addresses a critical gap in stakeholder engagement, as the technical community has often been underrepresented in important global digital policy forums.

Ko also mentioned the eco-internet index (EII) research project as an example of the technical community’s contribution to sustainable development. This project aims to measure the environmental impact of internet infrastructure and usage, demonstrating how technical expertise can directly contribute to sustainability goals.

2. Youth Inclusion and Capacity Building

The discussion emphasized the critical role of youth engagement and capacity building in driving innovation and achieving the SDGs. Speakers unanimously agreed on the importance of empowering young people but proposed different strategies to achieve this goal.

Umut Pajaro Velasquez advocated for providing digital skills training and capacity building for youth, emphasising the need to include young people in decision-making processes. Jasmine Ko suggested creating youth-focused initiatives like regional Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) to engage young people directly in governance discussions. She specifically mentioned the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) and netmission.asia as examples of successful capacity building initiatives for youth.

Ko made a thought-provoking comment challenging the notion of youth as passive beneficiaries, stating, “Everything for youth has to be by youth, have to be with youth.” She provided specific examples of how youth can contribute to achieving SDGs, such as recycling e-waste and taking personal actions to promote sustainability.

Matilda Mashauri, African Youth Ambassador in Internet Governance, stressed the importance of ensuring equitable access to technology and capacity building in underserved regions, particularly for rural youth. Ko suggested that youth map their resources, identify areas of influence, and set priorities based on their interests and capacities.

3. Role of NGOs in Advancing SDGs and Innovation

The discussion explored the potential for NGOs to play a crucial role in stimulating innovation and bridging gaps between different sectors. Athanase Bahizire and Peter Joziasse highlighted the challenges faced by NGOs in engaging with governments and multilateral processes, emphasizing the need for improved collaboration mechanisms.

Jasmine Ko suggested creating platforms for NGOs to connect with partners and focused on the importance of community-driven agendas. She encouraged local actors to create their own platforms for collaboration if none exist, stating, “If there is no platform or scenario that NGOs and other potential partners can come together, maybe consider create one.”

Dr. Nermin Selim, Secretary General of Creators Union of Arab and an expert on intellectual property, highlighted the importance of protecting the intellectual property rights of innovators in this context. She also emphasized the need for awareness-building before implementing any innovation or project.

4. Investment Strategies for Innovation and Sustainable Development

The panel discussed various approaches to investing in digital innovation for sustainable development. Athanase Bahizire highlighted initiatives like ITU’s Partner to Connect coalition and the Giga Project as examples of effective investment strategies for connecting the unconnected, particularly focusing on connecting schools.

Peter Jozsa mentioned the D4D Hub and Global Gateway as examples of initiatives he’s involved with, demonstrating the range of investment strategies being employed globally.

Jasmine Ko emphasised the need to prioritise and set achievable goals within limited resources. She suggested using design thinking and systems thinking approaches to map ecosystem challenges and solutions, promoting a more systematic approach to addressing development issues.

Challenges and Unresolved Issues

Despite the constructive nature of the discussion, several challenges and unresolved issues emerged:

1. Bridging the gap between NGOs and government/private sector stakeholders remains a challenge.

2. Specific mechanisms for ensuring equitable access and capacity building for youth in underserved regions need further development.

3. Addressing interoperability challenges between different technologies and systems, including AI, remains an ongoing concern.

4. Balancing rapid innovation with responsible implementation and awareness-building requires careful consideration.

Conclusion

The discussion provided valuable insights into the complexities of aligning Internet-based technologies with sustainable development goals. There was a strong consensus on the importance of inclusive multistakeholder governance, youth engagement, and capacity building. The conversation highlighted the need for continued efforts to bridge digital divides and ensure that technological innovation serves the needs of all communities, particularly those historically marginalised.

Moving forward, the key takeaways suggest a focus on promoting inclusivity and transparency in governance models, increasing engagement of diverse stakeholders (especially the technical community), providing targeted digital skills training, and developing partnerships to expand Internet access. The discussion underscored the importance of balancing rapid innovation with responsible implementation and awareness-building, emphasising the need for thoughtful, collaborative approaches to harnessing technology for sustainable development.

Athanase Bahazire: and ITU’s innovation agenda. In this workshop, we are going to, the aim of this session actually is to facilitate a strategic dialogue among key stakeholders to assess and optimize alignment of Internet-based technology with the United Nations Sustainable Digital Goals and the ITU’s digital innovation strategy. The objective actually is to create an environment of collaboration, whereby diverse backgrounds will be coming together, industry leaders, civil society organizations, academia, to assess these two critical frameworks and then also to see how the IGF can contribute to it. So, in this session, we have two speakers, one here on site and one online. So I’m going to give the floor to my panelists to introduce themselves before we go deep into the matter. Jasmine, you have the floor.

Jasmine Ko: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for making it here at the very early morning. My name is Jasmine Koh. I’m from Hong Kong. I’m affiliated with HKYIGF, ISOC Hong Kong, and also .Asia. Thank you for coming here.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you, Jasmine. Umut, can you please introduce yourself? Umut, can you hear us? You are muted. Can you hear us? As we are trying to fix some technicalities, by the way, my name is Athanase Bahazire, I’m from the DRC, and I’ll be your moderator for this session. Umut, are you able to speak now?

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Atanas, for being the moderator today. And I wasn’t able to hear you at the beginning, I wasn’t able to speak, but now I can do it. So, yeah, my name is Umut Pajaro Velazquez, I’m from the Jude Coalition on Internet Governance. I’m also one of the coordinators of the Jude IGF, and I work as an AI researcher on ethics and governance. So, yeah, today I’m going to speak a little bit about digital cooperation in the case of ITU and the Internet Governance Forum. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much, Umut. Very interesting. Now we can get deep into the matter. I promise this session will also be interactive at some point, too. I’m going to be coming back to the audience for any comments and any questions. So straight into the matter, Umut, I have a question for you. How can effective multistakeholder governance models be designed to ensure that the Internet enables innovation, aligns with the SDG principles, promotes inclusivity, mitigates potential risk and unintended consequences?

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Okay, before to answer that, we actually have to remember that there are some core elements of sustainable development in the case of any model that we want to propose. And those core elements… aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability or to have a future for our own needs. To achieve this, it is crucial to harmonise three core elements that are economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. These three elements are interconnected and crucial well-being of individualized societies and internet governance can contribute to these three elements in different ways. And the multi-stakeholder model actually is one of the ways that we can contribute to it. So effective multi-stakeholder governance models, in this case, are essential to ensure that internet-enabled innovation aligns with these sustainable development goals, principles. This model, in this case, in order to comply with having a design that actually can protect and can be responsible, has to, first of all, promote inclusivity. That means that all stakeholders, including governments, private sector, civil society, medical experts, academia, should have a voice in internet governance. This inclusivity ensures that diverse perspectives are considered and that the needs of all stakeholders are addressed in the development of these goals. A rights-based approach to internet governance is crucial for ensuring inclusivity and mitigating risks. And this approach of promoting inclusivity emphasises not only human rights, but also in fundamental freedoms, social justice and social justice in the development and governance of the internet in general. So, the Intermediate Art Tool can be a tool for the three elements that I said before. The other element that should be taken into consideration in these different multi-stakeholder models is ensuring transparency and accountability. The decision-making processes on these different models should be transparent and accountable to all stakeholders, not just to one part, but to all stakeholders. So the decisions that are taken in place are actually based in having all the information that we need to get to these different goals that we have in the SDG, and to actually have an innovation that actually benefits all. Because transparency actually builds trust and legitimacy in the internal governance. The other principle is fostered collaboration. Multi-stakeholder governance models should encourage collaboration among stakeholders to address complex challenges and develop innovative solutions. We try to align the innovative part of the ETUs with the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet Governance Forum. So if we want to actually be able to get to that point of having this goal in these different SDGs to be reached by the time that we want it to be reached, we have to have this forced collaboration between different stakeholders. So when we have more voices, actually it’s easier to get more innovative ways to address complex issues and challenges as are these goals. And the last one is mitigate risk, governance models as this one that we are proposing the multi-stakeholder should proactively identify and mitigate potential risk and unintended consequence on internet-enabled innovations, social service security, threats, privacy evaluation, spread the misinformation, and another stuff that we actually discussed in general in forums like this one that we’re having right now, the Internet Governance Forum, the different problems that we are discussing as we are a multi-stakeholder with different approaches from different perspectives is actually one of the things that help us to mitigate risk and actually create a pathway for innovation that actually benefits all. That would be my answer to this first question. Thank you.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much, Umut. Thank you especially for emphasizing on inclusivity and how we can mitigate risk. It’s very important that stakeholders are transparent and accountable in decisions they take. Very insightful comments actually. So I’m going to go to Jasmine. So Jasmine, from a technical community perspective, what infrastructure or regulatory frameworks, regulatory gaps actually in the alignment of the ITU’s innovation agenda and the sustainable development goals?

Jasmine Ko: Thank you very much for the questions. So actually ITU’s innovation agenda have been putting effort, they have their own digital innovation ecosystem portfolios which they empower their members to. unlock their digital potential but you also have to notice that ITU is more like a multilateral structure itself. So the gap that there is from technical community member that our community that see is there is not the level of stakeholder engagement it’s a little bit it’s a little bit behind or there’s a gap between the reality and and our expectation. The way we’re saying that it’s because we find that it’s there are some in the ethical involvement of key stakeholder including us the technical community and also the civic society in some process when it comes to design of implementation of the ITU innovation initiative. So in a way this could lead to the solution that may not fully adjust the diverse needs and priorities that are aligned in the SDGs and in a wider beyond ITU if you notice if someone some of you follow the GDC the global digital compact and also the wishes plus 20 process there was in you know like during the long period of time when that the you know the GDC keep keep there is a different version keep changing and then like discussing consultation a lot of thing happening and there was a moment that technical community it’s not being well recognized so there’s actually at some point there is a disappearance of technical community in a paper in something so actually you could refer to blog that is published by a statement by APNIC and also ICANN to address the issue and the gap. And therefore, seeing the potential risk and gaps in here, in terms of stakeholder engagement lacking enough participation from technical community, there has been a TCCM form, which is Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholder. And there was a launch yesterday in the IGF village, and as part of the coalition, we talk about what we have observed as potential risks. And therefore, what kind of process have we been involved in the business fraternity and also GDC input when there’s a consultation open, in a way that we want to be a collective voice of our members of technical community who were not able or lack the bandwidth to reflect on how this kind of global agenda and process is affecting them. So feel free to go into the TCCM website to learn more why the establishment of these coalitions is a different thing. And second, it’s about the interoperability challenges, because between different technologies and systems, there are some issues that have been created. In a way that it is difficult to integrate the innovation solution, and it might hinder some seamless exchange of data and information critical to achieve the SDG targets. There was also a session earlier about AI interoperability. you see the perspective from both China and UK, how, you know, like, the other, like, how the diverse perspective have been present from academia and also from government, civil society view on about the potential infrastructure or regulation gaps between the ITU and SDG agenda. So it’s something that I I’m trying to explore and also example that I try to give that I think is relevant when we talk about the gaps.

Athanase Bahazire: Jasmine, very important, you just mentioned the low participation or low involvement of different stakeholders in processes that are chaired by multilateral organizations such as the ITU and you also highlighted the GDC in the different reviews we have seen consultation but at some point it was closed. So it’s very important and very crucial actually to engage stakeholders. And one of the other things that was very interesting, you see there is a way the technical community can come together, collaborate and actually advance the agenda. Very, very important. So I wanted to follow up on this. As you’re talking about stakeholders engagement in various agendas and various development projects, I was wondering what is the place of the youth? How can young leaders actually and youth stakeholders be considered to contribute to achieving this SDG agenda since actually it’s for the youth because they are representing the future, they present the future leaders, they are representing the one actually to benefit. meaning, to benefit mainly from this perspective, so how can we include them and consider them in these processes? Back to you, Jasmine.

Jasmine Ko: Okay, actually before jumping into this question directly to youth, let me just elaborate a little bit on the role of technical community, because not just because I’m from there, but I just want to share, you know, my and also the other stakeholder perspective on technical community. What have technical community contribute to the agenda and also in a way that we could help youth as well? So it’s part of the ITU agenda on innovation, it’s about innovation for development. So in a way that we have initiated a research and efficacy project on something called the eco-internet index, EII. So we emphasize on do more and waste less. So that means we do more when there’s off-peak traffic, so that we could, you know, like we have to acknowledge that there is a carbon footprint for whatever internet activity and the devices that we’re using here, and also how, you know, the way we behave actually have a consequence and impacts in different way. Just to at least start with the awareness and you could always have a thought and reflection and also to adjust your own behavior. And we emphasize about the replacement of carbon-heavy trade by digital economy and also on energy that could empower the network, because we are the registry, right? So we are part of the internet infrastructure ecosystem, therefore we think that sustainability and meaningful connection is critical in a way that also digital inclusion should come hand in hand, especially when connecting those off-grid who doesn’t have connectivity. And second thing about the role and it’s also relevant to youth, because it’s about capacity building and knowledge sharing. Technical committee come together to facilitate capacity building programs to empower individuals and organization with the skills that need to leverage technology for a sustainable development. Example, APIGA, the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy. So it’s led by ICANN, which we have been part of the academy, running the program, being a mentor and being the trainer for several years. And also netmission.asia, it’s a very first youth network, I would say, from the internet governance space, focusing on the region of Asia Pacific. So it’s our own initiative. I’m actually an alumni of mission.asia as well. So this is how I actually get into learning what’s happening in the internet governance network, because it was not a major agenda of any, I think, any university course agenda. So there’s actually a gap that haven’t been plugged into university teaching curriculum. And this is how I got into learning this. And moving on now to youth, what youth can do, right? So youth, and actually not just youth, actually to all of you, it is more about when we think about how we could contribute effectively, right? Effectiveness is actually equal to being productive, being smart, and smart in a way that what is your goal in smart, like with the smart principle? Like how is it specific, personalized, achievable in your own capacity, in your own interest of area? It has to be very, for me, I feel like it has to be very tailor-made for yourself, starting from knowing yourself well. I talk about the… your interest area, your capacity, your network. Think about you have many resources, actually. You just have to map your resources out, identify the area of influence of your own, and set priority. In my case, I’ll leave it out with my case, I love nature, I’m curious to learn more about innovations and the internet world. Therefore, I care about, if I become to SDG, it’s 13, nine, 17, you know, about the industry innovation and about climate action. So how do these two things intersect together? It’s coming to my research and efficacy on eco-internets. And in my daily life, I also recycle my own e-waste and other waste as a person. So I’m trying to bring it down to a very personal level so that you would not just think about, oh, it’s a very off-ground, you know, high-level goals, but actually when you put it, trying to put it down to the ground, you have things to do as a youth and post-youth, you know.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much, Jasmine, for mentioning this. You just mentioned something very important for us to include the left-behind stakeholders such as the youth, it’s capacity building and knowledge sharing. And some of these technologies, you find out that they are developed in spaces that are too technical and the decision makers don’t have enough technical understanding to actually take the good decision for the future of these technologies. So it’s very important that we should build capacity of different stakeholders. Before I move back to you, my panelists, I’m going to give the floor to the audience. If at this point you have any question or comments to give on this perspective. Any question, the audience, or just a comment?

Peter Jozsa: I’m Peter Jozsa, founder of the Digital Child Rights Foundation. It’s about innovation and the agenda of the SDGs. I’m an NGO and I was wondering how could an NGO, all the NGOs in the world, stimulate the innovation, especially the involvement of youth?

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you. I have a comment on this one, but I’m going to start by you, Umut. Umut, do you have a comment on this? How can NGOs, you that you are involved, I mean, you are working in the civil space with NGOs and civil organizations. Any comment on this?

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Well, actually, I had to explain my case because my case is like in the case in Latin America, we actually focus on including youth in order to be innovative, especially in investing more in creating capacity building, digital skills, training for the youth in general, because most of the NGOs here in Latin America actually believe that not only it’s important to bring access to the technologies to the young people in different places, especially in some marginal areas, but also it’s really important to give them the proper training to use those technologies in order to change their lives and have a really good impact on not only with them, but also with the community and try to innovate in a way that is not only innovate and create solutions for the communities. So for us, it’s important in Latin America, especially the NGOs, to create capacity, promote, to create capacity in digital skills. So we had a really investment on that. Also, we promote a lot of digital literacy, and we try to get along the private sector in order to incentivize employers to have people, to have young people involved in their, in their, in some part in the, in the, in the digital training skill or some part of the workforce. So it’s pretty much that we do here in Latin America because that’s the specific case of my region, that the region that I don’t know, and I really work more for NGOs from this region. So yeah, that’s what I can say.

Athanase Bahazire: Umut. Yes.

Jasmine Ko: Thank you, Peter, for your questions. It’s, so when it comes to NGO perspective, so actually you’re not in the right place because now we have many stakeholders. You might find your, you know, colleagues who’s from also at NGO, maybe from your region or not from your region, but it’s, I think it’s a good platform here. You could start to see if any common agenda or prioritized area that you could potentially collaborate on. Second thing could be, this is a global one, right? So I’m not sure where you’re based in, but perhaps there’s a regional or national IGF you could join because usually in national and regional level, it’s more, I would say, more region specific. And it’s a different kind of engaged, it may be a different kind of engagement level that you can have there. And, in our case, in Asia-Pacific Regional IGF, as part of the secretariat team, we open up a chance for, you know, for everyone, including the NGOs, that they could submit their session proposal so that it’s a very community-driven agenda of the regional IGF that you could have your own session proposal in the IGF and then have a potential collaboration with it. So, as I echo to what Umut said, it also could be collaboration with other stakeholder groups, so I encourage you to continue your work and thank you very much for engaging with us.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you. Okay, before I give you back the floor, I was having just one comment from an African perspective. What has happened in Africa is that the NGO and civil society organizations tend not to work directly with the government, not to engage directly, and as you can imagine, the ITU, the UN, and all these multilateral processes, it’s our governments that actually represent our voices or have the last word to say. So, what can be the approach here, I’ve seen it in some countries, is that we don’t always have to be, even if we have different point of view or different ways of seeing things from the NGO and the government, but it’s important to advance our local agenda, to work together and engage, actually, the government. From the human perspective, the NGO, since they are on ground, they are working closer to the community. They used to have expertise that the government doesn’t have, but then because sometimes ideas are not matching. the engagement is not sufficient. So I believe what I can encourage to the NGOs actually is to work with the government. Yeah, you can have diverging perspective today, but tomorrow for a great common, work together and advance this agenda so that whenever they go to this ITU and other multilateral processes, they can carry your perspective. In some point I’ve seen in my country, at some point they’ve got the government representation at the UN, but it’s no, the government delegation is not only full of government or ministry expert, but in the delegation they have a stakeholder from the technical community, one from the civil society, and there it should be insightful and very interesting.

Peter Jozsa: Yeah, thank you for your answers. I live in the Netherlands, in Europe, and we are a member of the ITU Parter to Connect Digital Coalition, and also a member of the advisory group, Civic Society and Academia of the D4D Hub in Europe, the Global Gateway, and yes, it’s about digital skills, but what I mean is that here we are talking, and in the end, a country must accelerate and there is a gap, I believe, between the NGOs and also the private sector who wants to help concrete, and there is a gap, I believe, so how can we close the gap? Yeah, so it’s not only the country, but children, young people in the school wanted to be supported, and we want to help, but it must be done by the local community, but how do we connect to each other? It’s not only… in the way by having talks with the government. We need NGOs also on the ground and I think that’s going too slow.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much. Very good comment. Actually, definitely we need NGOs on the ground. And maybe recalling from what Jasmin was saying, everybody should play his role in ensuring, okay, I’m on the good track. I’m contributing to fastening this processing. That’s going very slow. So I believe, yeah, from your personal perspective or your organization’s perspective, yeah, please try to push exactly and work on your personal capacity to advance this agenda. But very good comments. Thank you so much. We have a question. Okay, one comment from Jasmin.

Jasmine Ko: Yeah, just one sentence from me. Of course, there are gaps and as for your case, it must be specific enough that maybe other country and other region could not give you the exact example because you are the right person to know about your community. So when you ask about how, so I challenge you back, how would you try to understand the problems and the gaps? And if there is no platform or scenario that NGOs and other potential partner can come together, maybe consider create one. Scenario, occasion that people could brainstorm and, you know, get their buy-in to try to collect and really draw the symmetry. So that’s last one from me. But I also see the lady in the back have maybe comment on question, please.

Nermin Selim: Hello, everyone. I appreciate all speakers. I just have two comments. The first one is an advice for your great work to connect the intellectual property rights. to innovation, because any innovator, he needs to protect his rights. Because I’m an expert of intellectual property, I set this advice for all innovators. By the way, I didn’t, you didn’t know me, I’m Dr. Nermen Salem. I’m Secretary General of Creators Union of Arab. It’s an NGO. It’s a member in United Nations Economic and Social Council. And we are working in the NGO since 23 years. And I agree with my colleague about not supporting the NGO. I have attended a lot of conferences in all the community all over the world. Even it’s governmental or non-governmental organization. They support and encourage NGO to be collaborate in their works. But actual, in the real ground, it’s not effective. But since we have a member in United Nations, it gave us an opportunity to share with all collections in the United Nations. And we are encourage all entities if they want to contact with us and make a cooperation about anything we are concerning on innovation and intellectual property and training and so on. Thank you very much.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much for the comment. And definitely, what is good about the discussion is that collaboration can unfold during these discussions. Thank you so much. We have also a question online. If you can unmute yourself for the question online, then after we have Umut speaking. The question online.

Matilda Mashauri: Yes, hello, can you hear me?

Athanase Bahazire: Yes, we can. Please.

Matilda Mashauri: Okay. Good morning. My name is Mathilde Mujes Mashawiri. I am an African Youth Ambassador in Internet Governance and a proud advocate in inclusion in shaping for the digital future of Africa. Well, I have two questions. One is how can we, how can a youth-led initiative and the young innovators be meaningfully included in the multi-stakeholder processes that are discussed in this workshop in order to ensure that the Internet-based and technology are effectively contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals, and also particularly in addressing peace, economic empowerment, and the environmental sustainability? And also, how can we as the youth leaders play a pivotal role in driving the innovative solutions for a better and more inclusive future? You know, because we are trying so much as the youth also to also engage, but then we do not know some of the ways. That is what I’m trying to know, like how we are the youth leaders, because we do play a pivotal role in driving the innovation, but we need for the inclusive future. But then how can we do that? And how can we also lead to the development goals and particularly in addressing the peace and economic empowerment for the environmental sustainability? Thank you very much.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you for the question. Any other questions online so we take both together? Okay, if there is no question, I see there is. Okay, there is no question for this at this time. So Umut, can you comment on this question?

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Um, well, actually, that is a question that I’m thinking really a lot this year, especially with the GDC processes and how we actually can do in can be included. in all this process, because we actually, with that process, I start to realize how we can actually be influential somehow and can actually be, how is outreach in all this, in all this conversation, in all these processes, and how actually we can collaborate to this and what is our role in all of this. And one of the things that I conclude at the end of all of that, it was that actually at the beginning, we’re going to feel that we are lost, that pretty much as seen is the question or that’s where your question is coming, is that we are at the beginning, we are feeling lost about what we should do, but actually the fear of actually not knowing at the beginning what we’re going to do is actually the drive for the answer that we want to, and the answer that we want to, in the way that we actually, after that, we start to identify all the gaps that in these different processes that we’re having, and how is, how we as young people, actually can provide the solution to those gaps. So when we find that thing, we actually start to know exactly what is our place in all of this, and how actually we’re going to be innovated in all these processes, because if we don’t actually start to identify exactly what is the inconsistency, for example, or the thing that we don’t like, or the sadly, the special aspect that is particularly to a region or particular to all different populations or is related to a specific SGD, we actually we don’t going to make innovative ideas or solution for the different processes. So that’s the way that, as I said, so I don’t know if on the floor is one to compliment on something.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you, Umut. I think, yeah, the youth is very, it’s a very crucial stakeholder. And thank you so much, actually, for responding and giving this perspective. We are going to proceed. I have a couple of questions for you two before we conclude. So we have seen a lot of discussion in the Summit of the Future last September in New York about the place of the youth in this process. And at this particular time, it was special because the Declaration for the Future, they included a specific annex just for the youth. But then we were saying it’s all about discussions and provisions. So I’m wondering, what are the policies and investment strategies that are essential, actually, to address the skills gap and build necessary human capacity to create, deploy and manage Internet technologies for a sustainable digital, sustainable development goal, especially when it comes to the youth as the future of the world, the youth as the future leaders? So what are the strategies and investment, what are the policy and investment strategies we need to put in place? for this to be effective, not only just papers or a decision, but on the ground, we want to see the change and how this can help. So I’m going to start by Oud, then Jasmine.

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Well, the question is related to exactly policies and how to address the issue in the path of the future and everything else. Well, when I read the part of the future, I had to say that one of the things that got to my attention is that it’s actually mentioned as a part of the future solutions, and we are actually doing more than that. One of the things that I consider that should be addressed and in that aspect, in general, is a couple of things that were already mentioned here, like not only promote digital skills, promote the being accountable or clarify data ownership, promote digital literacy, incentivize the participation of not only the governments in alliance with the private sector and NGOs, and also another thing that should be addressed in all these cases is include the jury in the decision-making processes and having promote communities or internet hosts, for example, that can provide access to different technology and digital skills for training you in diversity on this idea. So yeah, there is a lot of ways that we can be included in this.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much, Umut. So I’m going to give back to Jasmine. What are the investment and policy strategies we need to put in place to achieve this innovation technology for the Sustainable Development Goals?

Jasmine Ko: Okay, before I go directly to the answer, I just want to clarify when you talk about investment and policy, is there a certain target group you’re talking about who will action and implement on this, or by you, or by government, or by who?

Athanase Bahazire: Basically very, actually that’s what I was expecting from you, who is there to invest and to put investment in place so that we can achieve actually the innovation we want to see in order to align the technologies with the SDGs. So the youth are the future, the present, the future, and they’ll be the beneficiaries actually of this investment and these policies that are harmonized, but then who to invest and at which level they should invest and in which way?

Jasmine Ko: Well, then it is actually a very high level question. Actually, well, it’s not an easy question to answer, because when it comes to, if you highlight that youth is the beneficiary, they cannot just be beneficiary themselves. They have to be the one who also put effort, right? Because I believe in that mission, it’s always about nothing for youth is not by youth. I mean, everything for youth has to be by youth, have to be with youth. So that means that when it comes to strategy setting and also agenda setting, the way that you can put into actually a lot of effort because the thing is, you’ve definitely, if you need to compare the life experience and also network, it’s not as much as people who have been working in the field for many decades, many years, so like myself. So the things that we need to put a lot of effort is to really understand what is our prioritize area and agenda and to be smart enough to know what kind of, in the stakeholder map that we have, what kind of collaboration and people and scope that we want to focus on because we have limited time, we have limited resources, but then what can we do in a reasonable scope and then achievable outcome in a certain timeframe? It’s always a problem about goal setting and this is why it is called strategic because it involve prioritization, it involve a collective process of youth, perhaps, and perhaps we could also have other, like it’s good to have other stakeholder groups together. What I like to do, the design thinking and also systems thinking approach that we map out within the ecosystem, we map out each problem like a spider map and then we map out the flow, how does it, what is the impact and what is the reason and then we make the arrow and then we see what is the relationship between different issues and then we try to be, we try to use different tools to understand how we could move on.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much, Jasmine. Very important dimension, it’s prioritization in strategy development is very important. I have a comment on this, but I’m going to first give the floor to the audience. Do you have, anyone has an idea on what are the… strategies, policy and investment strategies we need to put in place in order to achieve actually innovation and technology for the sustainable development goals. Any comments in the room? Okay, great. I see, when it comes to investment, when it comes to all these actions, many people tend to get back. We have seen the same thing in the Global Digital Compact recently. When it comes to investing or putting resources into place, you see the different stakeholders are pushing for voluntary actions, voluntary investment and yeah, how will it be sustainable when it’s voluntary? That’s a big question for all of us. But yes, there are solutions we have seen. The ITU has initiated a certain initiative they call Partner to Connect. A very important coalition whereby different stakeholders pledge a certain amount of money or a certain resource to actually contribute to the efforts to partner together to connect the unconnected, to connect the next billion. And this is some of the effective solutions to this. In the Partner to Connect coalition, last year, they got up to 30 billion dollars of pledge from different stakeholders, some from the private sector, some from the government, some from some non-governmental organization. And these inputs are actually, we are seeing the income. The ITU and UNESCO have initiated an initiative they call the Giga Project. that aim to connect every single school on the internet. Some of you from the global north may not understand why is it important to connect every single school, but in some part of the world like where we are from, some schools don’t have access to internet. So you imagine in today’s world, how can you learn without the internet? You don’t have access to all these resources that are available on the internet. So such kind of investment and partnership strategies are very important. And we have seen on the ground very big impact on the schools that are connected to the internet because people are actually able to leverage the different resources, do their SQL jobs when they finish, do their projects, document also their work they are doing so that the wider world can view it. So this is very important and I think we should encourage initiatives like this. I’m going to give the floor to my panelists for the parting remarks because we have less than 10 minutes now. Any from online, any from internet? Okay, we have a comment here then we get back to you.

Nermin Selim: I’m just want to emphasize on before any implementing of any innovation solution or anything, you should make awareness, a very good awareness about any project to be successful. And my advice, my personal advice from Corona COVID-19 when I teach for the students in the level on university, They opened the online and they didn’t hear me. So we should make a very good awareness for any initiative before we can implement it to get the success of this initiative.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you. It’s very important actually to get to test the technologies. So I was saying it’s very important actually to document and to test the technologies before we can implement them. And some of these tests are done by pilot projects that tend to start from a certain level, certain country to get input and now implement the project wider. But it’s very important. The COVID actually surprised us and we have seen many challenges, but also a very fast innovation environment, many technologies developed very fast during COVID as also challenges were there. So I think we should always seek balance. I wanted to ask if there is a comment or question online. If you have a question online or comment, please have the floor. We just have two minutes for this, so you can be fast. Ah, okay, I’m back.

Matilda Mashauri: Okay, one last question. So they have talked about the internet-based technologies. So given the critical role of these internet-based technologies in achieving the SDU. Now, what specific mechanism can be put in place to ensure the equitable access and capacity building for the youth, and particularly in the underserved regions, so they can actively participate in and benefit from the digital innovation for the sustainable development? Since I’m engaged to working with the youth in this marginalized community in the rural areas, so I have seen their challenges, I have seen their, I also faced the same challenges when I went there. You know, we got to give this capacity building. So what can we, what mechanism exactly that we can put into place for the equitable access for this capacity building, especially for the youth, particularly in underserved regions, and especially in brackets, females, so they can actively participate in and benefit from these digital innovations, you know, for the sustainable development for now, for the coming future, things like that. So thank you very much.

Athanase Bahazire: Yeah, thank you, Mathilde. Good question. How can actually the strategies being put in place to include the women and marginalized communities or rural area to benefit from the, or to leverage from all the benefits the digital technology gives us? I’m going to give the floor to Umut and Jasmine to comment on this. Umut, you have the floor.

Umut Pajaro Velasquez: Well, actually this question has to do a lot with my final remarks. So part of the solution that is actually believed in this, the multifaceted approach that involves effective multistakeholder governance and creative digital skills and responsible policies and expand the internet access. So these spaces, for example, like the IGF or the E2, actually are crucial to foster this kind of alignment and ensuring that internet contribute to more equitable future for everyone. because we’re not only having conversation here for different people, between different stakeholders. We also are people that are working on the ground, most of us, from different aspects. Some are in technical communities, some are in rural areas. So others are, for example, myself, I work with gender diverse people and black people in my country. So yeah, so we are working with the community and we’re trying to find solutions, not only bringing our expertise into these spaces, but also articulating our experience with this. So it’s not only believe that the multi-stakeholder process, that the multi-stakeholder is just conversation, but also is actions and solutions. Yeah.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you. Yeah, Jasmine, any comment or your parting remark?

Jasmine Ko: Actually, not much. I just want to be brief, because it’s writing on Umu’s input about the multi-stakeholder models slash mechanism. And one way with that, we’ve been actually a good example that already been doing and can be strengthened. It’s the youth IGF that there’s national and also regional one that we’ve been into running for. So actually the thing is how we could ensure, like improve the equitable access of youth is to, I think it’s about the outreach, about to understand what could be the people and marginalized communities that haven’t been part of this yet and really put effort on, such as in Asia Pacific, we try to put more effort to link up with the Pacific islands. So this is a very concrete example. So think about in your region and place, who are the marginalized communities and then try to get them on board. That’s it. Thank you very much.

Athanase Bahazire: Thank you so much. Very wonderful discussion. And as we are concluding this session, I wanted to thank my panelists for the very insightful comment and also the audience for their great participation. And what I can say is, last comment, it’s very important if you want to align the multilateral initiatives that is the ITU’s digital development program with the spirit of the multistakeholder forums or multistakeholder initiatives at the IGF, it’s important to build capacity and involve different parties. I believe the multistakeholder engagement forums and discussion must actually document the decisions that will be taken in multilateral spaces. So with that I say thank you so much and have a wonderful, yeah, have a wonderful rest of the evening, of the day. So we are going to have a group photo. Sorry technicians, can you please put Umut on the screen, maybe we have a, yeah, you ping also Matilda if she’s there.

Agreement Points

Importance of inclusive multistakeholder governance

Umut Pajaro Velasquez

Jasmine Ko

Promote inclusivity of all stakeholders

Increase engagement of technical community and civil society

Both speakers emphasize the need for inclusive participation of all stakeholders, including the technical community and civil society, in internet governance processes.

Focus on youth engagement and capacity building

Umut Pajaro Velasquez

Jasmine Ko

Athanase Bahizire

Provide digital skills training and capacity building

Create youth-focused initiatives like regional IGFs

Invest in connecting schools through initiatives like the Giga Project

The speakers agree on the importance of engaging youth through capacity building, digital skills training, and initiatives that connect them to internet governance discussions and resources.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of collaboration and partnerships between different stakeholders, including governments, to advance digital development agendas.

Jasmine Ko

Athanase Bahizire

Collaborate with government and other stakeholders

Promote voluntary pledges and partnerships like ITU’s Partner to Connect

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of awareness before implementing new technologies

Nermin Selim

Jasmine Ko

Promote awareness before implementing new technologies

Use design thinking to map ecosystem challenges and solutions

While coming from different perspectives, both speakers unexpectedly agree on the importance of understanding and mapping out challenges before implementing solutions, emphasizing awareness and thoughtful planning.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the importance of inclusive multistakeholder governance, focus on youth engagement and capacity building, collaboration between different stakeholders, and the need for thoughtful planning and awareness in implementing technological solutions.

Consensus level

There is a moderate level of consensus among the speakers on key issues related to internet governance and sustainable development. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in aligning internet-based technologies with sustainable development goals. However, there are still areas where more specific strategies and implementation details need to be developed.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to youth inclusion

Umut Pajaro Velasquez

Jasmine Ko

Provide digital skills training and capacity building

Create youth-focused initiatives like regional IGFs

While both speakers emphasize youth inclusion, Umut focuses on digital skills training and capacity building, while Jasmine emphasizes creating youth-focused initiatives like regional IGFs.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were minor and primarily focused on different approaches to achieving similar goals, such as youth inclusion and stakeholder collaboration.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers was relatively low. Most speakers presented complementary rather than conflicting viewpoints, which suggests a general consensus on the importance of multistakeholder approaches, youth inclusion, and capacity building in aligning internet-based technologies with sustainable development goals.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of collaboration, but Jasmine focuses on NGOs working with governments, while Athanase emphasizes voluntary pledges and partnerships at a larger scale.

Jasmine Ko

Athanase Bahizire

Collaborate with government and other stakeholders

Promote voluntary pledges and partnerships like ITU’s Partner to Connect

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of collaboration and partnerships between different stakeholders, including governments, to advance digital development agendas.

Jasmine Ko

Athanase Bahizire

Collaborate with government and other stakeholders

Promote voluntary pledges and partnerships like ITU’s Partner to Connect

Key Takeaways

Effective multistakeholder governance is crucial for aligning internet technologies with sustainable development goals

Youth inclusion and capacity building are essential for driving innovation and achieving the SDGs

NGOs play an important role in advancing the SDGs and innovation agenda, but face challenges in engagement

Investment strategies and partnerships are needed to address the digital divide and promote equitable access to technology

Resolutions and Action Items

Promote inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration in multistakeholder governance models

Increase engagement of technical community and civil society in ITU and other multilateral processes

Provide digital skills training and capacity building for youth, especially in underserved regions

Create and strengthen youth-focused initiatives like regional IGFs

Develop partnerships and investment strategies to connect schools and expand internet access

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively bridge the gap between NGOs and government/private sector stakeholders

Specific mechanisms to ensure equitable access and capacity building for youth in underserved regions

How to balance voluntary vs. mandatory investment strategies for sustainable development initiatives

Ways to address interoperability challenges between different technologies and systems

Suggested Compromises

NGOs working more closely with governments to advance local agendas, despite potential differences in perspective

Using a multifaceted approach that combines multistakeholder governance, skills development, responsible policies, and expanded internet access

Balancing rapid innovation with proper testing and awareness-building before implementing new technologies

Effective multi-stakeholder governance models, in this case, are essential to ensure that internet-enabled innovation aligns with these sustainable development goals, principles. This model, in this case, in order to comply with having a design that actually can protect and can be responsible, has to, first of all, promote inclusivity.

speaker

Umut Pajaro Velasquez

reason

This comment introduces the crucial concept of multi-stakeholder governance models and emphasizes inclusivity as a key principle. It sets the tone for discussing how to align internet innovation with sustainable development goals.

impact

This comment shaped the subsequent discussion by establishing inclusivity and multi-stakeholder collaboration as central themes. It led to further exploration of how different stakeholders, including youth and NGOs, can be involved in internet governance and innovation processes.

So in a way this could lead to the solution that may not fully adjust the diverse needs and priorities that are aligned in the SDGs and in a wider beyond ITU if you notice if someone some of you follow the GDC the global digital compact and also the wishes plus 20 process there was in you know like during the long period of time when that the you know the GDC keep keep there is a different version keep changing and then like discussing consultation a lot of thing happening and there was a moment that technical community it’s not being well recognized so there’s actually at some point there is a disappearance of technical community in a paper in something

speaker

Jasmine Ko

reason

This comment highlights a critical gap in stakeholder engagement, particularly the lack of recognition for the technical community in important global processes. It brings attention to the challenges of inclusive representation in international digital policy discussions.

impact

This observation led to a deeper discussion about the importance of involving all stakeholders, including the technical community, in shaping digital policies. It prompted consideration of how to ensure diverse perspectives are included in global digital governance processes.

Of course, there are gaps and as for your case, it must be specific enough that maybe other country and other region could not give you the exact example because you are the right person to know about your community. So when you ask about how, so I challenge you back, how would you try to understand the problems and the gaps? And if there is no platform or scenario that NGOs and other potential partner can come together, maybe consider create one.

speaker

Jasmine Ko

reason

This comment shifts the perspective from seeking external solutions to empowering local actors to create their own platforms for collaboration. It emphasizes the importance of local knowledge and initiative in addressing community-specific challenges.

impact

This comment changed the direction of the discussion from a top-down approach to problem-solving to a more bottom-up, community-driven approach. It encouraged participants to think about how they can take initiative in their own contexts to foster collaboration and address gaps.

Well, then it is actually a very high level question. Actually, well, it’s not an easy question to answer, because when it comes to, if you highlight that youth is the beneficiary, they cannot just be beneficiary themselves. They have to be the one who also put effort, right? Because I believe in that mission, it’s always about nothing for youth is not by youth. I mean, everything for youth has to be by youth, have to be with youth.

speaker

Jasmine Ko

reason

This comment challenges the notion of youth as passive beneficiaries and reframes their role as active participants in shaping their digital future. It introduces a powerful principle of youth engagement in digital development.

impact

This perspective shifted the conversation about youth involvement from one of providing benefits to one of active participation and co-creation. It led to a more nuanced discussion about how to meaningfully involve youth in digital innovation and policy-making processes.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by consistently emphasizing the importance of inclusive, multi-stakeholder approaches to internet governance and digital innovation. They challenged participants to think beyond traditional top-down models and consider how to actively involve diverse stakeholders, particularly youth and underrepresented communities, in shaping digital policies and innovations. The discussion evolved from identifying gaps in current processes to exploring concrete ways to foster collaboration, empower local initiatives, and ensure that digital development efforts are truly inclusive and responsive to diverse needs. Throughout the conversation, there was a clear shift towards recognizing the agency and potential contributions of all stakeholders, especially those who have been historically marginalized in these discussions.

How can NGOs stimulate innovation and involve youth?

speaker

Peter Joziasse

explanation

This question highlights the need to explore concrete ways for NGOs to contribute to innovation and youth engagement in the context of sustainable development goals.

How can we close the gap between NGOs, the private sector, and local communities to support children and young people?

speaker

Peter Joziasse

explanation

This follow-up question emphasizes the need to investigate strategies for better collaboration between different stakeholders to support youth on the ground.

How can youth-led initiatives and young innovators be meaningfully included in multi-stakeholder processes?

speaker

Matilda Mashauri

explanation

This question highlights the need to explore specific mechanisms for including youth voices in discussions and decision-making related to internet governance and sustainable development.

How can youth leaders play a pivotal role in driving innovative solutions for a better and more inclusive future?

speaker

Matilda Mashauri

explanation

This follow-up question suggests the need to investigate concrete ways for youth to contribute to and lead innovation efforts.

What specific mechanisms can be put in place to ensure equitable access and capacity building for youth, particularly in underserved regions?

speaker

Matilda Mashauri

explanation

This question highlights the need to research strategies for improving digital access and skills development for marginalized youth, especially in rural areas.

Summary

This panel discussion focused on contextualizing fairness in AI governance for diverse cultural contexts, particularly in Asia and the Global South. The speakers explored how fairness in AI is understood and implemented differently across cultures. Tejaswita Kharel highlighted that in India, fairness encompasses equality, non-discrimination, and inclusivity, with unique considerations like caste that may not be relevant in Western contexts. Yik Chan Chin presented research on narratives of digital ethics, showing how concepts of fairness vary between cultures, such as China’s emphasis on harmony and role adequacy versus Western focus on individual rights.

Milton Mueller cautioned against overstating AI’s capabilities and emphasized the importance of understanding the technology’s limitations. He noted that many issues of contextualization have existed in computing for decades. The panel discussed challenges in creating representative datasets and evaluation frameworks for AI systems, with Chin suggesting that different regions could contribute best practices to develop an interoperable framework for fairness.

The discussion touched on concerns about hyper-contextualization and the feasibility of adapting AI to all cultural nuances. Mueller argued that market forces would largely determine the level of contextualization in AI applications. The panel also addressed issues of gender bias in AI datasets and the complexities of “cleaning” biased data. Overall, the conversation highlighted the need for nuanced, context-sensitive approaches to AI fairness that consider diverse cultural perspectives and practical implementation challenges.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The need to contextualize AI fairness and ethics principles for different cultural contexts, especially in the Global South

– Challenges in developing representative and inclusive evaluation frameworks for AI systems

– The tension between global AI governance principles and local/regional implementation

– Limitations of current AI training data and models in representing diverse perspectives

– Practical challenges in “cleaning” biased data vs. expanding datasets

Overall purpose:

The goal of this discussion was to explore how AI fairness and ethics principles need to be adapted for different cultural contexts, particularly in Asia and the Global South. The panelists examined challenges in developing culturally-appropriate AI governance frameworks and evaluation methods.

Tone:

The tone was academic and analytical, with speakers presenting research findings and theoretical perspectives. There was general agreement on the need for contextualization, though some debate emerged around practical implementation challenges. The tone became slightly more urgent when discussing representation of marginalized groups in AI systems.

Speakers

– Nidhi Singh: Moderator

– Tejaswita Kharel: Project Officer at the Center for Communication Governance at the National University Delhi. Works on information technology law and policy, including data protection, privacy, and emerging technologies.

– Yik Chan Chin: Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University. Research interests include internet governance, digital ethics, policy, regulation and law, and AI and data governance.

– Milton Mueller: Professor specializing in the political economy of information communication. Co-founder of the Internet Governance Project.

Additional speakers:

– Emad Karim: Representative from UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

Contextualising Fairness in AI Governance: A Global South Perspective

This panel discussion, part of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), explored the complexities of contextualising fairness in AI governance for diverse cultural contexts, with a particular focus on Asia and the Global South. The conversation delved into how fairness in AI is understood and implemented differently across cultures, highlighting the challenges in developing culturally-appropriate AI governance frameworks and evaluation methods.

Understanding Fairness Across Cultures

The panellists presented varied perspectives on how fairness is conceptualised in different regions. Tejaswita Kharel, from the Center for Communication Governance at the National University Delhi, emphasised that in India, fairness encompasses three key aspects: equality, non-discrimination, and inclusivity. She noted that unique considerations, such as caste, may be relevant in the Indian context but not in Western settings.

Yik Chan Chin, Associate Professor at Beijing Normal University, shared insights from a two-year research project on digital ethics narratives. While many countries accept a core set of ethical principles, Chin highlighted that the major differences lie in the narratives surrounding these principles. For instance, Chinese narratives of fairness focus on harmony and role ethics, contrasting with Western narratives that emphasise individual autonomy and formal equality. She provided specific examples of how concepts like privacy and data protection are understood differently in various Asian contexts.

Challenges in AI Fairness and Governance

Milton Mueller, a professor specialising in the political economy of information communication, introduced a sceptical perspective on AI, questioning its existence as a distinct entity and emphasizing that many issues attributed to AI are actually longstanding challenges in computing technology. He cautioned against overstating AI’s capabilities and noted that many issues of contextualisation have existed in computing for decades.

The panel discussed several challenges in creating representative datasets and evaluation frameworks for AI systems:

1. Bias in training data: Mueller pointed out that AI models are predominantly trained on English-language data, leading to inherent biases.

2. Limitations of bias measures: Existing bias measures can be gamed and may not truly address cultural issues.

3. Exclusion of diverse perspectives: Emad Karim, representing UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, highlighted that women’s perspectives are often excluded from AI datasets.

4. Difficulty in “cleaning” biased data: Mueller argued that historical data inherently reflects past biases and cannot be easily “cleaned”. He suggested focusing on expanding and diversifying datasets rather than attempting to remove bias retroactively.

Mueller also discussed the CAML (Cultural Appropriateness Measure Set for LLMs) framework, highlighting its potential and limitations in addressing cultural biases in AI systems.

Approaches to Improving AI Fairness

The panellists proposed various approaches to enhance AI fairness and governance:

1. Collaboration: Kharel emphasised the need for collaboration between ethics experts and AI developers to bridge the gap between ethical principles and practical implementation.

2. Interoperable frameworks: Chin suggested developing interoperable frameworks that incorporate regional best practices.

3. Market-driven approach: Mueller proposed a market-driven approach to contextualisation based on demand.

4. Community-based models: Chin mentioned the potential of community-based small models to serve specific needs.

Tensions and Debates

The discussion revealed several areas of tension and debate:

1. Hyper-contextualisation: Concerns were raised about the feasibility of adapting AI to all cultural nuances, with Mueller arguing that market forces would largely determine the level of contextualisation in AI applications.

2. Data cleaning vs. expansion: While some advocated for “cleaning” biased data, Mueller emphasised the importance of expanding datasets to improve representation.

3. Global principles vs. local implementation: The panel grappled with the tension between developing global AI governance principles and adapting them for local or regional implementation.

4. Definition and measurement of fairness: The speakers diverged significantly in their definitions and approaches to fairness in AI, highlighting the complexity of implementing fairness across different cultural contexts.

Mueller also discussed Google’s Fairness in Machine Learning program and the controversy surrounding it, illustrating the challenges in implementing fairness measures in practice.

Practical Implications

Nidhi Singh raised an important point about the potential impact of AI on resource allocation in India’s public distribution system, highlighting the need to consider practical implications of AI fairness in governance contexts.

Conclusion and Future Directions

The discussion underscored the need for nuanced, context-sensitive approaches to AI fairness that consider diverse cultural perspectives and practical implementation challenges. Key takeaways include:

1. The importance of understanding local priorities and concerns when contextualising AI fairness.

2. The need for collaboration between ethics experts, AI developers, and regional stakeholders.

3. The potential for developing interoperable frameworks that incorporate best practices from different regions.

4. The ongoing challenge of addressing bias in AI systems, particularly in data collection and representation.

The panel acknowledged time constraints that limited the depth of discussion on some topics. Nidhi Singh suggested longer panels for future events to allow for more comprehensive exploration of these complex issues.

Future research and dialogue should focus on bridging cultural and methodological gaps in AI ethics and fairness, developing more sophisticated approaches to bias mitigation, and exploring ways to increase representation of marginalised groups in AI datasets and outputs.

Nidhi Singh: you Hello everyone. Hi and welcome to our session on contextualizing fairness AI governance in India. I know that this is the last session on the third day of the IGF. So we’re very thankful for all of the people who’ve come. I also know it’s quite late considering all of our Asian participants are joining us quite late. So we’re very thankful you could all be here. We have a very interesting panel and a very interesting discussion that’s happening today. So I would like to keep some time at the end for audience participation. So I will be enforcing time limits a little strictly during our introductory remarks by the panel. So we can just I think we’ll jump right into it. I’m just going to talk a little bit about how this panel is based around the idea that while there’s a lot of work that’s happening around AI ethics and AI governance, but there’s no real one size fits all approach that can be directly implemented into all of the context. As we start looking into AI applications and how the use of these applications can benefit societies, we have to consider that a lot of these applications are in fact made in the Global North according to Global North norms and directly introducing them into the Global South tends to have a lot of problems. It leads to a lot of exclusion. So in this context, we are specifically talking about what fairness means, and then how you can make these systems fair, specifically to something as diverse as the Asian context, where a lot of countries in the Asia there from the Global South, a lot of them have larger populations. There are a lot of them might be developing economies that are linguistic barriers. So in these cases, how would you make something like an AI ethic work in these kind of cultural contexts? So I’m going to give a very brief remark here, and then I’m just going to introduce all of our panelists really quickly, and then we’ll move on to a quick round of questions. So to start with, we have Yik Chan Chin. She’s an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University. She has previously worked at the University of Nottingham and the University of Oxford School of Law. Her research interests include internet governance, digital ethics, policy, regulation and law, and AI and data governance. Her ongoing projects include digital governance in China, and global AI and data governance. Dr. Chin is a co-leader of the UN IGF policy network on artificial intelligence. We have an excellent report that was released yesterday. So if you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend you check that out as well. She’s a member of the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Forum and a multi-stakeholder steering group member of China Internet Governance Forum. Online we have with us Tejaswita Kharel. Tejaswita is a project officer at the Center for Communication Governance at the National University Delhi. Her work relates to various aspects of information technology law and policy, including data protection, privacy, and emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain. Her work on ethical governance and regulation of technology is guided by human rights-based perspectives, democratic values, and constitution principles. And finally, a more recent addition to our panel is Milton Miller. Professor Miller, so when we were looking through your bio, it was so long that I think we would have taken most of the panel just going over your work. We have had to greatly cut it down. So please check him out. You can just Google him. There are several links that pop up. We’ve just got a very brief bio introducing him here. Professor Miller is a prominent scholar specializing in the political economy of information communication. He has written seven books that we could find on Google Scholar and many, many articles and journals. He’s the co-founder of the Internet Governance Project, a policy analysis center for global internet governance. His areas of interest include cybersecurity, internet governance, and telecommunications and internet policy. So now I will just jump right into the questions. We’ll start with you, Jaswita. So when we’re talking about the entire conversation today is based around AI and bias and how you contextualize fairness. So can you talk to us a little about what fairness means specifically in the Indian context? So what are the kinds of contextual bias that you see in India, which are perhaps not fully accounted for

Tejaswita Kharel: in global conversations around AI bias at the moment? Every speaker strictly has five minutes and we want to have time in the end. So I will be sort of enforcing it. Thank you, Jaswita. All right. Hi, I’m Jaswita. So I’m going to be breaking this question into two parts. The first being, how do we look at fairness in AI in context of India? And then I’ll talk about what contextual biases there are in India. So to start, fairness is in terms of its own concept, it is a very subjective thing. There is no specific understanding of or like a definition of what fairness can even mean, which means that we must look at other factors that will guide our understanding of what fairness can mean, which in Indian context is three aspects. The first being equality, the second being non-discrimination and the third being inclusivity. Equality in the Indian context, especially for AI, will now come in from the constitution, which guarantees the right to equality. So when we look at equality in AI, the expectation of an AI system is that number one, it treats individuals equally under the same circumstances and it protects human rights. The second being that it ensures equitable technology access and third, that it guarantees equal opportunities and benefits from AI. And now when we move on to the second part, which is non-discrimination, non-discrimination addresses predominantly the question of biases in AI, which is more of the technical aspect in the sense that we’re trying to ensure that the data we have when we’re ensuring that when we’re creating AI systems, they are not biased. So when we look at non-discrimination, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to prevent AI from deepening existing, like let’s say deepening historical and social divisions that may be based on various factors in India, such as religion, caste, sex and other factors that may be deeply rooted in the complex social fabric. Then when we look at the third aspect of what fairness means, it is inclusivity. When we consider inclusivity, we’re looking at it in the sense that it prevents exclusion from access to services and benefits that AI tools can guarantee. And it’s also in the context of ensuring that your grievance redressal mechanisms are inclusive. You want to ensure that whenever you’re creating a fair system, it is equal in terms of it’s treating all persons equally, it’s providing access to everyone in the same manner, it is ensuring that the data is not biased and therefore not perpetuating existing biases or even exacerbating them. And it’s also ensuring when you’re creating fair AI, it must ensure that each person has access to grievance redressal. So overall, the idea of fairness in AI, when we look at the Indian context, it’s encompassed by these three factors. Now I’ll go to the second aspect of the question, which is, what are the contextual biases that you see in India that may not already be there in the global north, or what the differences might be? So I will talk about this in the Indian context as well as slightly more genetic context, which is that I think the existing idea of what biases are comes from the global north, in the sense that till date, when we talk about AI bias, we predominantly use examples from the US. One such example is the COMPASS case study, where we realized that race was a very important factor when we were considering bias in AI. So a lot of the discussion around what AI fairness is, what AI bias is, is predominantly revolving around harms that have already showed up in the global north, which is now starting to translate in the global south. However, these factors that we’ve already identified, they may not apply in the same manner. What I mean by that is that there, of course, there are existing factors that may be similar in the context of the US or the other global north countries, which will also exist here, such as gender, religion, ability, class, ethnicity. But what is different in the Indian context is perhaps caste, not just in India, but also in other regions, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, there may be other factors which are not necessarily limited only to ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. So in specifically the Indian context, caste is a major factor which does not really show up when we’re considering biases in AI when we look it in the context of the Global North. So what the harm is when we’re considering AI bias or like, sorry, what the harm is when we’re considering factors of fairness only from the Global North perspectives is that we lose out on a lot of existing context, which means that the AI systems will not actually work. For example, if you tried to simply adopt an existing AI tool in the Indian context, which is, let’s say, created in the US, it would not work, because the existing context has not been taken into account, the data is not taken into account, which means that it will simply cause a lot of harm, and it will also be extremely ineffective. So that being said, the larger point that I’m trying to make right now is that when we’re looking at AI ethic principles, and I think in this context, specifically fairness, we have to ensure that these principles are tailored to the specific national context. And even within national context, there may be regional context, because especially in a country like India, where there’s so much diversity is important to consider all of the different contexts that are going to affect an AI system, which means that we cannot just have a one size fits all approach. And this approach is the key point of our broader discussion on contextualizing AI fairness, which is that we cannot just develop a general theory of algorithmic fairness, solely based on global north understandings. Each nation, with its own unique historical, cultural and social dynamics, has to carefully consider how fairness translates into its specific context when it’s intending to develop and or deploy any AI system. That is my point. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to hearing from the other panelists now.

Nidhi Singh: Thanks, Tejaswita. So I’ll move to one of our in person panelists right now, Yik Chan, you work extensively on AI in China, and from a more global perspective as well. So can you tell us a little about how you go about conducting this sort of research and what your methodology is? So what I mean is, in practical terms, contextualizing ethics to individual context is resource intensive for several countries. So how do you look at this in your work?

Yik Chan Chin: Yeah, I’m going to share presentation because it’s a bit complicated. So can I share now? Can you hear me? Okay, can I share it? Okay. Okay, can you see the presentation now? Okay, so thank you for inviting me. And so I’m going to present a work, which is a methodology about how to do it. So I hope this can clarify it, or maybe helpful from the academical point of view. And just a moment. So basically, this work is about narratives of digital ethics is conducted by the Austrian Academy of Science is a two year project, we collaborated with the Austrian Academy of Science, which actually fitted to today’s topics really well. So that’s why I use it as example. So what this project actually is about, actually, what we found is that in terms of digital ethics, you know, there’s not much difference in terms of the values, the core value, but what are the differences in narratives? So what is narratives? Narratives are stories that are told repeatedly, consists of a series of selective events, which have a particular character, so which will shape people’s understanding, you know, collective behave, or particular society. So this is what we call the narratives. So what we found from our two years research is that, and that’s not most of the country accept a core set of the principle, like a theorist, but what are the major difference is narratives. Okay, so in terms of fairness, and what what fairness means, globally, there’s a global consensus, fairness means non-discrimination, which includes a prevention of bias, inclusiveness in design impact, representatives and a high quality of data, and as well as equality. So this is from global consent. And, but with from our research, because it’s a bottom up research, we found actually we need a contextualized the principle of the digital ethics. So therefore, especially from the cultural dimensions, and so we, so we use the approach, probably, you know, it’s a situate situatedness. So which is a very common methodology, I think a mutant know well, in the STA’s research, science and technology study research. So we should actually focus on the differences in the social, cultural, political, and economical, and the institutional conditions. So they look at the differences instead of the commonalities. Okay, so this is what we are going to, we use in this, our research, we look at the differences, we use the situatedness approach, and especially, we get a lot of evidence from global south, because there’s a lack of the voice. So here is the methodology, we did a kind of semi-structural expert interview, if I remember correctly, it’s a 75 expert interview, and then it’s a workshop series, we’ve invited the talks, and we use also user cases discussion, like a panel discussions. And so this is how do we generate our data. So this is a building block of digital ethics narratives. So when we look at that, if you look at this site, we look at the key dimensions of the digital ethics, for example, what is the notion of good in different society, for example, like a harmony, virtual as a good, denotological, and the consequentialist as a good, and what the fairness means. So there are different building blocks, like a role adequacy as a fairness, and the material equality as a fairness, and the formal equality as a fairness. So then we have like a reference point, so who is the major actor, is whether community, or individual, or ecosystem, and whether the technology is beneficial, or victim, or actors opportunities, whether the technology, what the ethical concern is marginalization, safety, or autonomy, whether the actor is a government, or technical industry, or others, whether what kind of tools government should use, like education, law, regulation, or technology, or whether the legitimacy should be organically involved, or determined by the able, or self-determination. So we use these measures to analyze the narrative of the ethics. So then, so if you look at the fairness, that actually there’s three different categories of the narrative of fairness. The first one is called the role adequacy. What role adequacy means? It means your role, what is fair or not fair, is not determined by the society, but by someone, you know, some kind of, often based on an assumption that different role has been assigned by power outside of human society, such as God, or religions, you know. So like we have a lot of examples from the African tribes. So what do they mean? Fairness actually is determined aside by the God, by the religions, nature, or faith, or even the spiritual world, okay. So the second one is called material equality. What material equality means? The idea of equality is a result, okay. So we look at the result, whether the result is equal or not, and the otherwise formal equality, which is look at equal treatment procedures. So we accept, because we have a different starting point, so maybe the result is unfair, but at least the procedure, the treatment is equal. So they have three different narratives about the fairness. So look at the Chinese case. So we look at a different case around the world. So I just use China, but if you look at the, if you read our report, you can see cases around the world, from Europe, from Africa, from Japan, from India, from USA. So I just look at the Chinese case. What are they, the features? So they feature the fundamental ethical assumptions, harmony, and then it’s a role ethic, means it’s determined by the tradition, you know, what kind of traditions, or belief, and the whole, they look at, actually look at the equality, the whole system, the digital ethical system, and also they think that the technology is the opportunities, not a kind of threat. So they look at the technology as opportunities, and the conflict, the major conflict is marginalization, whether technology can bring the prosperities, and the major role to shape all this development is by government, and whether, what kind of tools the government should use is education, and the culture, and who should make decision is determined by the able, which is wisdom people. Okay, so this is a kind of harmony of type of the Chinese narratives in terms of fairness. And so, but actually recently there’s some new development with in China regarding to these narratives. The major change is about here. So what is changing recently, two or five years, we have a Chinese guest, so you can ask their opinion as well. So it’s actually, they do not, no longer see the technology purely as opportunities. They start to realize the risk and the victim, and they may become a victim of the new technology. And then before they are more focused on prosperity development, and now they’re also shift a little bit to safety and harm. And also now it’s more and more and more wars come from the technical industry, instead only from the government, and start to use law and the regulation, the ethics of the digital, for example. But still, they’re still determined by the able, and still the fundamental ethical assumptions, harmony and the role adequacy. So if we look at the American, the Silicon Valley types, so we can see very different, okay? So they are more look at the consequentialist, which is result, why is that this kind of technology will result in the fairest, okay? And the formal equality, which means the procedure, we have equal treatment to everybody, but it doesn’t, not necessarily look at the result, okay? And then it is up to individual to decide, and they see the technology as opportunities rather than the threat. And the main concern is autonomy, lack of freedoms, and also the self-determination. So it’s the individual to regulate themselves rather than government, and the economy, the market-driving approach rather than the culture and education. So we can see quite different, you know? So I think I stop here because I take too much time, and I leave for the question, okay? Thank you.

Nidhi Singh: Thank you so much for that. That was so interesting to see how fairness very practically is being defined in different contexts and how it’s changing over the last couple of years. That was a very useful intervention, and I think it’ll form the basis of our conversation. Milton, we’ll turn to you, speaking of practicality. You have a lot more practical experience with AI applications. So how far is AI going to go? And how far is it going to go? And how far is it going to go? So how far is it possible to contextualize an AI application to a cultural context? So far, we’ve been talking about ethics, but how far is it actually feasible to take these AI applications and contextualize them to culture? Have you seen any of these systems that have worked out well? Like, how have they worked exactly? Thank you.

Milton Mueller: Can you hear me? Am I on? Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, I am going to, yeah, first issue you a few sort of caveats of generally framing the topic. So first of all, I’m a, what you might call an AI skeptic. That is to say, I don’t really believe AI exists. I think the people have created this monster around it and mostly don’t know what the technology actually is or what it does. So one thing to keep in mind is that most of the time, we’re just talking about computing technology and many of the issues of contextualization have been around in computing for a long time. So think of the keyboard, for example, the whole keyboard was designed for the Roman alphabet, right? And what do Chinese or Arabic people do about this? Well, they have to deal with all kinds of workarounds based on their different scripts. And what impact does this have? Well, in some ways it excluded, but people adapted and they came up with workarounds or they just learned the Roman script, right? Another example are multilingual domain names, right? Where again, the domain names were an ASCII script. We went through some processes in ICANN to try to come up with a way of representing Arabic or Chinese script in the domain names Arabic or Chinese script in the domain name system. And we thought we were extending access by doing this, making the domain name system available to everybody. Turns out we were not. It turns out that people in these countries with different scripts don’t adopt these alternative domain names and it actually reduces their visibility and access to people who don’t speak that language. So it would have fragmented the domain name system. These multilingual domains exist, but they’re just not being adopted and not being used. So now let’s turn to AI. I got some notes here that I need to see. So a lot of what I’m gonna say is based on research at Georgia Tech, particularly by an Arabic AI specialist in our computer science department. Oh my God, this is recording everything I say. So the first thing you have to know about AI is that all of these big models were trained on what we call common crawl, right? Which is a way of crawling the internet and picking up all of this textual and image information. And the top languages on common crawl, English, 46%. Next is Russian, seven, German and Chinese, 6%. You get down to Arabic, it’s 1%. So Tarek, who by the way, I have to ask the other panelists since he’s working in Georgia Tech, is this knowledge coming from the global North or because he’s Arabic, is it coming from the global South? But we’ll deal with that question later. So he’s just explored the way that this rootedness in English text produces AI applications that produce bad outputs for Arabic cultural context. I’ll give you an example. You ask it to fill in a word. And let’s say you say, my grandma is Arab. For dinner, she always makes us fill in the blank. Now a standard AI application is gonna fill in something like lasagna because it’s all based on statistical prediction, right? But it should say something like Majboos or some kind of Arabic dish, right? So another interesting example is he says, GPT-4 is generating a story about a person with an Arab name. And if you use an English name or a French name, a European name, the story will be something like, oh, Philippe was this very smart boy who grew up and did this. If you use an Arab name, it’s sort of like Alas was a poor family where life was a daily battle for survival, right? So, you know, that can be very irritating. So what Tarek has done, he’s developed a measure set for LLMs that tries to determine the cultural level of appropriateness as he calls it. And it’s called CAML, Cultural Appropriateness Measure Set for LLMs, CAML. And again, this is not my research. This is Tarek Naus and Georgia Tech computer scientist team. So, and there’s also somebody at CDT named Alia Bhatia who’s done some research on how AI affects very small language groups, very small linguistic groups. And you can see how they kind of get erased. And again, you have to go back to other forms of information technology like the English language was homogenized by the invention of the printing press, right? So similar processes are going to happen with the massive scalability of AI, but also, and this is something we discussed with Tarek, you know, people are going to develop different models based on different training sets, right? And so the part of the solution to that is for, this is actually an opportunity as well as a threat for the so-called global South, which means that if they develop using their own resources, training sets and models that are trained on their cultural context, then they will have a product differentiation, a marketable difference with these big platform products, and they might be able to out-compete them in certain markets. So I think, again, these kinds of disparities and hiccups occur across the development of technology. And I think it’s bad to look at this kind of discrimination as a static thing that is some form of oppression. It’s more like a, a obvious flaw in the training set of the data sets used to train these systems. And it’s a remediable flaw. It can be fixed. It will be fixed. It’s a matter of investing in the resources to do so. I think that’s all I have time to say, right?

Nidhi Singh: Thank you so much. Yes, I think we are out of time. For the second question, we’re going to go a lot faster where everybody’s getting cut off for three minutes, because then we can have a little bit more time for questions. So speaking of how we can work towards fixing this, Tejasvita, I’ll address the question to you. How do you think we can have more representative and inclusive evaluation frameworks for these AI systems? Like, I think Mishra talked about the CAMEL framework. But are there any other ways that you know from your work on ethics in India that we can have these frameworks?

Tejaswita Kharel: Thank you. I think when we’re thinking of how we can create these frameworks, I think the issue is more of how there is disjointedness between people who want ethics and the people who can possibly deliver it in the actual AI system. So I think the first step to dealing with this problem is by actually resolving that problem, where when I’m saying equality, then we look at how you make things equal. How do you ensure that if equality means that you’re ensuring that your AI application treats everybody the same, then you must ensure that your AI system is being able to do that. Similarly, when we’re looking at non-discrimination, the major factor is bias, which means that we first need to remove bias from the data sets, which again is something that we will speak about, but the ones who are working on the AI systems will be the ones who create or work on creating clean databases. We will access these and then work towards implementing our ideas of AI fairness, which means that I think my main recommendation is that we understand bias, fairness, and all of these ethical principles and factors from the perspectives of the ones who actually do the work and get them to understand it from our side of things so that we can implement it in a way that’s actually reasonable instead of just demanding AI ethics and AI fairness. Yeah. Thank you.

Nidhi Singh: Thank you so much, Tejaswita. That actually leads me really nicely to my question because your point on how the ethics of AI or the ethics of anything and the practicality of how it’s delivered, that gap seems to be widening. So I’ll turn to Yukcha now. My question to you is somewhat related. AI governance right now, the ideas that you have around it are centered around principles and best practices and ethics. And yes, you have a few laws, but most of the world is going with best practices and ethics. Do you really think these are enough to guide issues like fairness? But if we weren’t using this, then what would we use as central tenet to guide fairness?

Yik Chan Chin: Yeah, I think the other work we are doing at the PNAI is interoperability. So first of all, we have to respect the regional diversity. And for example, when I say the fairness in the Chinese context, so a lot of the fairness we talk about in the Western society, for example, in Britain, we’re talking about gender, age, all this racial discrimination bias. But this will never be a problem. It’s not a major problem in China. We do not address gender, racial. It’s not a major concern. So what is a major concern at the moment, actually, first of all, is more about the consumer protections. So we have the algorithms, the provisions, which regulate what kind of algorithms, the automatic decision-making, the preference you can give. So basically, they have a special provision that says that you cannot damage people’s consumer rights. For example, you cannot discriminate people in terms of the price. So if I buy a ticket from one website, I got 800. Then I use the other different mobile, maybe Apple. Then I got 1,000. So this kind of discrimination is more from the consumer protections, but not from racial, gender. So this is one of the major concerns at the moment. We call it the protection of the consumer rights. The other one China is doing now is antitrust, because they want to, oh, this is also a major concern in terms of fairness. But this is not a major concern in most of the Western countries at the moment, in Britain, in America. But in China, it’s a major concern, how to provide a fair play field for everybody, for all the air company and the digital platform. So they are pushing forward the antitrust regulation and implementation in China. So I think we can see each society have different priorities. But if you ask what is the best practice, so it’s really difficult. So we also want to choose the best practice from all these case studies. So I think in the end, every country, they can contribute their best practice. For example, China can contribute their best practice in terms of how to address the consumer protection, or even antitrust. Maybe from the Western, I mean, Europe, they can contribute in terms of the discrimination against the racial or the gender issue. And so I think the best practice has to be coming from different regions. And in the end, we need to have an interoperable framework in terms of fairness. So each country, they have different priorities. But in the end, we probably have a minimum consensus on what are the building blocks of the fairness. OK, I think that’s the approach I would recommend. Thank you.

Nidhi Singh: Yes, thank you so much. I think that’s actually a very important conversation that we’ve sort of been having, I think, all week now, where we’re talking about maybe having more collaborative platforms where countries can come up. There’s no real point to, I think, building all of these solutions in isolation if we’re not going to share them. A lot of the countries do share commonalities. And then I think a lot of them are actually, they’re probably something that we can all look at when we’re looking at our own solutions. So for my final question before we open up to the audience, this is going to be, I think, a slightly different question from where the conversation’s going so far. So today, we’ve been talking for the last, I’d say, 40 minutes about contextualization. There are, however, some concerns around hyper-contextualization. So we can always say that, yeah, it’s great that you should always contextualize things to all of the contexts. Is that really even possible to contextualize to all of the concepts? There’s so many cultures. There’s so many languages. Would it actually be feasible to have an idea of fairness or AI systems or any sort of a computer system that’s contextualized to all of the cultural contexts and nuances that you have?

Milton Mueller: I turned the mic on. I just turned it on. That helps, right? So can we get too hyper-contextualized? And I think when we talk about, we’re talking about this in a governance context, right? So unfortunately, almost everybody in the IGF and in the UN system, when they talk about governance, they’re talking about hierarchical regulation by government. And they’re almost never talking about bottom-up regulation by markets, which is actually what’s going to be doing most of the governing. I mean, I just hate to inform you of this if you’re not aware of it already. But we get these AI applications produced because somebody thinks they’re going to get making money on them, right? So how much contextualization will we get? Will we get too much? Well, it depends on what the market will provide. If there is intensive demand for incredibly micro-contextualized applications, and I think there will be eventually. It will build up over time, of course. Then we will get micro-contextualized things. Think of a business in Indonesia in some very specific industry sector. Maybe these companies are building machine screws for nuclear power plants. I don’t know. That’s highly specialized. And the AI decisions, the inputs and outputs that would be relevant for those industrial players would be extremely contextualized. To be useful, they would have to be. And just a word about discrimination. So one of the things we have to understand is that so many of the mistakes and biases that you’re talking about have to do with the fairly primitive early origins. Like I said, we’re using Common Crawl to look at 46% English. Our facial recognition training has been based on US populations with 80% to 70% white people. So of course, the facial recognition. recognition is not the greatest, but again, that database will be expanded in multiple countries around the world, and the applications will have the potential to get better. The most famous case of facial recognition bias, racial bias, is actually not a case of racial bias. It was a police search in Detroit, Michigan, where we had a very grainy bad picture of a man who stole things from a store, and it was a black man. They went off and they told them that the record matched some guy that was innocent, so they went off and arrested this innocent black man. Now, the point was, the real person who stole the stuff was, in fact, black, so it was not racial discrimination. It was not racial bias. It was bad accuracy. Then, even more important than the bad accuracy was bad police practice. This guy did not go off and check whether this person he arrested had an alibi, which he had an airtight alibi. He could prove he wasn’t there in that store, and yet he arrested him anyway just because he was lazy. A lot of what we, again, talk about embeddedness and situatedness, look at the way AI fits into a specific context and how it’s used, and that is going to be determining how harmful or how beneficial its uses are going to be.

Nidhi Singh: Thank you so much. That’s actually really, I think, interesting. We’ve also been sort of looking at where the AI use sometimes, I think, depending on how it’s being used, it may not necessarily be just the AI, but it can magnify things that are already happening. You’re just rubber stamping those decisions along. Maybe you’re not using the human in the loop isn’t really being human enough to be counted there, so these problems are something that is coming up. Okay, I had another question, but I’m not going to ask it. We will move on to audience questions because we have 15 minutes, and I’m cognizant that a lot of people in the room seem to want to ask questions. If you have a question, you can just put your hand up, and Fawaz can help bring the mic around. Otherwise, Jaswita, if there are any questions in the chat, please let us know. Please introduce yourself once before you

Imad Karim: ask the question. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Imad Karim. I’m from UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and I’m going to put my UN Women hat and also considering that whole perception of fairness. We are also excluding half of the population on their perspective on AI. There is a lot of research coming out to say that there is a lot. Women’s perspective, history, narratives are not even included in those datasets because we inherited 10,000 years of civilization that was written by men for men, and that creates a huge gap in the AI outputs related to women and for women. Where do you see this as well? The more we go into those layers, we’re talking about women, but also women in remote areas, women with disabilities. The more you get into those layers, the less that will be represented in AI infrastructure datasets and outputs. I wonder if you have any reflection into how we can increase and fix those datasets or even have better roles when it comes to women’s representation in AI.

Yik Chan Chin: In our two-year workshop, we actually had a discussion on this question for a long time. We have a lot of representatives from Australia and from Africa, especially from the community village. The approach that they propose is community-based. In the end, you have those big, big models like open AI. Then, probably in China, they have Tencent, Alibaba. Also, I think it’s already happening in India. They have the India model, the small model. We do not call it a big model. It’s a small model. We have one example from the Australian Aboriginal community. They use their own language to develop their own dataset and develop their small model. In the end, I think there’s a diversity at a different level. We don’t need a big model. If you just serve your community, you can simply divide a small model, which does not really consume a lot of data and energies. That’s a specific model. I think this is how, in the end, just like Newton said, there’s a demand, then there’s a supply. I think that will be the way to tackle it in the end.

Nidhi Singh: Are there any other questions?

Audience: Hello, this is Xiao from the CENIC. I’m also a MAG member. I think it’s really a very interesting topic and a good discussion. I have a question. I think the bias of the AI in the data is closely linked with the culture and the nation’s history. Your bias is not my bias. My question is, because you have to, the data is already the past data. It’s already rooted with the history, with the culture. It’s biased. The data is already biased. How would you use your methodology or something else, your regulatory, to make the bias data no bias, make it fair? Thank you.

Milton Mueller: Yeah, I think the idea that you govern bias in AI by making, I think, what did she say was, Tejewada said something about, we need to clean the data. You’re going to go in and you’re going to scrub the bias out of the data. The data is like the dirty spots has it and you’re going to scrub them out. That’s just not how the system works, not at all. The data is the data. The data is a record of something that happened in an information system somewhere at some time. What you are going to change is you’re going to look at other collections of data, bigger collections of data. In that sense, you can engage in AI output governance via data governance by saying, well, for example, many people have spoken about being transparent about what data sets you have used. Then you have these metrics, these measures that the Georgia Tech researcher, Tarek, he does a critical analysis of these measures and points out how some of the main measures can be gamed. It’s just like if you know how Google will rank, what their algorithm uses to rank you in the search results, then you can put a bunch of junk into your website that pushes you up in those standings so people can game whatever metric is out there to optimize it, but they still may not have good results from a cultural bias perspective. One thing I would emphasize is that you’re dealing partly with the inherent limits of machine learning. Machine learning is taking all of these records, a whole bunch of them, processing them into a neural network that identifies patterns in the data. The data can be changed to change the outputs, or you can retroactively look at the outputs and say, we’re going to change them. I know Google has a whole program called Fairness in Machine Learning, which is somewhat controversial, but I think everybody here would kind of like it. Their idea is, we know that existing data will be biased. If you ask a straightforward question of a search engine, show me a CEO, most of the pictures, if not all of them, will be men. They said, we’re going to tweak our algorithm so that we will show more women in response to this question. They will deliberately make an inaccurate, from a statistical sense, an inaccurate representation of the data set based on tweaking their algorithms. That’s one. They even call this their Fairness in AI program. So they’re very concerned with fairness and the definition of fairness, which means some form of equal… representation. Now, that sort of got them into trouble because somebody asked their image generator to show a picture of the American Constitution, and their fairness algorithm had black people and Asian people in the Constitutional Convention of 1783, which is a complete misrepresentation of reality, but from a diversity representation standpoint is kind of cool, right? Oh, maybe there was a Chinese American there writing the Constitution, and there wasn’t, but wouldn’t it be kind of interesting to show that as happening? So that was a very controversial output, and a lot of criticism of Google came because of that, and as you probably know in the US now, DEI is very controversial and on the defensive, if you know what DEI is. So there’s two sides to this question, and the deeper question, the philosophical almost question is like, if you have a statistical regularity, you don’t necessarily know how it got there, but you definitely have a statistical regularity, is it biased? Is it unfair to act upon that statistical regularity? So if it is in fact true that German origin Georgia Tech professors are more risky driving their car, if it’s a statistical fact, let’s say my risk is 10% more than an Asian woman, can the insurance company charge me higher premiums, right? And you can say, oh, you’re biased against me. No, they’re saying, no, you’re more risky. So that’s the big deal.

Nidhi Singh: That’s a really interesting perspective, actually, because I think this is something that we’ve been working on, and I think this also circles back to a lot of the conversations around cultural context, because I think for a large part when we were having conversations about AI, for us, a lot of it is about things like the public distribution system, and how if you don’t have records, then certain villages get lesser allotment of rations, because they’re not counting women in the public distribution system. But it’s actually really interesting to see how you have metrics for fairness. And if you didn’t fake that metric for fairness, like you’re saying, then you just won’t have enough grains going to that village, which is like some of the issues that we’ve been seeing. So clearly, there needs to be some work done in this. I’m also just going to let Tejaswita come in really quick on this, because you were talking about fairness as well. Really quick, Tejaswita, because I think there are some questions in the chat, and I want to take at least one online question before we close.

Tejaswita Kharel: So I would say, when I’m talking about cleaning up data, I think it comes firstly in the sense of number one, before you start using it, if you know that your data is likely to be biased, for example, if you’re trying to create, like Nidhi said, public distribution, and you know that you don’t have enough information on certain people, or you know that there’s going to be issues arising out of it, or there’s proxies involved, you’ve cleaned that in the sense that I know it’s difficult to clean data with like foresight as to what’s going to happen next, in the sense that it’s very closely linked to possible harms, right? If you know that your data is like, if you know that your AI system is likely to be biased against people from certain groups, then you have to ensure that you’re cleaning your data set in a manner that removes certain proxies and makes everyone seem equal before the system. So I sort of agree in what you’re saying, in the sense that it’s not really easy to clean the data beforehand, because you can’t really identify what you’re supposed to clean, you can’t just be like, okay, these are the issues, it usually comes out of identifying what’s gone wrong, and then fixing it later. But now that we have seen a lot of things happen in the sense of, we’ve recognized what these larger harms are going to be, we know, to a large extent, who these harms are going to be against, there are possible ways to identify what’s going to happen next, and therefore clean this data beforehand, and work on it accordingly. Yeah, I’ll just limit to that much, because I see there’s one, I think there’s two questions online. Should I read them out? Okay. The first question is, given that fairness itself is subjective, and varies not just in regional contexts, but also in the application or use of AI in question, what may be some of the ways to reconcile these differences in the development of the tech of these technologies? So yeah, we got the second one as well. And then I think we literally have one minute to answer that. The second question is what emerging technologies or methodologies show promise in creating more nuanced context sensitive AI fairness assessments? Okay, I’m going to give

Nidhi Singh: all of our speakers like 30 to 45 seconds to answer. Sorry, I know that’s not enough time, but I think we’re literally at the close of the session. Yixuan, would you like to go first?

Yik Chan Chin: Yeah, I think in the end, we know, if you look at, even we have a global framework, like a two UN resolution and the UNESCO ethics guidance. So in the end, there’s still every country set up to that. So we have, we do have a minimum agreement on that. So the other thing that I think we’re not talking about is not a language model, but that may not be the only AI, you know, that’s a different AI system. So in the future, we may have a reason-based AI, so logical-based AI. So I think there’s a transitional period, we will see.

Milton Mueller: I don’t know how to answer either of those questions. Really, not in 30 seconds. So I’ll just pass.

Tejaswita Kharel: I mean, I do think they’re very difficult questions to answer real quick. But I think the first question, in terms of what may be some of the ways to reconcile the differences, when you’re looking at the context-based AI applications, when you’re looking at the context-based AI application, I think the answer is in the question, which is that you contextualize the AI fairness based on your specific AI use. If it’s being used a certain way, you identify how it’s being used and then identify what factors are important and therefore implement fairness into it. Yeah, unfortunately, I think I don’t have enough time to answer the other one. Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. I think we all

Nidhi Singh: learned a lot. Please, for the people who are here, you can just come up to us and talk to us later. I think my main learning from today is that we should apply for a 90-minute panel next time, just so that there’s more time for everybody to ask questions. Thank you so much. That was an extremely interesting discussion. We will definitely be following up on a lot of the things that have come up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Need for contextualization in AI fairness

Tejaswita Kharel

Yik Chan Chin

Milton Mueller

Fairness in India means equality, non-discrimination, and inclusivity

Chinese narratives of fairness focus on harmony and role ethics

Contextualizing AI requires understanding local priorities and concerns

All speakers agreed that AI fairness needs to be contextualized to different cultural and regional settings, recognizing that fairness has different meanings and priorities in various contexts.

Challenges in addressing bias in AI systems

Milton Mueller

Tejaswita Kharel

Emad Karim

AI models are predominantly trained on English-language data, leading to biases

Need to identify potential harms before cleaning data

Women’s perspectives are often excluded from AI datasets

Speakers acknowledged the challenges in developing unbiased AI systems, particularly due to limitations in training data and the need to proactively identify potential harms.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that the development of AI fairness frameworks should be driven by regional needs and market demands, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yik Chan Chin

Milton Mueller

Developing interoperable frameworks with regional best practices

Market-driven approach to contextualization based on demand

Unexpected Consensus

Limitations of current bias mitigation approaches

Milton Mueller

Tejaswita Kharel

Existing bias measures can be gamed and may not truly address cultural issues

Need to identify potential harms before cleaning data

Despite coming from different perspectives, both speakers unexpectedly agreed on the limitations of current approaches to addressing bias in AI systems, emphasizing the need for more nuanced and proactive methods.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement centered around the need for contextualizing AI fairness, recognizing the challenges in developing unbiased AI systems, and the limitations of current bias mitigation approaches.

Consensus level

Moderate consensus was observed among the speakers on the importance of contextualization and the challenges in addressing AI bias. This implies that future discussions on AI fairness and governance should prioritize regional and cultural considerations, as well as more sophisticated approaches to bias mitigation.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to addressing bias in AI data

Tejaswita Kharel

Milton Mueller

Need to identify potential harms before cleaning data

Difficulty in “cleaning” inherently biased historical data

Kharel advocates for proactively identifying potential harms to guide data preparation, while Mueller argues that historical data inherently reflects past biases and cannot be easily ‘cleaned’.

Role of market forces in AI contextualization

Milton Mueller

Yik Chan Chin

Market-driven approach to contextualization based on demand

Developing interoperable frameworks with regional best practices

Mueller proposes a market-driven approach to AI contextualization, while Chin suggests developing interoperable frameworks that incorporate best practices from different regions.

Unexpected Differences

Definition and measurement of fairness in AI

Tejaswita Kharel

Yik Chan Chin

Milton Mueller

Fairness in India means equality, non-discrimination, and inclusivity

Chinese narratives of fairness focus on harmony and role ethics

Tension between statistical accuracy and fair representation

The speakers unexpectedly diverge significantly in their definitions and approaches to fairness in AI. This highlights the complexity of defining and implementing fairness across different cultural contexts, which is a crucial challenge in global AI governance.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around approaches to addressing bias in AI data, the role of market forces in AI contextualization, and the definition and measurement of fairness in AI across different cultural contexts.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate to high, particularly on fundamental issues such as the nature of fairness and how to address bias in AI systems. These differences highlight the significant challenges in developing globally applicable AI governance frameworks and underscore the need for continued dialogue and research to bridge cultural and methodological gaps in AI ethics and fairness.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for collaboration and integration of diverse perspectives in AI development, but differ in their specific approaches. Chin focuses on regional best practices, while Kharel emphasizes collaboration between ethics experts and AI developers.

Yik Chan Chin

Tejaswita Kharel

Developing interoperable frameworks with regional best practices

Need for collaboration between ethics experts and AI developers

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that the development of AI fairness frameworks should be driven by regional needs and market demands, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yik Chan Chin

Milton Mueller

Developing interoperable frameworks with regional best practices

Market-driven approach to contextualization based on demand

Key Takeaways

Resolutions and Action Items

Unresolved Issues

Suggested Compromises

Fairness is in terms of its own concept, it is a very subjective thing. There is no specific understanding of or like a definition of what fairness can even mean, which means that we must look at other factors that will guide our understanding of what fairness can mean, which in Indian context is three aspects. The first being equality, the second being non-discrimination and the third being inclusivity.

speaker

Tejaswita Kharel

reason

This comment introduces a nuanced framework for understanding fairness in the Indian context, breaking it down into three key aspects. It challenges the notion of a universal definition of fairness and emphasizes the need for contextual understanding.

impact

This set the tone for the discussion by highlighting the complexity and subjectivity of fairness, especially in diverse cultural contexts. It led to further exploration of how fairness is understood and implemented in different regions.

What we found from our two years research is that, and that’s not most of the country accept a core set of the principle, like a theorist, but what are the major difference is narratives.

speaker

Yik Chan Chin

reason

This insight from a two-year research project reveals that while there may be broad agreement on core principles of digital ethics, the major differences lie in the narratives surrounding these principles. It introduces the concept of ‘narratives’ as a key factor in understanding cultural differences in AI ethics.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion towards examining how different cultures and regions construct narratives around AI ethics, rather than focusing solely on the principles themselves. It deepened the conversation by adding a layer of cultural analysis.

I’m a, what you might call an AI skeptic. That is to say, I don’t really believe AI exists. I think the people have created this monster around it and mostly don’t know what the technology actually is or what it does.

speaker

Milton Mueller

reason

This provocative statement challenges the fundamental assumptions about AI that underpin much of the discussion on AI ethics and governance. It introduces a skeptical perspective that questions the very nature of what we’re discussing.

impact

This comment introduced a critical perspective that encouraged participants to question their assumptions about AI. It led to a more grounded discussion about the actual capabilities and limitations of current AI technologies.

The data is the data. The data is a record of something that happened in an information system somewhere at some time. What you are going to change is you’re going to look at other collections of data, bigger collections of data.

speaker

Milton Mueller

reason

This comment provides a pragmatic perspective on dealing with bias in AI, challenging the notion that we can simply ‘clean’ data of bias. It emphasizes the importance of expanding and diversifying data sets rather than trying to retroactively remove bias.

impact

This shifted the conversation from idealistic notions of removing bias to more practical approaches of managing and mitigating bias through data governance and collection practices. It added complexity to the discussion of fairness in AI.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by introducing nuanced perspectives on fairness, cultural narratives, and the nature of AI itself. They moved the conversation beyond simplistic notions of AI ethics to explore the complexities of implementing fairness in diverse cultural contexts. The discussion evolved from theoretical concepts to more practical considerations of data governance and bias mitigation. Overall, these comments deepened the analysis, introduced critical perspectives, and encouraged a more nuanced understanding of the challenges in contextualizing AI fairness across different cultures and regions.

How can we increase and fix datasets to better represent women, especially those from marginalized groups, in AI?

speaker

Emad Karim

explanation

This is important to address the exclusion of women’s perspectives and experiences in AI datasets and outputs, which can perpetuate biases and inequalities.

How can we make biased historical data fair for use in AI systems?

speaker

Xiao

explanation

This is crucial for addressing inherent biases in existing datasets that reflect historical and cultural prejudices, which can lead to unfair AI outputs.

What are some ways to reconcile differences in fairness across regional contexts and specific AI applications?

speaker

Online participant

explanation

This is important for developing AI systems that can be ethically applied across diverse cultural and regional settings while maintaining fairness.

What emerging technologies or methodologies show promise in creating more nuanced, context-sensitive AI fairness assessments?

speaker

Online participant

explanation

This is crucial for advancing the field of AI ethics and ensuring that fairness assessments can accurately capture and address the complexities of different contexts.

How can we bridge the gap between those who want ethics in AI and those who can actually implement it in AI systems?

speaker

Tejaswita Kharel

explanation

This is important for ensuring that ethical principles are effectively translated into practical implementations in AI systems.

How can different countries contribute their best practices to create an interoperable framework for AI fairness?

speaker

Yik Chan Chin

explanation

This is crucial for developing a global approach to AI fairness that respects regional diversity while establishing common standards.

Summary

This networking session focused on empowering African parliamentarians in shaping digital policies and frameworks. The discussion centered around three main pillars: code as legislation, collaboration and multi-stakeholder engagement, and Africa’s unique challenges and opportunities in the digital realm.

Participants highlighted the need for African countries to develop comprehensive digital frameworks, noting that many current laws are not adapted to the rapid evolution of digital technology. They emphasized the importance of parliamentarians engaging with scientists, technologists, and other stakeholders to create inclusive and practical policies. The lack of dedicated science and technology committees in many parliaments was identified as a gap to be addressed.

Key challenges discussed included limited internet access, especially in rural areas, expensive data costs, and the need for capacity building in digital skills. Participants stressed the importance of public participation in the legislative process and suggested using social media and other digital platforms to engage younger generations.

The discussion also touched on the borderless nature of the internet, highlighting the need for regional and global collaboration in addressing issues like cybercrime. Participants emphasized the importance of aligning educational curricula with digital needs and investing in digital infrastructure.

In conclusion, the session underscored the critical role of parliamentarians in driving digital transformation in Africa through informed policymaking, multi-stakeholder engagement, and addressing unique regional challenges while leveraging opportunities for growth and development.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The need for African parliaments to engage more with technologists, scientists, and other stakeholders when developing digital policies and legislation

– The importance of building digital infrastructure and improving internet access across Africa, especially in rural areas

– Challenges around cross-border internet governance and cybercrime given the borderless nature of the internet

– The need to update curricula and build digital skills/capacity across African populations

– The role of parliamentarians in shaping inclusive digital policies that empower all citizens

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how African parliamentarians can effectively shape digital policies and legislation to support inclusive digital development across the continent.

The tone of the discussion was collaborative and solution-oriented. Participants shared challenges faced in their countries but focused on identifying opportunities and strategies to address them. There was an emphasis on the need for greater cooperation between parliamentarians, technologists, and other stakeholders. The tone remained constructive throughout as participants built on each other’s ideas.

Speakers

– Millenium Anthony: Coordinator from Youth IGF in Tanzania, ITU Generation Connect Youth Envoy, founder of STEM Heart Network

– Catherine Mumma: Senator from Kenya, member of the Speaker’s Panel, vice chair of the Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Committee and the Justice, Legal and Human Rights Committee, representative of Kenyan Senate on the Inter-Parliamentary Union, member of APNIC (African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance)

– Lekhotsa Mafatle: Member of parliament from Lesotho, member of APNIC

– Daniel Molokele: Member of Parliament from Zimbabwe, member of APNIC

– Ke Gong: Former parliamentary member of China, serves the World Federation of Engineering Organizations

– Susan Dossi: Member of Parliament for Malawi

Additional speakers:

– Ayoban Ngao: Member of parliament in DRC

– Panelist 1: Gambia

Expanded Summary of Parliamentary Discussion on Digital Policies in Africa

This networking session brought together parliamentarians from across Africa to discuss the critical role of legislators in shaping digital policies and frameworks for the continent. The discussion centered around three main pillars: code as legislation, collaboration and multi-stakeholder engagement, and Africa’s unique challenges and opportunities in the digital realm.

1. Code as Legislation: Digital Frameworks and Policies in Africa

A key focus was the urgent need for updated and comprehensive digital frameworks across African nations. Senator Catherine Mumma from Kenya highlighted, “While Africa has laws guiding all sectors, digital technology is evolving much faster than policy.” She emphasized the need to review existing sector laws in light of digital advancements, citing telemedicine as an example: “We need to review our public health laws to accommodate telemedicine.”

Lekhotsa Mafatle, a Member of Parliament from Lesotho, cautioned against adopting pre-modelled laws from Western countries, stressing the importance of developing Africa-specific policies. Daniel Molokele, a Member of Parliament from Zimbabwe, identified the lack of comprehensive data on internet penetration as a significant challenge, stating, “This data gap hinders targeted government interventions and effective policy-making.”

2. Collaboration and Multi-stakeholder Engagement in Policymaking

The importance of engaging diverse stakeholders in the policy-making process was a recurring theme. Catherine Mumma shared an insight from the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group on Science and Technology: “Parliaments rarely engage with scientists.” This observation highlighted a critical gap in the policy-making process.

Daniel Molokele proposed innovative approaches to public engagement, suggesting that parliaments invest in communications teams utilizing social media platforms and community radio stations. Susan Dossi emphasized the need for parliamentarians to be involved in the law-making process from the beginning.

Ayoban Ngao, a Member of Parliament from the Democratic Republic of Congo, suggested making parliamentary work calendars and processes more accessible to the public to increase transparency.

3. Africa’s Unique Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Realm

The discussion touched on several challenges and opportunities specific to the African context. A panelist from Gambia mentioned the implementation of the African Union’s Digital Strategy 2020-2030, which provides a roadmap for the continent’s digital transformation. They also highlighted the need for mutual legal assistance laws and collaboration in cybersecurity.

Catherine Mumma pointed out the borderless nature of the internet as a significant challenge for policy-makers, stating, “While legislation is typically localized to a country, internet governance requires thinking beyond national borders.” She also raised concerns about potential exploitation in digital labor markets, particularly for African workers engaged in global digital platforms.

The need for investment in digital infrastructure and capacity building was emphasized. Catherine Mumma stressed the importance of investing in digital public infrastructure and providing basic digital skills training for all community members. Ke Gong, a former parliamentary member from China, mentioned the World Federation of Engineering Organizations’ initiative for engineering capacity building in Africa.

A panelist from Gambia highlighted the need to update education curricula to align with digital needs, underscoring the importance of preparing the workforce for the digital economy.

Catherine Mumma also emphasized the need for judiciary training on internet-related crimes to ensure effective enforcement of digital policies.

Conclusion

The discussion underscored the critical role of parliamentarians in driving digital transformation in Africa through informed policymaking, multi-stakeholder engagement, and addressing unique regional challenges.

Key takeaways included the need for updated and Africa-specific digital policies, the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in policy-making, the critical need for investment in digital infrastructure and capacity building, and the necessity of regional and global collaboration in internet governance.

Moving forward, participants suggested developing a ‘model law’ through the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance (APNIC) to establish minimum standards for digital governance legislation. Catherine Mumma highlighted APNIC, ICANN, and IPU as platforms for parliamentarian engagement in digital governance. The implementation of the African Digital Strategy 2020-2030 was also emphasized as a guide for digital transformation efforts across the continent.

Millenium Anthony: Good morning. I hope everyone, I’m audible enough, and I hope the online participants can hear me. Welcome to the networking session titled Codes and Constitution, Empowering African Parliamentarians. My name is Millennium Anthony. I am the coordinator from Youth IGF in Tanzania, but I’m also an ITU Generation Connect Youth Envoy, but also a founder of STEM Heart Network. And today I’m going to be a facilitator for this roundtable discussion today. So this session is designed to foster a meaningful dialogue between African parliamentarians, multi-stakeholder participants, and policy experts as we explore the intersection between code and constitution principles. Our goal is to share insights, highlight challenges, and identify opportunities to create a robust digital framework for Africa. So first of all, just to give a highlight of the session overview, how we are going to conduct it. So first we’ll have introduction from our speakers here, and then we’ll have the two speakers here will give just a brief presentation, I mean, a brief contribution on the topic that we’re going to be discussing. And then after that, I’ll open the floor to the participants, and then we can have different areas that we are going to be discussing. And then in the end, we’re going to close by having a summary of key takeaways and next steps. So now I open the floor to my panelists here. If you are going to introduce yourself in the first round, and then I’ll open the floor for you to contribute. Thank you very much.

Catherine Mumma: Thank you very much. My name is Catherine Mumma. I’m a senator from Kenya, nominated senator. And at the Senate, I am a member of the Speaker’s Panel. I am also a vice chair of the Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Committee and the Justice, Legal and Human Rights Committee. But I also represent the Kenyan Senate on the Inter-Parliamentary Union. And I’m a member of the Working Group on Science and Technology in the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group. I am also a member of APNIC. APNIC is the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance, which is, I think I can speak about that a little later. But that is what I am, who I am. Thank you very much.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much, Honorable.

Lekhotsa Mafatle: Hi, my name is Honorable Khoza Mafete, a member of parliament from Lesotho, a member of APNIC as well, African Parliamentary Internet Governance Network. In my parliament, I sit on a portfolio of prime minister’s ministries, which hosts ministry of ICT, labor, public service and others. Thank you.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much. So I would now like to welcome the floor to you, Honorable Catherine, if you’re going to tell us how is the current state of digital frameworks in Africa? What is the role that parliamentarians do in supporting the digital development and growth in Africa?

Catherine Mumma: Thank you very much. Now, that’s a good question asking about how are the digital frameworks in Africa. Now, Africa is currently has laws that are guiding all sectors. But as you are aware, digital technology is a technology that is cross-cutting. It is going to be relevant in every sector. And it has evolved much faster than policy has evolved. And as it has evolved, we have national executives that are trying to do something about it. But parliaments, I think world over, not just in Africa, parliaments are lagging behind. In the sense that as policies are made, as those who work in digital technology engage, they engage largely with the executive governments. And then the parliaments are now playing catch-up. And the legislative process usually takes a lot of time. It means somebody, the government will bring in a law, and the legislative process will take time, sometimes a year, even more. Or a private member bill will come, will address a particular issue. So you will find that currently, because of the levels of competences of parliaments, which is low, and I believe this is world over, the competences of parliaments on digital technology concerns are low. And because of that, the legal frameworks on digital technology matters are limited in many countries. So if you look at Africa… there is a variation. You’ll find that Tanzania will have different laws, Kenya will have different laws, Lesotho will have different laws, South Africa will have different laws. For instance, we have countries that have data protection laws, we have others that don’t have any. We have countries that have access to information laws, others don’t have any. So that is why when we started realizing the magnitude and the importance of actually engaging as parliaments on issues of policy, parliamentary policy, on digital technology, we formed the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance, precisely to share our views across board and to agree on the best way that we can actually share experiences, learn from each other. So APNIC is made of members from across Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, Western Africa, North Africa, of members who are passionate about trying to do something about policy on Internet Governance. We have come together and we are now looking to do capacities for our members. We are now looking to developing what we are calling a model law, quote unquote. And a model law is just about getting in place standard minimum, minimums that we think would make sense for purposes of legislation around digital governance. But bearing in mind, legislation is across board. So we want to learn, we want to engage in forums like the IGF, ICANN and any other so that as parliamentarians, we can have the capacities to be able to. from an informed point of view, contribute in our debates and be part of the solution in accelerating any law that would facilitate the proper facilitation of growth in Internet digital technology, as well as provide the safeties, the securities that are required within the sector.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much, Honorable, especially for highlighting institutions, I mean, organizations such as the APNIC, where we see that’s a platform for parliamentarians to engage themselves in all these digital works. And coming to you, Honorable, what are the unique challenges that we currently have when it comes to shaping, in Africa especially, digital policies across the continent? Are there any challenges that we currently have in Africa?

Lekhotsa Mafatle: Thank you. I think there’s a lot of challenges, she’s highlighted quite a few. But in my view is that for most of the laws that were expected to be put in place, most of them, they come in pre-modeled from Western countries, from wherever, as opposed to what Africa has been supposed to be doing. So like now we’re talking about capacity buildings, we’re talking about inclusivity, we’re talking about redoing whatever the system that we’re doing, especially now that we’re into AI or going into AI and digital policies. So my take is, what we need to do right now is, we just need to, as much as we can do a little freeze, but we now need to start. Getting in all stakeholders in point and Africa should be put on the forefront of whatever Plannings that are there as opposed to getting what is done. And then yeah, I think basically that’s that’s my take on On the challenge that we have we get things that are already done And now we cannot adopt to them because they are not modeled for what Africa is is doing. Okay

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much. Honorable Okay. Now since this is a networking session, I wanted it to be most engaging and interactive and now I’ll open this floor to the participants both online and on site here and we’re gonna have a discussion and I would like to take contributions from each one of you and Our discussion is going to be on three main pillars. So the first pillar we’re going to be discussing is on code as Registration and then the second that we will take is collaboration and multi-stakeholder engagement as Honorable has said the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement and then the last pillar that we’re going to be discussing is on The Africa unique challenges and opportunities. So now I’m going to start with the first pillar Which is called as registration and my question to you My participants is how can African parliamentarians effectively shape technology driven legislation to ensure inclusivity and innovation So if any of you is open and ready to contribute on this question, I Can pass the mic to you Yeah You have the same question Yes, so if I don’t have now I guess that maybe with my part here with the panelists and then we can come back to you.

Catherine Mumma: Okay. Thank you. I think that the answer to that question in my view lies in the question. She made reference to multi-sectoral or multi-stakeholder engagement. And my view is that this is the one area where as a legislator, I cannot purport to know what is right and just prepare a bill and take it to parliament. This is the one area where we need greater consultation among all affected stakeholders to define for ourselves what inclusion means. From the statistics that we were given in the opening plenary and from this forum, I think you will have realized that Africa has the least connectivity and also the most expensive. So access is quite limited for Africa. So as parliaments, we need to start asking ourselves, one, what should the role of government be in facilitating greater access? And what can we do as parliaments in that role? Now, parliaments have the role of representation, of legislation, of oversight, and we also have authority over budgetary allocation. So I think if we define for ourselves what is digital public infrastructure and what role government can play in that, the parliaments can help to invest, to deploy more resources towards facilitating digital public infrastructure across. the countries in order to have greater coverage and we must deliberately start picking the data that will tell us who is unconnected, who is under connected, whether it is women, whether it is senior citizens, whether it is those in the rural areas, whether it is the urban poor and define solutions but put budgetary allocations to ensure that we we get that. My view is that if we facilitate as government the digital public infrastructure then we leave the rest to the private sector and other stakeholders to actually move with it but similarly for us to do that policy we need to understand from the stakeholders on the key needs. So as we make this legislation we also need to find a way of not just moving as Parliament alone, as the executive alone, we need to find a ways in which we can get the experts to contribute and guide us on what looks like good law, what is good regulation, what is bad regulation so that we are able to to facilitate. That’s my view on that.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you so much Hanarabo. I mean I think for me I really like the point when you mentioned about data I think for me maybe taking for example in my country I think that’s really a serious issues like there are some areas that we still do not know like how to what extent has the internet penetrated in specific areas so even like when the government is trying to like to help those areas they do not know like what specific area, how much resources do we need to invest in a specific area for us to I mean help in providing internet access and wait we have any contributions now here

Daniel Molokele: Yes, my name is Daniel Molokele, Member of Parliament from Zimbabwe and a member of APNIC. I just want to contribute one or two points. In terms of parliamentarians facilitating inclusivity, I think one of the easiest ways is to make sure that the legal and policy framework is updated to the level that it accommodates all those who are excluded, making it obligatory for the state to set up the necessary infrastructure to increase access, especially to the internet. I have in mind our rural populations that are normally excluded. I think internet access is a big issue for them. Also that there can be mobile internet facilities in some rural areas so that people can access the internet. Also that MPs can fight during the budget period to make sure that the budget allocation towards ICT is increased in such a way as to advance some of the issues around infrastructural support for those who are traditionally excluded from the internet, access to the internet. The other issue which is big in my country, Zimbabwe, is the pricing of data. Data has traditionally been expensive, although I need to concede that Zimbabwe… They gave a license to Starlink and that has started to create a little bit of competition to the traditional internet service providers. But for the average citizen in Zimbabwe, especially those in local communities, and also in rural areas, data remains very expensive. And we have to push for policies that force the pricing of data to come down so that more average people, citizens, can have access to the internet. The other thing that we need to do is to increase, or call for policies that force especially the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to create awareness and education around internet. You will find that some people don’t even know how to use the internet, so around access to the internet, we need awareness. Even also through the Ministry of Communications or the Ministry of Broadcasting Services. Thank you so much.

Millenium Anthony: Wow, thank you so much, Honorable. Do we have any contribution here? Another contribution that someone would love to contribute before we move to our second pillar? Okay, so let me check with online. Do we have any online participants that want to contribute? Okay, I don’t have any hand raised, so I guess we can move to the second pillar. So our second pillar is on collaboration and multi-stakeholder engagement. So we know collaboration is the key to impactful digital policies. So now my question is, how can parliamentarians engage with technologists? civil societies, and private sectors to ensure policies are both practical and inclusive. So now maybe I can start from the audience. I can repeat the questions. How can parliamentarians engage with technologists, civil societies, and private sector stakeholders to ensure policies are both practical and inclusive? Yes, Harubo.

Lekhotsa Mafatle: Thank you. I think in that, my simple thought is hostility towards regulators from the private sector and hostility towards consumers from regulators, that’s where we have to start of where we have to find each other, where we say as parliamentarians and as developers, as people who are therefore pre-consumers, that we find a common ground where we say no amount of legislative law, it is intended to oppress the other, but it is rather to benefit everybody across the board. So as lawmakers in parliament, I think for most of the time we’re always open to receiving whatever input we’re getting from developers who are quite actually most resourceful as opposed to what we’re doing. So I think it is only a give or take situation where those on the one end provide to us and us on this end we receive and we give back to them what is most relevant to the public. I think that’s where we need to find each other. We just need to find inclusivity in everything that we do.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much, Harubo.

Catherine Mumma: So, when it comes to multi-stakeholder engagement, one of the things we found out at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group on Science and Technology is that our parliaments hardly engage with scientists. So, you’ll find that parliaments have various committees, but we were yet to find a parliament that has a committee on science and technology. So, you will find the scientists in our country are doing their thing, innovating, moving ahead, and parliament is making policies that sometimes impact them, but we hardly have forums where you have parliamentarians and scientists meeting and talking, and what we are saying in IPU, and IPU is now developing a charter on the ethics of science and technology, what we are saying it is important now for parliaments to deliberately find the scientists and technocrats within their countries to engage with them so that as we do policies, we are able to factor aspects that are facilitating the growth of science and technology. But we are also able to engage on the ethical issues of human rights, of safety, so that the science, as the innovation happens, the innovation does not harm human life. So, one of the things we need to do, or one of the most important multistakeholders that we need to engage with as parliaments are the scientists and the technocrats. We also need to engage… with other interest groups and the example of Kenya and I believe it’s the example of many places in South Africa the principle of public participation is a key principle within Parliament where Parliament are supposed, even as they pass their laws, to conduct public participation so that members of the public whom they represent are able to the laws that they are passing. So if meaningful public participation is done by the Parliamentary teams as they pass legislation and policy, it means that we are then able to have that collaboration But there is also a trait that sometimes when we call for public participation, which we normally put in the newspaper You will find only maybe five people have sent in a memorandum So we want You cannot blame us for not taking on what the youth have done when we have advertised for a view on a draft bill on ICT and the youth have not sent in any any memorandum. The women have not sent in any memorandum. A particular interest group has not sent in any Memorandum. So that engagement means not just the Parliament, but even other stakeholders must be ready to do the homework and to be able to then when we want to pass a law, to bring in a petition and say in this law we cannot see a clause that is including women. In this law, we think what you have provided here is not good It’s going to to be obstructive to the growth of innovation. We think this regulation is unnecessary. So we need everybody to engage properly on both ends in order for this to work

Millenium Anthony: Wow, thank you so much. I think so from my take from your contribution is first engagement like engage the stakeholders parliamentarians needs to engage with the techno technocrats and the scientists you have another point okay but you wanted to add another point no okay here you go

Daniel Molokele: i think one of the ways that parliament um what happened one of the ways in which um parliament can improve or increase access to engaging other stakeholders especially local communities and thematic groups let’s say for disability for women for youth for rural communities and so on is to also accept that the traditional methods of meeting are no longer enough so we normally say people must submit position papers must submit petitions they must attend public meetings but that is not enough a lot of people now have to be engaged using the new media technologies so parliaments must invest in public relations departments or communications teams that then use uh facilities such as facebook such as twitter such as instagram such as tiktok because tiktok is where the young people are and they have to have a staff member who is youthful enough who engages young people for their views through live sessions on instagram or facebook or tiktok and that way they are able to engage those communities. WhatsApp groups are very popular. Telegram is popular. So we must go to where the people are, and then we’ll be able to access them easily. Because if we just use the traditional methods, it won’t work. Also now we’ve got community radio stations. We can use them also to have live sessions where people can even phone in. It increases our ability to engage the communities. Thank you so much.

Millenium Anthony: All right. Thank you. I hope you can hear me. I can’t hear myself, but I hope you can hear me. Yes. Yeah. So I think my take to you is like, look at our current status, our current needs, how much resources we have, and then utilize them to reach our people. Like the social media, if we want, let’s say, to engage with the young people, we have to look at where young people are now, which is like the social media, and then engage them. Do we have any other contribution? Yes. It’s not working. It’s not working. It’s OK? Yeah. I have no signal. Just switch it on. Switch it. Switch it on. It’s OK? I can start? OK. Switch it on. Yeah. It’s OK. It’s fine. Yeah.

Panelist: My name is Ayoban Ngao. I’m Ayoban Ngao, member of parliament in DRC. And… It’s OK, no? You can get it. OK. So, for me, as I know, the work of, in our parliament, the major work we work in commission. The technical work is done in commission before we go on the vote process. So, the commission work is normally open to the public. But the problem we have is… the public is not informed when and what we are commissioned. Even us, ourselves, as members of parliament, I’m a member of the Telecom Commission, but I’m not informed when the Agricultural Commission is doing their work. Even if I’m allowed to participate, but I don’t get the information. So first of all, we have to make it transparent. To put a public calendar, to show the public what we are doing, when we are doing, this commission is sitting on which law. So anyone who is interested will get the information and come. When we are doing the work in the commission, we have our experts who help us to understand the law. But those experts, they are becoming like staff of the parliament. They don’t give us a really genuine idea. They don’t even challenge us, as they are supposed. But if the information of our work, of our calendar is public, then those people who are really interested on those topics can come and join, and participate and contribute in those discussions. Sometimes it happens, some of the law, we find people who get the information, they come, and they really challenge us. And some of the MPs change their mind based on the input they receive from those ones. So I think to improve the participation, the collaboration, it’s better to make our working calendar public, and inform that everyone is allowed to come and contribute.

Millenium Anthony: Wow. Thank you so much. So transparency. Yes, Honourable Catherine?

Catherine Mumma: Now, a very important point that I did not raise. Now, when it comes to Internet, Internet does not have borders. So even as we plan to do legislation, legislation is localized to a country, we must start thinking out of the box to see what we need to do, not just in your own country, but what we need to do regionally and also globally to factor the legislative requirements that can deal with the fact that open internet means there are no borders. Therefore, how do we deal with the issue of passing a law over a situation that is not just local? And so we will need to allow innovation to happen, but when it comes to passing laws that must protect human rights, must ensure safety, must ensure security, we need to start thinking out of the box. For instance, when you have the abuse or child abuse facilitated through internet, just to use the example of that as one of the harms that are coming with engagement on the internet, we would need to start thinking out of the box. How do you deal with the fact that the pedophile is in America, the server is in Asia, and the child who is being molested is in Tanzania? How does the criminal law protection for such a situation look like? So we will need, beyond just doing a law for Kenya, a law for Zimbabwe, we will need, that way we are saying in APNIC, what are these minimums that we can put in every country to provide protections while ensuring that what we have around innovation in our own specific countries may be different, will be different, but we must factor the fact that internet does not have borders. And that is a conversation that IGF, the United Nations, the regional bodies, AU, and the other sub-regional bodies, and globally, must start thinking in order to guide. And as I said, for instance, in IPU, we are developing a charter on ethics, the ethics of science and technology. So that we then are able to agree on minimums that can ensure such protections.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you very much, for adding that point. And because of time, allow me to please move to the third pillar, which is on Africa-unique challenges and opportunities. So given the Africa-unique context, what strategies can address geopolitical challenges and infrastructure gaps while ensuring digital policies empower all citizens? To the audience and to my online participants, anyone who wants to give a contribution on that, feel free. This is the networking session. Yeah, where’s the mic? Oh, turn it on. Okay, could you hear me? Yes. Yes. My name is Kei Gong. I was a parliamentary…

Ke Gong: My name is Kei Gong. You hear me? Yeah. Okay. I was a parliamentary member of China and now I serve to the World Federation of Engineering Organizations. And we think engineering capacity is a key factor for the development, especially in Africa, to grace the big opportunity of digital technology to develop Africa continent. So the World Federation of Engineering Organizations is working on an initiative, ten years long initiative called for… called of Engineering Capacity Building for Africa, supported by UNIDO, UNESCO, and so on and so forth. We’re going to launch this program next year in Africa. Perhaps we’re starting from Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, and we’re going to build a number of engineering capacity building centers in African countries. So we really need your support. Because in China, our experience is that to develop a country we need hard and soft side. For the hard part, we need infrastructure. We need invest to infrastructure, especially the digital public infrastructure. It’s so important. The capacity building in education should also be emphasized to give more investment into this domain and to build the capacity to make full use of those infrastructure to make… economic growth. So we, I just talk about this and we need your support. Thank you.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you. Thank you for sharing the opportunity for the collaboration of initiatives. So I believe we have Panaraba here. Yes, I guess Panaraba, Hajji.

Panelist 1: Thank you very much and good morning to everyone, Honorable Members and everyone here. Now, you know, with Africa, there are very unique challenges when we talk about the digital transformation. But the good thing about it, the African Union actually has created a pathway, which is a master plan called the African Digital Strategy 2020-2030. That is in very clear terms, tells countries or member states, what do we need to do? And the key thing in that area is the digital infrastructure. That must be in the forefront. Because any building that doesn’t have a good foundation, you are bound to fail. And this critical infrastructure is fundamental, it’s at the bottom. Which means countries actually have to ensure that those critical infrastructure is in place. Then every other thing else is the building block can come on top of that. And the other one aspect is about education, like the capacity building my colleague has just spoken about. We must look at our the way we teach in our curriculum. I keep saying this all the time, but even if you have the infrastructure, but the curriculum in our senior secondary school, in our universities do not match really where we want to go. We will not get there very quickly. So the infrastructure we build, together with the curriculums we teach in our schools must match. So that those students that are graduating, the professor, etc. can actually help to align everything so that we can get to where we need to get to. So the capacity building, which is the education, is actually crucial. The other one also is about collaboration. We live in a world where collaboration is necessary. My colleague previously talked about security. But security is everybody’s business. You cannot secure Kenya and you leave Tanzania. You cannot secure Tanzania and you leave Gambia. You cannot secure Gambia and you leave Senegal. It doesn’t work. Now, the trend now in Africa is about creating laws called mutual legal assistance. That’s what we have done in Gambia, where we collaborate with our neighbor in case something happens in the Gambia. But the person who committed the crimes in Senegal, because of that law called mutual legal assistance, Gambia and Senegal can work together to ensure that person is apprehended. Now, with the way things are going now, you will see that somebody is going to be in one country, use another system in a different country to commit a crime in a third country. Now, how do we ensure that we work together? And this is exactly where we members of parliament, we have to take interest in the mutual legal assistance laws that we actually have, or if you don’t have, you need to think about it. We already passed ours like two years ago in the Gambia. But it’s very essential, the region that you work in, the region that you are in, to ensure that you actually have that. And cross-regional and also then intercontinental. We have the Interpol, yes, but we also have the AFRIPOL. The AFRIPOL is really very active in the cyber fighting cyber crimes, capacitizing the police forces across the continent and at the same time helping also in the investigation. But they cannot prosecute, they investigate and give to member country and we move on. Thank you very much.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you, Honorable. So capacity building and collaboration. Any other contribution? Let me see if I have any contribution from online. I don’t. So any other contribution from on-site? No contribution? Okay, so since there’s no contribution on that. Now, I would like us to have a closing takeaway session, right? Yeah, so we had a long discussion, we have discussed about a lot of things and we had like the three pillars that we had different questions that we discussed on. So now, I am opening again the floor to the audience. So what are the key takeaway that you have taken from today’s discussion? The key takeaway, something that you want to take back at your home country, something that you have learned, something that you want to take to your organization. What is something that you have learned from the discussion? Yes, can I get assistance to pass the mic?

Panelist: On my floor, what I learned is that as a parliament, we have to know that when you are dealing with internet governance, we are not putting law just for our own pleasure. We are putting law that will impact other people’s life. So we have to make sure that we are getting the input and we have to be the one to make the first step toward them, going and look for them, not just working in our room and waiting for them to come to us. We have to make that approach to look for them, to make sure that we have all input from them and that will be able to put in place a better governance that will be better for all of us because even if we are young, we are women, we are also part of that world. So it’s better for us to be the one to make the first step and to go toward those other stakeholders and to make sure we get their input before working on the law.

Millenium Anthony: Thank you. That was a very good takeaway. Thank you very much. Maybe just to add on what he has said.

Susan Dossi: My name is Susan Dossey, Member of Parliament for Malawi. Just to mention that we really need to collaborate more because if we do it alone we will not get there. As Africa we really need to have one voice. As parliamentarians we have to work with other stakeholders to make sure that we come up with laws which will really help us as Africa. Maybe just to mention that most of the time parliamentarians are left aside. When it comes to coming up with laws, we are at the receiving end. When we receive that law, when we go and maybe do some consultations, it’s at the end of everything. I remember one time we had a conversation with the Ministry of Justice in Malawi where we were told we have done this already and what we just want to hear from you as members of parliament is what’s your take. But it was at the end. They have already done benchmarking, they have already done everything and they are coming to us at the end. They want our input, which we even said, even whatever we can say at this point won’t be taken seriously. So I think we have to be concerted, we have to work together from the start up to the end so that whatever we input in these laws that we even pass in parliament we are able to know that this is what we are passing. Because it’s not good to come to parliament and then we say we are passing this law. At the end of the day, we are the ones who do oversight. At the end of the day, compliance is not there. People are not complying, they’re not doing anything. They are not following the laws that we have made because even us as members of parliament, we were sidelined maybe in the development of those laws. So we really need to work together, collaborate more with other stakeholders and have one voice as a team. Thank you.

Millenium Anthony: Okay, so engagement and consultations from the beginning, engaging the parliamentarians. So to my panelists now, any closing, something that you want to say before we close?

Catherine Mumma: Thank you very much. A number of things I would want to say. One, all sectors have laws that are currently guiding the sectors, but with the digital technology, my view is that all those sector laws would have to be reviewed. For instance, now telemedicine. The current public health law in Kenya provides for all matters medicine, but it has not contemplated how liability would look like where a consultant in Tokyo is providing services to the clients. So we will need to relook at that. It is the same thing with the criminal. We’ve always had cross-border collaboration around criminal matters, but crimes committed through the internet, we have not thought through that properly. So usually you’ve had bilateral agreements where you agree with country X on dealing with each other, but our laws have not yet provided that. So one of the things that was happening in Kenya, even the judiciary has to be trained on how to innovate and adjust and adapt to deal with crimes that are committed over the internet. So what I’m saying is that with the digital technology, we will need adjustments and policies cross board. I like the point that has been made by the World Engineering Organization, that we also need capacities to be enhanced in Africa, not just within the school curriculum, but even with other communities, even basic digital skills. We will need to provide that basic education, for instance, to the traditional mother in the village who is selling vegetables, but is using the man next door’s mobile to receive the money and is being paying a commission on something very small. So if we start doing communities around of internet to actually give that basic education to that mother, to the senior citizens, one, we will grow the economies, we will also protect them from local little frauds that actually undermine them. And then if you look at the sector, like the employment sector, we also need to start looking at the exploitation. We have young people employed in Africa being paid $2 an hour, and they are doing exactly the same job of somebody in America being paid $20 or $30 for the same thing. So we will need to start bringing in ethics so that we don’t have exploitation of the fact that the African or other countries labor regimes are not good. So my view is that there is plenty for us to do, and there is plenty for us to learn, and we hope that as you bring in parliamentarians and give them capacities. You will help to fast-track getting the correct Frameworks that we need in order to to enhance digital technology in Africa. Thank you very much

Millenium Anthony: You anything you want to say you’re good Okay, so I’d like to thank each one of you including my online participants for engaging actively in this session I’m looking forward to seeing you Around in other sessions and engage with you. Have a great day You You You You

Agreement Points

Need for updated legal frameworks

Catherine Mumma

Lekhotsa Mafatle

Panelist 1

Need for updated legal frameworks across sectors to address digital technology

Importance of developing Africa-specific policies rather than adopting Western models

Addressing cross-border cybercrime through mutual legal assistance laws

Speakers agree on the necessity of updating and adapting legal frameworks to address the challenges posed by digital technology, with an emphasis on developing Africa-specific policies and addressing cross-border issues.

Importance of multi-stakeholder engagement

Catherine Mumma

Daniel Molokele

Panelist

Importance of engaging scientists and technocrats in parliamentary processes

Utilizing social media and new technologies to engage youth and communities

Need for transparency in parliamentary work to enable public participation

Speakers emphasize the importance of engaging various stakeholders, including scientists, technocrats, youth, and the general public, in the policymaking process through diverse means of communication and increased transparency.

Investment in digital infrastructure and capacity building

Catherine Mumma

Ke Gong

Panelist 1

Need for investment in digital public infrastructure

Initiative for engineering capacity building in Africa

Implementing the African Digital Strategy 2020-2030

Speakers agree on the critical need for investment in digital infrastructure and capacity building initiatives to support Africa’s digital transformation.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of improving digital access and skills for all members of society, including rural and underserved populations.

Catherine Mumma

Daniel Molokele

Need for basic digital skills training for all community members

Need for policies to reduce data costs and increase internet access

Unexpected Consensus

Addressing exploitation in digital labor markets

Catherine Mumma

Addressing exploitation in digital labor markets

While not explicitly echoed by other speakers, Catherine Mumma’s point about addressing exploitation in digital labor markets represents an unexpected focus on labor rights within the broader discussion of digital policies. This highlights a potential area for future consensus-building among African parliamentarians.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement among speakers include the need for updated legal frameworks, the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in policymaking, and the necessity of investing in digital infrastructure and capacity building.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the broad challenges and opportunities facing African countries in the digital age. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for collaborative efforts in developing and implementing digital policies across the continent. However, there are still areas where more specific agreement and coordination may be needed, particularly in addressing unique African challenges and opportunities.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to developing digital policies

Catherine Mumma

Lekhotsa Mafatle

Need for updated legal frameworks across sectors to address digital technology

Importance of developing Africa-specific policies rather than adopting Western models

While Mumma emphasizes updating existing frameworks, Mafatle argues for developing entirely new Africa-specific policies rather than adapting Western models.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to developing digital policies and the specific focus areas for improving digital access and infrastructure.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the overall goals but have slightly different approaches or focus areas. This suggests a general consensus on the importance of digital development in Africa, with minor differences in implementation strategies.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need to improve digital infrastructure and access, but Mumma focuses on government investment in public infrastructure, while Molokele emphasizes policies to reduce data costs.

Catherine Mumma

Daniel Molokele

Need for investment in digital public infrastructure

Need for policies to reduce data costs and increase internet access

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of improving digital access and skills for all members of society, including rural and underserved populations.

Catherine Mumma

Daniel Molokele

Need for basic digital skills training for all community members

Need for policies to reduce data costs and increase internet access

Key Takeaways

There is a need for updated and Africa-specific digital policies and legal frameworks across sectors

Multi-stakeholder engagement, especially with scientists and technocrats, is crucial in shaping effective digital policies

Investment in digital infrastructure and capacity building, including updating education curricula, is essential for Africa’s digital development

Regional and global collaboration is necessary to address cross-border challenges in internet governance

Transparency and public participation in the legislative process need to be improved

Resolutions and Action Items

Develop a ‘model law’ through the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance (APNIC) to establish minimum standards for digital governance legislation

Increase parliamentary engagement with scientists and technocrats on digital policy issues

Implement the African Digital Strategy 2020-2030 to guide digital transformation efforts

Review and update existing sector laws to account for digital technology impacts

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively balance innovation with human rights and safety concerns in digital policies

Addressing the lack of comprehensive data on internet penetration in many African countries

Finding ways to reduce high data costs and increase internet access across Africa

Addressing potential exploitation in digital labor markets, particularly for African workers

Suggested Compromises

Balancing government involvement in digital infrastructure development with private sector innovation

Finding a middle ground between adopting international best practices and developing Africa-specific digital policies

Africa is currently has laws that are guiding all sectors. But as you are aware, digital technology is a technology that is cross-cutting. It is going to be relevant in every sector. And it has evolved much faster than policy has evolved.

speaker

Catherine Mumma

reason

This comment highlights the fundamental challenge of regulating rapidly evolving digital technologies within existing legal frameworks.

impact

It set the tone for much of the subsequent discussion about the need for updated and harmonized policies across sectors and countries.

For most of the laws that were expected to be put in place, most of them, they come in pre-modeled from Western countries, from wherever, as opposed to what Africa has been supposed to be doing.

speaker

Lekhotsa Mafatle

reason

This insight challenges the practice of adopting foreign models without adaptation, emphasizing the need for Africa-specific solutions.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards discussing more localized and contextually appropriate approaches to digital policy in Africa.

One of the things we found out at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group on Science and Technology is that our parliaments hardly engage with scientists.

speaker

Catherine Mumma

reason

This observation reveals a critical gap in policy-making processes, highlighting the disconnect between lawmakers and technical experts.

impact

It led to a discussion about the need for more structured engagement between parliamentarians and scientists/technologists in the policy-making process.

Parliaments must invest in public relations departments or communications teams that then use facilities such as facebook such as twitter such as instagram such as tiktok because tiktok is where the young people are

speaker

Daniel Molokele

reason

This comment introduces an innovative approach to public engagement, recognizing the changing landscape of communication.

impact

It broadened the discussion on stakeholder engagement to include modern, digital-first approaches to reaching constituents, especially youth.

Internet does not have borders. So even as we plan to do legislation, legislation is localized to a country, we must start thinking out of the box to see what we need to do, not just in your own country, but what we need to do regionally and also globally

speaker

Catherine Mumma

reason

This insight highlights the transnational nature of internet governance and the limitations of purely national approaches.

impact

It elevated the discussion to consider international collaboration and harmonization of digital policies across borders.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by highlighting several critical challenges and opportunities in digital policy-making for Africa. They emphasized the need for Africa-specific solutions, better engagement between policymakers and technical experts, innovative approaches to public participation, and international collaboration. The discussion evolved from identifying local challenges to considering broader, more systemic approaches to digital governance that could be effective across the continent and beyond.

How to improve data collection on internet penetration in specific areas?

speaker

Millenium Anthony

explanation

Lack of specific data on internet penetration hinders targeted government interventions and resource allocation.

How can parliaments effectively engage with scientists and technocrats?

speaker

Catherine Mumma

explanation

There’s a gap between parliamentarians and scientists/technocrats, which impacts the creation of informed policies on science and technology.

How to increase public participation in the legislative process, especially from youth and underrepresented groups?

speaker

Catherine Mumma

explanation

Low public engagement in policy-making processes leads to less inclusive and representative legislation.

How can parliaments leverage new media technologies to engage with different stakeholder groups?

speaker

Daniel Molokele

explanation

Traditional methods of engagement are no longer sufficient; new approaches are needed to reach diverse communities, especially youth.

How to make parliamentary work calendars and processes more transparent and accessible to the public?

speaker

Ayoban Ngao

explanation

Lack of transparency in parliamentary processes limits public participation and input in lawmaking.

How to develop legislative frameworks that address the borderless nature of the internet?

speaker

Catherine Mumma

explanation

Current localized legislation struggles to address issues that transcend national borders, such as cybercrime.

How to align educational curricula with digital transformation goals?

speaker

Panelist 1 (unnamed)

explanation

Mismatch between education and digital needs hinders progress in digital transformation.

How to strengthen regional and international collaboration on digital policies and cybersecurity?

speaker

Panelist 1 (unnamed)

explanation

Effective digital policies and cybersecurity require coordination beyond national borders.

How to review and update existing sector-specific laws to accommodate digital technology advancements?

speaker

Catherine Mumma

explanation

Current laws in various sectors may not adequately address challenges posed by digital technologies.

How to address potential exploitation in digital labor markets across different countries?

speaker

Catherine Mumma

explanation

Disparities in pay for similar digital work across countries raise ethical concerns and need policy attention.

Summary

This discussion focused on Azerbaijan’s digital government transformation, particularly the MyGov platform and related initiatives. Orkhan Ismayilov introduced the country’s digital transformation concept, which encompasses digital government, society, and businesses. He highlighted key products like Digital Bridge, MyGov, and digital login systems that form the backbone of Azerbaijan’s e-government services.

Laman Akbarova then detailed the marketing strategy for MyGov, positioning it as a user-friendly platform that simplifies citizens’ lives and strengthens government-citizen relationships. The communication approach included a 360-degree marketing campaign utilizing TV, outdoor advertising, social media, and influencer partnerships. Akbarova emphasized the importance of translating functional benefits into emotional ones to increase user adoption and digital literacy.

Elvin Hajiyev discussed the innovation aspect of Azerbaijan’s digital development, focusing on the Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM). He outlined five pillars for building a sustainable innovative society: market access, funding, infrastructure, talent, and culture. Hajiyev described various initiatives to support these pillars, including startup programs, venture fund establishment, educational scholarships, and cultural events to promote innovation.

The speakers highlighted Azerbaijan’s progress in e-government development, noting significant improvements in UN rankings. They also addressed challenges such as digital literacy and cultural adaptation to new technologies. Overall, the discussion showcased Azerbaijan’s comprehensive approach to digital transformation, combining technological infrastructure, user-centric services, and ecosystem development to drive innovation and improve government-citizen interactions.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Overview of Azerbaijan’s digital government transformation strategy and key components (digital government, digital society, digital businesses)

– Details on MyGov platform – a unified digital government portal providing various e-services to citizens

– Marketing and communication strategy for MyGov, positioning it as a product to simplify citizens’ lives

– Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM) and efforts to build a startup/innovation ecosystem in the country

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this discussion was to provide an in-depth overview of Azerbaijan’s digital transformation initiatives, particularly the MyGov platform, and efforts to foster innovation and a startup ecosystem in the country. The speakers aimed to showcase Azerbaijan’s progress in e-government services and highlight their strategies for citizen engagement and ecosystem development.

Tone:

The overall tone was informative and promotional. The speakers were enthusiastic about sharing their country’s digital transformation journey and achievements. The tone remained consistent throughout, with each speaker maintaining a professional yet engaging demeanor as they presented their respective areas of focus.

Speakers

– Ilaha Baghirova, Moderator/Introducer

– Orkhan Ismayilov, Head of Strategic Partnership and International Cooperation Department at IDDA

Expertise: Digital government transformation, MyGov platform

– Laman Akbarova, Head of Marketing and PR Department at IDDA

Expertise: Communication strategy for MyGov

– Elvin Hajiyev, Head of the Azerbaijan Innovation Center

Expertise: Innovation ecosystem, Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM)

Azerbaijan’s Digital Transformation: A Comprehensive Approach to E-Government and Innovation

This discussion provided an in-depth overview of Azerbaijan’s digital transformation initiatives, focusing on the MyGov platform and efforts to foster innovation and a startup ecosystem in the country. The speakers, representing key departments involved in this transformation, shared insights into the strategy, implementation, and challenges of digitizing government services and building an innovation-driven economy.

Digital Government Transformation Strategy

Orkhan Ismayilov, Head of Strategic Partnership and International Cooperation Department at IDDA, introduced Azerbaijan’s digital transformation concept, built on three pillars: digital government, digital society, and digital businesses. This comprehensive approach aims to create a fully integrated digital ecosystem that enhances government services, citizen engagement, and economic growth.

Key components of the digital government strategy include:

1. Digital Bridge: A system facilitating information exchange between 42 government agencies, with over 200 million transactions conducted.

2. MyGov Platform: A unified portal for government e-services, serving as the primary interface between citizens and the government. It offers services such as birth registration, marriage registration, and digital ID usage.

3. Digital ID and Documentation Services: Enabling secure online identification and access to digital documents.

4. Proactive Government Services: Automating processes for life events, streamlining citizen interactions with the government.

Ismayilov emphasized the importance of developing hard infrastructure, updating laws and regulations, improving AI strategies, and investing in human capital to support these initiatives.

MyGov Platform and Communication Strategy

Laman Akbarova, Head of Marketing and PR Department at IDDA, detailed the marketing and communication strategy for MyGov. The platform is positioned as a user-friendly service that simplifies citizens’ lives and strengthens government-citizen relationships.

The communication approach included a comprehensive 360-degree marketing campaign utilizing:

1. Television advertisements

2. Outdoor advertising

3. Social media campaigns

4. Partnerships with influencers

Akbarova highlighted the success of their marketing efforts, noting a 300% increase in MyGov usage and a 400% increase in digital ID usage following the campaign.

A key aspect of the MyGov platform is its digital consent management feature, allowing citizens to control how their data is shared between government agencies, addressing privacy concerns and building trust in the digital ecosystem.

Innovation Ecosystem Development

Elvin Hajiyev, Head of the Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM), discussed the innovation aspect of Azerbaijan’s digital development. He outlined five pillars for building a sustainable innovative society: market access, funding, infrastructure, talent, and culture.

To support these pillars, AIM has implemented various initiatives:

1. Startup programs to generate ideas and develop Minimum Viable Products (MVPs)

2. Government support for establishing venture funds, including AzVC and NEXT

3. Educational scholarships to develop tech talent, including the Azerbaijan Cyber Security School

4. Physical infrastructure through AIM centers in Baku, Ganja, and Sheki, with plans for 14 more centers

5. Cultural events, awards, and PR activities to promote innovation

Hajiyev also highlighted tax benefits for IT Park residents, including a 0% corporate tax rate for 10 years, and soft landing programs for foreign companies interested in entering the Azerbaijani market.

Challenges and Progress

The speakers addressed several challenges in implementing the digital transformation strategy:

1. Digital literacy: Ongoing efforts to educate citizens about digital services and their benefits.

2. Cultural adaptation: Encouraging the adoption of new technologies and digital-first mindsets.

3. Balancing physical and digital infrastructure: Maintaining some physical service points while promoting digital alternatives.

Despite these challenges, the speakers noted Azerbaijan’s progress in e-government development, including improvements in UN rankings such as the E-Government Development Index.

Conclusion

The discussion showcased Azerbaijan’s ambitious and well-coordinated approach to digital transformation. By addressing technological, societal, and economic aspects simultaneously, the country aims to create a robust digital ecosystem that enhances government efficiency, citizen satisfaction, and innovation-driven economic growth.

As Azerbaijan continues its digital journey, key focus areas will include expanding the MyGov platform, opening additional AIM centers, continuing educational efforts to increase digital literacy, and further developing the startup ecosystem. While challenges remain, particularly in long-term sustainability and cultural adaptation, the comprehensive strategy and collaborative approach presented by the speakers indicate a promising future for Azerbaijan’s digital transformation efforts.

For further information, the speakers provided their contact details:

– Orkhan Ismayilov: orkhan.ismayilov@idda.gov.az

– Laman Akbarova: laman.akbarova@idda.gov.az

– Elvin Hajiyev: elvin.hajiyev@aim.az

Ilaha Baghirova: Great. So I just want to shortly introduce what is GovPlatform. Today we’ll have three speakers, we’ll give detailed information to you. So my GovPlatform is a pioneering government concept that seamlessly integrates citizens, state entities, state entities’ businesses into a unified e-services platform. This innovative system aims to provide a comprehensive array of cutting-edge digital services, fostering collaboration and efficiency. Through my GovPlatform, citizens gain access to innovation provided by government agencies, enabling them to engage with services electronically, acquire e-documents, verify the accuracy of their information and seamlessly manage the process of sharing their data with other institutions. This innovative system aims to provide a comprehensive array of cutting-edge digital services and fostering collaboration and efficiency. So I would like to introduce our first speaker today, Mr. Orhan Ismailov, he’s the head of Strategic Partnership and International Cooperation Department at IDDA. Please give applause to him and he will shortly introduce you about my GovPlatform. Thank you very much, Laha.

Orkhan Ismayilov: Actually today I will talk about not only my Gov, I will try to share our Azerbaijan digital government transformation conception and my Gov is the one biggest part of this strategy. But firstly we should fix our clicker. Can you change slide please? Yes, this is our digital transformation concept. There are three main components. The first one is digital government, the second one is digital society, and the last one is digital businesses. We are understanding that there are three main components, and that’s why we try to establish our digital nation on these components. There are some GNL enablers which can enable to the digital development. The first one is hard infrastructure, the second one is laws, regulations, and policies, and we are also trying to improve our AI data and cybersecurity strategy, and the last one is human capital. Human capital is so crucial for us because we understand that without proper human pool we cannot enable our digital transformation strategy. That’s why we are trying to improve digital awareness and digital literacy in our country, so there is a digital academy program and digital leadership program which we are trying to make our CDOs, our ambassadors in all government entities which we can speak the same language with them. These are our some main strategic GPIs for the program 2024 and 2026. We are trying to create live events services, we are trying to digitalize all intergovernmental processes, correspondence, and other things, and we are trying to establish open government, and our new strategy is after implementing both open data portal, we are Our main aim is to shift our strategy from open data portal to the open API. And these are our some strategic GPIs in the field of digital society and digital businesses. We have Digimate program which we are trying to help the SMEs to digitalization of the SMEs. And we have digital library which we provide this type of SMEs with the digital tools. And now I will talk about our digital government products. The first one is Digital Bridge. Digital Bridge is the backbone of the digital government. You cannot imagine digital government without the Digital Bridge. This is our national information exchange system between the government entities. If you want to establish digital government, firstly you should create your information bridge system. Then you can establish your digital government on the top of this system. And as you know, we are the environmental friendly country. We hosted COVID-19 in our country this year. And that’s why this type of services to help us to save trees and environment in this way. And these are main statistical statistics about digital bridge systems. There is more than 71 government agencies who integrated to our system. From the beginning of the implementation of digital bridge to this day, more than 1 billion transactions have been conducted through our system. And as I mentioned already, this system helped us to save more than 10,000 trees annually. And there is a big botanical garden in our country, in our capital city. As our calculation through this system, we saved two times our botanical garden risk. And I will show a brief video about digital bridge, which will make our vision more clear. Yes, there is no voice of the video, but there is subtitles. I think so you can catch it from subtitles. Yes, our next product is MIGO. MIGO is Unified Digital Government Portal, which is to ensure a secure, transparent and user-friendly digital connection between citizens and government and businesses. And in our country, there is more than 2,000 digital acts changed, and now in our country, the digital ID is officially accepted by all of government entities and businesses. It means that in our country, physical documents is equal to digital documents. Citizens can get any type of governmental and private services without their physical ID. There is not only ID card, there is driver’s license, foreign passport and other information in the system. And we are providing this information system, this information and citizen certificates through the MIGO portal. And we are trying to establish our digital public services on the basis of MIGO. of the live events because we understand that at the previous time, not only in our country but the digital government services created on the basis of the services. But we now understand that it’s so easy for citizens to find the proper services which meet them on the basis of live events like, for example, birth, death or marriage registration is already digitalized in our country. And we are trying to create proactive services. It means that, for example, when a citizen reaches the pension age, there is no need to collect any documents or apply any government entities. Government proactively sends just notification to the citizens that you have reached your pension age and you can take your bank card, for example, from the sound bank. And this is the next video about my goal. I hope the sound problem is fixed already. Let’s check. Yes? Okay. And our next product is digital login. This is the single sign-on system. So the system citizens can enter any integrated public and private digital portals. And it means that it helps us to avoid… to use the several passwords and login information in the several portals. There is only one registration need to enter all integrated governmental services. These are the statistics about this product and the next video is about digital login. Yes, this is the CIMA, CIMA is a new generation of advanced digital signature of Microsoft. Thank you. And this is working on actually the face recognition technologies and AI-based. And these are the main things about usage of this product. And the last one is digital document circulation subsystems. Through this subsystem, all our intergovernmental official correspondence is fully digitalized. And there is no need to send any letters between governmental entities. And my last video is about this product. Yes, at the end, I would like to say that these are not all our digital governmental solutions. There are other solutions like e-social, e-court, e- procurement. health care, agro, e-policy, ecology and etc. And at the end of the day, due to our all this type of efforts, we have increased our places nine times in the UN e-government development indexes. So thank you very much for your participating, thank you very much for your attention and now the stage is yours.

Ilaha Baghirova: Thank you Mr. Ismailov for giving information about e-government in Azerbaijan. Now, Laman Akbari will continue the interesting session. He is the head of the marketing and PR department at IDDA. So welcome Laman

Laman Akbarova: Now? Okay, hi, nice to meet you all. So we’re gonna be talking about the communication strategy of the same products that Mr. Orhan has mentioned and we’re gonna go with the main product, MyGov, which we have represented and positioned as a ready product for our audience and applied the 360 marketing communication strategy. So yeah, that’s me. I’m the head of brand and marketing communications in our agency. So basically we are working with all kinds of the products with B2B, G2B and G2C, all kinds of products that were mentioned by Orhan. So we will briefly start with what’s MyGov. I bet you guys already know from the presentation but we will just go so that you could catch the whole concept in here. MyGov is a unified open government platform that via digitalization will simplify the life of our citizens, the citizens of Azerbaijan. Why? Why there is MyGov in there? Of course, like there can be a lot of reasons but the main reasons that we have indicated for ourselves in order to build a nice communication strategy is of course to provide the product that will ease the life of our citizens in Azerbaijan. And also, as we’re a government sector, we need to sustain and develop the relationship between our citizens and our government. And true to say, there are not a lot of products like ours. And the government was never, I would not say never, but seldomly connecting and representing the products straightforwardly to the citizens. So this is something new that we’re bringing in Azerbaijan. So were there any challenges? Of course. Of course, there is no country without the challenge. There is no product without the challenge. And same goes with MyGov. I have listed three of them. There are more of them. But the main ones that we have indicated for ourselves are strong presence of offline services. We’re kind of conservative as a country, as a population. We pile up our documents. If you go to my grandmother’s house, you will see the special place she collects her documents. If you go to any person over 50 years old, they will never accept the digitalized docs equal to the physical ones. So offline service provider, which is working very fast and has eased the life of population 10 years ago, is there. And this is our main competitor and the main, let’s say, government body that we’re competing with. Also, I mean, thoughts of population. I mentioned about my grandmother and the general population that goes on in Azerbaijan. And integration of services and documentation in timely manner. So when we talk about MyGov, it’s not just an app which you can open and have everything inside. It’s an ongoing process. We bring one documentation, kind of documentation. Then we bring the second kind of services. And it has to be communicated in the right target audience on the right channels. So as I said, we had to create the anticipation. We didn’t want to just say, hi, hello, this is MyGov, just download it. We wanted to make it interactive. interesting for our citizens, something exciting, something that they would wait for. And that’s why we started with looking into the concept of the whole app. And what we came up with is that the MyGov is a point of connection, OK, if we talk about the abstract of the whole app, a point where citizens means government, and the point where processes start and will eventually end. And this is something that only we will give on the market. The application, where you will get in, start your process, and you will end your process without going anywhere physically, without spending your time on things that doesn’t matter, like traffic. And instead, spend time with your family, spend time with your friends, and live just, let’s say, developed, happy life. And that’s where exactly we took it as the main point, where the process start and where it will end. And our creative idea was the start here. I will explain what we mean by start here. You may ask, what starts here? MyGov starts here. So this is the point where life without queue starts, where birth registration starts, where comfort starts, where digital starts, and where the future of government services starts. Of course, in order to make the communication successful and not only, but generally, it’s very important to have both of the functional and emotional benefits, and especially in our case. So when we talk about the simplification of life, we’re talking about being free, when we translate it, that we will give to our citizens. When we talk about staying connected, we’re talking about feeling connected. When we have a good user experience, we’re saying that the citizen stays in control, the user stays in control of the app. Why it’s important? of course. We have researched and we, of course, we’re not the first country who is, and we never said we were the first country who is bringing up some product like this, so we researched and researched, and as it turned out, a lot of governments, they believe and they have adopted it that the benefits, as I said, the functional benefit, they have to be translated into material and into emotions in order to make it successful. So, and it’s very important to position government as responsive, protective, and transversal, and that’s what exactly what we did. We are positioning, positioned as responsive, protective, transversal. We are not saying that this is the app for you, we’re saying that this app makes you feel something. I will tell you more about this in the next slide, and what’s really mattered in here is that government, here, I, as a government, am by your side wherever you are, because I care, and this is the I care moment is something crucial, and if we will go to the mission statement, you can see that MyGov mission is to enhance the quality of life of citizen and reflect our commitment into caring for each and every citizen. That’s what we wanted to portray as an agency, and if we will go in here, again, whatever started here, saving time, comfort, and this is something that the government actually has an umbrella. The care started here. The moment that the government cares about just starts with MyGov. So, when we go back to the product, MyGov is not only about the digital documentation, it’s not only about the starting and ending point, it’s about the services it’s bringing. So, digital documentation, the ones that Orhan has mentioned before, digital ID, and there is a driving license. When we go to the live events, there are three live events that we have started communicating, and we have right now, and we’re having an upcoming plan for the next year for three more. I will talk about them in more detail, and digital services. There are lots of them, these digital services. services, and I will show you the examples of communication in here. So yeah, as I said, we went to the MyGov as a physical FMCG product, OK? We decided to communicate it in 360 and show that the government can communicate not worse than the private sector. And that’s why we have a TV copy. We’re going to out of home. We have radio placement. We have BTL that is starting in the regions as well. We are massive in PR, both for our minister side and also from the influencing side in the e-news and on TV, and also social media, which everyone knows is a powerful tool in any country right now. So I will show you also the piece of content because, of course, the digital literacy is mainly developed in the capital city and less developed in the rural, let’s say, places. We are creating the how-to videos in order for them to understand how to use the service. Should I play it like this? OK, I think you can hear it in Azerbaijan, but we have added the lines in here. I’m not going to show the whole one. OK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . they can come to the pickup, drop shipping, they can come to the railway station and use the digital ID instead of the physical one. So there are no need to carry it around. Also, there are services that I mentioned before. So conviction certificate, notarial certificate, and everything that you can actually, communal services within our application that you can use without any physical presence at any other government body. So we’re communicating them as well. And for each of them, we have the separate content, as you can see, as a key visual, and also how-to videos, plus the PR coverage that I mentioned before. This is the kind of also how-tos that we basically do with my in-house team. These guys are working in marketing as well. So we’re recording them, we’re post-production them ourselves as well in order to create more simple content for our citizens. Yeah. Also, of course, as I said, it’s very important to work with social media and influencers, super important, because if we go to statistics, 86% of Azerbaijan population is watching TV, okay? Even though the social media is here, 86% of people still watch TV, so that’s why we are on TV. And the rest, more young generation, let’s say, they’re online, okay? So people in my age, they don’t have the TV, the national TV set in their homes. They use YouTube, they use Netflix, and that’s it. So that’s in order to tackle them as well, and tackle them within the social media, and of course, through YouTube and et cetera, we have influencers, so we’re using someone. on with the high, of course, high engagement rates. And they’re doing this how-to, very regular and very simple how-to videos as well. Here I’m going to have the TVC, OK, the main copy, but it’s in Azerbaijan. It’s not going to be with sounds, I hope. It’s in Azerbaijan, and it’s very long, so I’m going to skip it. I will just try to show you the content that we have for our TV and the banners that we created. So during some series or during some shows on TV, we have bought the place as a banner in order to communicate my goal. So this is how it goes. Here we’re, again, communicating the notarial services, and we’re having the call to action for people to download it. Same goes for the general educative digital ID communication. And here, the main idea of our TVC here, it’s very emotional, right? So we’re showing the use of our grandparents, how they used to have this documentation and piling them up, and how many difficulties they were going through. For example, this guy is trying to buy a car, and he cannot because he has his documentation left at home. And then we’re transferring and showing everyone that now you don’t need to have it. You have MyGov, which is simplifying your life. MyGov, always with you. MyGov is closer to the government. These are two live events that also are out. So one is to be a parent, which you get the certificate of your child, newborn child, through MyGov. You can give the name of your child, register, and get your physical, then, certificate at the point of physical office. And then also get married. In order to get married, now Azerbaijan population doesn’t need to go anywhere. You write the code of your ID, and the code of ID of the person you want to get married with, and they just get the notification. that someone wants to marry you, and you simply accept it. And the whole process on the back is going. And then you have a physical wedding, you get your certificate, and everyone is happy. So this is like super, super cool thing for Azerbaijan and super innovative thing that we have launched. And also, other than this kind of cool features and content, we also have educative content. As I said, digital literacy is not on the point as in Europe or maybe in some very developed countries. So this is part of our job as well in order to actually increase the digital literacy. And this kind of key visuals, and we have long captions to them or long interviews that we’re giving on social media, is about the consultant management, for example. MyGov is the first app in Azerbaijan that brings this feature to citizens. People can actually control what kind of data they’re sharing with government bodies, with the banks. For example, I have a mortgage, right? I do. And bank asks for my permission once. And then they can use my data as much as they want. And for example, before MyGov, I didn’t know about that. Now I can access it, and I can actually stop them using my data. And they will have to call me again and ask for it if they need it. So in order to deliver this message, because if you ask the general public, they would say, why do I need it? OK, my data is government data. They can use it. In order to increase the importance of this, in order to explain why it’s important, we have this separate kind of informative educational content that we’re sharing within the MyGov platform. Yeah, and in the end, this is just the numbers for the last 25 days. I just wanted to show you how we’re doing. It’s not the final numbers, and also not the final report. But as you can see, as I said, YouTube YouTube, OLVs, everything placed for young generation. This is a digital marketing number. So we brought almost 35,000 downloads last month in 20, 25 days, which is a super high number because we have compared this to the funnel of our competitors or other public sectors, and this is a very high number. And we have high amount of impressions, which are going for 70% of them are organic right now, which is a great number. And YouTube views, which is over the million. Same goes for meta ads, more than 8 million impressions, more than 30,000 clicks, and total views almost for 4 million. What we’re trying to do in the next year and trying to actually update is our strategy within the YouTube because there are a lot of shorts, a lot of TikTok stuff that we have not activated yet. And we believe that it will give us even more numbers that we’re looking for and more exposure to the target audiences that we’re working with. So that’s the last slide of my presentation. And I hope you enjoyed it. And I would be happy to answer any of your questions. Follow us, please follow us on Instagram. We’re going as a MyGov. I can share the page if you’re interested. And I hope you will enjoy the next speaker. And we’re going to talk about AIM. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ilaha Baghirova: Thank you very much, Laman Khanem. Now, Elvin Hajiyev, the head of the Azerbaijan Innovation Center will talk about another part of the story. Welcome. Thank you.

Elvin Hajiyev: Thank you, Laha. The clicker, Laman. Laman, clicker. Did you switch? My slide. Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you for staying with us. Unfortunately, I don’t have those fancy videos, but I will try to explain what our agency does in terms of the innovation. So from the name, you can understand it’s Innovation and Digital Development Agency. My colleagues have been talking about what we do most in the digital part, which is basically building the products. And I would slightly touch on what we do for the innovation. And I will talk to you about the Azerbaijan Innovation Center that we have recently launched. So studying the best practices around the world or among the countries, it comes clear that in order to have a sustainable, well-functioning, innovative society, there are five main pillars that we have to foresee. And we identify them as following, which is the market access for the startups and the companies, having access to funding, access to infrastructure, access to talent and culture. And I will go a little bit in the details with each of these pillars and explain what we do for each of these pillars as the agency. So obviously, when you want to have this ecosystem functioning, you have to have some sort of access to the market for the startups, for the investors, for the foreign companies, IT companies to work with. For that to happen, we have to create the ecosystem to emerge. And in order to do so, we work with lots of universities within the country, third-party vendors. And we do lots of programs throughout, not only in Bakur, the capital city, throughout other cities of the country. So for the last two years, out of these programs, we managed to get more than 600 unique ideas, out of which we achieved to get to 165 MVPs, which is the minimum viable products for the startups. And out of that, obviously, we go to the incubation and the acceleration programs for these MVPs to grow further. And once that happens, we kind of try to have the match with the market. to our investors and the venture funds to get them to the next steps. Parallel to that, we take our startups, it’s not just about in the country, and we go to international events. So last two years, we have taken probably 18, close to 20 events globally, whether it’s the Middle East, MENA region, Europe, Asia, and we sponsor these events and we take our startups and our IT companies and we take them to international global markets so they can build the communications, collaborations, and networking in order to grow their businesses. Access to funding. So when it comes to funding of the startups and ecosystem, it’s a bit closed box for Azerbaijani society because, you know, being part of the Soviet Union for 70 years and now trying to open up, modernize the economy and the system, and it’s not that very easy task. So the government took the first steps to initiate the venture funds establishment in Azerbaijan. The very first fund that, with our support and help, is established is the Caucasus Ventures, and there is another private company that established the Sabah Fund, and recently we seen the emergement of the InMerge Fund established, which is currently around 35 million USD under the management. The number is not that big yet, but the ecosystem is relatively new, so we understand that in the coming years it’s going to grow to probably more than 50 million, and once we have a few more success stories coming up, it will eventually grow further. So we help and invest our startups through these venture funds, not directly. Access to talent. Obviously, once you have the market access and you have the investment and the money in place, you need to have the people who will work in these companies and the startups. And the education part, as my colleagues also mentioned, we take it very seriously as an agency, as a ministry. So far we have managed to provide scholarships. to more than 9,000 students in the last two years. And we are trying to create this pool of talents that can be accessible to foreign companies when they come to Azerbaijan to open their subsidiaries or recreate or use this pool as the outsource for their projects. Also, we have created the Azerbaijan Cyber Security School, which is graduating and the graduates start to work in the government entities and organizations that foresee the cyber security issues or the processes in the country. And we also support several schools, which is like Holberton Schools, and it’s a national franchise, peer-to-peer coding school that has probably two cohorts throughout the year and gives graduates to the ecosystem. Culture. Culture is a big issue, I would say, for us, because as I mentioned, as a former Soviet Union country, when you talk about startup innovation, it’s a very close phenomenon for our people. Still, a significant number of our community and society, I don’t wanna say don’t get it, but probably doesn’t have the necessary tools and understanding of what it should be. So as an agency, we try to change this culture. Resources that we have, we make lots of events, we make the community events, networking events, and recently, last week, we actually had the second EDA Awards, which we select like the main ecosystem players and startups, and we, during the, for the 11th nomination, and we do this event, so we kind of, like mini Oscar events for our innovation ecosystem, which stimulate the companies and the individuals to take part here. Lots of meetups, and we do international PR as well to change that culture. And last pillar is obviously access to the infrastructure. So when you have the market in the place. moving, and then you have the talent pool, and then you have to provide the necessary for them to grow. This is where I particularly participate mostly. And so our ministry does kind of a broader scale of infrastructure support, which is the access to the fixed line of networks, building the data centers, and all these global scale projects. But as an agency, we do mostly on the physical space for our startups to come and operate. So this is where I’m shifting to the project that I mentioned, which is the Azerbaijan Innovation Center. We call it Azerbaijan Innovation Merkazi. Merkazi stands for the center. But we decided to keep it as AIM, because it serves for our purpose, and it describes what we want to get achieved easily. So this is the building that we have opened very recently. Actually, our first opening was on the 2nd of October. So what we try to achieve here is basically, it’s going to be a network of physical spaces. But we don’t want to limit it just with the physical space. So yes, we are going to have the co-working office spaces, meeting rooms, and several resources that are required for the startups and the companies and the mentors to come, sit, and work together, which you can see from the photos. The first space that we opened in Baku very recently. And we are planning to open the second store, I mean, not store, the branch next week. And for the next year, we are planning to do three more locations throughout the country. And it’s not just like innovation centers. We are also supporting to build R&D labs and centers in one of the universities this year. Already started doing that. And next year, we are sponsoring to financing to build R&D center. within the universities. So it’s going to be branded as like powered by AIM. And it’s not just like innovation center. It’s going to be different formats as well. So what we do here, it’s not obviously, as we say, just our goal is not to send the tables or the desk or the meeting rooms to our residents, right? We want to make it to become as the new epicenter of the ecosystem. And we have been open for then two months. And we already have probably more than 35 events took place in our centers. And we do the meetups, the workshops, the trainings. We have the conferences. And during COP 29, we had two big events took place in our centers, where innovators, business people come together. They discuss. They do networking. And they do celebrations for the graduations. This is the photo from the Halberton School cohort, the graduation. It’s becoming a vibrant place, which makes us very happy. The collaboration and networking is very important for the ecosystem growth. And lastly, other than providing the physical space and doing all these events, we also planning to build several products within AIM. One of the main tools that the IT Park residency startups are companies. So mostly in the IT Parks, you have to be physically present there. But in our case, we have the mandate to give virtual residency to our residents. So you may have your own office in different parts of the country. But you can still apply for the residency. And you will still get the tax benefits, the social taxes, the property taxes, the personal income tax. You get tax deduction on your dividends that you make. So all these benefits that you may get on the physical techno parks or IT parks, some countries call, you can get virtually as well. We do soft landing programs dedicated to working on this. This is relatively new, by the way. We recently started doing that. And Soft Landing is going to work for the foreign companies who want to come to Azerbaijan and get into the market. And when you come to Azerbaijan, it’s not just us per se, but you can work with the region as well, which is South Caucasus. And you can have the access to the Central Asian through our connections and the government bodies. Business support, we will provide technical or mentorship or any kind of business support that our newly established businesses or startups that will require along the road. And we are also creating these excellent centers in different verticals. So we are closely working with different industries in the country, whether it’s the financial sector, whether it’s the defense sector. And our goal is to kind of stimulate and grow the ecosystem around the specific verticals that are growing organically and are ready to support us along the road. Obviously, we have the future plans. I’m not going to go into details in each of them. But as a country, as an organization, as a state organization, we want to stimulate this growth. So three years IDA has been supporting. We play as a state agency, as an ecosystem enabler. So we try to help the ecosystem so that it grows. But we have seen that it’s not enough. The ecosystem is very young, very immature. So we felt the necessity to step in and create another brand that will work with the ecosystem players hand-to-hand to help the growth of whether it’s the startups, whether it’s the IT companies, whether you put the country on the map in the regional progress, et cetera. So in the next two years, probably, we want to become stronger within the country, open our spaces, and then grow regionally and internationally. I put my contacts in case you want to take the ESP. In case you have any questions you want you can this is my whatsapp telegram number as well and my email Please please feel free to contact me. I’ll be more than happy to assist you guys and Thank you for your attention and bearing with us

Agreement Points

Digital transformation strategy

Orkhan Ismayilov

Laman Akbarova

Elvin Hajiyev

Digital government strategy based on three pillars: digital government, digital society, digital businesses

Communication strategy to promote MyGov and increase digital literacy

Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM) to support startup ecosystem

All speakers emphasized the importance of a comprehensive digital transformation strategy that encompasses government services, society, and businesses, with specific initiatives to support each area.

Importance of digital literacy and cultural change

Laman Akbarova

Elvin Hajiyev

Educational content to increase digital literacy

Building innovation culture through events, awards, and PR

Both speakers highlighted the need to increase digital literacy and promote a culture of innovation in Azerbaijan through various educational and promotional activities.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of MyGov as a central platform for digital government services and the need for a comprehensive communication strategy to promote its adoption.

Orkhan Ismayilov

Laman Akbarova

MyGov platform as unified portal for government e-services

Communication strategy to promote MyGov and increase digital literacy

Both speakers recognized the challenge of changing traditional mindsets and the need for targeted efforts to promote digital adoption and innovation culture.

Laman Akbarova

Elvin Hajiyev

Overcoming preference for offline services and physical documents

Building innovation culture through events, awards, and PR

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of physical infrastructure alongside digital services

Orkhan Ismayilov

Elvin Hajiyev

Digital Bridge for information exchange between government agencies

Physical and virtual infrastructure through AIM centers

While focusing on digital transformation, both speakers unexpectedly emphasized the importance of physical infrastructure to support digital initiatives, showing a balanced approach to development.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong agreement on the need for a comprehensive digital transformation strategy, the importance of MyGov as a central platform, the need to increase digital literacy, and the importance of supporting innovation and startups.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among speakers, indicating a well-coordinated approach to digital transformation in Azerbaijan. This alignment suggests a strong potential for successful implementation of the discussed initiatives.

Different Viewpoints

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

No significant areas of disagreement were identified among the speakers.

difference_level

The level of disagreement appears to be minimal or non-existent. The speakers presented complementary information about different aspects of Azerbaijan’s digital government transformation and innovation ecosystem development, suggesting a unified approach and strategy.

Partial Agreements

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of MyGov as a central platform for digital government services and the need for a comprehensive communication strategy to promote its adoption.

Orkhan Ismayilov

Laman Akbarova

MyGov platform as unified portal for government e-services

Communication strategy to promote MyGov and increase digital literacy

Both speakers recognized the challenge of changing traditional mindsets and the need for targeted efforts to promote digital adoption and innovation culture.

Laman Akbarova

Elvin Hajiyev

Overcoming preference for offline services and physical documents

Building innovation culture through events, awards, and PR

Key Takeaways

Azerbaijan is implementing a comprehensive digital government transformation strategy based on three pillars: digital government, digital society, and digital businesses

The MyGov platform serves as a unified portal for government e-services, aiming to simplify citizens’ interactions with government

A multi-channel marketing approach is being used to promote MyGov and increase digital literacy among citizens

The Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM) has been established to support the startup ecosystem and foster innovation

Key digital government products include Digital Bridge for inter-agency information exchange, digital ID and documentation services, and proactive government services for life events

Challenges in digital adoption include overcoming preferences for offline services and physical documents, especially among older generations

Resolutions and Action Items

Expand the MyGov platform to include more services and life events

Open additional AIM centers throughout the country

Continue educational efforts to increase digital literacy

Further develop the startup ecosystem through funding, infrastructure, and talent development programs

Unresolved Issues

Long-term sustainability of the digital transformation efforts

Measuring the impact of digital services on citizen satisfaction and government efficiency

Addressing potential cybersecurity concerns as more services move online

Suggested Compromises

Maintaining some physical service points while promoting digital alternatives to ease the transition for less tech-savvy citizens

Offering both virtual and physical residency options for startups in the AIM program

We are understanding that there are three main components, and that’s why we try to establish our digital nation on these components. There are some GNL enablers which can enable to the digital development. The first one is hard infrastructure, the second one is laws, regulations, and policies, and we are also trying to improve our AI data and cybersecurity strategy, and the last one is human capital.

speaker

Orkhan Ismayilov

reason

This comment provides a comprehensive framework for digital transformation, highlighting key components and enablers. It’s insightful because it demonstrates a holistic approach to digital development, considering not just technology but also legal, policy, and human aspects.

impact

This set the tone for the rest of the discussion by establishing the broad context of Azerbaijan’s digital transformation efforts. It led to more detailed explanations of specific initiatives within this framework.

We are positioning, positioned as responsive, protective, transversal. We are not saying that this is the app for you, we’re saying that this app makes you feel something.

speaker

Laman Akbarova

reason

This comment reveals a sophisticated marketing approach that focuses on emotional connection rather than just functionality. It’s thought-provoking because it shows how government services are being marketed more like consumer products.

impact

This shifted the discussion towards the importance of user experience and public perception in government digital initiatives. It led to a detailed explanation of the communication strategy for MyGov.

So studying the best practices around the world or among the countries, it comes clear that in order to have a sustainable, well-functioning, innovative society, there are five main pillars that we have to foresee. And we identify them as following, which is the market access for the startups and the companies, having access to funding, access to infrastructure, access to talent and culture.

speaker

Elvin Hajiyev

reason

This comment introduces a structured approach to building an innovation ecosystem. It’s insightful because it breaks down the complex task of fostering innovation into specific, actionable areas.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion from specific digital products to the broader innovation ecosystem. It led to a detailed explanation of each pillar and Azerbaijan’s efforts in these areas.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by providing a comprehensive view of Azerbaijan’s digital transformation and innovation efforts. They moved the conversation from high-level strategy to specific implementations, and from technology-focused discussions to considerations of user experience, culture, and ecosystem development. The speakers demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of both the technical and human aspects of digital transformation, revealing Azerbaijan’s ambition to not just digitize services, but to fundamentally transform its economy and society through technology and innovation.