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Audience

The expanded summary examines the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on global security from various perspectives. One viewpoint raises concerns about the potential for AI to make the world more insecure, particularly in the context of warfare. This perspective highlights the evolution of the massive retaliation strategy, which now considers preemptive strikes due to the capacities of AI. The comparison of AI capacities on the battlefield may favor preemptive actions. Overall, the sentiment towards the effect of AI on world security is negative.

Furthermore, the development of deep learning in AI has raised worries about the easier generation of bioweapons, leading to concerns about biological warfare. With AI and deep learning, the process of generating bioweapons has become more accessible, posing a significant threat. This argument emphasizes the need to ensure biosecurity and peace. The sentiment surrounding this issue is also negative.

In addition to the concerns about AI in warfare and biological warfare, ethical considerations play a crucial role in the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems. It is recognized that there is a need for ethical principles to guide the use of AI in armed conflicts. The sentiment regarding this perspective is neutral, but it highlights the importance of addressing ethical issues in this domain.

On the other hand, AI can potentially be used to reduce collateral damage and civilian casualties in conflict situations. This observation suggests a potential positive impact of AI on global security, as it can aid in minimizing harm during armed conflicts. The sentiment towards this notion is also neutral.

In conclusion, the analysis reveals mixed perspectives on the impact of AI on global security. While there are concerns regarding its potential to make the world more insecure, particularly in warfare and biological warfare, there is also recognition of the potential benefits of AI in reducing collateral damage and civilian casualties. It is crucial to ensure that ethical principles are followed in the development and deployment of AI in armed conflict situations. Additionally, the maintenance of biosecurity and peace is of utmost importance. These factors should be considered to navigate the complex landscape of AI and global security.

Fernando Giancotti

A recent research study conducted on the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Italian defence highlights the importance of establishing clear guidelines for its deployment in warfare. The study emphasises that commanders require explicit instructions to ensure the ethical and effective use of AI tools.

Ethical concerns in the implementation of AI in defence are rooted in the inherent accountability that comes with the monopoly on violence held by defence forces. Commanders worry that failure to strike the right balance between value criteria and effectiveness could put them at a disadvantage in combat. Additionally, they express concerns about the opposition’s adherence to the same ethical principles, further complicating the ethical landscape of military AI usage.

To address these ethical concerns and ensure responsible deployment of AI in warfare, the study argues for the development of a comprehensive ethical framework on a global scale. It suggests that the United Nations (UN) should take the lead in spearheading a multi-stakeholder approach to establishing this framework. Currently, different nations have their own frameworks for the ethical use of AI in defence, but the study highlights the need for a unified approach to tackle ethical challenges at an international level.

However, the study acknowledges the complexity and contradictions involved in the process of addressing ethical issues related to military AI usage. It notes that reaching a mutually agreed-upon, perfect ethical framework may be uncertain. Despite this, it stresses the necessity of pushing for compliance through intergovernmental processes, although the prioritisation of national interests by countries further complicates the establishment of universally agreed policies.

The study brings attention to the potential consequences of the mass abuse of AI, highlighting the delicate balance between stabilising and destabilising the world. It recognises that AI has the capacity to bring augmented cognition, which can help prevent strategic mistakes and improve decision-making in warfare. For example, historical wars have often been the result of strategic miscalculations, and the deployment of AI can help mitigate such errors.

While different nations have developed ethical principles related to AI use, the study points out the lack of a more general framework for AI ethics. It highlights that the principles can vary across countries, including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and NATO. Therefore, there is a need for a broader ethical framework that can guide the responsible use of AI technology.

The study cautions against completely relinquishing the final decision-making power to AI systems. It emphasises the importance of human oversight and responsibility, asserting that the ultimate decision for actions should not be handed over to machines.

Furthermore, the study highlights the issue of collateral damage in current defence systems and notes that specific processes and procedures are in place to evaluate compliance and authorise engagement. It mentions the use of drones for observation to minimise the risk of unintended harm before any decision to engage is made.

In conclusion, the research on ethical AI in Italian defence underscores the need for clear guidelines and comprehensive ethical frameworks to ensure the responsible and effective use of AI in warfare. It emphasises the importance of international cooperation, spearheaded by the UN, to address ethical challenges related to military AI usage. The study acknowledges the complexities and contradictions involved in this process and stresses the significance of augmenting human decision-making with AI capabilities while maintaining human control.

Paula Gurtler

The discussion surrounding the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the military extends beyond legal autonomous weapon systems. It includes a broader conversation about the importance of explainable and responsible AI. One key argument is the need for ethical principles to be established at an international level. This suggests that ethical considerations should not be limited to individual countries but should be collectively agreed upon to ensure responsible AI usage.

Another significant aspect often overlooked when focusing solely on legal regulations is the impact of AI on gender and racial biases. By disregarding these factors, we fail to address the potential biases embedded within AI algorithms. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the wider implications of AI and its contribution to societal biases, ensuring fairness and equality.

Geopolitics and power dynamics further complicate the utilization of AI in the military. With nations vying for supremacy, AI becomes entangled in strategic calculations and considerations. The use of AI in military operations can potentially affect global power balances and lead to unintended consequences. This highlights the intricate relationship between AI, politics, and international relations, which must be navigated with care.

Although various ethical guidelines already exist for AI deployment, one question arises: do we require separate guidelines specifically designed for the military? The military context often presents unique challenges and ethical dilemmas, differing from other domains where AI is utilized. Therefore, there is a debate over whether existing guidelines adequately address the ethical considerations surrounding AI in military applications or if specific guidelines tailored to the military context are necessary.

In conclusion, the debate regarding AI in the military extends beyond the legality of autonomous weapon systems. It encompasses discussions about explainable and responsible AI, the need for international ethical principles, the examination of gender and racial biases, the influence of geopolitics, and the necessity of specific ethical guidelines for military applications. These considerations highlight the complex nature of implementing AI in the military and emphasize the importance of thoughtful and deliberate decision-making.

Rosanna Fanni

During the discussion, the speakers explored the potential dual use of artificial intelligence (AI) in both civilian and military applications. They acknowledged that AI systems originally developed for civilian purposes could also have valuable uses in defense. The availability of data, machine learning techniques, and coding assistance makes it feasible for AI to be applied in both contexts.

A major concern raised during the discussion was the lack of ethical guidelines and regulations in the defense realm. While there are numerous ethical guidelines, regulations, and laws in place for the civilian use of AI, the defense sector lacks similar principles. This highlights a disconnect between the development and use of AI in civilian and defense contexts. Developing ethical guidelines and regulations specific to AI in defense applications is crucial to ensure responsible and accountable use.

The European Union’s approach to AI, particularly the exclusion of defense applications from the AI Act, was criticized. The AI Act employs a risk-based approach, yet its exclusion of defense applications contradicts this approach. This omission raises questions regarding the consistency and fairness of the regulatory framework. The speakers argued that defense applications should not be overlooked and should be subject to appropriate regulations and guidelines.

Another important issue discussed was the need for international institutions to take on more responsibility in terms of pandemic preparedness. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the necessity of being prepared to tackle challenges and risks arising from the rapid spread of bio-technology. The speakers emphasized that institutions should be better prepared to ensure the protection of public health and well-being. Moreover, they stressed that equal distribution of resources is crucial to prevent global South nations from being left behind in terms of bio-risk preparedness. The speakers highlighted the importance of avoiding a race between countries in preparedness and ensuring that global South countries, which often lack resources, are provided with the necessary support.

In conclusion, the discussion revolved around the need to address the potential dual use of AI, establish ethical guidelines and regulations for defense applications, critique the exclusion of defense applications in the European Union’s AI Act, and emphasize the role of international institutions in pandemic preparedness and equal distribution of resources. These insights shed light on the ethical and regulatory challenges associated with AI, as well as the importance of global collaboration in addressing emerging risks.

Pete Furlong

The discussion revolves around the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies on warfare. It is argued that AI and other technologies can be leveraged in conflicts, accelerating the pace of war. These dual-use technologies are not specifically designed for warfare but can still be used in military operations. For example, AI systems that were not initially intended for the battlefield can be repurposed for military use.

The military use of AI and other technologies has the potential to significantly escalate the pace of war. The intent is to accelerate the speed and effectiveness of military operations. However, this raises concerns about the consequences of such escalated conflicts.

One of the challenges in implementing AI principles is the broad interpretation of these principles, as different countries may interpret them differently. This poses challenges in creating unified approaches to AI regulations and ethical considerations. While broad AI principles can address a variety of applications, there is a need for more targeted principles that specifically address the issues related to warfare and the military use of AI.

Discussions about the use of AI and emerging technologies in warfare are increasing in various summits and conferences. The UK Summit for AI Safety is an example of such discussions. Additionally, the concern about the use of biological weapons is growing, as it is noted that they only need to work once, unlike drugs that need to work consistently. This raises significant ethical and safety concerns.

AI’s capabilities are dependent on the strength of sensors. The cognition of AI is only as good as its sensing abilities. Therefore, the value and effectiveness of AI in warfare depend on the quality and capabilities of the sensors used.

One potential use of AI in warfare is to better target strikes and reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties. The aim is to enhance precision and accuracy in military operations to minimize collateral damage. However, the increased ability to conduct targeted strikes might also lead to an increase in the frequency of such actions.

One of the main concerns regarding the use of AI in warfare is the lack of concrete ethical principles for autonomous weapons. The RE-AIM Summit aims to establish such principles; however, there remains a gap in concrete ethical guidelines. The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons has also been unsuccessful in effectively addressing this issue.

In conclusion, the discussions surrounding AI and emerging technologies in warfare highlight the potential benefits and concerns associated with their use. While these technologies can be leveraged to enhance military capabilities, there are ethical, safety, and interpretational challenges that need to be addressed. Targeted and specific principles related to the military use of AI are necessary, and conferences and summits play a crucial role in driving these discussions forward. The impact of AI on targeting precision and civilian protection is significant, but it also raises concerns about the escalation of conflicts. Ultimately, finding a balance between innovation, ethics, and regulation is essential to harness the potential of AI in warfare while minimizing risks.

Shimona Mohan

The discussions highlight the significance of ethical and responsible AI methodologies in military applications. Countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and France have already implemented these strategies within their military architectures. However, India has chosen not to sign the global call for Responsible AI, prioritising national security over international security mechanisms and regulations.

The absence of national policy prioritisation of military AI poses challenges in forming intergovernmental actions and collaborations. Without a clear policy framework, it becomes difficult for countries to establish unified approaches in addressing the ethical and responsible deployment of AI in the military domain.

Gender and racial biases in military AI are also raised as important areas of concern. Studies have shown significant biases in AI systems, with a Stanford study revealing that 44% of AI systems exhibited gender biases, and 26% exhibited both gender and racial biases. Another study conducted by the MIT Media Lab found that facial recognition software had difficulty recognising darker female faces 34% of the time. Such biases undermine the fairness and inclusivity of AI systems and can have serious implications in military operations.

The balance between automation and ethics in military AI is emphasised as a crucial consideration. While performance in military operations is vital, it is equally important to incorporate ethical considerations into AI systems. The idea is to ensure that weapon systems maintain their level of performance while also incorporating ethical, responsible, and explainable AI systems.

The use of civilian AI systems in conflict spaces is identified as a noteworthy observation. Dual-use technologies like facial recognition systems have been employed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where soldiers were identified through these systems. This highlights the potential overlap between civilian and military AI applications and the need for effective regulations and ethical considerations in both domains.

Additionally, the potential of AI in contributing to bio-safety and bio-security is mentioned. A documentary on Netflix titled “Unknown Killer Robots” showcased the risk potential of AI in the generation of poisons and biotoxins. However, with the right policies and regulations in place, researchers and policymakers remain optimistic about preventing bio-security risks through responsible and ethical AI practices.

In conclusion, ethical and responsible AI methodologies are crucial in military applications. The implementation of these strategies by countries like the US, UK, and France demonstrates the growing recognition of the importance of ethical considerations in AI deployment. However, the absence of national policy prioritisation and India’s refusal to sign the global call for Responsible AI highlight the complex challenges in achieving a global consensus on ethical AI practices in the military domain. Addressing gender and racial biases, finding a balance between automation and ethics, and regulating the use of civilian AI systems in conflict spaces are key areas that require attention. Ultimately, the responsible and ethical use of AI in military contexts is essential for ensuring transparency, fairness, and safety in military operations.

Rosanna Fanni:
which is here at least in Japanese time, quite late in the afternoon on the third day of the IGF. My name is Rosanna Fanny. I have been actually working for the Center for European Policy Studies in short steps until last week and this session is a very special one because it’s a topic that I’m personally very passionate about that I’ve been working on for quite some time now and it is also a special session because I think the topic that we are going to address today is normally not really at the center of the IGF discussions, which is of course the use of AI and emerging technologies in the broader defense context. Why is that topic relevant for the IGF? Well let’s just consider for a moment that almost all AI systems that we are currently speaking about, the models that are currently being developed, they are of course used for civilian purposes but at the same time they could also be used for defense purposes. So that means they are dual use and as we also know today literally anyone has access to data and can easily set up machine learning techniques or algorithmic models and can use coding assistance such as JetGPT and so this means that basically almost all the technology, the computing power, programming languages, code, encryption information, big data algorithms and so on has become dual use and of course the military, not only the civilian sector but also the military has high stakes in understanding and using these technological tools to their own advantage. Of course we know that these developments are not really new and things started with the DARPA and which some of you may are familiar with, the US defense in-house R&D think-tank and DARPA was already at the time central to developing the internet software and also AI that we all use today. But as we now see with the conflict in Ukraine, AI is already in full-scale use by defense actors and also has the big potential to change power dynamics considerably and our panelists will speak to that. While we have seen numerous developments, the use of AI already in those contexts we see that there’s quite a disconnect to the civilian developments in AI which include a large number of ethical principles, ethical guidelines, regulation, soft law, hard law and so on. However we don’t really see that happening yet in the defense realm which for me is quite concerning because the stakes and the risks in the defense context may even be higher than in civilian ones. And this is also I think a great example for or a surprising example when we look at the current European Union approach to AI. So the much applauded AI Act which is risk-based and it actually excludes virtually all AI applications that are used in a defense context. So AI is completely excluded from the scope of the AI Act which is funny because it’s called risk-based approach, right? So this just as a means of introduction and we have a lot of urgent questions and very little answers so far so I hope that our panelists will enlighten us. I will introduce the panelists in the order that they are speaking and before they are speaking so I will now introduce the first speaker and I also first want to introduce Paula, my now former colleague who’s based in Brussels and joins us today as our online moderator and we have foreseen half an hour or yeah maybe the second half of the session so to say where we want to hear from you so answer any questions that you have so with the panelists obviously so get your questions ready and I think now it’s time to to dive right into the discussion and to do that I will introduce the first speaker who’s joining us here in person. I will introduce Fernando Giancorti and he’s a lieutenant general of the Italian Air Force, retired now, and he’s also a former president of the Centro Alti Studi per la Difesa which is in short the Italian Defense University. Fernando the floor is yours.

Fernando Giancotti:
Thank you very much Rosanna. I’m very honored to be here to share some thoughts about this topic which in the great debate about ethical use of emerging and disruptive technology kinds of lags behind. We have heard so many organizations involved in so much and rightly so in ensuring ethical behaviors in many of the domains of our lives and we don’t see as many taking care of one of the most dangerous and relevant threats to our security and to the lives of our fellow people. So this panel which I think is the only one here about the topic is meant to give a let’s say a call on this. Wars are on the rise unfortunately and conflicts. I don’t need to expand on that I think we have enough from media and in the field many a lot of violence is going on and while this is in very forefront of attention not so the implication of what is being already used on the fields. Yeah closer yeah so I argue that this is important both for ethical and functional reasons according to a research recently published about ethical AI in the Italian defense a case study commanders need clear guidance about this new tools because first the ethical awareness is ingrained both in education and in the system which implies also swift penalties if you fail and this is due to the in democracies to the assignment of the monopoly of violence to the armed forces. So ethical awareness is high and also of very practical grounds accountability issues commanders are afraid that without clear guidelines they will have to decide and then they will held accountable for that and furthermore and this is another major point what came out from the research which by the way was authored by the moderator and co-authored by me you can find it on LinkedIn there is what I call the bad guy dilemma which is a very functional problem about ethics in AI and EDT in general applied to warfare which is if we do not carefully balance value criteria with effectiveness and so we don’t do a good job in finding that balance and the bad guys do not let’s say follow the same principles that we will be in disadvantage this is a another worry that came out from the research so now let’s go very quickly in a few words through what’s going on on the battlefield about this in the industry and in the policy realm on the battlefield we can see three main timelines before Ukraine during Ukraine and we can imagine what’s going to happen after Ukraine given many indicators before Ukraine AI was not much used in warfare at all and but for experiments and a few isolated cases but with the breakout of the Ukraine war things have changed massively which means that there has been a strive to employ all the means available there is no evidence there is a very recent report a few weeks ago from the Center for Naval Analysis which shows that there is no evidence of extensive use of AI in the Ukraine war but except for decision-making support which is of course critical now or still there are several systems that can employ AI and maybe they have in cases and there is for sure a big investment in trying to increase the capabilities of artificial intelligence in warfare what we can expect given also the multi the big huge programs that are being developed in which already by design include artificial intelligence there will be a huge increase in that and the industry as a matter of fact also because it’s a dual use industry largely is working much on this and we cannot expand on the systems that are being developed but really there would be a major change in the nature of warfare due to AI so this is briefly what happens now in the battlefield what happens in the industry with government’s commissions and now what happens in the policy realm the policy realm the EU does not regulate defense because it’s outside the treaties but Europe the EU is doing many things that are outside the treaties regarding defense especially for the Ukraine war so it’s kind of a fig leaf let’s say I think this point the UN as a major international stakeholder has focused on highly polarized lethal autonomous weapons initiative which doesn’t move forward but there is no comprehensive approach to tackle with more general framework single nations have developed ethical frameworks for AI in defense but by definitions and remember the bad guy dilemma this kind of frameworks are relevant if they can be generalized at the largest possible level so we should I think according also to the multi-stakeholder approach that is typical for example of this forum have the UN join and lead the way for a comprehensive ethical framework kind of a digital use in bello in a multi stakeholder approach the UN it was born out of a terrible war its core business is to prevent and mitigate conflicts and and as there are some good news as Peggy Hicks said of the office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Monday she said we don’t need to invent from scratch an approach to an approach to digital rights because we have decades of experience in the human rights framework application I can say that we don’t need to invent from scratch a way to implement and operationalize ethical principles in in operations because we have decades long approach in application of international humanitarian law with procedures and structures dedicated to that the bad news is that we don’t have those general principles to operationalize at the strategic operational and tactical level before coming here in my previous job I was I’ve been the president for the Center for Higher Studies which is our National Defense University but also the operation before that the operational commander of the efforts and I can guarantee you that every operation has a very tight rigorous approach to for compliance to international humanitarian law which goes to specific rules for the soldier on the battlefield rules of engagements and things like that so my let’s say thought that can be of course discussed that’s very simplistic put in this way and maybe in the question and answer we can expand but it’s that we should really get a general effort because I think there is evidence that these ugly things that are wars and conflicts are not going away we better try to do our best to mitigate them thank you

Rosanna Fanni:
thank you thank you Fernando for your contributions and I guess we will I have already some questions prepared we will come back to you when we speak about the the question and answer session so yes exactly I will hand over to the next speaker who’s also here with us in person and Pete Furlong and he’s a senior policy analyst at the Internet Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute I am think tank and yeah the floor is yours Pete sure yeah and thank

Pete Furlong:
you for having me here I think you know it’s important when we talk about these issues that you know we kind of ground it in you know specific technologies and think about what technologies we’re talking about I think you know like Fernando mentioned that you know we can often get caught in these conversations about lethal autonomous weapons that can be you know pretty fraught but you know there’s a lot of other technologies that are important to talk about and you know especially when you think about the emerging and disruptive technology beyond just AI and I think you know when you look at the Ukraine war like things like satellite internet are a very good example of that but also kind of the broader use of drones in the warfare and you know I think it’s important to realize that extends beyond just traditional military drones but also through to like consumer commercial and hobbyist drones as well and I think that you know when we talk about things like that it’s important to realize that you know these systems weren’t designed for the battlefield and I think that’s often the case for a lot of dual-use AI systems as well and they weren’t designed you know with the maybe the reliability and the performance expectations that you know a war you know brings and you know the reality is that when you’re fighting for your life you’re not necessarily thinking about these issues and so it’s important that you know in these forums that we start thinking about and talking about these issues because you know this technology has a really transformative effect on these conflicts and I think you know the use of consumer drones in Ukraine is a great example of you know an area where Ukraine’s been able to leverage you know you know US and Turkish sophisticated attack drones but also you know simple like custom-built even like DJI which is like a you know consumer commercial drone provider drones from from different companies as well and I think that you know you’re really blurring the lines between these different types of technologies which have different governance mechanisms and different rules in place so I think that’s important for us to think about and I think the one other thing that I would bring up is that you know again moving beyond just the discussion about AI and weaponry but also by the military more broadly you really have the potential to escalate the pace of war significantly and I think that’s something for us to really consider when we talk about things like you know ensuring there’s space for diplomacy ensuring there’s space for for other interventions as well and and again really the intent is to accelerate the pace of war and we need to to really think about the consequences of that as well so thank you

Rosanna Fanni:
thank you thank you very much and yeah also good that you came back to this aspect that I already mentioned in the beginning that the war so to say are now almost as you say like a community you know because everyone can build a drone can develop a model and and kind of be an own actor almost and and that of course has manifold implications yeah thanks a lot and when I hand it over to the third speaker who joins us online from New Delhi and I hope we are also able to to see her on screen soon and introduce in the meantime and Shimona Mohan is a junior fellow at the Center for Security Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation and also think tank and based in India and New Delhi. Shimona the floor is yours. Thank you Rosanna I just wanted to check if you can see and hear me well before I start off. Excellent we can see and hear you.

Shimona Mohan:
Fantastic okay thank you so much for for having me on this panel. It’s the perpetual blessing and curse of having talented panelists that my job is simultaneously easier and harder but I hope the the issues that I will be speaking about will be of value as well. So since Fernando and Pete sort of spoke about why ethics are important already I will just probably take the conversation further and into the domain of two separate methodologies around AI in defense applications that we have seen being employed recently, and how they’ve sort of come about in the defense space. So the first one of which, which I’d like to sort of give a characterization around is explainable AI. And while there is no consolidated definition or characterization of what explainable AI is, it’s usually understood as computing models or best practices or a mix of both technical and non technical issue areas, which are used to make the black box of the AI system a little bit more transparent, so that you can sort of delve in and see if there are any issues or if there are any blocks that you’re facing with your AI systems in, in both civilian and military applications, you can sort of go in and fix them. So that’s definitely something that we’re seeing coming up a lot. And as Rosanna mentioned earlier, DARPA was actually at the forefront of this research a few years ago. And now we’re seeing a lot more players sort of come into this and sort of adopt XAI systems, or at least put in resources into the research and application side of them. So for example, Sweden, the US and the UK have already started research activities around using XAI in their military AI architectures. And then we also have a lot of civilian applications, which are being explored by the EU, as well as market standards by industry leaders like, like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and numerous other smaller entities which have much more niche sectoral applications around this. So that’s one. Another thing that a lot of us are sort of noticing in the defense AI space now is something called Responsible AI. And Responsible AI is sort of understood as this broad based umbrella terminology that, that encompasses within it stuff like trust, trustworthy AI, reliable AI, even explainable AI to a degree. And it’s mostly just the practice of sort of designing and development and also deploying AI, which sort of impacts society in a fair manner. So countries like the US, the UK, Switzerland, France, Australia, and a number of countries under NATO have also sort of started to talk about and implement ethical and responsible AI strategies within their military architectures. And for those who work around this area, they may also be aware about the Responsible AI in the military summit in the Netherlands, which was convened earlier this year, as sort of a global call to ensure that Responsible AI is part of military development strategies for about 80 countries that were there at this at this particular meeting. But the interesting thing, and this is where I’d like to bring in a geopolitical angle to this, is also the fact that out of those 80 governments that were present at this meeting, only about 60 of them actually signed this global call. And it’s interesting to note that the country where I come from, India was one of the 20 that did not sign this call. So the analysis for this ranges from considerations around national security, and a prioritization of national security over international security mechanisms, which is something that countries like India have pursued before as well. So India is actually one of the four or five countries which have not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty either. And that was on the same sort of principles of ensuring its national security over aligning itself with international security rules and regulations, and softer laws. So that’s an interesting dilemma here. And another dilemma that I’d like to sort of put my finger into is something that Fernando mentioned earlier, which is the bad guy dilemma. And of course, there’s no clear answers to sort of solve this bad guy dilemma. But something that’s been brought about by the responsible AI in the military domains, discourse around military AI, is the fact that AI based weapon systems like lethal autonomous weapons and other defense aids, which have not been screened for responsible AI considerations, carry a lot of tangible risks of exhibiting biased or error prone information processing for the operational environment in which they are deployed. So systems which actually don’t have responsible AI or ethical AI frameworks around them also pose unintentional exclusive harms, not only towards adversaries against which these military AI systems are employed, but also possibly for the entity employing them itself, which makes their use unnecessarily high risk, despite their other benefits which they give to the employing entity. And while we’re on the subject of ethics and AI, I’d also like to just spotlight another sort of aspect of this ethics debate, which is gender and racial biases in military AI. So we already know that there’s a ton of biases that AI brings to the fore, not only in civilian applications, but also in defense applications. And something that’s given a little bit more, a little bit less emphasis on is gender and racial biases. So gender is sort of seen as a soft security issue in policy considerations, as opposed to hard security deliberations, which are given a lot more focus. And the issue of gender in tech, whether it’s in terms of female workforce participation, is also characterized as sort of an ethical concern rather than a core tech one. So this characterization of gender as an add on, essentially makes it sort of a non issue in security and tech agendas. And if at all it is present, it’s it’s usually put down as a checkbox to performatively satisfy policy or compliance related compulsions. But we’ve seen that gender and race biases in AI systems can have a lot of a lot of devastating effects on on the applications where they are employed. So there was actually a Stanford study a few years ago, on publicly available information on 133 biased AI systems. And this was across different sectors. So it’s not just limited to military, but across the ambit of dual use AI systems. And about 44% of these actually exhibited gender biases, amongst which 26 included both gender and racial biases. So similar results have also been obtained by the MIT Media Lab, which conducted the gender shade study for AI biases, where we’re seeing that the the softwares, the facial recognition softwares, which are which are popularly employed in a lot of places now, recognize, say, for example, white male faces quite accurately, but they don’t recognize darker female faces up to 34% of the time, which means that if your particular AI system that you employ in your military architecture, has this kind of biased facial recognition system, 34% of the time, when it looks at a human, it doesn’t recognize her as a human at all, which is, of course, a huge ethical issue, as well as an operational issue. So going back to the argument, given by Fernando, that ethics are not only just, just just a soft, soft issue, they also have a lot of operational risks attached to them. And my last point here would then be also about how we are seeing these sort of blanks emerge in how military AI is, is is developing in terms of both gender and races. So the first and these blanks are sort of threefold. So the first blank here would be the technologically blank itself, which means when you have and are developing these AI systems that you have skewed data sets, or you have uncorrected biased algorithms, which are sort of producing these biases in the first place. The second blank then would be your legal systems, your weapons review processes, which don’t have gender reviews, gender sensitive reviews, or, or race specific reviews, or any other particular aspect of your military system, which could be biased. And then the third set of blanks would be a normative blanks, which would be in terms of a lack of policy discourse around AI biases in military systems, and how they affect the populations which they affect most. So the idea for us now is to sort of take forward these conversations about ethics, about biases, about geopolitical specificities in military AI policy conversations, and sort of put them wherever we can so that these don’t get left behind. And we are not sort of only looking at military systems as killing machines. And not as systems that need to be regulated according to a certain set of rules and regulations. Thank you so much. And I look forward to all the questions.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Thank you, Simona. That was also super insightful. Also, thanks a lot for raising the issue of gender and race, which I think is already a big issue in the civilian context. But again, this is replicated in a defense context, and definitely not sufficient attention at the moment, at least as paid to this issue. Okay, so that concludes the first round of the interventions. Thanks a lot to all the speakers. I will hand it now over to our online moderator, Paula, to give us a short summary, so to say, of the points that we’ve just heard. And then maybe also already start with a question and answer session. So I’m taking some online questions first. And I also, I will invite you, the three of you, once you answer, you can also refer to the points that you made, as we don’t have a, so to say, a circle of points or reactions from your side. But feel free to include them in the question and answer session. Okay, over to you, Paula.

Paula Gurtler:
Yes, thank you. Greetings from Brussels, where it is still in the morning. So thank you for an interesting start into my day, so to speak. For me, there are so many interesting points that you’ve raised that it’s really difficult to just settle on three takeaways. For me, the first one would be, though, that we need ethical principles at international levels, so that we need to find some kind of agreement so that we can move forward with ensuring more ethical practices in military AI applications. That also relate to accountability issues that were raised by the commanders in the Italian military defence. The second one is, for me, the main takeaway probably of the entire session is that the conversation is much bigger than loss. And by just focusing on legal autonomous weapon systems, we really miss out on much of the conversation on explainable AI, responsible AI, and also what you mentioned, Shimona, in the last intervention, that we really miss out on gender and racial biases if we just focus on loss and these extreme use cases. So I think, really, that the conversation is bigger than loss is one of the main takeaways. And another one that complicates the whole use of AI in military is, of course, geopolitics and the power plays that are pitting stakeholders against each other. So I think this is already so many interesting points. And I would love to give our online audience a chance to raise their questions. Please feel free to raise your hands, type in the chat if you have any questions. But if there aren’t any, I have my own questions, which I’m really excited to ask. So I will just start off with my own question and then come back to the online participants. Please don’t hesitate to be in touch via the chat. So what I’m wondering is, on the ethical principles that we need for AI and military use, I’m wondering, do we need different ones than for those that we already have? We know how many ethics guidelines are floating around and about. And I’m wondering, do we need different ones for use of AI in military contexts? I also heard bias plays a role, responsible AI, explainable AI. Do we need ethical principles that look different to those that we have right now to cover the military domain? So thank you so much. I’m really looking forward to the continuation of the discussion.

Rosanna Fanni:
Okay. I don’t know who wants to address this question. And then we also, of course, go to an in-person round of questions. You will not be forgotten, but maybe we can first address this one. I don’t know who wants to go first. Okay. We do first this round, and then we’ll have another round of questions with the in-person one. Yeah. Go.

Pete Furlong:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s a great question. And I think, you know, in an ideal world, you know, these principles would be the same. And I think, you know, that would be great. But I also just think there’s an element of maybe not necessarily do we need different principles, but do we need maybe more targeted principles that address some of the issues, you know, that we’re seeing more specifically? Because I think, you know, again, most of these AI principles are very useful and important, but they’re, you know, intentionally broad, because they’re meant for a wide variety of applications. And I think that, you know, that poses a challenge when we talk about how do we implement them? And, you know, you can end up in a situation where different countries interpret these things very differently. And I think that’s maybe the risk in having, you know, pretty broad, you know, interpretation here.

Rosanna Fanni:
Shimona and then Fernando, you also want to say something? Yeah, maybe we have Shimona first and then you. We will have Shimona first and then you can go. Yeah. Please.

Shimona Mohan:
Thank you, Rosanna. Just to add on to Pete’s already very substantive point, I would also like to highlight the fact that in the absence of national policy prioritization of military AI, it’s very hard for countries to actually go ahead and form intergovernmental actions around military AI. So while we speak of ethical principles, since AI itself is not really a tangible entity that you can control via borders, the most effective sort of ethical principles might only emerge from intergovernmental processes around this. But to get to that step where we are discussing substantive ethical principles in substantive intergovernmental processes, I think the first step is to have a good national AI policy for all the countries who are currently developing military AI systems or any other systems around AI which might have military offshoots. So that would be sort of my two cents on this.

Fernando Giancotti:
Very quickly, I think that the quality of the process does not change from what has always happened. Also, for all the other ethical issues that have been raised and tackled, for example, after World War II with the constitution of the UN and then the implementation of the agreed guidelines, there have always been a very dialectic and contradictory process, and we will never get a perfect framework everybody is going to comply with. But striving for the best possible balance, I mean, I think it has no alternative because the alternative is to let things go, you know, possibly in the worst possible way. So we have no certainty, according also to what we see for the other big agreements, agreements about the nuclear and also, you know, unconventional weapons and many other frameworks, and Simona mentioned exactly that some countries prefer the national interest in specific cases, and so this is going to happen. But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive to push forward the compliance as much as possible through the, as it has been said, the intergovernmental process and especially the organizations that are the responsibility to promote this.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Fantastic. We’re already in the midst of the debate. We will now take the in-person questions, maybe also one after each other, and then I also hear from Paula that we have another online question, so we will take that afterwards. But first, if you would like to ask questions, also maybe briefly introduce your name, your affiliation. I see you don’t have a microphone. Maybe you would like to use this one. It’s a bit far away, but if you have this one already.

Audience:
Yes, my name is Julius Endert from DW Academy from Germany, also from Deutsche Welle Broadcaster, so I would like to ask Fernando, from your perspective as a military leader, so does AI make our world safer or not? Because we are coming from the massive retaliation strategy from 25 years ago, and if I see now that we are living in a situation where we may think from a perspective of states or NATO that a pre-emptive strike is better when the other side has massive AI capacities, and also in tactics, when we compare our own capacities on the battlefield, then we also might think, okay, let’s go for a pre-emptive strike, and so that in the end would mean that our world will be more unsecure than it was before because of AI. So, what do you think?

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. We’ll just take the other question first, and then we’ll answer together. If you would like to ask a question also now. I see you have a microphone accident. You have to switch it on.

Audience:
So, thank you. I’m Rafael Delis. I’m a scientist in infection biology, and I am concerned about an invisible battlefield, that is biological warfare and non-state actors. Now with AI and deep learning, generating bioweapons has never been easier. So, I’d like to use this forum to ask what should we do to ensure biosecurity and peace.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Also, a very pressing question for sure, especially in international context. Over to the speakers for their replies. Maybe Fernando, you’d like to go first this time, and then I’ll let Shimona and Pete fill in.

Fernando Giancotti:
The question is very interesting. By the way, this paper I just mentioned, the one of the CNA, talks about this also, whether mass abuse of AI will, let’s say, make things more stable or more unstable. Now, there are good grounds to say that could be either way, and which is like things have always been. It could have been the other way, one way or another. What I think, and I’m very interested in the augmented cognition that AI can bring, what I think that many strategic mistakes that led to wars, if we really get to an excellent degree of cognition, augmented cognition, could be avoided. For example, if you study wars, you see that most of the time, was a strategic miscalculation that led decision makers to start wars that for which they paid a very high price, much more than expected. Had they had lesser fog of war, most likely they would not have done that. The Ukraine case is a perfect case of that. So I think that if we can, and now we cannot, use AI for an actual quantum leap in strategic decision making, then this should be a stabilizing factor for most of the cases. There will be anyway cases, I think, in which this augmented cognition will prompt intervention. And so again, either or. But better to go toward augmented cognition are judging from the blood that has been shed for miscalculation so far.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Okay, Shimona, Pete, I don’t know who wants to also add something, maybe also to the second question. Shimona, you want to go next? Sure.

Shimona Mohan:
I can add just another point to Fernando’s already very well done answer, and I’ll take the second question. On the question of whether military makes a word, more unsecure or safer. I think all weapon systems are developed with the singular focus of giving yourself an edge over your adversary, as a result of which in like a systemic format, it definitely makes the world a lot less safe. But then we also have this idea of what kind of Cobra effect will come about from this. What kind of opposite effect can we see emerging from this? And I think Fernando highlights that very well when he says that this augmented factor might lead to a higher threshold of war, which might eventually then make it safer. But again, these are just optimistic viewpoints at this point, and it remains to be seen how this plays out in the global scenario. On the second question of bio-safety and security as well, it’s very correct to say that AI is something that will contribute a lot to this domain as well. And in fact, it’s already a risk factor that a lot of issue domains and experts are already aware of. So there’s this documentary on Netflix, it’s called Unknown Killer Robots. And it was chilling in the sense that it showcased a lot of these military application potentials, which we haven’t really explored a lot in the lethal autonomous weapons debate at the intergovernmental level. And one of these risk potential factors was how AI can be used to make a lot more poisons and biotoxins and generate them at an alarming speed, which we as humans at this point are not capable of. And this is even more exacerbated by generative AI applications now. So it’s very right to have the assumption that AI will lead to a lot more of these risk potentials around biosecurity also coming up. But at the same time, anything that is a genius for the wrong things can also be a genius for the good things. So let’s hope that while we have malicious actors or nefarious entities sort of taking over the biosecurity domain from the negative side, there are also scientists and policy researchers and normative actors working on the regulation side to help prevent that from happening, or at least having punitive measures in place before and when it happens. And that’s unfortunately the best I can say for now.

Pete Furlong:
Yeah, and just to add to what my colleagues have said sort of quickly here, I think on the biological weapons side of things, I think one of the concerns that I have is that when you talk about for these types of use cases, if I’m using a generative AI system to develop some sort of drug to help people, that needs to work every time. If I’m developing a biological pathogen for some sort of attack vector, it only needs to work once. And so I think there’s a gap in terms of capabilities that when we talk about trying to address at this stage is very important for us to recognize. And I think that it poses a significant challenge. The good thing I will say is I think that on this issue of like biological weapons is something that people are starting to talk about a little bit more. I know with like the UK Summit for AI Safety, that’s been one of the topics that is gonna be addressed at that. And then just actually to build on what Fernando said earlier, I think when we talk about this idea of improved cognition, I think one of the potential fears that I have with that is that cognition is only as good as your sensing. And so actually my background’s in robotics. And so one of the things in robotics that’s very challenging, right, is that you can have a very good robotics software system, but if your sensors aren’t strong enough and your sensors aren’t able to perceive the information, then that doesn’t really buy you anything. And so I think it’s important for us to consider that these AI software systems exist in a broader system and in a broader ecosystem, and it’s important to consider all those factors as well.

Rosanna Fanni:
Absolutely, thanks a lot. And if I maybe just abuse my moderator role a bit, and also add one tiny point about bio-risks, bio-ethics, bio-tech, so to say, is that I think with COVID, of course, we have seen a complete shift of mindset when we look at institutions, and I can just speak about the EU because that has been the focus of my study, but I think with a lesson learned, so to say, of the COVID pandemic, institutions have, I think, at least woken up and have seen that they need to be prepared much better to tackle those challenges, and those risks also emerging from the rapid spread and also the cross-fertilization between technology and bio. And as you may know also, the commission itself has established an entire new directorate general, so a new DG, which is called HERA, which just deals with pandemic preparedness, but not only pandemic preparedness, but also the future of indeed protecting civilian, yeah, civil people from those risks, also bio-risks, and I have friends that work also in this department, so it’s always very insightful to hear that actually institutions are already thinking about this issue, but I think still there needs to be done so much more, and I think especially also when you look at international institutions, much more foresight, I think, will need to happen, and foresight, as we know, is a tool. It’s not to foresee the future. It’s not to be a storyteller of what actually happens, but to be prepared and to know certain scenarios and to know certain risks, and I think there needs to be much more investment in research and development into foresight, into methodologies, into actually training also civil servants, capacity building, what is also mentioned here a lot in this context, so that eventually institutions themselves can be prepared, and hopefully also then the world as such, so that also especially global South nations are not left behind, because of course if you have more capacities to set up your institutions accordingly, then you will be better prepared, hopefully, but this should not mean that there should be, again, a race between global North and global South countries who arrives there first, and of course often global South countries do not have the appropriate resources to work on those topics, so I think it’s really important that especially international institutions, such as the United Nations, take over more responsibility in this point. Okay, now I talked a lot, as my moderator role is abused, I’ll hand it over to Paula for the online question, I hope the person is still there and also interested and following, so yeah, over to you, Paula.

Paula Gurtler:
Yes, I think I can confirm that the person who asked the question is still here and interested and engaged, because they asked a second question, and I would like to offer it to you, Lloyd, to actually take the floor yourself, if that is possible, otherwise I’m also happy to read your question aloud.

Rosanna Fanni:
So I think it should be possible if the technical department is just able to, I think the person can unmute herself, himself, and just ask the question out loud.

Audience:
Very good morning, all observed, thank you so much for the session, first and foremost, and it’s a great pleasure to be part of great conversations that would obviously be impacting the way the world is gonna be looking at things. So my first question is, oh, sorry, my name is Lloyd, and I’m actually calling in all the way from South Africa, so looking at obviously the great work that everybody’s doing on the platform, my first question would obviously then be more around what are the ethical considerations when developing and deploying autonomous weapon systems, and how do we strike a balance between human control and automation? How does the body of CSIJF look at that? Then should I just quickly ask the second question, sorry, Paula? Okay, awesome. And then the same question is, how can AI be leveraged to reduce civilian casualties and minimize collateral damage, and obviously armed conflicts, and what ethical principles should guide this use itself? If there’s any thought been put around that as well. So those are my two, well, I’ll call them three main questions from my side. Thank you.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Thank you, Lloyd, for asking the question and joining us all the way from South Africa. Greetings from Kyoto. I don’t know who wants to answer this question. Pete, do you wanna go first this time?

Pete Furlong:
Yeah, I mean, thanks a lot for some great questions. And maybe just to take your second question first. I think there’s been a lot of talk about trying to use AI to better target strikes and reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties. So that’s been kind of a way in which people have been talking about using AI to reduce the likelihood of those issues. But I mean, I think it’s worth also bringing up kind of the flip side of that, which is that if you can conduct more targeted strikes, we might see more strikes. And I think when you look at the use of drone strikes in the past 20 to 30 years, maybe that’s the reality. In terms of ethical principles being used for autonomous weapons, I think the RE-AIM summit was, its goal is to try to get to that. But for now, it’s more of a, just a call to action at this point. And I don’t think we necessarily have anything concrete. And the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons has tried and somewhat failed to this point to address that as well.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. Over maybe to you, Shimona.

Shimona Mohan:
Thank you so much for those questions. And I think these are sort of the cardinal questions that we also have to ask ourselves when we research around military AI and ethics. On your first question about the balance between automation and ethics, I think that’s a very, very pertinent question because that’s also something that the explainable AI domain is sort of struggling to contend with. In fact, the performance and explainability trade-off is something that’s very well-established within the AI and machine learning space, which tends to the fact that the more explainable, or let’s in this case say the more ethical your system is, the less it would be, the less performative it would be, or the less capable it would be in terms of its performance levels. So there is this sort of idea established which sort of pits these two values against each other. My personal take would be that it probably is a false dichotomy. There’s definitely a lot that we’re looking into, which sort of makes sure that we’re not compromising on one aspect of a weapon systems to ensure that another aspect is fulfilled. So in an ideal scenario, of course, this would not even be a question where you would always go for the ethical point over the performance factor. But because this is a realistic question, I think the idea is more around ensuring that these systems have and retain their level of performance, while also having an add-on of ethical, or responsible, or explainable AI systems attached to them. Of course, how well they are ensured is something that only the country’s military systems know about, because this kind of information is usually classified, or is behind a number of barriers when it comes to weapons testing, et cetera. But the idea would definitely be to make sure that we’re not compromising on one for the other. And I think policy conversations are also going according to that tune itself, that we’re not policing your capacity to build your weapon systems to its fullest capacity, but we’d also like to make sure that these particular systems are ethical enough to send out into the world without causing undue harm. So as of this point, that’s where the conversation is stuck, of course. As and when we advance more in this field, we’ll have a lot more nuanced ideas around where this particular balance stands at that point. On your second question, I think Pete sort of summarized it perfectly, and I have very little else to add, except for the fact that maybe in terms of casualties, we’re still looking more towards civilian AI systems being employed rather than military AI systems. Of course, this line is blurred in a lot of places, but for example, facial recognition systems are a good example of a dual use technology. And these systems have been employed in, for example, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where soldiers were sort of identified through these facial recognition systems, and then their remains were sort of transported to either side. So there are a lot of these, so to speak, civilian AI applications which are being employed in conflict spaces. Whether or not they minimize civilian casualties is still a larger question that we’re contending with.

Rosanna Fanni:
Thank you. And the last word to Fernando.

Fernando Giancotti:
Thank you, Eliud, for your great questions. Very quickly, the research I mentioned before, and by the way, I want to thank the Center for Defense Higher Studies for having sponsored this research, has a table, and so if you go on the LinkedIn profile of Rosanna or mine, you will find this table with five examples of ethical principles which have been developed by UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and NATO, which talk basically about human moral responsibility, meaningful human control, justified and overrideable uses, just and transparent system and processes, and reliable AI systems. So these are, as we said, principles which have been developed by single nations, and I just got kind of a summary because they are different, okay? They are not the same on the table. Now the problem is to get, let’s say, a more general framework, as we said, which will have to be negotiated, and that will not be easy. So for the collateral damage there, I can speak with cognition because I can guarantee you that when I talked about operationalizing the international humanitarian law, there is a process with specific, process and procedures with specific rules and specialized legal advisor which evaluate the compliance and, let’s say, clear the commander decision to engage. In some cases, I can tell you that, it’s not a classified information, we had drones for 48 hours over an area to observe movements before deciding to engage. So this means that in today’s system already, this is, let’s say, this issue is of a high priority. That doesn’t mean that there are never mistakes, unfortunately. The AI, if it is used with the money in the loop, can help doing better. I can tell you that at this point, at this stage of the game, I’ve heard nobody saying that they would relinquish the final decision to the machine. I think we cannot think that. We cannot trust AI to drive a car, which is a simple task. Can we trust it to do much more relevant things?

Rosanna Fanni:
Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Being mindful of the time, we are already three minutes over time. I would conclude the session now, saying that I think we answered some questions, but we have added probably a lot more questions during the conversation. So, yeah, feel free to reach out to the three speakers. You can find them all, I think, on LinkedIn, and they’re always more than happy to engage on the topics. Feel free to connect. And also, my colleague Paula has, or my former colleague Paula, has put the link already in the chat to the study, so you can also retrieve it and read it on your own. The case study that Fernando and I co-authored. And yeah, with that, wishing everyone a great rest of your day or evening, wherever you are. And thank you a lot again for your attention.

Joe Welch

Disney Plus is a platform that focuses on creating and distributing amazing content to drive demand. One of their key strategies is to bring local, in-country content to their platform, recognizing the importance of cultural relevance. This approach has been successful in regions such as India and Asia, where Disney has been able to produce vibrant content specifically tailored to the preferences and interests of local audiences. For example, the Korean show “Moving” has gained popularity across Asia and on Hulu in the US, showcasing the effectiveness of adding local content to platforms like Disney Plus.

In addition to emphasizing local content, Disney Plus also places a strong emphasis on being a good partner in the communities it enters. They do this by actively cooperating with in-country telcos, creative industries, and policymakers. By forming partnerships with these stakeholders, Disney Plus aims to integrate itself into the fabric of the community and contribute positively to its development. This approach not only helps them establish a strong presence in the market but also fosters collaboration and mutual benefit.

Furthermore, Disney Plus is actively engaged in projects that support digital literacy and online safety. They work with governments and NGOs in 20 countries to fund and implement initiatives aimed at improving digital literacy skills and promoting online safety practices. One notable example is their partnership with Indonesian NGO ganara, where they use old-school art techniques to teach digital literacy. Another example is the Latin American project Chico net, which trains teachers in imparting digital literacy to their students. Through these projects, Disney Plus demonstrates its commitment to advancing education and ensuring that individuals are equipped with the necessary skills to navigate the digital landscape safely and responsibly.

Joe Welch, the speaker, highlights the effectiveness of hands-on projects like those undertaken by Disney Plus in increasing digital literacy. He acknowledges the importance of engaging directly with communities and utilizing creative approaches to impart knowledge and skills. This approach not only enhances learning outcomes but also fosters active participation and empowerment among individuals.

Additionally, Joe Welch affirms the value of a multilateral, multistakeholder approach. He emphasizes the need for collaboration and participation from various sectors, including academia, civil society, and industry. Through active involvement and open dialogue, this approach allows for a holistic and comprehensive understanding of issues, enabling more effective solutions to be developed. Joe supports the idea that all stakeholders should have a voice and actively participate in decision-making processes.

Furthermore, Joe Welch emphasizes the importance of inclusion and self-representation in decision-making processes. He shares a South African quote, “Nothing for us without us,” which signifies the need to include and empower all individuals, particularly those from marginalized groups. Joe plans to incorporate this principle into his future presentations, recognizing the transformative power of inclusivity and the valuable insights that can be gained by giving everyone a seat at the table.

In conclusion, Disney Plus is a platform that not only focuses on creating and distributing amazing content but also prioritizes bringing local, in-country content to its platform, being a good partner in the communities it enters, supporting digital literacy and online safety projects, and advocating for a multilateral, multistakeholder approach and inclusion. Through these initiatives, Disney Plus demonstrates its commitment to providing high-quality entertainment while positively impacting the communities it serves. Joe Welch, in his analysis, highlights the importance of hands-on projects, active participation from all stakeholders, and the value of inclusion and self-representation in decision-making processes.

Audience

Disney is driving global demand for its content through its streaming service, Disney Plus, by offering a wide range of content from renowned franchises such as Lucas, Marvel, Pixar, Disney, and Nat Geo. This strategy aims to captivate audiences worldwide and cater to diverse preferences and interests. Additionally, Disney recognizes the value of creating local, in-country content to enhance its global reach. In India, Disney operates under the Star brand and produces vibrant content specifically tailored for Indian viewers. This approach has contributed to Disney’s strong presence in the Indian market. Moreover, the success of local content is evident in other regions, such as Uganda, where positive audience response highlights the significance of local language production. The audience resonates with content produced in local languages, emphasizing the importance of representing and embracing local culture. Disney’s strategy of combining global and local content has been effective in driving global demand and fostering cultural diversity and inclusivity. Disney continues to strengthen its position as a global entertainment powerhouse by delivering compelling and culturally relevant content.

Michuki Mwangi

Expanding internet connectivity is a complex task that requires innovative approaches, responsive to the needs of local communities. Traditional models face challenges, particularly in terms of business operations and return on investment. To bridge this gap, it is necessary to establish connectivity based on the realities of people living in remote and underserved areas.

Community networks, owned and developed by local communities, are a viable solution for expanding connectivity. A portion of the fees paid for connectivity is reinvested within the community, promoting further development. These networks have the flexibility to adapt to any technology that best serves the community’s needs.

For community networks to succeed, a supportive policy and regulatory framework is essential. Countries must develop policies and regulations that recognize new models and access solutions. Access to funding and rights-of-way for infrastructure construction are key considerations.

Relevance of internet services is another crucial aspect of expanding connectivity. Addressing low incomes and ensuring the value and relevance of available content is important for individuals considering investing in connectivity.

Efforts to increase internet access have already been identified, and now it is crucial to scale up these efforts. The Internet Society is willing to support this movement, as solutions to connect more people already exist. Increasing funding for deployment is an essential step towards scaling up efforts and achieving widespread connectivity.

Partnerships and collaborations are also necessary for success in the mission to connect everyone. Almost every panelist agrees that this mission cannot be accomplished individually, highlighting the importance of increased partnerships.

In conclusion, the 2030 vision of universal internet connectivity is achievable. By implementing innovative approaches, supporting community networks, developing a supportive policy framework, ensuring relevance of internet services, scaling up efforts, and fostering partnerships, significant progress can be made towards achieving universal connectivity.

Rose Payne

Almost one-third of the global population, approximately 2.6 billion people, is still without internet access, highlighting the persistent digital divide and connectivity gap. Moreover, the disparity between men and women in terms of online access is actually increasing, which is a concerning trend.

Meaningful connectivity goes beyond having the necessary infrastructure and devices. Factors such as the availability of relevant services and content, users’ digital skills, and security and safety while using technologies play a crucial role.

Various stakeholders agree on the urgent need for practical solutions to bridge the digital divide and facilitate universal connectivity for all. This necessitates finding actionable and concrete measures rather than just discussing problems. A panel discussion involving experts in policy and technology aims to identify and implement such solutions.

Governments have a significant role in addressing the digital divide by improving digital skills for individuals and themselves. Special attention should be paid to rural areas, which often face greater connectivity challenges.

It is important to emphasise and defend the multi-stakeholder model, which encourages collaboration and partnerships between various sectors. This model has proven effective in achieving connectivity goals.

Adopting a holistic ecosystem approach is crucial in addressing the underlying causes of the digital divide. By considering all aspects of the ecosystem, comprehensive solutions can be developed.

Improving “cyber hygiene” skills is also important, which involves educating individuals on safe and secure internet practices. Governments have a critical role in promoting and supporting such initiatives.

In conclusion, the statistics highlighting the lack of internet access for almost one-third of the global population underscore the urgent need to bridge the digital divide and ensure universal connectivity. Achieving meaningful connectivity requires addressing various factors such as relevant services, digital skills, and security. Governments, policymakers, and stakeholders must collaborate to find actionable solutions and adopt a holistic ecosystem approach, creating a more inclusive digital future for all.

Giacomo Persi Paoli

Digital technology has the potential to drive significant economic, social, and societal transformation, helping to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One speaker highlights the importance of using digital technology responsibly and safely to harness its transformative power. It is emphasised that responsible and safe use of technology is explicitly linked to the potential for digital technologies to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. This indicates the need for individuals and organisations to be mindful of the ethical and security considerations associated with digital technology.

Trust in technology, companies, and the government is identified as a critical factor for effective engagement with digital technology. Building trust is particularly important in fostering digital inclusion. By instilling trust in users, it becomes easier for them to engage with technology and leverage its benefits.

Another area of concern is government preparedness against cyber threats. A report by the Economic Commission for Africa reveals the high cost of unpreparedness in cybersecurity, estimated to be as high as 10% of national GDP. This highlights the importance of governments prioritising cybersecurity measures and investing in necessary infrastructure and expertise to mitigate potential threats.

Investments in skills training, especially in the field of cybersecurity, are deemed necessary. Such investments are not only crucial for enabling users to engage safely online but also help address the global shortage in the cybersecurity workforce. By equipping individuals with the necessary skills, they can effectively navigate the digital landscape and contribute to a safer and more secure online environment.

Connectivity is identified as a catalyst for new discoveries, innovations, and learning opportunities. The transformative potential of connectivity is emphasised, suggesting that it should be seen as a new beginning rather than the end of the journey. However, the importance of preparedness and investment in connectivity is emphasised, as changes brought about by connectivity must be anticipated and adequately addressed.

The need for upskilling is highlighted, particularly in the context of the anticipated influx of 2.4 to 2.6 billion new internet users. These individuals may lack the necessary skills for safe and responsible internet use. Therefore, efforts should focus on upskilling them to ensure that they can make the most of the opportunities provided by digital technology while staying safe and responsible online.

Governments are encouraged to improve their digital literacy and knowledge skills. As digital transformation affects not only citizens but also governments, it becomes crucial for governments to be digitally literate and engage with other governments on an equal footing. This highlights the importance of collaboration and partnerships in achieving the SDGs.

The importance of skills development is emphasised as a key pillar of preparedness for a more connected world. Addressing skills gaps is seen as essential in effectively navigating the challenges and opportunities presented by digital technology and connectivity.

Overall, responsible and safe use of digital technology, building trust, government preparedness, investments in skills training, connectivity, upskilling, and government engagement are crucial in harnessing the power of digital technology to drive positive change and contribute to sustainable development.

Onica Makwakwa

The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership aims to advance meaningful connectivity, especially in rural areas, through collaboration among stakeholders at national, regional, and global levels. By leveraging multi-stakeholder partnerships, the partnership seeks to bridge the digital divide and enhance digital inclusion.

The digital gender gap remains a significant obstacle, with an estimated cost of a trillion dollars in GDP over 10 years in 32 low and middle-income countries. Addressing this gap is crucial for economic growth and reducing inequality.

Affordability of internet access is another key challenge, with the current standard of 2% for one gig per month considered inadequate. Ensuring daily internet usage and affordable devices, particularly in Africa, is essential for achieving meaningful digital connectivity.

Supporters of the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership advocate for a policy approach to tackle these issues. They emphasize the need to raise standards of affordability and speed, invest in digital skills, and promote public-private partnerships. Mainstreaming gender in ICT policies using frameworks like REACT is also crucial for inclusivity.

Improved connectivity and digital skills have a positive impact on women. Internet access enabled women to transition their businesses online during the COVID-19 pandemic, preserving their income. Women with internet access were also more likely to complete online courses to upgrade their skills. Bridging the digital divide empowers women economically and improves their financial stability.

Promoting a broader conversation on digital skills, including coding, online business management, and mobile money operations, is vital for work and economic growth in the digital era.

The existing gaps in digital connectivity are a result of policy choices. Collaborating with policymakers to enact corrective measures and narrowing these gaps is essential. Engaging rural communities in the development of broadband policies ensures an inclusive approach.

Embedding meaningful connectivity indicators with key ICT statistics helps monitor progress and evaluate the impact of digital inclusion initiatives. Public access solutions play a crucial role in providing affordable resources to rural and remote areas, contributing to reducing inequalities in connectivity.

In conclusion, the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, through its multi-stakeholder approach and policy interventions, aims to advance meaningful connectivity and bridge the digital divide. Addressing the digital gender gap, improving affordability and speed, fostering digital skills, engaging policymakers and rural communities are crucial steps for achieving equitable and inclusive digital development.

Atsuko Okuda

The analysis emphasises several significant points regarding the digital divide and internet connectivity. Firstly, it notes that the rate of connecting the unconnected is slowing down, which is a concern. It is estimated that by 2023, approximately 2.6 billion people will still be without internet access. This highlights the need to accelerate efforts in bridging this divide and ensuring universal internet access.

Another important issue identified is the affordability of broadband services. In some countries, the cost of accessing the internet is too high, acting as a major barrier to its adoption. Affordability is measured using a 2% GNI per capita benchmark, and many countries fall short of this benchmark. This finding emphasises the importance of addressing the financial constraints faced by individuals and communities in accessing the internet.

To address the digital divide, a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach is advocated. Initiatives are being implemented in various countries to provide essential services such as education, health, and commerce. These initiatives are based on common building blocks, such as national identification systems, which facilitate the delivery of these services to underserved populations. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is leading this approach, with approximately 15 countries already participating in the initiative.

The impact of technological developments, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics, is also highlighted. These advancements are rapidly transforming both connected and unconnected communities. For instance, the new normal includes AI solutions and data-intensive decision-making in areas like e-commerce, traffic management, and mobile banking. Consequently, there is a demand for new knowledge and skills to effectively navigate this evolving technological landscape.

The analysis underscores the need to reassess the concept of digital literacy and digital skills in the new normal. With jobs becoming redundant or created due to technological advancements, individuals without the necessary digital skills may face difficulties in the job market. This finding suggests that a comprehensive approach to education and training, focusing on digital literacy and skills, is crucial for individuals to thrive in the digital era.

Lastly, the analysis highlights that partnerships play a critical role in addressing challenges related to digital skills. Collaborative efforts between various stakeholders, including government, the private sector, and civil society, can contribute to the development and implementation of effective strategies in closing the digital skills gap.

In conclusion, the analysis underscores the urgent need to bridge the digital divide and ensure universal internet connectivity. Affordability remains a major obstacle, while a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach is necessary to address this issue. The rapid pace of technological advancements calls for new knowledge and skills to adapt and thrive in the digital era. Additionally, it is crucial to reassess the concept of digital literacy and skills and foster partnerships to tackle challenges related to digital skills. By addressing these areas, we can work towards a more digitally inclusive society.

Takashi Motohisa

Amazon’s Project Kuiper is a groundbreaking initiative aimed at addressing the global issue of limited broadband access. The project plans to achieve this goal by deploying over 3,200 satellites in low-Earth orbit. These satellites will provide internet connectivity to underserved and unserved communities worldwide. Project Kuiper’s mission is to ensure that these communities have access to internet speeds and latency that are on par with terrestrial networks, thus bridging the digital divide.

Additionally, Project Kuiper aims to assist wireless carriers in extending their LTE and 5G networks to new regions. This collaboration will enhance network coverage and enable more people to connect to the internet.

Engineers at Amazon have also introduced three innovative customer terminal models as part of Project Kuiper. The largest model can deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps, while the smallest ultra-compact model provides speeds of up to 100Mbps. These terminals will play a crucial role in providing reliable internet access to customers in remote and underserved areas.

The project is progressing steadily, with the recent launch of the first two prototype satellites. Service delivery to customers is expected to begin in late 2024, bringing internet access to communities that have long been left without.

Recognizing the importance of partnerships, Amazon has invested $10 billion into Project Kuiper. This investment highlights Amazon’s commitment to bridging the digital divide and expanding internet access. Key partnerships have already been formed, including with Vodafone and Vodacom, with more expected in the future.

Takashi Motohisa, a prominent advocate for bridging the digital divide, strongly supports Project Kuiper and emphasizes the significance of technological advancements in addressing the issue. Motohisa’s endorsement reinforces the project’s dedication to its mission and underscores the importance of initiatives like Project Kuiper in creating a more connected and inclusive world.

In conclusion, with the deployment of thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites, Amazon’s Project Kuiper aims to revolutionize global broadband access. The project’s commitment to providing comparable internet speeds and latency to terrestrial networks is crucial in bridging the digital divide. Through partnerships and the support of leaders like Takashi Motohisa, the project represents a significant step towards a more connected and inclusive world.

Pablo Barrionuevo

The focus of the conversation on digital inclusion has shifted from the connectivity gap to the usage gap. Currently, around 3.2 billion people have access to mobile broadband connectivity but remain unconnected to the internet. This lack of connection can be attributed to factors such as affordability, lack of skills, lack of trust, and gender disparities.

Addressing this issue requires forming partnerships, as no single entity can connect the unconnected on their own. An excellent example of a successful partnership is Internet para todos, a collaboration between Telefonica, Meta, and the Inter-American Development Bank in Peru. Such partnerships bring together different stakeholders and resources to bridge the digital divide.

Additionally, there is a belief that we have the necessary technologies to connect everyone. Technological barriers do not pose the main obstacles to achieving digital inclusion. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that what works in one location may not work in another. Adaptability and flexibility are essential in finding the right solutions for each specific context.

Collaboration is also vital in connecting the unconnected. Collective efforts and cooperation can have a significant impact on digital inclusion globally.

Pablo Barrionuevo, an advocate for broader connectivity, supports the idea of flexible and localized solutions. He emphasizes the importance of collective efforts in addressing this issue. It is evident from his stance that a combination of technology, flexibility, and collaboration is fundamental to establishing inclusive and sustainable connectivity for all.

In conclusion, the conversation on digital inclusion has evolved to consider the usage gap as well as the connectivity gap. Approximately 3.2 billion people lack internet access despite having access to mobile broadband connectivity. Partnerships, flexible solutions, and collective efforts are necessary to connect the unconnected. While the required technologies are available, they need to be adapted to suit specific contexts. By working together, we can ensure that no one is left behind in the digital era.

Rose Payne:
Great. I think it’s time to kick off. So first of all, thank you, everyone, for joining us. I’m Rose Payne. I’m the Digital Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce. We represent 45 million businesses worldwide. So that’s everyone from your huge multinational corporations down to MSMEs. So I’m from pretty much every single sector. So just first of all, some housekeeping. As you can see, we have two mics. In traditional IGF fashion, I’ll ask you to queue up behind them when we have the Q&A session, which will be towards the end of this panel. Great. So this panel, which is entitled All Hands on Deck to Connect the Next Billions, will take a deep dive into connectivity and digital divides. Today, almost a third of the world, some 2.6 billion people, remain offline. We’ve made huge strides in expanding connectivity, but clearly, we still have a long way to go. So this issue has deep-rooted causes. And it’s important to understand that it’s not just a matter of people being able to connect. So earlier in the conference, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the Secretary General of ITU, mentioned that the proportion of women relative to the proportion of men who are offline is actually increasing. The persistent gender digital divide shows that the reasons for digital exclusion are complicated. This is as much of a social problem as a technological challenge. Do people have the skills to use digital technologies? Are there relevant services and content that they want to use that motivates them to be online? What are their experiences like when they use technologies? Do they feel safe and secure? That’s why we often refer to meaningful connectivity. Infrastructure and devices are really one part of the puzzle. So we’re going to start with an exploration of where we are today. Where does the connectivity gap actually stand, and why? Why is there this persistent digital divide? This session isn’t just about discussing problems. It’s also about finding actionable solutions. So that’s what we’ll discuss next. We’ll identify the right policy environment that encourages investment and how to create cross-sector partnerships. This workshop brings together experts in policy and technology who are dedicated to delivering universal connectivity using various technologies, economic and business models, and policy and regulatory approaches. Our goal is to learn from their experiences and discuss concrete solutions that can be applied or scaled up. to ensure meaningful connectivity for everyone, everywhere. We’re very lucky to be joined by these experts who work with the technology actually delivering connectivity, people who are carrying out essential research to help us understand barriers, and people delivering programs that help to overcome them. So, without further ado, I’m going to introduce you to our panel today in the order that they will speak. So, joining us online, we have Atsuko Okuda, who works for the International Telecommunications Union, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, where she is the Regional Director. We have Takashi Motohisa, Manager of International Regulatory Affairs for Project Kuiper at Amazon. We have Pablo Barrio Nuevo, Public and Corporate Affairs Manager at Telefonica. We have Joe Welsh, Vice President of Global Public Policy for the Walt Disney Company, who focuses on the Asia-Pacific. We have Machuke Mwanga, Distinguished Technologist for Internet Growth at the Internet Society. We have Anika Makwakwa, Co-Executive Director at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. And finally, we have Giacomo Persi-Paoli, Head of the Security and Technology Program at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Great. So, to begin, Atsuko Okuda, who’s joining us online, will begin with a presentation on the state of digital inclusion today. Atsuko, I hope you can kick us off now.

Atsuko Okuda:
Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to thank our appreciation to invite ITU to this very important session, and I hope that we can support and contribute with the statistics and analysis that we have done for this session. Now, next slide, please. I would like to start with a very short presentation on what ITU is. ITU, as many of you may know, is the oldest UN agency specialized in information and communication technologies, and we have three distinctive areas of specialties. One is the radio communication, dealing with the spectrum allocation as well as satellite orbit. Second, standardization, supporting the SMEs and industry to develop the technologies, including emerging technologies. And third, assisting member countries to connect the unconnected and meaningful digital transformation. Next slide, please. So I would like to start with the bigger picture on SDGs, and I’m not sure if participants have seen this slide in the previous sessions, and this is the highlight of where we are in terms of achieving the SDGs by 2030. In Asia and the Pacific, we have passed already 2022, but we are nowhere near, and it’s unlikely that we can achieve all SDG goals by the time. One SDG goal, we are seeing even the regression. So there is a high expectation that digital technology and connectivity will really accelerate not only the connectivity part, but through connectivity, the achievement of socioeconomic development. Next slide, please. So to answer your question in terms of where we are, according to the latest statistics, it is estimated that there will be 2.6 billion people still offline as of 2023. Now, for some of us who have been following the numbers, there have been steady improvement in the numbers. The previous number last year was 2.7. So you can see a significant progress. However, the two years before that, during the COVID, we have seen a much, much faster progress. Almost 800 million people joined during the short period of two years under COVID. So we can see that this pace of connecting the unconnected is slowing down. And I believe that this is one of the concerns that we have and we share across the globe. Next slide, please. So the next slide goes a little bit deeper into the digital divide and how it could look like. As you know, ITU collects the various aspects of ICT development globally and time series. So this is one presentation on the data analysis that we have done. We can clearly see that these regional variation globally, as well as gender gap between men and women and how many internet users are there in each group, as well as the affordability gap. These are some of the prominent features of our digital divide that we have. Next slide, please. We also have a very clear urban-rural divide as well as generational divides. And this is the granular view of internet users and what’s the percentage of internet users in each region, as well as per income groups. And you can clearly see that low-income countries have much, much less internet users. And the same applies to LDCs and LLDCs, which is the least developed countries and landlocked developing countries. Next slide, please. And I would also like to go a little bit deeper into the affordability. As you may know, the broadband service affordability is measured. There’s a benchmark, 2% GNI per capita. And over and above that, it is considered not affordable. And below that, a number of population can access and enjoy the service. And this is a snapshot in terms of which countries have affordable and unaffordable mobile broadband baskets as of 2022. And we can see that those countries with unaffordable broadband services have much, much less internet users. Next slide, please. So we believe that the challenges of connecting the unconnected, as you have seen in the slide, in the previous graphs and charts can be summarized in this problem and solution trees. Of course, this is a high-level summary. You may have different perspectives as well as the elements, but from where we see to connect the unconnected in remote and rural areas, we believe that their actual investment, physical connectivity issue, affordability issue on the part of consumers, as well as digital skills and the lack of services and applications that can bring the concrete digital benefits to the communities and population. Next slide, please. So in order to turn those challenges into opportunities, we believe that perhaps, and in the context of slowing down of our progress in connecting the unconnected, perhaps we need a qualitatively different approach to the issue to narrow the digital divide. And one of the approaches that we have been advocating is this whole-of-government approach and whole-of-society approach, because what is plaguing the smaller economies in particular is a siloed approach that to connect the unconnected schools or hospitals or farmers, we have different initiatives, but we believe that by connecting these different groups and sectors, perhaps we can create efficiencies and economies of scale. And there’s a lot we can gain by collaborating and through partnership. So this slide shows what that means completely as an ICT initiative. And we start with SDGs on the left-hand side. And in the middle, in the capital, in the center, in the government, we believe that we can create a whole-of-government and digital government services that can build to support the education, health, and agriculture without breaking the silos and without creating separate systems and infrastructure. And we hope that that will be delivered to the communities and people through smart cities and smart village and smart islands. And we hope that there will be a smooth transition from SDG to the actual benefit to the communities. Next slide, please. So what does then the smart village, smart island could look like? And this is a very high-level overview and summary. So as I said, we need a whole-of-government approach in the center that can provide education and health and commerce, agriculture, and so forth based on a common building blocks, as you see on the left-hand side, which could be a national ID. It could be one payment mechanisms. One could be a messaging. Now that will be translated into the village in the middle of the slide, which is a low-cost, scalable, and multi-sector collaboration platform that is within the remote village and islands that will provide e-health and e-agriculture and those services to the people. Next slide, please. So in ITU, as an example, we have about 15 countries that we are rolling out this initiative, and I’ll be happy to provide more details later on. Next slide, please. So this is my last slide. I believe that in order to materialize the whole-of-government approach and whole-of-society approach requires also a whole-of-support approach, the partnership among all of us, so that when we see an opportunity for synergies and partnership, we can join hands to make sure that there will be one, perhaps, solutions to address the issue instead of two or three different solutions. And we believe that through this partnership and joining hands, we can provide a qualitatively different support to the member countries and target communities. Next slide, please. So thank you very much for giving me this opportunity, and I have a QR code in case you are interested in knowing these initiatives, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Back to you. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. I think that that was a really fantastic framing of not, first of all, why this is so important. Connectivity doesn’t just lead to economic growth. It also can help to achieve global goals and also potentially help us get back on track with the SDGs. We also heard that the kind of complexity of this issue and the need for really innovative solutions, which take an ecosystem approach. So I’m going to ask the rest of the panelists for their reactions, starting with Takashi. So you work for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, who are addressing how to connect some of those really hard-to-reach areas using low-Earth-orbit satellites. What can you share about how the private sector is really innovating technologically to close the gap? Takashi.

Takashi Motohisa :
Thank you. Yeah, first of all, I would like to state that I’m very excited to be part of this session, and then thank you for giving me this opportunity to discuss how to bridge the digital divide globally with the experts from the many variety of the field. That’s a very fantastic chance for me because bridging the digital divide. is exactly the mission of the Project Kuiper that Amazon is working on. And then this is also my personal motivation and then personal reasons that I’m working for in this project. So, yeah, let me talk about the Project Kuiper as an example of the private sector is working for this bridging the digital divide. And I think, yeah, thank you. Yeah, please go back to the, thank you. Oh, that’s good. Please go to the next slide, thank you. And Project Kuiper is, sorry, sorry. Go back to the second slide. Thank you. This is Project Kuiper’s mission. Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband access through the satellite constellation of these more than 3,200 satellites in low-Earth orbit. Its mission is to deliver fast, affordable connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. The Kuiper system will deliver fast and latency on par with the existing terrestrial network. And like many other Amazon product and services, Project Kuiper is designed to affordable for the customers because we want to be accessible as many customers as possible. Please. go to the next slide. Project Kuiper will serve individual households as well as school, business, hospitals and other organisations operating in the locations without reliable broadband services. And Project Kuiper will also provide backhaul solutions for the wireless carriers to extend its LTE or 5G network to new regions. We will deploy more than 3,200 satellites in low-Earth orbit at three altitudes over 590km, 610km and 630km. Coverage of Project Kuiper will be 56°N to 50°S of the equator, which allows us to reach about 95% of the world’s population. And then the satellite relay the customer data traffic to our ground infrastructure on the Earth and then connecting to the internet, public cloud and private networks. This is how Kuiper network works. In March, we revealed our three customer terminal models, which are groundbreaking in terms of performance and affordability. These state-of-the-art antennas designed by the Amazon engineers include the most smallest one, ultra-compact one, which has only 80cm2 antennas. I believe it’s very incredible engineering. And then it can deliver up to 100Mbps. And then largest one will deliver up to 1 gigabps speed. Please go to the next slide. Last Friday, our launch partner at the United Launch Alliance successfully launched Kuiper’s very first two prototypes with the Atlas V rocket. This was a very, very one of our key milestones. We are running up our satellite manufacturing facility and will begin launching production satellites next year. So we can start to deliver service to the earliest customer by late 2024. That’s an overview of our project.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So now that we’ve heard a little bit about the technological kind of innovation that can help close some of those gaps, I would like to move to usage and how we can address the usage gap. So Pablo, I think that you’re online. I hope that you have the ability to unmute yourself, if not, send me a message.

Pablo Barrionuevo:
Yes. I think, can you hear me?

Rose Payne:
We can hear you now. Fantastic. Great. So could you share a little bit about what Telefonica is doing to address usage?

Pablo Barrionuevo:
Yes, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the panel. I’m very pleased to be in the IGF again. Well, I think that the first idea I would like to transmit is that the, well, the first impression when we talk about digital inclusion is that it is a problem of access. And it is true that the telecommunication networks are the backbone of our societies and economies. And without access, we cannot, we don’t have anything. So the first step are the infrastructure. are not the telecommunication networks. But the truth is that I believe that in the last years we’ve been observing an evolution in this conversation about digital inclusion. And I think that what we are observing is that there is a switch from the connectivity gap to the usage gap. Following the numbers presented by Atsuko at the beginning, the truth is that now we have 3.2 billion people that are under the footprint of a mobile broadband connectivity and do not connect to the internet. And so I think that the question we have to answer is why do we still have people that are under the footprint of connectivity does not connect. And this is the usage gap. And so it is important to understand what are the reasons for these people to not connect. We’ve talked about affordability. That’s one, of course. Maybe they don’t connect because they don’t know how to connect it. And so we have to improve the skills. Maybe they don’t connect because they don’t trust. And so we have to work into the confidence and build digital trust. There are many reasons. Also, the gender gap has also been mentioned. But I would like to underline this idea of a swift interconversation on digital inclusion from the connectivity gap to the usage gap. The second idea I would like to transmit is that I think that one of the learnings of the last years and connecting the unconnected is that none of us can do it by ourselves. This is an idea transmitted by Atsuko also. And this is the idea of partnerships. We need all hands to connect the unconnected. Of course, the telecom operators, but also the governments and other stakeholders. I would like to simply mention an example, which is a use case we’ve put in place in Peru, which is called Internet para todos, IPT, which is a collaboration, a partnership between ourselves and Meta and Inter-American Development Bank. This is just an example of this kind of partnerships. So, as a conclusion, first idea, the conversation on digital inclusion has evolved from the connectivity gap to the usage gap. This is where now is the problem, in my opinion. And second, the idea of partnerships. We need everybody to work in the in the same direction to connect the unconnected. Thank you. Back to you.

Rose Payne:
Great, thank you so much for that. Joe, we’ve covered access, we’ve covered usage, but we’ve also heard that that’s just one part of the puzzle. So how could you could you talk to us a little bit about how partnerships can also address that question of skills?

Joe Welch:
Yes, I can. Is the microphone on? Yeah. First, thank you, Japan, for having us here. It’s just an amazing event. It’s my first IGF, go figure. And the weather is fantastic, makes it even nicer. And thank you, ICC. And thank you, fellow panelists. As Disney, I’m a little bit humbled to be on with with Kuiper. Oh my god, the Leo thing is finally happening. There’s competition for Elon Musk. It’s just amazing. And of course, the ITU presenter framed the problem for us, which was wonderful. Telefonica goes out and actually builds connections, respect. So I’ll just try and do the humble Disney contribution to the discussion. So before I get to partnerships, I’m going to back up and ask the question. You know, what what do we do? We don’t build connections. We’re not a satellite company, or a telco. So what do we bring to the table? Well, it we try to bring the demand side to the table, right? So backing up, that means we try to make amazing content and then put it on the internet and drive demand. That’s our thing, I think that’s why we’re on this panel, is that reason. So enter Disney Plus, which launched in 2019, 20, 21 around the world, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, etc., and so that’s where we can put our product online and help drive demand in particular. 60 countries plus, the global content is there, the Lucas, the Marvel, the Pixar, the Disney, the Nat Geo as well. And then that takes us to, even better, is when you can add in-country content, right? So then, Disney Plus allows us to bring, sorry, to make local. Kinda hate that word, right? It sounds almost pejorative, so I’ll call it in-country content. Content in the language of that country that we create, we can now do that. We’re playing in that space, we have a Korean show we just made called Moving. It’s a Korean superhero espionage. It’s doing really well all across Asia, it’s doing well on Hulu in the US. So it’s not only Korean content in Korea, it’s exporting Korean content, which is even better, right? Driving demand around the world. India, we do great in India. We had the Star brand in India for a couple decades. I’m sure anyone from India, it’s really vibrant Indian content, Indian people making Indian content for Indian people. We’ve been doing it for a long time. Now we can do it through Disney Plus. We have scale in that market. It’s India’s credit that they’ve let us in, right? There’s another large country that doesn’t let companies like mine in. And there’s a Gandhi quote, which goes, I’ll paraphrase, it goes something like this. It’s, you should have a house that is built strongly enough so that you can throw open the windows and the door. and let the breezes come through, so apply to our industry that we’re allowed to come in and make content in the language. It’s fantastic. All right, I’m now gonna segue into three questions for the room. We can, panelists included, Rose, you too. If you answer the three questions collectively, then, then what? I will give everyone a Disney token or a tchotchke of some source. So I’m gonna read a quote, and if you can identify the quote, this picks up on the in-country language, if you can identify who said the quote, that’s the first question, and then there’ll be two following questions. So the quote is, if you speak to a person in a language they understand, you speak to their head. If you speak to them in their language, their language, you speak to their heart. You don’t have to raise your hand, just shout it out. Anyone? Very famous person. I’ll give you the continent. Africa. Still no one. Mandela. Yes, that’s one. Now that one was easier, the next one’s a little harder, but I think doable. What language was he talking about? For him, for he himself, what language was his first language? Who said that? There you go, Bertram. That’s two. That was the, probably the harder one. This last one’s easy, and it comes back to the Walt Disney Company. Which movie did the character, was Xhosa a significant part? Disney movie. Thank you, Helen. Yes, Black Panther, of course. So that’s our piece of this, is to drive the demand, and if you can do it in the in-country, creating in-country content, then, you know, you’re even more… more home and dry in motivating that demand. I’ll end this part of the panel by plugging another panel. It’s at 5.30, it’s on the main stage. Bertsen, what’s it called again? It’s called the Policy Network on Meaningful Access. Sorry, my voice is gone. And it will feature some producers from Kampala, Uganda.

Audience:
Yes, two female, young female producers, two sisters have been producing local content in the region for the region in local languages, including Luganda, and of course, Swahili.

Rose Payne:
All right, so that’s a way better story than I could think of, and it’s just a nice happenstance. It’s coming up at 5.30 on the main stage. Back to you, Rose. There we go. Oh, yeah. Great. You may find that a lot of people suddenly turn up in the room at the end. Great, so you actually just lined up really perfectly the next person who can join us. So Michuki, I hope that you are able to unmute yourself. So you just touched on the idea of, or the importance of adapting content to the local context. And Atsuko began by breaking down the state of connectivity across countries. That makes it really clear that connecting the unconnected means very different things in different places. I was hoping that you could speak to us a little bit about how we ensure that efforts to expand connectivity are responsive to local specificities and needs. Thank you, and I hope you can hear me. We’re all good, we can hear you.

Michuki Mwangi :
Great, all right. First, I’d like to start by thanking the ICC for inviting us and the Internet Society to this session because it’s a key area of interest for us and a focus area for our work because it’s very much aligned to our vision that the internet is for everyone. Now, to the question on expanding connectivity and the need to make it more aligned to the needs of people in rural and underserved areas. The one thing that we’ve come to realize is that there is a need for innovative approaches that can complement the traditional models for providing access. And because it’s evident that connecting people in rural, remote and underserved areas, and even in some cases, low income areas, presents a challenge to the traditional models that provide connectivity, especially from a business operations perspective and more specifically on the return on investments. So it makes it much harder for the traditional models to extend connectivity to these areas. Now, I’d like to set a perspective or sort of reset our thinking to understand what we mean when we talk about connectivity and what the internet is. Most of us understand that the internet is a network of networks. Essentially, what this means is that we have networks or individual networks that are using different technologies that come and interconnect together to make what we know as the global internet. Now, if we look at this from the context of those people who are living in remote and underserved areas, the way to do this in a sustainable way is to anchor the network or to build a network from those communities and then interconnect with the existing internet. And by doing so, it means that we are having to establish or anchor that connectivity based on the realities of people living in those areas. And that means that we have to consider the various social, economic, and other factors that exist or prevail in the areas that they are in. There was a study that was done or paper produced going back to 1998. And it sort of said that, or the headline here was that the first looking at those areas or the underserved areas as the first mile of connectivity. So today, over years, those areas have been looked at as the last mile, but essentially, if we were to look at them as the first mile, means we’re building from the community outward. Now, there’s a lot of work that has been gone into developing and piloting this kind of approach where you’re looking from the community outbound. There’s been, and those approaches have done deployment and tested this kind of deployments in different environments, topologies, settings, both rural and urban, and as high as 3,800 meters above sea level on the foothills of Mount Everest, where there are some villages that need connectivity. And there’s some work we’ve done there and are trying to learn from that experience. The objective here is to understand the challenges and the opportunities and how we can refine these models to be able to bring connectivity to those who need it the most and make sure that it’s sustainable and scalable. There are a few things that we’ve faced and in helping to design this model to make sure that it is basically adapts to those areas or to those communities that are being connected. And I’ll just like to touch on a few of them. First, we make sure that the model looks at technology from an agnostic perspective. It’s technology agnostic, meaning that it can use and adapt any technology that best serves the needs. It also adapts a non-profit approach in order to address some of the challenges that hinder the adoption. And I think the issue of use has been mentioned by a previous speaker, and basically issues like digital literacy and the need for digital tools and that training, technical support, and so on. So the model that we use when we talk about community networks really helps to address some of these local issues. Affordability is another challenge. And so the model that they use for charging fees is one that’s designed to be beneficial to the community. An important aspect of this is that these networks are less extractive in connecting people. Because the network is owned by the community, it means only a portion of the fees that are paid for connectivity are actually used to extend, to pay for a backhaul capacity. The rest of the funds are actually kept within the community. And then they are used for other elements that are needed for developing the community to be able to take advantage of that connectivity. And most importantly, it is anchored within the social economic pillars of that community. So schools, health facilities, the local government, the local institutions, cultural institutions, and also addressing the arts and entertainment that are key to that community. Now, there are some opportunities that we need to look at going forward. Key to this is policy. There’s a need for many countries and many places around the world to develop policy and regulation that recognizes these new models or complementary access solutions like community networks because it empowers them to be able to go and engage with licensed operators, to be able to connect to the rest of the Internet. They need to be able to build infrastructure, so they need rights of way. This makes it much easier. And in some situations, access to financial services, once they are recognized, it’s much easier for banks and other financial institutions to pay attention to these solutions and give them funding. Of course, access to funding is a critical issue, and right now there are emerging conversations around how the use of Universal Service Fund can help support the initial deployment and extension of complementary access solutions. Backhole still remains to be a challenge. We are very much excited about the deployment of new technologies like Lios because the cost and availability of backhole has been one of the big challenges that make community and complementary access solutions be less sustainable. So we are hoping that is going to change. So I’d like to conclude by saying, of course, and before I conclude, the content element is key. Most important is making the content relevant to those people that are actually getting connected for the very first time. Why should they spend money to get connected when they have low incomes? And so they have to draw a balance between the money they have to spend on other things and money that they have to use for access. So as I conclude, at the Internet Society, we are very keen to see information about developing and deploying community networks and other complementary access solutions becoming common knowledge. In the very same way that it’s common knowledge for many communities around the world who don’t have access to potable water to know that they can collaborate and find partners to support them in digging a borehole to get access to the water. In our experience, and we are working collaboratively with other partners, we are planning to produce a do-it-yourself toolkit in 2024 that is based on all the experience we’ve gained in the deployments that we’ve had across the world. And we are hoping that that will sort of help anyone who wants to support or living in a community to know the path to take to build, own, and operate an Internet infrastructure and connect it with other networks for the benefits of those communities that are yet to be connected. Thank you very much.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So, Anika, I’m going to turn to you next. Michuki just spoke to us about the challenge that connecting people in rural areas particularly creates for traditional business models. The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership leverages multi-stakeholder partnerships as a way to kind of deal with this. Can you talk to us a little bit about the role that those partnerships play?

Onica Makwakwa:
Certainly. Good afternoon, and thank you so much for hosting this important conversation. So, Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, we work on policy and regulatory frameworks to advance meaningful connectivity for the global majority specifically. And we do this by bringing together different stakeholders at national level as well as at regional and global levels to bring government as well as private sector and civil society to begin to look at an opportunity for building this. So, as an example, we obviously use research to inform the policy frameworks that we want to gain support for. So, I’ll give you an example with the 2% target that the first speaker spoke about on affordability in terms of how that was built. And it basically is a target that is one for two, meaning that one gig of data should not cost more than 2% average monthly income. And that was actually informed through research that was done in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, were able to get multiple stakeholders in Ghana and Nigeria to actually get their governments to endorse this as a minimum standard even before ITU adopted this as a minimum standard. So that’s sort of been our model. But apart from that, I just want to just divert a little bit from how we get to that to talk a little bit about why it’s important for us to be inclusive even in our solutions. Because multi-stakeholderism is about making sure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute and have a voice in this. One of the missing conversations in the digital divides conversations we’ve been having has been the economic impact of leaving certain stakeholders behind in our digital development. And I’m going to highlight in particular women. What is it costing governments and economies to leave women behind? A simplistic view is for those of you who love soccer, let’s say rugby because we’re in the World Cup and I was very disappointed a few days ago that I couldn’t find anyone willing to watch the game with me a couple of days ago. But rugby World Cup, who’s your favorite team? Say South Africa, please. We’re the best. Okay. So your favorite soccer team, rugby team. If we were to take half of the team and bench it, could you still win? Doesn’t matter whether it’s your best players or worst players, just half the team bench it, your chances of winning are actually nonexistent at that moment. That’s actually what is happening with us not paying attention to the digital gender gap that every conversation we’ve had here at IGF has told us it’s actually growing. So there is an economic impact. actually done a study working with different communities to look at what is the economic impact of leaving women behind. So the digital gender gap is actually estimated to be costing a trillion dollars in GDP over 10 years in about 32 of the low and middle income countries that we studied. In 2020, this represents $126 billion lost and about $24 billion in tax revenue that is lost. You know, when a woman is unable to use the web to get an education, to access healthcare, to build networks, she has fewer opportunities and everyone pays a price for that. So I think it’s really critical for us as we continue to talk about closing the gaps to really also think about how are we being inclusive even in that process. One of the common sayings I love from civil society in South Africa is nothing for us without us. The importance of engaging those stakeholders when we are building for them. And I think, you know, we’ve had examples and good hard knock lessons, the digital centers that were built because we thought people in the rural areas needed digital centers. And so we applied to build it and there will come approach and we built and the digital centers are now just kind of sitting there and not being heavily utilized. And I think now we are beginning to slowly start talking about this usage gap because while infrastructure is important and we still have a long ways to go, addressing the demand side issues is equally important because we want people to connect to the internet to do what? It’s not for the vibes. We want them to connect to the internet so that they’re able to use it in a way that they can help transform their lives. One of my favorite stories was a young boy who was a beneficiary of a public Wi-Fi program in the city of Twane in South Africa, who when he was interviewed, why it was important for him to walk so far to the nearest hotspots to connect, his response was that he lives in a shack and when he’s online, he no longer lives in a shack. Let that sink in. We have an opportunity and a tool to really empower people in a way that’s transformative. The people who need this kind of transformation in their lives the most are the 2.6 billion people who are actually offline at the moment. So I don’t wanna be too preachy about this, but where do we go from here and how do we build forward? I think the biggest thing we have to come together and agree on both private sector, government, and civil society is that we need to raise the bar on affordability. We’ve been working on affordability since 2014 for some of us and others much longer. You saw the graph showing how many countries have actually achieved affordability. And we are talking about 2%. But let me remind you of something that’s even said about this 2%. We are talking about 2% for one gig per month. What meaningful activity can any of us do being able to only afford one gig per month for connectivity? Certainly not the things that we’re required to do during the lockdowns of COVID. You cannot take a course and actually finish with one gig per month. You cannot attend meetings. There’s just so much that cannot be done. So we need to raise the bar from a policy point of view on this standard for affordability. And look at the meaningful connectivity standard, which tells us that we need to aim for people being able to have daily use of the internet if they want to. At the moment, we are still defining a connected person as someone who accesses the internet once every three months. So we are doing all of this, but our standards are so, so low. And we are calculating the gaps based on very low standards, which means that the picture is actually even worse than it really is if we were to use a meaningful connectivity standard. So daily use and limited access to data is a standard we should be pushing for. Adequate skills for connectivity, investing in the skills. A minimum standard on a device that is suitable for meaningful connectivity, a smart device. Let’s just say that, we won’t say phone, but a smart device that is affordable. One of the studies we also did was device affordability. In the continent of Africa, we are still spending 40 to 60% average household income on one device. So device affordability is a big issue. A lot of the solutions that have been introduced are financing of devices. That is not affordability. It’s, you can’t afford it now, but over six months you will afford it. We need people to be able to afford, so we need to really work around innovative solutions, whether it’s local assembly, or reducing of digital taxation on the devices themselves as a way to really spare uptake of digital technologies. And skills I’ve already mentioned, and an adequate speed, at least 4G level. If we truly are talking about people being able to do the things that Joe was enticing us about, the content that is dynamic and vibrant, we need to admit that we have to raise the bar on the standards, and this requires policy approach for us. And lastly, we have to mainstream gender in ICT policies. It is not acceptable that we continue to have a gap that is growing, and how do we do that? We do that by a framework that was actually developed by women called the REACT Framework. We need a rights-based approach towards ICT development. Rights-based approach because women experience violence online. There’s safety issues, there’s privacy issues, and some of the gap is caused, yes, by lack of affordability, but also by women censoring themselves out of participating because of the experience that they have when they connect online. We need to invest in education for the digital skills so that everyone is able to truly participate at minimum level, and maybe define what is a digitally literate person, the same way we did with the ABCs education. Digital education, what is a digitally literate person, and how do we define that, and how do we work towards achieving that? We need to really double down on access. I joked the other day saying that the running theme here at IGF is we are running out of time, but usually that’s because the sessions are always running late. We are running out of time, but we truly are running out of time. You saw the SDGs and the schedule. We are running out of time of connecting everyone. We are running out of time of making sure that we reach universal access. Over $400 billion is estimated for infrastructure that’s still needed for infrastructure investment to connect everyone. Even if private sector could put up half of that, we still need government to prioritize investment in digital development and infrastructure in particular. So it’s going to take the public-private partnerships, it’s going to take everyone actually contributing to this. So access and affordability. And affordability, we have to also admit that there may be communities that might never be able to afford even at the 2%, and so initiatives like the one that the previous speaker was talking about of community networks are really important. We have to be open to different digital models as well as different financial models for connecting the unconnected. We have to focus on content, so that’s part of the REAC, R-E-A-C, so content for C. content, but content in languages that people can understand and can operate in. Like, seriously, we don’t want to connect everyone for them to read English online. Most of the content right now is in English. I come from a continent where majority of the population does not speak English. So content is really important and it has an economic opportunity as well because content economy is quite a thing, right? We don’t want to only just be consumers online. We also want to be innovators and produce and develop content as well. And last, the T in the REACT framework is about setting targets. We can’t measure something that we did not set a target, we did not benchmark. We need to set targets and be intentional about closing, especially the digital gender gap. It exists because of the inequalities that already exist in our society. It’s not just a divide that is an online or an ICT divide. So we have to be intentional about fixing those. So a good starting point is looking at national broadband plans and seeing if they specifically address any gender issues. Quite a number of broadband plans are still quite mute on gender or women or just actually going the extra mile to ensure that women are included in the digital economy that we all are talking about now. So I will just pause there to say REACT, rights-based education, access and affordability, content and setting realistic policy targets to actually connect those who are not connected is where we need to be.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So next we have Chiakomo who’s joining us online. I hope that he can unmute himself. Onika, we’ve just heard quite a lot about the gender digital divide and the fact that when people go online they may not feel safe. And that may have a chilling effect. And the other aspect of this is also security online. If they don’t feel like the online space is secure, they may just not engage with it. Chiakomo, I would really love for you to speak a little bit about how we make sure that a lack of security doesn’t have that kind of chilling effect.

Giacomo Persi Paoli:
Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. I’ll assume you can unless you tell me otherwise. Thank you so much to the ICC for inviting me. It’s really an honor and a pleasure to be here today and speak on this great panel. It’s always challenging to be the last speaker because I had prepared a bunch of notes and, you know, as speakers were, you know, previous panels were presenting I had to kind of delete points to avoid repetitions. But I still hope that I can add some some value here. And I actually want to go back to to where we started if you want to tackle your question about the links between connectivity, digital technology and and the SDGs. And I will start with, you know, a quote by the UN Deputy Secretary General that at the opening of the Sustainable Development Goals Digital Day in New York about a month ago. Said that digital technologies when used safely and responsibly can be catalysts for economic, social and societal transformation by creating efficiencies at scale and expanding the reach of existing solutions to support more people. Now, I find this very a very interesting quote because we’ve heard so many times how digital technologies can have this catalyst effect that can be accelerators for SDGs. But this was the first time that I saw so clearly and so explicitly a reference to responsible and safe use. And what does, you know, responsibly and safe and safe actually mean in this context. First and foremost, we should take this as applicable to all stakeholders that are part of the connectivity ecosystem, from users to companies to governments. This is really a shared responsibility, and everyone should really take its own part of the bargain here and make sure that they deliver. But what does actually being responsible and being safe mean? Going back to something that I believe Pablo mentioned earlier, it’s about earning and building digital trust. People have to trust in order to connect. They have to trust the technology itself, they have to trust the companies that are behind the technology, and they also have to trust the governments that in their roles both as regulators and as service providers have to create a safety net, a protection net around users. Without this combined effect, it’s going to be very difficult to, in a way, build that trust that is needed and kind of mitigate the chilling effect. Because the chilling effect can occur in two ways. It can occur if users and people feel unsafe and unprotected on the internet, but it can also be on the other side of the coin. They might not be willing to connect if they feel that there is an abuse or a misuse of the powers of companies or of governments that in a way take, in this asymmetric kind of power distribution, they may perceive, users may perceive threats to respect of their own rights. They’re uncertain about what’s going to happen to their personal information and data. So security is a very important point, but it’s also a very delicate one that needs to really be taken into consideration from the beginning. I want to focus on, because we’ve heard about the importance of affordability, of access, of inclusivity, and reducing the gap. I want to add another important parameter here, which is the parameter of preparedness. So, I believe that it is very important, if we focus on the role of governments, that governments not only invest in ensuring the connectivity, so the ability of people to connect, but they do so without overlooking, or without taking shortcuts when it comes to really developing the preparedness of the whole system, to be able to absorb this innovation and increased connectivity. I just want to reference, there was a recent report by the Economic Commission for Africa that highlighted how, relatively speaking, for the African continent, the low level of preparedness in cybersecurity costed about 10% of national GDP. So, that is a significant number, if you think that, on one hand, connectivity can boost social and economic development, but, on the other hand, the lack of preparedness, the lack of an appropriate cybersecurity ecosystem at the national level can actually slow down, or potentially even reverse, the positive effect that connectivity and digital technologies can actually bring. So, what does preparedness actually mean in this context? I think that we have to look holistically at the whole of government, like it was mentioned at the very beginning, and that’s why I said I would like to finish from where we started. All of government approach is important. It means, fundamentally, intervening at, I would say, five different levels. The policy and regulatory part is key. Governments need to have policies and regulations that enable and support innovation. same time create the safety and security regulatory ecosystem that allows the responsible and safe use of these technologies. The other layer that follows policy and regulation is a layer of processes, of operations. We’ve heard how public-private partnerships are incredibly powerful tools that can be leveraged to really boost connectivity and development and absorption of these digital technologies. These public-private partnerships have to be structured, they have to be in a way put within a framework that allows them to work. You cannot wait until you need a public-private partnership to work, to worry about establishing the frameworks that allow you to start with to have these partnerships. Structures are also an important layer, so we’ll go back to safety and security. You cannot really think in 2023 to invest heavily in boosting your connectivity if you’re not equally ready to invest in building your own capacity to deal with incidents and emergencies that happen in the digital domain. So being able to build computer emergency response teams or computer incident response teams that can work at the public level, can work in cooperation with private sectors, etc. It’s key, so you really need to invest in building these structures that ultimately deliver that feeling of safety and security to individuals. If you’re asking me to trust e-banking because it’s safer than traditional banking and you’re asking me to put all of my savings online, I want to be sure that those savings are protected from criminals. malicious actors that maybe want to take advantage of me, of my perhaps lack of skills or knowledge. But I also want to make sure that there is someone that I can rely on that protects that critical infrastructure and critical services. And then, of course, it was mentioned skills. Skills is important. Globally, there is a shortage of cyber skills and cyber security skills, so it’s going to be hard. But nevertheless, it is important that significant investment is done in skills, not only to enable connectivity and teach and develop the skills that would allow people to meaningfully engage with services and content online, but there is also the need to invest on developing basic digital security or cyber hygiene skills to really, through public campaigns, through education already in schools, making sure that we invest in building that foundational knowledge that would actually enable people to safely and securely engage online. And last but not least, it’s technology. Now, technology has always been considered as a potentially kind of a high barrier for some developing countries and the idea that it would put a lot of pressure on them to be able to equip themselves with the technological solutions that are needed to protect and monitor and keep the digital environment safe. However, it is important that we do not let the challenges, in a way, prevent us from even engaging on the discussion of how important it is that potentially, by leveraging some public-private partnerships, governments equip themselves with the technological capabilities to be able to protect and monitor and protect their own networks. Because digital connectivity is fundamental, is key, can have so many positive effects, but it also, in a way, expands significantly the attack surface or the entry points for malicious actors to really target individuals or societies at large. So it is really important that we do not consider security as a cost line that needs to be minimized, but it’s actually an asset. It’s an investment that ultimately we need really to take seriously in order for it to pay dividends and make sure that people and institutions and companies can enjoy the benefits of an open, safe and secure online environment. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So I’m just going to let the panellists know, I think we’re a little bit behind our schedule, so I’m going to deviate from the plan and actually begin straight away with the Q&A. I’m going to cheat a little bit and take advantage of my role as moderator to ask the first question. So I’d like to kind of go back to Giacomo’s point about structuring partnerships. Every speaker today has agreed that one way or another, we can’t work in silos, we need to work together. Every stakeholder, be they government or private sector, has a role to play. The whole-of-society approach, ecosystem approach. Can you talk a little bit more about the way that we need to structure those roles and structure those partnerships? And I think I will hand the mic to you first of all, Takashi.

Takashi Motohisa :
Thanks. Actually, I would like to talk about Kuiper. We are paying a lot of efforts for the successful project launch and the service start in the near future. Amazon is investing $10 billion. The number is a little bit smaller than $400 billion. But we are investing a lot. But we believe that we will be more successful if we can get more partnership. from the both of the private sector and the public sector. We are perfectly committed to working with the partner of those who can share our common concept of bridging the digital divide. So we believe, we think partnership will take many variety of forms. For example, for the private sector, it can be the partnership with the wireless carrier to extend its LTE and 5G networks to the new regions. It is one of the form of the partnership. Actually, last month, we announced the partnership with the Vodafone and Vodacom. They are going to use Kyber services to extend their network in the region of Europe and Africa. And yeah, we are very excited to see how the partnership can improve the network in those regions. And we are looking forward to, of course, partnering with others. And then for the public sector, yeah, our ability to connect to customers requires access to the cable and radio frequency and regulations that enable modern satellite technology. We expect public sector support in both of country level and international level. From the spectrum access and the necessary licenses in each country to the international radio regulations update, which can enable modern satellite, like a customer, to fulfill its potential ability to bridge the digital divide. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much for that. I’m going to ask if anyone has a question, to please come forward to the mic. And we’ll actually start with one online. So I have in mind someone to answer this. But please, after I ask that person, any of the panelists should jump in. So the question was, when we’re talking about skills to engage with digital technologies, what skills do we mean? Joe, I think that it would be great if you could give the opening answer to that. Sure, I’ll jump in on that. But I’ll turn my mic on first.

Joe Welch:
Yeah, I mean, I. forgive me for defaulting to just giving a little bit of a what you know what we do answer to that which is well we’ll enter any given market with the service that Disney Plus mentioned and we’ll just try and be good partners as we as we come in with the service we’ll partner with the in-country telcos be a good partner to the creative industry the part of the ecosystem with the policymakers and just so that we have the reputation of like all these these guys are part of the fabric of our of our community that’s good for our business and it’s and it’s good for the for the country in question and then we try and do a little more on top of that that’s just like the threshold so the more part would be to actually do projects so we’ll fund an NGO or work with the government to do we’ve got projects in 20 different countries and we’ll do digital literacy projects or online safety projects with the NGO or with government so I’ll give you two examples one would be in Indonesia we partner with a firm called NGO called ganara and they go around to schools and they train that they work with the kids in the classroom to do the digital literacy so the the bullying and issues like that and they do it through art like pen on paper you know old-school art as a way to bring the Indonesian children up the curve on digital digital literacy matters and then a related one for us is in Latin America where we have Chico net which works across the region training the teachers to then do the similar thing as I described for Indonesia so those are two two different approaches that we take that’s responsive thank you

Rose Payne:
that’s fantastic would anyone else either in the room or online to pick up on this question just as a reminder that was when we’re talking about skills to engage with digital technologies what skills do we mean

Onica Makwakwa:
let me just humanize that question a little bit and share what we have learned about what people do online when they have the right connectivity the speed and then the know-how to to utilize these and this is all part of our course of exclusion study where we took several countries and we did qualitative research and ethnographic studies to really dig deep and humanize the economic impact of the exclusion so this is from the women who are online who were included and what we learned in West Africans in particular the women were using the Internet three times you know the Internet for every three men that reason the Internet only two women were but those who were these are the things that are accomplishing they were able to utilize the Internet and the reports that during kovat 19 they did not lose income because they were able to convert their mic their business of selling on at the market by being able to create our whatsapp groups and sell their goods online as well those were online reported seven times more than those who are not online having completed an upgrade upgraded their skills by taking a course online and being able to improve their job skills by being able to be connected and a lot of the uses were really connected to their financial ability to be able to take care of themselves and their families so I think you know I’m gonna just answer it from that point of view to say yes it’s about digital skills but maybe we need a broader conversation around is that coding is that skills to be able to operate mobile money is that a skill to be able to run your business online but you know with the right device the right connectivity and the skills what the theme we are seeing is that women in particular are able to preserve economic an ability to end economically in during periods of crisis such as the one we’ve recently had with the pandemic great thank you so much so

Rose Payne:
I’m aware that we’ve got about 10 minutes left only just under so I want to give everyone the chance to kind of make a final a final statement because I kind of cut you off from your previous content which uses to share so I’m actually going to start with at Sukho if that’s okay and if I can request that people keep their comment to about one minute that would be fantastic thank you

Atsuko Okuda:
perhaps I can combine my contribution to answer the skills question as well as the closing remarks and I think this question on what skills is very important I earlier mentioned about connecting the unconnected but in fact the days are very dynamic and fast moving of technological development such as AI and data analytics and it’s going to affect these connected and unconnected communities alike so the knowledge and skills perhaps we need to address the reality in front of us would be different from what we anticipated let’s say five years ago just very quickly give you an example there are already jobs which maybe may become redundant or the jobs that may be created and without the necessary a new digital skills perhaps the people would have tough time so I believe that we would need to revisit what are the digital literacy and digital skills that will be required in the new, new, new normal that we are seeing in front of us. And I hope that that includes the AI solutions as well as the need for data and data intensive decision making which we are surrounded with in e-commerce or the traffic management or asset management and the mobile banking as earlier a speaker said. So I hope that this will leave a question and the cautious optimism that perhaps together in partnership we can address in and move forward. Thank you. Back to you.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So next I’m going to go to you, Takashi.

Takashi Motohisa :
Yep. Thank you. Maybe, yeah, I can state that, yeah, we are going forward to bridge the digital divide strongly. Yeah, just we will do that. Fantastic. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Next on the list, I have Pablo.

Pablo Barrionuevo:
Yes. Thank you, Rose. Well, I’d like to congratulate all the panelists and you, Rose, because we have identified everything. We have all the ingredients on the table. And for example, the technologies, we now have the technologies to connect everybody. It is not a problem of technology. We’ve mentioned a structure. I think that it is maybe not the thing. I mean, we have to understand that what works somewhere may not work somewhere else. And maybe that is the thing. We have to find the flexibility to find the correct solution for the correct place. And maybe this is the case. We have all the ingredients. And what is maybe the common ground? The common thing is that we have to work all together to connect the unconnected. And this is the solution. We have the ingredients. We have the reside. And what we have to do is to work all together to connect the unconnected. That’s the thing, in my opinion. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. So, Joe. Yeah, thanks. I’ll end with an affirmation of the multilateral,

Joe Welch:
multistakeholder approach. 9,000 people here this week and dealing with existing issues and new ones like AI. And it’s my first. And it’s been amazing. And it’s a real treat. And then this panel, academia, civil society, industry, different parts of industry. history, coming together on an important issue like this. And I learned a famous South African quote today that I’ll use in future presentations, which is, nothing for us without us.

Rose Payne:
Thank you. Machuke, can I ask you to come in next?

Michuki Mwangi :
Yes, thank you. I think, in conclusion, as Pablo has rightfully noted, the solutions are there. Now we need to go to the next step. And the next step is that we need to scale up the efforts, meaning that we need to be able to scale these up to have the impact that it needs to have. And that’s going to be possible by increasing the funding that’s available towards the deployments of the solutions that have been identified. It’s not the technology. It’s about getting more people connected. And so that needs to start happening. We also need to increase the partnerships, because it’s an essential component, an ingredient for the success, as almost every other panelist here has rightfully noted, that we cannot individually do it alone, and it needs a lot of collaboration and partnerships to be able to achieve that goal. And so if we’re able to scale, make sure that we get the funding, the partnerships, I believe that it’s possible to achieve the 2030 vision of having everyone connected. And we, as the Internet Society, are pretty much here to support and collaborate with everyone to help achieve that goal. Thank you very much.

Rose Payne:
Thank you so much. I’m now going to ask Annika to give her summary.

Onica Makwakwa:
So the gaps that exist today are actually a consequence of policy choices that we either make or don’t make. So I’m going to challenge us that we must work with policymakers to look at narrowing the gaps. And one that we didn’t talk much about is rural v. urban divide. So engaging rural communities in the broadband policy agenda to make sure that we are not leaving people in rural and remote areas behind. Embedding meaningful connectivity indicators with key ICT statistics so that we are going beyond basic access to actually make sure that we are measuring based on meaningful connectivity. And lastly, we need to leverage public access solutions in order to provide affordable and meaningful resources to rural and remote areas in particular. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Great. Thank you. And then, Giacomo, can I ask for your summary now?

Giacomo Persi Paoli:
Absolutely. And I’ll be very brief. I think it is important that we consider connectivity not as the end of the journey or the point of arrival, but a point of departure and a new beginning. And to do that, it is important that we invest in preparedness. Again, stressing the importance of being prepared to what connectivity is actually going to mean and bring to society. And skills, as was mentioned, it’s a big part of that. I don’t think there is a single answer to what are the right skills, depending which community you’re talking about. Those needs will be different, but definitely basic cyber regime skills for all users are going to be needed. We’re going to have potentially 2.4, 2.6 billion new people connected that were not connected before. And these people have to be upskilled to make sure that they do so safely and responsibly. But at the same time, governments have to improve their digital skills and their digital knowledge skills so that they can engage with other governments on par. And really, skills is a very complex effort that should be taken forward as a key pillar of preparedness. Thank you.

Rose Payne:
Great. Thank you so much. I think it would be impossible to summarize everything, but just to kind of quickly run through the last takeaways. I think that the message for all of us is that we need to go fast, be flexible. We need to defend and uphold the multi-stakeholder model. We need better indicators, and we need to focus on rural areas. And then there was also a bit of a challenge to governments as well, because obviously skills is something that can be delivered by many different people, but particularly it would be great to see a focus on cyber hygiene, I think was another thing that came up. And then finally, it’s clear that really what everyone is asking for is the whole ecosystem approach for everyone to move together. So I guess that that’s a bit of a call of action to all of you. Thank you so much to all of our panelists today. That was fantastic. And thank you to everyone in the audience for participating. Thank you.

Audience

Countries around the world are facing significant challenges in implementing artificial intelligence (AI) due to variations in democratic processes and understanding of ethical practices. The differences in governance structures and ethical frameworks make it difficult for countries with non-democratic processes to effectively grasp and navigate the complexities of AI ethics. Even in relatively democratic countries like the Netherlands, issues arise due to these disparities.

Furthermore, many countries are hastily rushing to implement AI without giving due consideration to important factors such as data quality, data collection, and data protection and privacy laws. The focus seems to be on implementing AI algorithms without laying down the necessary core elements required for a successful transition to AI-driven systems. This is a cause for concern, particularly in most countries in the global south where data protection and privacy laws are often inadequate.

The lack of adequate data quality and collection mechanisms, coupled with inadequate data protection and privacy laws, raises serious concerns about the safety and integrity of AI systems. Without proper measures in place, there is a risk of bias, discrimination, and potential misuse of data, which can have far-reaching consequences for individuals and societies.

In order to address these challenges, governments must recognize the need to ensure that their technical infrastructure and workforce skills are agile enough to adapt to new AI technologies as they emerge. The rapid advances in AI capabilities require a proactive approach in developing the necessary infrastructure and upskilling the workforce to keep up with the evolving technology.

In conclusion, the implementation of AI is hindered by variations in democratic processes and understanding of ethical practices among countries. Rushing into AI implementation without addressing critical issues such as data quality and protection can lead to significant problems, particularly in countries with insufficient data protection and privacy laws. Governments play a crucial role in fostering appropriate technical infrastructure and developing the necessary skills to effectively navigate the challenges posed by AI technologies.

Jingbo Huang

Jingbo Huang places significant emphasis on the importance of collective intelligence in both human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions. He recognizes the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence to work in unison to tackle challenges, highlighting the positive aspects of this partnership rather than focusing solely on the negatives. Huang emphasizes the need for collaboration and preparation among human entities to ensure the integration of AI into society benefits all parties involved.

Huang further expresses curiosity about the collaboration between different AI assessment tools developed by various organizations. Specifically, he mentions the UNDP’s AI readiness assessment tool and raises questions about how it aligns or interacts with tools developed by the OECD, Singapore, Africa, and others. This indicates Huang’s interest in exploring potential synergies and knowledge-sharing among these assessment tools.

Additionally, Huang demonstrates an interest in understanding the challenges faced by panelists during AI conceptualization and implementation. Although specific supporting facts are not provided, this suggests Huang’s desire to explore the obstacles encountered in bringing AI projects to fruition. By examining these challenges, he aims to acquire knowledge that can help overcome barriers and facilitate the successful integration of AI into various industry sectors.

In summary, Jingbo Huang underscores the significance of collective intelligence, both within human-to-human interactions and between human and machine intelligence. Huang envisions a collaborative approach that leverages the strengths of both AI and human intelligence to address challenges. He also shows a keen interest in exploring how different AI assessment tools can work together, seeking to identify potential synergies and compatibility. Moreover, he expresses curiosity about the challenges faced during the AI conceptualization and implementation process. These insights reflect Huang’s commitment to fostering mutual understanding, collaboration, and effective utilization of AI technologies.

Denise Wong

Singapore has taken a human-centric and inclusive approach to AI governance, prioritising digital readiness and adoption within communities. This policy aims to ensure that the benefits of AI are accessible and beneficial to all members of society. The model governance framework developed by Singapore aligns with OECD principles, demonstrating their commitment to ethical and responsible AI practices.

In adopting a multi-stakeholder approach, Singapore has sought input from a diverse range of companies, both domestic and international. They have collaborated with the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution for ISAGO (Intentional Standards for AI Governance Organizations) and have worked with a local company to write a discussion paper on Gen-AI. This inclusive approach allows for a variety of perspectives and fosters collaboration between different stakeholders in the development of AI governance.

Practical guidance is a priority for Singapore in AI governance. They have created a compendium of use cases that serves as a reference for both local and international organisations. Additionally, they have developed ISAGO, an implementation and self-assessment guide for companies to ensure that they adhere to best practices in AI governance. Furthermore, Singapore has established the AI Verify Foundation, an open-source foundation that provides an AI toolkit to assist organisations in implementing AI in a responsible manner.

Singapore recognises the importance of international alignment and interoperability in AI governance. They encourage alignment with international organisations and other governments and advocate for an open industry focus on critical emerging technologies. Singapore believes that future conversations in AI governance will revolve around international technical standards and benchmarking, which will facilitate cooperation and harmonisation of AI practices globally.

However, concerns are raised about the fragmentation of global laws surrounding AI; compliance costs can increase when laws are fragmented, which could hinder the development and adoption of AI technologies. Singapore acknowledges the need for a unified framework and harmonised regulations to mitigate these challenges.

Additionally, there is apprehension about the potential negative impacts of technology, especially in terms of widening divides and negatively affecting vulnerable groups. Singapore, being a highly connected society, is aware of the possibility of certain groups being left behind. Bridging these divides and ensuring that technology is inclusive and addresses the needs of vulnerable populations is a priority in their AI governance efforts.

Cultural and ethnic sensitivities in conjunction with black box technology are also a concern. It is unpredictable whether technology will fragment or unify communities, particularly in terms of ethnic and cultural sensitivities. Singapore acknowledges the importance of considering a culturally specific perspective to understand the potential impacts of AI better.

In conclusion, Singapore’s approach to AI governance encompasses human-centricity, inclusivity, and practical guidance. Their multi-stakeholder approach ensures a diversity of perspectives, and they prioritise international alignment and interoperability in AI governance. While concerns exist regarding the fragmentation of global laws and the potential negative impacts on vulnerable groups and cultural sensitivities, Singapore actively addresses these issues to create an ethical and responsible AI ecosystem.

Dr. Romesh Ranawana

Sri Lanka is currently facing challenges in terms of its AI readiness and capacity, which puts it behind many other countries in this field. The country has just begun its journey towards improving AI readiness and it lags behind in terms of both readiness and capacity.

However, the government of Sri Lanka has recognised the importance of AI development and has taken the initiative to develop a national AI policy and strategy. This is expected to be rolled out in November and April 2024 respectively. The government understands that engagement in AI development should not be limited to the private sector or select universities, but it needs to be a national initiative involving various stakeholders.

Currently, AI projects in Sri Lanka face challenges in terms of their implementation. Although over 300 AI projects were conducted by university students in the country last year, none of them went into production. The proposed AI projects in Sri Lanka often do not progress beyond the conceptual stage. This highlights the need for better infrastructure and support to bring these projects to fruition.

One of the primary obstacles to AI advancement in Sri Lanka is the lack of standardized and digitized data. Data is often siloed and still available in paper format, making it difficult to utilize it effectively for AI applications. This challenge is not just technical but also operational, requiring a change in mindsets, awareness, and trust. Efforts to develop AI projects are being wasted due to the absence of consolidated data sets that address national problems.

In order to overcome these challenges, Sri Lanka aims to establish a sustainable, inclusive, and open digital ecosystem. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is working on an AI readiness assessment for Sri Lanka. This assessment will help identify areas that need improvement and provide recommendations to establish an ecosystem that fosters AI development.

In conclusion, Sri Lanka is in the early stages of improving its AI readiness and capacity. The government is taking an active role in formulating a national AI policy and strategy. However, there are challenges in terms of implementing AI projects, primarily due to the lack of standardized and digitized data. Efforts are being made to address these challenges and establish a sustainable digital ecosystem that supports AI development.

Alison Gillwald

In Africa, achieving digital readiness for artificial intelligence (AI) poses significant challenges due to several fundamental obstacles. Limited access to the internet is a major barrier, with many countries in Africa having 95% broadband coverage, but less than 20% of the population experiencing the network effects of being online. This indicates that the lack of internet connectivity severely hampers the potential benefits of AI. Additionally, the high cost of devices is a crucial factor preventing a large portion of the population from acquiring the necessary technology to access the internet and engage with AI applications. Moreover, rural location is a greater hindrance to access than gender, further exacerbating the digital divide in Africa.

Education emerges as a key driver of digital readiness and the ability to absorb AI applications in Africa. Access to education directly impacts individuals’ affordability of devices, thereby influencing their ability to engage with AI technology. Consequently, investing in education is crucial for enhancing digital readiness and facilitating successful AI adoption in Africa.

The African Union Data Policy Framework plays a critical role in creating an enabling environment for AI in Africa. The framework recognizes the significance of digital infrastructure in supporting the African continental free trade area and provides countries with a clear action plan alignment and implementation support. This framework aims to overcome the challenges faced in achieving digital readiness for AI in Africa.

Addressing data governance challenges and managing the implications of AI require global cooperation. Currently, 90% of the data extracted from Africa goes to big tech companies abroad, necessitating the development of global governance frameworks to effectively manage digital public goods. Collaboration on an international scale is essential to ensure that data governance supports AI development while protecting the interests and sovereignty of African nations.

Structural inequalities pose a significant challenge to equal AI implementation. When AI blueprints from countries with different political economies are implemented in other societies, inequalities are deepened, leading to the perpetuation of inequitable outcomes. Ethical concerns surrounding AI are also raised, highlighting the role played by major tech companies, particularly those rooted in the world’s most prominent democracies. Ethical challenges arise from these companies’ actions and policies, which have far-reaching implications for AI development.

An additional concern is the presence of bias and discrimination in AI algorithms due to the absence of digitization in some countries. In certain nations, such as Sri Lanka, where there is a lack of full digitization, people remain offline, resulting in their invisibility, underrepresentation, and discrimination in AI algorithms. This highlights the inherent limitations of AI datasets in being truly unbiased and inclusive, as they rely on digitized data that may exclude significant portions of the global population.

In conclusion, African countries face several challenges in achieving digital readiness for AI, including limited internet access, high device costs, and rural location constraints. Education plays a crucial role in enhancing digital readiness, while the African Union Data Policy Framework provides an important foundation for creating an enabling environment. Addressing data governance challenges and managing the implications of AI require global cooperation and collaboration. Structural inequalities and ethical concerns pose significant risks to the equitable implementation of AI. Additionally, the absence of digitization in some countries leads to bias and discrimination in AI algorithms.

Alain Ndayishimiye

AI has the potential to have a profound impact on societies, but it requires responsible and transparent practices to ensure its successful integration and development. Rwanda is actively harnessing the power of AI to advance its social and economic goals. The country aims to become an upper middle-income nation by 2035 and a high-income country by 2050, relying heavily on AI technologies.

Rwanda’s national AI policy is considered a beacon of responsible and inclusive AI. This policy serves as a roadmap for the country’s AI development and deployment and was developed collaboratively with various stakeholders. Through this multi-stakeholder approach, Rwanda was able to create a comprehensive and robust policy framework that supports responsible AI practices.

One key benefit of the multi-stakeholder approach in developing Rwanda’s AI policy is the promotion of knowledge sharing and capacity building. By bringing together different stakeholders, experiences and insights were shared, fostering learning and collaboration. This approach also contributed to the strengthening of local digital ecosystems, creating a supportive environment for the development and implementation of AI technologies.

However, ethical considerations remain important in the development and deployment of AI. Concerns such as biases in AI models and potential privacy breaches need to be addressed to ensure AI is used ethically and does not harm individuals or society. Additionally, the impact of AI on job displacement and potential misuse in surveillance should be carefully managed and regulated.

To further promote the responsible use of AI and create a harmonised environment, it is crucial for African countries to collaborate and harmonise their AI policies and regulations. This would allow for a unified approach when dealing with large multinational companies and help reduce the complexities of regulation. Harmonisation would also facilitate the development of shared digital infrastructure, attracting global tech giants by providing a consistent and supportive regulatory environment.

In conclusion, the transformative potential of AI for societies is significant, but responsible and transparent practices are essential in its development and deployment. Rwanda’s national AI policy serves as an example of responsible and inclusive AI, with a multi-stakeholder approach promoting knowledge sharing and capacity building. However, ethical considerations and the harmonisation of AI policies among African countries should be prioritised to ensure the successful integration and benefits of the digital economy, positioning Africa as a significant player in the global digital space.

Galia Daor

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been actively involved in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) since 2016. They adopted the first intergovernmental standard on AI, called the OECD AI Principles, in 2019. These principles consist of five values-based principles for all AI actors and five policy recommendations for governments and policymakers.

The five values-based principles of the OECD AI Principles focus on fairness, transparency, accountability, and human-centrality. They aim to ensure that AI systems respect human rights, promote fairness, avoid discrimination, and maintain accountability. The OECD aims to establish a global framework for responsible AI development and use.

The OECD AI Principles also provide policy recommendations to assist governments in developing national AI strategies that align with the principles. The OECD supports countries in adapting and revising their AI strategies according to these principles.

In addition, the OECD emphasizes the need for global collaboration in AI development. They believe that AI should not be controlled solely by specific companies or countries. Instead, they advocate for a global approach to maximize the potential benefits of AI and ensure equitable outcomes.

While the OECD is optimistic about the positive changes AI can bring, they express concerns about the fragmentation of AI development. They highlight the importance of cohesive efforts and coordination to avoid hindering progress through differing standards and practices.

To conclude, the OECD’s work on AI focuses on establishing a global framework for responsible AI development and use. They promote principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability and provide support to countries in implementing these principles. The OECD also emphasizes the need for global collaboration and acknowledges the potential challenges posed by fragmentation in AI development.

Robert Opp

Embracing artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make significant progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and ITU. The report highlights the positive impact that digital technology, including AI, could have on 70% of the SDG targets. However, the adoption of AI varies among countries due to their differing stages of digital transformation and the challenges they face.

For instance, Sri Lanka requires a national-level initiative to build AI readiness and capacity, as building AI readiness and capacity cannot be achieved solely at the corporate or private sector level. Other countries have recognized this and have implemented national-level initiatives. UNDP is actively involved in supporting digital programming and has initiated the AI readiness process in Sri Lanka, Rwanda, and Colombia. This process aims to complement national digital transformation processes and views the government as an enabler of AI.

Challenges in implementing AI include fragmentation, financing, ensuring foundation issues are addressed, and representation and diversity. Fragmentation and foundational issues have been identified as concerns, as AI is only as good as the data it is trained on. Additionally, financing issues may hinder the effective implementation of AI, and it is crucial to ensure representation and diversity to avoid bias and promote fairness.

Advocates argue for a multi-stakeholder and human-centered approach to AI development as a method of risk management. This approach emphasizes the importance of including various worldviews and cultural relevancy in the development process.

The report also highlights the need for inclusivity and leaving no one behind in the journey towards achieving the SDGs. It champions working with indigenous communities, who represent different worldviews, to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to realize their potential.

In conclusion, AI presents a unique opportunity for human progress and the achievement of the SDGs. However, careful consideration must be given to address challenges such as fragmentation, financing, foundation issues, and representation and diversity. By adopting a multi-stakeholder and human-centered approach, AI can be harnessed effectively and inclusively to drive sustainable development and improve the lives of people worldwide.

Robert Opp:
So, please feel free to join us at the table. Don’t have to sit in the gallery. This is a round table after all. Peter, are you going to lurk in the corner over there or you want to join us at the table? Can I just do a check for our panelists online? Dr. Ranawana, are you there? Can you hear us? Oh, okay, now we can see you. Oh, perfect. Thank you. And we’ve got Alan, are you there? Yes. Can you unmute, please, so that we can? Oh, apologies for that. I was speaking on mute. Perfect. Yeah, good morning to you all, and good day to whatever part of the world you’ve been waiting for. Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right. We’ll get started. Still some seats at the table. Feel free to join us at the table if you wish. I think we’ll get started here. Okay. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone in Kyoto. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening for those of you joining online. It’s great to have you all with us. This session is on AI is Coming, Are Countries Ready or Not? And this week has been full of AI-related events, and I’m grateful that you’ve still got the stamina to join us for this one. This is a discussion that we really want to bring forward on how countries in different stages of their digital transformation effort are taking the opportunity or trying to figure out the challenges around adopting artificial intelligence for the purpose of their national development process. And so looking forward to a good conversation on this. I’ll just, my name is Robert Opp, and I’m the Chief Digital Officer from the United Nations Development Program. UNDP, for those of you who are not aware, is essentially a big development arm of the UN system. We have presence in 170 countries. We work across many different thematic areas, including governance, climate, energy, resilience, gender, et cetera, all for the purpose of poverty eradication. And our work in digital really stems from that, because it is about how do we embrace the power of digital technology in a responsible and ethical way that puts people and their rights at the center of technological support for the development. So just to set a few words of context, I think, obviously, AI, especially with the advent of generative AI, has just exploded into the public consciousness around what is potentially available for countries in terms of the power of technology. And as we are in terms of the state of, let’s say, a pivotal point of history, three weeks ago we celebrated the SDG Summit. It marks the halfway point to the Sustainable Development Goals. We are not on track for the Sustainable Development Goals, unfortunately. Only 15% of the targets have actually been achieved. Some work that we, together with the International Telecommunication Union did in a report that was released called the SDG Digital Acceleration Agenda, we found that 70% of the SDG targets could actually be positively impacted with the use of technology. And I have to say, during that week of the high-level segment, a few weeks back, of the General Assembly, there was a lot of discussion around digital transformation overall, the power of technology, and particularly, like here, the interest, I might say, the buzz around artificial intelligence and what might it do. But it’s not so straightforward for countries to know what to do, where to turn, for countries who don’t have necessarily all of the foundations, who are not aware of the models out there. And so the conversation today is really about how do we, what situation are countries in now, and what might we do to support countries as they embrace AI? What can countries also do to reach out and organize themselves with the support of others? And I think it’s important to note that our view on this is really based in the opportunity. A number of discussions this week have focused on the potential negative impacts of artificial intelligence, which is correct, because there are lots of concerns. But on the positive side, when we look at this as UNDP, there is tremendous potential opportunity here to embrace AI and really make significant progress against the SDGs. And so the conversation today is about how to do that in a responsible and ethical way. But we’re going to focus a little bit more on the opportunity than the sort of doom and gloom end of humanity view, that that’s not important. But okay, so to join us today and for really kind of giving some texture to this roundtable, we’ve got a few fire starter speakers with us. And we’re very grateful to have a great mix of people that can really speak to this issue. So we have Dr. Romesh Ranawana, who’s the chairman of the National Committee to Formulate AI Policy and Strategy for Sri Lanka. That was an entity that was established by the president this year. We have joining us soon, hopefully, in the chair beside me, which is still empty, Dr. Allison Gilwald, who’s the executive director of Research ICT Africa, which is a digital policy and regulatory think tank based in South Africa. We have Denise Wong with us, who’s assistant chief executive within the Data Innovation and Protection Group at Singapore’s Infocom Media Development Authority, IMDA. We have Galia Daur, who’s a policy analyst within the Digital Economy Policy Division at OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology, and Innovation. And we have Alain Indashamaye. I’m sorry, Alain, if I haven’t got all of the syllables of your last name in there, who’s the project lead of the Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution based in Rwanda. And so my plan here is that we’ll go through some initial comments from all of our speakers, and then we do want to turn this over to you as well. I’m also going to make just a couple remarks from the UNDP side and some of the work that we’re doing in this space as well before, just before we go to Q&A. But the offer to join us at the table is still open for those of you who’d like to come, because it is a roundtable. All right. With that, let’s go to our first speaker. And, you know, the setting here or the overall question is, you know, are countries ready for AI? What are you seeing on the ground? And what have the experiences been so far in building open, inclusive, trusted digital ecosystems that can support AI? And to speak first, I’m going to turn to Dr. Romesh Ranawana from Sri Lanka. Dr. Ranawana, the floor is yours.

Dr. Romesh Ranawana:
Thank you so much, Robert, and good morning, good afternoon to all. As you mentioned, Sri Lanka has just embarked on this journey of, you know, trying to improve AI readiness and bring the benefits of AI to the general population. But what we are faced here as a country with very low level of AI readiness and AI capacity is quite a gargantuan task, mainly because the AI revolution is just starting. And if you look at where other countries are, we are significantly behind, and we need to catch up to make sure that we bring the benefits of AI both to the people and our economy as well. And something that we’ve seen happening around the world over the last few years is that I think most countries have realized that building AI readiness, building AI capacity cannot be done at, you know, at the corporate level or the private sector level or by a few universities. It’s been accepted now that it’s got to be a national level initiative that needs to take this forward. And we’ve seen most of the developed countries that have formulated national AI strategies over the last few years, and most of the middle income countries as well, especially over the last two years, have formulated policies. So in Sri Lanka, what we have is a strange situation where we have lots of engineers who are capable of building AI systems. And we did a study recently where we found that just over the last year, there have been more than 300 projects in our universities conducted by university students on AI. But the problem that we have is that very few of these systems or none of these systems are actually going into production. They are stopping at the stage where it’s a proof of concept or a research paper, but it’s not really going into society and actually causing benefits. So our challenge here was how do we create an ecosystem where not only is the research done, but also for some of these benefits to be brought out into government services, into building economy, to making food production more efficient, bringing in education and things like that. Now, the challenge that we have, and we are very fortunate that the government took the initiative to set up the Presidential Task Force to look at national AI policy, and our current trajectory is to launch the policy in November, and then a strategy which will come up with the execution plan for the policy, which will come out in April 2024. But the challenge with AI is the fact that AI is a general-purpose technology. AI can affect just about any sector, from education to health sector to the national economy, government services, and as a country with limited resources, our challenge was how do we pick the battles that we want to address initially with our AI policy. We can’t do everything because our resources are limited, and this is quite a difficult task. And as the general guidelines for how we want to approach this was, we had three main pillars that we were looking at. First, what were those foundation elements that we need to put in place to build up AI readiness and AI capacity? Number two, what are those specific applications and specific areas that we need to focus on that will cause immediate impact and also impact on the medium term? And third is also set up the regulatory environment on how we are going to protect our citizens from the negative impacts of AI as well. And for this, once again, the scope is unlimited on what we can do, and we’ve been very fortunate that the UNDP stepped in and has started working on an AI readiness assessment for Sri Lanka, which will be the foundation of setting out those parameters on what we need to look at for what should be our main priorities and focus areas for the AI strategy that we are developing. So the AI readiness assessment at the moment is underway, and this AI readiness assessment will evaluate our strengths, our weaknesses, and the opportunities that lie ahead for Sri Lanka in terms of AI. So as we stride forward, our eyes are set on fostering an open and inclusive digital ecosystem that will not only withstand the shockwaves of the AI revolution, but also harness its potential for the greater good of our people. It’s not going to be an easy task. I mean, developing a policy and a strategy is one thing, but I think the key element for Sri Lanka is how we are going to execute on this and also do this in such a way that it’s sustainable, where this policy is not going to be put aside when governments change or the priorities of the government change. So that’s something that we are also looking at on how we can approach that. But really, our focus at the moment is first identifying our boundaries. What should the AI policy in Sri Lanka initially focus on? And then from there onwards, building on where we are going to go. Thank you.

Robert Opp:
Thank you so much, Dr. Ranawana. Fascinating questions to be asked, and I’m sure shared with a number of other countries. We’re going to go to our next speaker, Denise Wong of IMDA in Singapore. And Singapore has done a lot very quickly, I would say, in the AI space. And we’re aware of some of the work you’ve done in policy and governance and how you’ve really worked to include putting people at the centre, taking a human-centric approach. Could you tell us a little bit more about the approach Singapore has taken and some of the things you’ve done to make this a human-centric endeavour?

Denise Wong:
Thanks for the question, and thank you for having me. So, you’re indeed right. I think our policy has always been quite an inclusive one. As part of the national AI strategy, everything that we’re doing today has really been on the back or building upon foundations about inclusion and about high level of digital readiness and adoption within our communities. And that’s really been the bedrock for all the work that we’ve done after that. Focusing specifically on AI governance, which is the area that I work in, of course, in the area of governance and regulation, you’re always thinking about risks and potential of misuse. But I prefer not to see it only in that frame. A lot of it has been about what does AI mean and what does AI mean for the public? good in the public interest and it’s in that context that we see both opportunities and opportunities for our public at large but of course with the appropriate guardrails and safety nets and implementable guidance and thus if I sum up our approach it’s really been about being practical and having detailed guidance to to help shape norms and usage and in doing so we started off with a model governance framework fully aligned to OECD principles which was a very important to us to have the international alignment and we took a multi-stakeholder approach in developing that we also took in a fairly international approach in doing that we got feedback from more than 60 companies from different sectors both domestic and international as part of the first iteration of the model governance framework we also worked on what we call ISAGO which is an implementation and self-assessment guide for companies and that was actually done together with the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and that helps to provide practical alignment for companies with their governance practices with the model governance framework we also put together a compendium of use cases which contains illustrations on how local and international organizations can align and implement these practices so it was always a fairly practical approach that we took an organization centric lens and that sort of took away the sting of maybe politics or risk or existential and really just focused on what companies could do, should do at the very practical level. In the Gen-AI space I would say we’ve also been fairly so practical and industry focused. We issued a discussion paper in June focusing on Gen-AI. It was framed as a discussion paper rather than a white paper because we really wanted to generate discussion. It was an acknowledgement that we didn’t know all the answers. No one does and we wrote it together with a company in Singapore so that we had both perspectives. We’ve also launched the AI Verify Foundation in June. It’s an open source foundation. To be honest we’re also learning how to do open source foundations as we go along but that also has an AI open source toolkit not in Gen-AI space in the discriminative AI space but that was really a toolkit that we wanted to build and let companies sort of take and adopt and adapt for their own use so that we sort of lowered the cost of compliance for companies. The AI Verify Foundation has over 80 companies now who’s joined us from so all over the globe and we did think that it was important to bring different voices to the table at the industry level but also at the end-user level to understand what were the fears and concerns that people had on the ground. So it’s been a constant sort of conversation that we’ve had with our public and with our companies, with international organisations, with other governments. All of the aim of I guess interoperability, global alignment but also to sort of encourage a sort of open industry focus lens and that’s so generally the way we have approached a lot of these issues in sort of critical emerging technologies, frontier technologies where we may not know what the answer is. The last piece I’ll say is that we’ve also been looking at the question of standards and benchmarking and evaluations because a lot of that beyond the principles will be about that what are those technical standards and we do think that it is quite important to have international alignment on that as well and we do so hope that beyond general principles that’s where a lot of where the conversation will go. Thank you.rn to

Robert Opp:
Thank you so much and I want to tu our third kind of country focused example and we’re going to go to Alain Ndayeshimaye, I’m sorry Alain you’ll have to correct me on the pronunciation of your last name I’m so sorry, who works at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution based in Rwanda and you know we know you know as a Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution it’s by nature a multi-stakeholder endeavor and I guess my question for you is what’s the situation you see on the ground in Rwanda and what’s how can multi-stakeholder approaches help with building the capacity of local digital ecosystems to engage in AI?

Alain Ndayishimiye:
Yes thank you moderator once again let me take the opportunity to greet everyone whatever you are in the world before I contribute to this esteemed panel allow me to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the UNDP team for inviting me to be part of this dialogue. As AI continues to shape our world the need for responsible and transparent practices have never been more pressing. AI has the potential to transform societies on a global scale but it also brings with it inherent risks if not developed, deployed and managed responsibly. This calls for a multi-stakeholder approach in addressing these issues. So as introduced my name is Alain Ndayeshimaye, I’m the project lead for AI and machine learning at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Our work revolves around the defined governance gaps for designing, testing and defining governance protocols and policy frameworks that can be developed and adopted by government policy makers and regulators just to keep up with the accelerated pace of the benefits of adopting AI while minimizing their potential risks. For Rwanda, AI is a leap forward technology that through appropriate design and responsible implementation can help advance Rwanda’s social and economic aspirations while becoming an upper middle income country by 2035 and a high income country by 2050. Even more, AI as a general purpose technology holds the power to achieve the UN sustainable development goals. In addition, AI has been identified as a driver of innovation and global competitiveness and this is as a result of the government’s dedication of harnessing the power of data algorithm as a catalyst for social and economic change and transformation. So in response to the question posed to me, allow me to reference our journey in developing Rwanda’s policy as a case study. Rwanda often referred to as the land of a thousand hills is now appraising to be the land of AI innovation. With our national air policy now formally approved, we have set forth transformative journey. This policy isn’t just a roadmap, it’s a testament to Rwanda’s vision and commitment to position itself as a beacon of responsible and inclusive AI on the global stage. However, it’s ambitious goals requires a strong foundation to build upon and this is where we bring the concept of stakeholder collaboration at the forefront and this is why we’re established as a centre. Our experience with multi-stakeholder approach has been both enlightening and transformative. Crafting and implementing a national air policy wasn’t a solitary endeavour. It was a symphony of collaboration between the Minister of RCT and Innovation of Rwanda, the Centre for Industrial Revolution, the public sector, international partners, academia, the private sector and civil society, collaborating towards a common goal. These stakeholders brought different perspective, experiences and expertise and reaching the policy development process. The process of developing AI policy wasn’t an inclusive and consultative one. The consultation and workshops were held enabling stakeholders to share their insights, concerns and ideas. By involving multiple stakeholders, the policy development process ensured transparency, accountability and participation, resulting in a more comprehensive and robust policy framework. One of the key benefits of a multi-stakeholder approach is the diversity of perspective it brings on the table. In the case of Rwanda’s AI policy, involving diverse stakeholders meant a holistic understanding of the current challenges and opportunities, resulting in a more nuanced, effective policy solution. The collaboration between stakeholders also helped build consensus and trust, fostering a sense of ownership of the policy among all stakeholders. Furthermore, multi-stakeholder approach promotes a knowledge sharing and capacity building among stakeholders, ultimately strengthening local digital ecosystems. In a development of Rwanda’s AI policy, stakeholders from different sectors and organisations shared experiences and knowledge, fostering learning and collaboration. This has not only resulted in a more comprehensive AI policy, but also heightened the capacity of stakeholders to effectively implement it. The multi-stakeholder approach has greatly aided Rwanda in establishing its AI strategy on a firm data governance foundation. As we all know, data serves as the lifeblood of AI, making robust data governance essential. By collaborating with stakeholders through thoughtful consultation, Rwanda’s AI policy now encompasses a stringent data protection and privacy guidelines. And this aligns with the principles of the recently enacted Rwanda Data Protection and Privacy Law that will help co-design, which mandates the safeguards and upholding of data privacy of processing of any processing data of Rwandan residents. In conclusion, the multi-stakeholder approach has undoubtedly played a critical role in strengthening local digital ecosystems in Rwanda and building a foundation of our strategy. It has promoted collaboration, knowledge sharing, capacity building among stakeholders, resulting in a more comprehensive and effective AI policy. This approach has not only fostered inclusive and responsible development of AI, but also builds on the trust and confidence among stakeholders, promoting sustainable and inclusive growth of local digital systems. Furthermore, collaborative risk assessment informed by various stakeholders enables us to identify and mitigate any diverse AI-associated risks. Moreover, by collaborating with our international partners, we are aligned and aligned our local AI initiative with global-based practices, ensuring that Rwanda is at the forefront of AI, both locally and internationally. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Over to you, moderator.

Robert Opp:
Thanks so much, Alain. Some really interesting observations there. And actually, the last thing you said was looking at what’s happening globally. And that’s actually where I’d like to turn the conversation now. We have a couple speakers who are going to talk to kind of a zoomed out perspective and sort of looking overall. So with that, I want to turn to Alison Gilwald, who is the Executive Director of Research ICT Africa. And you’ve been working across the African continent on some research to understand where countries are with their AI readiness. We’ve just heard an example from the Rwanda case. But if you zoom out a bit, what are some of the takeaways that you’re seeing from the African experience so far with AI?

Alison Gillwald:
Thank you very much. So I think, you know, when we when we speak about the digital readiness of AI, we’re actually asking the same question as we did about the digital readiness for the data economy, the same questions we were asking about the digital readiness for broadband or internet. Because in fact, many across the continent, many of those foundational requirements are still not met. So many, many countries, you know, Rwanda, Lesotho, many, many countries actually have now 95% plus broadband coverage, mobile coverage, high speed broadband coverage. And yet we have, you know, less than the sort of 20% critical mass that we know to see the kind of network, network effects, the benefits of, of being online, of broadband, of, you know, associated with economic growth and those kinds of things. So they, you know, they’re still analog, existing analog problems. And they’re also still, you know, enormous digital backlogs. And what our research that we do nationally representative surveys, access and use surveys, they used to be, but now they’re kind of very much more comprehensive, looking at financial inclusion and platform work and all sorts of other things. So they really give us a better sense of the maturity and the, you know, what what people are actually doing. Those studies are done across several countries in Africa. And what we see actually, is that the real challenges around the demand side issues. So yes, you know, the biggest barrier actually to the internet is actually the cost of the device. And, you know, there are all sorts of associated policy issues around that and, you know, things can be done. And then of course, once people are online, you get this very minimal use of, of data, of broadband, because people can’t afford it. The affordability side is actually that, you know, this is the demand side, the pricing is the supply side. And that goes to our business models, our regulatory models, our lack of institutional capabilities or endowments to do some of the effective regulation you would need of these very imperfect markets. But only the real challenges are on the demand side. And, you know, all the kind of aggregated gender data that you get that presents, you know, this growing disparity between women and men, which is not true across all parts of the continent at all, is really around education. The thing that is driving access to education, whether you can afford that device or everything, is education. And that’s from the modelling that we can do, because these are demand side, fully, you know, representative of the net, of the census frame, demand side studies. And of course associated with education is income. So, you know, people who are employed. And it’s because women are concentrated amongst those who are less educated and employed. In fact, gender, if you can’t profit on its own, is not necessarily a major factor. And then, of course, multiple other factors. So, you know, the much greater factor than gender actually is rural location, rural location, but a number of intersectional factors that really impact people’s participation. So a lot, you know, a lot of the demand driven new technology frontier strategies are looking at some of the supply side issues, and of course are looking at the high-level skills issues that you need. Short of data scientists or data engineers or that sort of thing. But it’s actually, you know, it’s this fundamental human development challenge, but also this fundamental ecosystem, you know, the economy and society, that really has to be addressed fundamentally if we’re going to be able to address these higher level issues. And so, you know, just questions of absorption. Even if we are thinking about trying to create, you know, public sector data sets that could be used for the public sector, you know, planning and purposes, so it’s kind of building some public value out of this. I think that’s an important point that we need to come back to, because I think a lot of the AI kind of models are driven by, you know, commercial value creation, which of course we desperately want on the continent, and the kind of innovation, you know, discourse, which of course we want on the continent. But actually to get there and to make sure that that is, you know, equitable, inclusive, just, requires that some of these other factors actually drive policy. And, you know, basically the kind of absorptive capacity of your firms, the absorptive capacity of your citizenry. You know, we see, for example, many, many countries with, you know, now planning AI applications for government services, which, you know, historically are, you know, if you’ve got less than 20% of your population connected, then, you know, digital services become a, you know, vanity project, unless you actually can get people that can, you know, you can use these services more effectively. And I think that’s why the, you know, this enabling environment, these foundational requirements that we have are absolutely essential. And the, you know, we speak about a lot in terms of the infrastructure side. and the human development side of things. But the enabling legal environment, the enabling, you know, human-centered, as you called it, but, you know, rights-based environment, as we’ll see as it plays out, is actually absolutely essential foundations for building this kind of environment. And so I just briefly want to touch on, because it might seem tendential to AI, but actually we think is an absolutely critical step in creating these conditions is the African Union Data Policy Framework, which has really created this enabling environment that you need. The first half of the framework really deals with these enabling conditions. I mean, we don’t call them preconditions because we don’t have the luxury of getting, you know, 50% of people online or, you know, more than the majority of your country with a digital ID or, you know, a data infrastructure in place. So these things have to happen, but they’re very strongly acknowledged. So there’s a very strong component in the data policy framework that creates this enabling environment that has really leveraged the African continental free trade area in getting member states, I think, to understand that unless they have this digital underpinning for the continental free trade agreement, which is a single digital market for Africa, they’re not simply not going to be the beneficiaries of a common market. And I think that’s allowed some leverage on that. But it’s also allowed us to return to some of the challenges we’ve had around, you know, a human rights framework. And I think there’s a, it’s a high-level principle document, but there’s a commitment to progressive realization of very ambitious, and I think, you know, absolutely laudable and good objectives that we now need to get to. There’s an implementation plan, so there’s countries can actually be supported. I think that’s been our biggest challenge. I think Sri Lanka was actually speaking about the challenge of implementation being such a great one, so there’s an implementation strategy now. But I think, you know, the important part is that we can kind of, we can come back to some of these foundational things that we haven’t got right. You know, there’s lots of talk about a trusted environment. There are a lot of assumptions from so-called best practices from elsewhere in the world that assume, you know, institutional endowments, regulatory autonomy, you know, competitive markets, you know, skills and ability in these markets that simply isn’t there. And I think, you know, the document importantly points out that, you know, of course, cybersecurity is important for, you know, for building trust, data protection. These are necessary conditions, but they’re not sufficient conditions. And so the questions around, you know, the legitimacy of the environment that you’re in, if you’re wanting to build, you know, a kind of digital financial system that’s going to engage with a common market, these kinds of things all become really important. And so it’s got very kind of clear action plan alignment of, you know, various potentially conflicting legacy policies that might be there. And of course, the big acknowledgment, which I will try and make the last point because I may have just run over. But I think, you know, the issues particularly with data governance. Sorry. The issues particularly with data governance but have implications for AI, very strong implications for AI, are that, you know, we’re setting up a lot of national plans. And of course, that’s all we can do at one level. But essentially, these are globalized. And we would argue, you know, digital public goods that we now need to govern through global governance frameworks. A lot of the things we want to do, particularly the, you know, safeguarding of harms are very often, you know, we’ve got our local companies. We try to build local companies. But, you know, 90% of the data that’s extracted from Africa, you know, goes out of Africa. It goes to big tech and big companies. So these national strategies have to be located globally. And the other side of that, also from a global governance point of view because we no longer can do this, which we would usually do with public interest regulation. And again, I think a lot of the focus is on the, you know, the negative things of AI. And so you’ve got to build this, you know, compliance regime, harms, you know, protection compliance regime, is the lack of attention, which we do see in a lot of OECD work in this area, is about the economic regulation that you need of the underlying, you know, data economy, access to data, access to quality data, those kinds of things, you know, open data regimes, which are in the data policy framework, governance component, by the way. But I think there’s, you know, a lot of the discussions that we’ve had this week, a lot of emphasis on safeguards, harms, privacy, but not a lot on what you would really need to require to redress the uneven distribution that we see in opportunities, not just harms, which we do see as well, you know, between countries of the world, but also within countries. Well, speaking of OECD, we just happen to have them here.

Robert Opp:
But Allison, thank you for opening up a huge can of worms there on multiple levels of global governance and things. We won’t be able to get to all of those, but really interesting insight in the Africa experience so far. So I want to turn to our next and last speaker for kind of our initial set of speakers here, Galia Dower, who’s from the OECD. And, you know, OECD, as Allison was saying, has done a fair bit of work in this space, and you’ve produced a set of AI principles, and I know you’re working on toolkits and guidance and things like that, but maybe tell us a little bit more what you see from the global level here about what countries are asking for, what the state of readiness is, just what you’re seeing in general.

Galia Daor:
Yeah, thanks very much. I admit it’s a bit challenging to speak after Allison on that front, but I will try, and I will try to do justice to the OECD’s work, but also recognizing that there really are challenges and also I think not one organization, or obviously not one country, can address all of them. So I think at the OECD we come to this from the perspective of, yes, a set perhaps of assumptions, but I think it doesn’t replace, I think, other work that needs to be done. So maybe just to sort of get a bit into that work, so the OECD started working on artificial intelligence in 2016, and then in 2019 we adopted the first intergovernmental standard on artificial intelligence, the OECD AI principles, and these are sort of a set of five values-based principles that apply to all AI actors, and a set of five policy recommendations for governments, for policymakers. The values-based principles are sort of about what makes AI trustworthy, and also go into some of what other speakers have mentioned on the benefits of AI, but also the risks, and I think both are important. So elements like using AI for sustainable development and for well-being, also sort of having AI as human-centered, and as well as risks such as transparency, security, importance of accountability. Separately, the policy recommendations, so I think perhaps linked to what Allison said without sort of prejudging the situation of any specific country, sort of looking at what a country would need to put into place in order to be able to achieve these things. So R&D for AI, but also the digital infrastructure, including data, including connectivity. The enabling policy environment, the capacity, the human capacity building, and of course, international and multi-stakeholder collaboration, which is a point that others have made already. So the principles are now adopted by 46 countries and also serve the basis for the, sorry, including Singapore as was already mentioned, including other countries like Egypt, and also serves as the basis for the G20 AI principles. And as was mentioned, our work now is focusing on how to support countries in implementing these principles, so how to translate principles into practice. And sort of looking at perhaps three types of actions that we’re taking, so focusing on the evidence base. So one aspect is to look at what countries are actually doing, so looking at national AI strategies that countries around the world are adopting. So we have an online interactive platform, the OECD.AI Policy Observatory that has already more than 70 countries in it. And what we’ve seen, for example, since we started this work, then at least of what we know, that 50 countries have adopted national AI strategies, which I think is an interesting data point. The observatory also has other data on AI, including sort of investment in AI in countries around the world, research publications, so to see which countries are more active in this space, and what they’re doing, jobs and skills, and sort of movement around the world of jobs and skills for AI. So a lot of sort of wealth of information there. We also have an expert group that, a network of experts, which is multidisciplinary and international, with sort of very broad participation. And we’re also developing sort of practical tools to support countries, and organizations, sorry, I should say, in implementing the AI principles. Perhaps one last point that I would mention, sort of in terms of what we’re seeing with these principles now, then one thing is we see that they are impacting national and international AI frameworks around the world with the definition of AI that’s in the OECD principles, but also our classification framework for AI systems. And the other thing that I’ll say is that we are also supporting countries, if they’re interested in sort of developing or revising their national AI strategies to align with the AI principles. So this is work that, for example, we’re now doing with Egypt. But I’ll stop here, and I really look forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Robert Opp:
Thanks so much, Galia. And the time is racing by. I can’t believe it. We have about 15 minutes left in this session. And I’ll do my best now to open up for some questions. And Jingbo, I wonder if you want to make a couple remarks as well, just to put you on the spot. But before, so think of your questions now. Before I turn to those, just to mention a couple things from the UNDP side, we are doing digital programming or supporting digital programming in about 125 countries, 40 to 50 of which are really kind of looking at national digital transformation processes and some of those foundations that Alison was talking about. Because we really see the importance of building an ecosystem. This doesn’t happen with fragmented solutions. This happens when you build the kind of foundational ecosystem that is comprised of people, the regulatory side, the government side, the business side, and so on and so forth, as well as your underlying connectivity and affordability. And we’ve started also to kind of an additional process to that, which we’re calling the AI readiness process that basically can complement that. And it really looks at, and this is what Dr. Ranawana was talking about, where we’ve been working to support Sri Lanka, Rwanda, and Colombia currently on looking at how does government serve as an enabler and how is society set up in terms of being able to handle artificial intelligence in terms of capacity and some of those foundational issues. And this is something that we have been doing. It’s been piloted together with or in the auspices of an interagency UN process that’s led by ITU and UNESCO. And something that we hope will be one of the tools that are available to countries in the toolkit as they seek to address these issues, taking that kind of ecosystem approach. So if there are any of you who are representing national interests here and would be more interested in that, please let us know. With that, I think I’d like to turn over. Jingbo, I was pointing to you because Jingbo Huang is the director of the UN University in Macau and has a research initiative focused on AI. And if you want to take the floor, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but if you had any quick observations, and then I’ll turn to some questions. We’ve got a question here and a couple online. Is that okay? I didn’t warn you before. I’m sorry.

Jingbo Huang:
Thank you, Robert. I’m here to learn. My name is Jingbo. I’m the director of UN University Research Institute in Macau. So we are a research UN organization, and our work is mainly related to, you know, AI governance. So, for example, we conduct research training education from the angle of the biases related to gender, children in the algorithm, and we have done research in collaboration with some UN organizations, for example, UNESCO, ITU, UN Women, and soon to be, hopefully, with UNDP. So I’m really here to have an open mind to learn about this topic. We saw a very nice overview and pictures from Africa, from Asia, from OECD, so it’s really a great learning. So the one keyword that comes into my mind is a collective intelligence, and it’s not only the collective intelligence between people and people, and we talk about regulatory framework, business. We have all these entities among human to work together to make this infrastructure ready, and we’re also talking about machine intelligence, if we call them intelligence, and the human intelligence working together. How are we taking it? Like what Robert has said at the beginning, it’s not only about the dark side. So how do we bring the bright side together? So the collective intelligence is the keyword that just emerged in my mind. So I have, like, two questions since I’m learning here. So the first question is related to the different tools and the frameworks that OECD developed, that Singapore developed, and maybe Africa also has developed, and also UNDP. So how do these tools work together? For example, I just learned the concept of UNDP’s AI readiness assessment tool, and now I heard about your different tools. How do these tools work together? Or maybe they don’t. So this is the first question. Second question is to all the panelists about what keeps you awake at night now? Because this is important for me to learn, what are the challenges you’re facing right now in this implementation process, in this conceptualization process? I have the overview, but I want to know the pain points. Thank you.

Robert Opp:
All right, we’re going to quickly just go to a couple questions here so that we then will have time for response from panelists.

Audience:
Thank you very much. My name is Auke Aukepals, and I work for KPMG in the responsible AI practice. And first of all, I was triggered by this session title, and so you did a good job with the session proposal. So, I work for KPMG, the Netherlands, but also coordinating our efforts globally. And what we see is a large difference in countries just acting in a democratic way itself. And also, being part of the ethics work stream, yeah, really gives me a broad view of the entire world, actually, as certain countries that are having no democratic processes in place, others do. So with our advisory practice, it’s really difficult to advise on ethics with a country that has no clue what that’s about, to be a little bit proactive about that. So that’s really difficult. Also, asking your question, are countries ready? No, definitely not yet. Because coming from the Netherlands, we also see even issues in our own country, which relatively is quite democratic. However, yeah. So we really need to cooperate together. And also thanks to the OECD guidelines and principles, they really function well. And we use them in our daily work and daily basis. And also happy to contribute on next iterations, if possible. But yeah, these are my observations from the outside. Thanks. We’re going to take one more question here. We’ll go online quickly. And then I think we’ll just have a chance for panelists to come back once and then we’ll close. Hi. I am Armando Manzuela from the Dominican Republic. First of all, I’d like to thank all the organizations for doing this amazing session. All the people that were intervening have done a remarkable point regarding AI for development in this case. Well, there’s a thing here with AI. And it’s the way that it’s being promoted by the companies, by international organizations that are promoting that AI will transform the world, that will change everything, which is actually right. But there’s the thing that in the race to become AI proficient at all levels in most nations, especially in the global south, has been taken into, I must say, not necessarily the right direction. Because we’re focusing on implementing algorithms, implementing solutions that are AI infused to do a myriad of things, especially in government. But the main problem is that we don’t have the core elements for doing a transition to an AI-based society just yet, starting with data. So we have problems with data quality, with data collection, with how we assure that the data is correct so we can prevent biases. And of course, we don’t have the infrastructure in place, and yet most of the countries have inadequate data protection and privacy laws and regulations. So given this situation, and knowing how things are moving and how things are approaching, how do we propose or create a set of rules, a set of frameworks that help to guide the countries into the right direction regarding data? Because when we talk about AI, we’re really talking about large language models, which is just data. So if the data is not right, how we can implement properly AI solutions that actually help our country to develop? And this is moreover the question in the global south we’re asking now. Dominican Republic. Thank you, Armando. Okay, let’s go online very quickly, because we’re really running out of time, and I’m going to turn to my colleague who’s on my team, Yasmin Hamdar, who’s been moderating online. And Yasmin, I’m sorry to make you do this, but can you just pick one question for the – I know you’ve got more than that, but just pick one and ask, please. First, thanks, Rob. So we have one interesting question. Given the rapid advances in AI capabilities, how can governments ensure that its technical infrastructure and workforce skills are agile enough to adapt to new AI technologies as they emerge?

Robert Opp:
Okay, how to make sure the workforce is agile enough, which is related, I think, to many of these. All right, so I’m going to go back to our panelists, and I think this, unfortunately, will have to be our closing round as well. And I think Jingbo’s given a good question that I’d like all of you to answer, which is what keeps you awake at night. But if you’d like to speak as well to the questions about the tools, I will also have a response on that one. Also the issue of this sort of how do we get the fundamentals right? How do we get the right data? And those kinds of things. How do we work toward a collective intelligence? Dr. Ranawana, can I just turn to you first for your brief responses, please?

Dr. Romesh Ranawana:
Of course. I mean, essentially, the problem is, like it’s been mentioned so many times, are the foundation elements. And for us, one of the biggest obstacles to take our AI ambitions forward and also to provide the benefit to the people, especially in terms of government efficiency, corruption, making things more available. Sri Lanka is fortunate that we have good connectivity and about 90% of the population does have connectivity available to them. But the lack of data, I think, has been highlighted so many times, is probably our biggest problem. Data is extremely siloed and it’s still available in paper format in a lot of situations. So how to first digitize it, standardize it, and then make it available to those who need it in a fair and responsible manner is probably our biggest challenge now. And that’s not only a technical challenge, but also an operational challenge. It’s changing mindsets, awareness, trust in these systems. And that’s something that we are really struggling with on how to take that forward. Thanks so much. Is that what keeps you awake at night? Absolutely. That is definitely one of the big ones. Because like I said, we have so many people doing AI projects, but they’re running AI projects on data that they download from the internet, data related to other countries. We don’t have projects running on Sri Lankan problems because we just don’t have those problems available. So all these efforts are being wasted because we don’t have a consolidated set of datasets to address national problems. Thanks so much.

Robert Opp:
Alain, let’s go to you next. What keeps you awake at night?

Alain Ndayishimiye:
So the technical development and deployment of AI is… So here I’m referring to ethical considerations when developing and actually deploying these technologies. It’s what often keeps me up at night. Concerns around risk associated with technology such as biases in AI models, potential privacy breaches, and broader society impacts such as job displacement and misuse of AI in areas such as surveillance and autonomous operatory are one of the things that actually keep me at night. So ensuring that AI is used responsibly and benefits all societies per month, and it’s a challenge that requires continuous vigilance and adoption. And please allow me to also talk on how there’s a question around how these instruments need to work together. So let me speak on harmonization, especially in the African context. Harmonizing policy and regulatory efforts among African countries is not only pivotal for their participation in the global digital economy, but also provides a unified front when dealing with large multinationals that are at the center of this global digital data economy transformation. Such harmonization efforts force economic integration, enabling smoother cross-border trade and investment, and promote standardization, reducing complexities of different regulation. It also facilitates the development of shared digital infrastructure, ensuring connectivity across regions. A unified stance, Africa’s voice in global negotiations, ensures a better representation of its interests. By addressing shared digital challenges collectively, Africa can devise effective solutions, attract global tech giants through a consistent regulatory environment, and inspire innovation. Furthermore, harmonized approach ensures the continuous web, consumer protection, robust data privacy standards, and boost African competitiveness in the digital realm. In an essence, a coordinated policy framework is essential for Africa to leverage the digital economy and benefits and positions itself as a significant player within this space. So thank you once again for this opportunity. Over to you.

Robert Opp:
Thanks so much, Alain. Denise, let’s turn to you. What keeps you awake at night on this issue, and any other comments you want to make?

Denise Wong:
Thank you. I think on a global level, I worry about fragmentation. I think we’ve been in this space for a long time now in different areas where global laws are fragmented, and that just raises compliance costs for everyone. So I think we have an opportunity to do it right and have that conversation early, and we should try and do that. I think at a more domestic level, I worry about leaving vulnerable groups behind, even in a society that’s highly connected and highly literate like Singapore. There’s always that fear that technology will widen divides and create harms that we cannot anticipate to groups of people that we should be protecting the most. And I guess the third thing I worry about is cultural sensitivities and ethnic sensitivities, especially with black box technology. It’s hard to predict whether the technology is going to fragment and divide, or it’s going to unify and cohere. And so part of what we do is to try and unpack what it means from a culturally specific lens. And that is really about AI for the public good.

Robert Opp:
Thanks Denise. I think I’ll turn to Alison.

Alison Gillwald:
Thank you. Sure. What keeps me awake at night is the inevitable implication of inequality, unless we address some of the underpinning structural inequalities that are leading to this. And I think that’s very likely if we simply take these blueprints and take them from countries with completely different political economies, conditions, and just implement them onto these societies. And just in that regard, I have to say that although the challenges of having democratic frameworks within developing AI policy is obviously a challenge for many of us, but I think we really need to appreciate that actually the ethical challenges that we are facing are with some of the biggest tech companies that come from, at least some of them, come from the biggest democracies in the world. So I think the ethical issues should be addressed globally and can be addressed globally. And just finally to say that, you know, the point that was being made about we can’t actually unbias these big data sets because the countries like Sri Lanka was mentioning, the countries aren’t digitized. People are not online. We simply can’t unbias the invisibility, the underrepresentation, and the discrimination that we’re seeing in algorithms currently.

Robert Opp:
Kalia. Yeah.

Galia Daor:
So very quickly, just to say, I think I can really relate to a lot of the things that Denise said about the fragmentation, and this is a real concern. I think what keeps me up at night is also that we will miss out on the opportunities that AI has to really, that I think ultimately have the potential to make everything better for everyone if we do it right. And I think it’s too big to miss, and that means that it’s something that we can’t leave to just companies, we can’t leave to a certain set of countries, which I guess leads me to this has to be, and because AI itself is global, because it has no border, then it has to be a collaborative effort, and that needs to be genuinely collaborative, and I think this is a good, it’s not a start because we’ve been in that process for a while, but I think this kind of conversation is really important. Thanks.

Robert Opp:
Thanks, Kalia, and thanks to all our panelists, and just we’re over time, and I’m sure we’re going to, yeah, I’m getting the nod, but I would just say a couple things to try to sum up what I’ve heard, and to add a little bit of my own insomnia or sleeplessness to this. You know, I think we’ve heard, there are certainly the challenges here, and the challenges that have been named are things like fragmentation, and the foundations, and it’s so important to get the foundations right, which is hard, you know, this is not a simple process. It involves a lot of moving parts, and a lot of complexity, and a lot of issues around financing and everything else, but we have to do it, and countries, we have to help countries get there, and I’m talking to myself, that’s partly our role, but, and if I sort of add what keeps me awake at night, it’s very similar to what is being mentioned here. If we, as the United Nations system, stand for leaving no one behind as part of the 2030 agenda, then if we say that artificial intelligence is a major opportunity for humanity, but artificial intelligence is only as good as the data behind it, and the training behind the data, and, or the training of the data, and the production of the algorithms, so how are we going to ensure the representation and diversity in the underlying data sets, and the models that are put forward, because these will not be culturally relevant to everyone’s worldview. We work with indigenous communities across the world, with thousands of local languages, these represent different worldviews, and human development is not about everyone becoming the same, it’s about every human realizing their own potential, so, that being said, the opportunities here are that, I think what we’ve heard over and over again is the multi-stakeholder approach is really critical, and if we’re going to bring in those worldviews, it’s going to have to be an intentional consultative process, and I think being human-centered in all of this is a method of risk management. This is a way to ensure that we build the basis and the foundation that we really need, and I know I’m missing out some of the nuanced points that were made, but I’m really very grateful for all of you for, first, our panelists for having spoken today, and giving us some insights, and for all of you who’ve joined us in the room, as well as online, and please do reach out to us at UNDP, or the other panelists in their organizations for any other questions or support that we might be able to give, and we will get through this together. So thank you very much. Please give ourselves a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Audience

In different parts of the world, there is variation in the technologies used for energy distribution. Some regions rely on gas, while others rely on electricity. This highlights the global disparity in energy usage and the need for equitable access to energy resources.

The impact of technology on the environment is a crucial consideration, as its consequences become more significant with advances in technology. It is essential to assess the environmental impact of new technologies and develop sustainable alternatives.

Furthermore, fairness in energy distribution and technology usage globally is emphasised. The use of different energy sources, such as gas and electricity, underlines the importance of ensuring equal access to energy resources, reducing inequality, and achieving affordable and clean energy for all.

The concept of “clean code” is also discussed, which refers to efficient and well-optimized software that consumes less energy. Clean coding practices can contribute to responsible consumption and production, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goal of responsible consumption and production.

The analysis also raises concerns about the energy consumption associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI has positive impacts, it also presents challenges in terms of energy consumption. The consideration of energy consumption in AI development and policy-making processes is essential to address its environmental implications.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the lack of global uniformity in energy distribution technologies. It stresses the need to consider the environmental impact of technological advancements and work towards equitable energy distribution. Additionally, the importance of clean coding practices and the need to address energy consumption in AI development are emphasized. By addressing these issues, we can move towards sustainable energy practices and responsible technological development.

Chantarapeach Ut

The analysis explores the importance of supporting youth-led innovation and entrepreneurship in green technology. It emphasises the need to nurture and financially support young people’s initiatives in this field. Examples of youth-led technology innovations include green energy engineering, smart agriculture, renewable energy optimizations, air quality monitoring, green buildings, climate modeling, and eco-friendly transportation. By empowering young people to develop environmentally-friendly technology, we can make significant progress towards achieving SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

Additionally, the analysis highlights the significance of raising awareness and exposure to green jobs for young people. Green jobs contribute to sustainable energy advancements and include positions such as green AI researchers, sustainability data analysts, renewable energy engineers, and clean tech researchers. By informing and inspiring young people about these opportunities, we can encourage them to pursue careers that contribute to a sustainable energy future. This aligns with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

Furthermore, involving young people in decision-making processes related to digital policy and climate change is essential. Platforms like the Cambodian Youth Internet Governance Forums and the Local Conference of Youth under UNGO offer spaces for young people to participate and express their ideas on these crucial matters. Inclusive energy transition can be accelerated by incorporating youth perspectives, leading to more effective and inclusive energy systems. This involvement aligns with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

The analysis also highlights the need to harness renewable energy in Asia more efficiently and effectively. Currently, many Asian countries heavily rely on fossil fuels. However, by focusing on renewable energy technology and improving energy sharing arrangements, Asia can reduce its dependence on non-renewable resources and promote sustainability. This aligns with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy).

Moreover, the analysis mentions Chantarapeach Ut, a youth advocate representing a team committed to energy transition. Ut emphasises the importance of adult support and guidance in directing youth efforts towards achieving inclusive energy transition. Collaboration between young people and adults is crucial in driving effective change.

In conclusion, this analysis advocates for supporting youth-led initiatives and involvement in green technology, raising awareness of green jobs, including young voices in decision-making processes, and harnessing renewable energy in Asia. It highlights the need to empower and engage young people to accelerate the development of a sustainable energy future and address climate change. Collaboration between young people and adults is vital in driving inclusive energy transition. This analysis serves as a call to action for governments, organizations, and communities to invest in empowering and engaging young people in achieving a sustainable energy future.

Neil Yorke-Smith

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the energy system is already proving to be beneficial in various areas. AI is being utilized in forecasting, system design, real-time balancing, demand response, and flexible pricing. These applications of AI can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the energy system, ultimately contributing to a transition away from fossil-based fuels.

However, it is crucial to consider the ethical, legal, social, and economic aspects of implementing AI in the energy sector. While AI offers promising solutions, the societal impacts and implications of an AI energy system are not yet fully understood. Therefore, thorough study and examination of these aspects are necessary to ensure responsible and sustainable implementation of AI in the energy sector. It is also equally important to consider values, trust, justice, and fairness in addition to technical efficiency when incorporating AI into the energy system.

The principles of trustworthiness, justice, and fairness should guide the use of AI in the energy system. Trustworthiness involves establishing meaningful control and collaboration between humans and AI, ensuring that AI systems are reliable and accountable. Justice entails considering whether the benefits derived from AI in the energy system are distributed equally among all stakeholders. Fairness relates to the design of energy markets, ensuring they are efficient, effective, and fair for all participants.

Lessons can be learned from both European and non-European contexts when implementing AI in the energy system. Countries like the Netherlands can benefit from studying the experiences of other nations, while shared resources and concepts from countries like Nigeria can potentially be valuable in the development of AI energy systems.

Another important consideration is the incorporation of societal values into the design process of AI technology. The concept of value-sensitive design emphasizes the importance of incorporating the values of potential customers and society into the design of AI systems. This approach ensures that technology aligns with the values and needs of society, promoting responsible consumption and production.

Efficiency in code design is also seen as crucial for sustainability. By focusing on efficiency, developers can reduce the size and resource consumption of AI algorithms. For example, an app that could be 500 megabytes can be streamlined to 100 megabytes through code efficiency. Recognizing efficiency as a non-functional requirement of AI algorithms can help drive sustainability efforts in the energy sector.

Neil, as an expert in the field, highlights the significance of considering long-term decision-making and the potential evolution of values. Decisions made today can have lasting consequences, especially in terms of infrastructure that can last for decades. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of how present choices can impact the future and how societal values may change over time.

Accountability is a crucial aspect in the discussion of AI and the energy transition. Those who develop AI systems should be held accountable for their actions and the impact of their technology. In addition, society itself should be more accountable towards the energy transition, recognizing its role in promoting sustainable energy practices.

Lastly, global cooperation and learning from each other are vital in the energy transition. By working together and sharing knowledge and experiences, different regions can contribute to the successful implementation and advancement of AI in the energy system. This collaborative approach promotes shared goals of affordable and clean energy, climate action, and sustainable development.

In conclusion, the use of AI in the energy system has the potential to bring substantial benefits, but careful consideration must be given to the ethical, legal, social, and economic aspects. Trustworthiness, justice, and fairness should guide the implementation of AI, and lessons can be learned from diverse contexts. Incorporating societal values, ensuring code efficiency, considering long-term decision-making, and fostering accountability and global cooperation are essential for a successful energy transition.

Alisa Heaver

An analysis of the provided information highlighted several key points discussed by the speakers at the event. One of the main concerns raised was the potential increase in energy demands due to the growth of artificial intelligence (AI). Projections suggest that by 2027, the energy requirements for AI could be equivalent to the entire Dutch economy. This staggering statistic emphasizes the need to address the energy implications of AI expansion and find sustainable solutions to meet the growing demand.

In line with a focus on sustainability, the importance of sustainable digitalisation was also emphasised. The Dutch National Coalition has taken up the task of working towards sustainable digitalisation, recognising the need to balance technological advancements with responsible consumption and production. This approach reflects the commitment to aligning innovation and infrastructure with the principles of sustainability outlined in SDG 9.

Accountability was another key theme discussed during the event. The importance of ensuring accountability in the development and implementation of AI systems, particularly in relation to the energy transition, was highlighted. The conversation was conducted with international representatives, providing a global perspective on these issues. This emphasis on accountability indicates the recognition of the potential risks associated with AI development and the need to establish standards and guidelines to ensure responsible and ethical practices.

Another noteworthy observation from the analysis is the call for increased attention to sustainability within the Global Digital Corporation (GDC). Alisa Heaver, one of the speakers, noted a lack of mention of sustainability in the policy brief of the tech envoy and urged a greater focus on this topic. She emphasized the historical significance of the venue, where the Kyoto Protocol was signed, as a symbolic reminder of the importance of prioritising sustainability in the context of digitalisation and global cooperation.

Lastly, the intersection of sustainability and digitalisation was highlighted as crucial for future progress. The combination of these two areas was recognised as a key factor in driving sustainable development and achieving the SDGs. The increased discussions around sustainability and digitalisation were appreciated, implying a growing awareness of the need to balance technological advancement with environmental responsibility.

In conclusion, the analysis of the provided information reveals key points discussed by the speakers at the event. These include concerns over the energy demands of AI, the importance of sustainable digitalisation, the need for accountability in AI development, the call for increased attention to sustainability within the GDC, and the recognition of the intersection between sustainability and digitalisation for future progress. These insights shed light on the challenges and opportunities presented by AI and underscore the importance of integrating sustainability into technological advancements.

Jessie

The session entitled “Accelerating an Inclusive Energy Transition” commenced with a video, setting the stage for subsequent discussions. Alisa Hever, a senior policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, welcomed participants to the open forum and emphasized the indispensable role of a live moderator despite the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for innovation.

The session aimed to explore the opportunities and challenges associated with achieving an inclusive energy transition, with a focus on the significance of AI in driving innovation in the energy sector. A diverse panel of experts provided their insights and engaged in stimulating discussions throughout the forum.

One key discussion point centered around the potential of AI in hastening the transition towards a more inclusive energy system. The experts highlighted how AI-powered technologies could enhance energy efficiency, facilitate effective demand management, and support the integration of renewable energy sources. It was underscored that accessible and affordable solutions should be developed, benefiting all communities, particularly marginalized groups.

The panelists also addressed concerns and challenges relating to the implementation of AI in the energy sector. They emphasized the need for robust regulations and ethical frameworks to ensure transparency, fairness, and accountability. Furthermore, addressing potential biases in AI algorithms was deemed crucial to prevent the exacerbation of existing inequalities.

Throughout the session, the importance of collaboration and dialogue between policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society was emphasized. Engaging multiple stakeholders from different sectors and regions was considered vital for fostering inclusive decision-making and ensuring equitable distribution of the benefits of an energy transition.

In conclusion, the session underscored the immense potential of AI in driving an inclusive energy transition. Discussions highlighted the pivotal role of a live moderator in facilitating meaningful exchanges and creating an environment conducive to collaboration. By employing AI in a responsible and inclusive manner, it is possible to overcome challenges and expedite the transition towards a sustainable and equitable energy future for all.

Noteworthy observations from the session included the recognition that technological advancements alone are insufficient for achieving an inclusive energy transition; a holistic approach encompassing social, economic, and environmental dimensions is necessary. Additionally, the session stressed the urgency of addressing equity and social justice issues to prevent the perpetuation of existing disparities in energy access and affordability.

Tim Vermeulen

The energy landscape in Europe is undergoing significant transformations, presenting new opportunities and challenges. One major development is the increasing use of AI in energy management, which has the potential to revolutionise the industry. However, it also introduces biases that can affect energy distribution and access. Wealthier neighbourhoods tend to benefit more from AI in energy supply, but efforts are being made to tackle this bias through transparency and sharing of information by power grid companies.

Open-source technologies are also gaining momentum in Europe’s energy sector, particularly for core grid capabilities. These technologies enhance grid forecasting capabilities, leading to better management and utilisation of energy resources.

Fairness is an important consideration, not just in energy distribution, but also in cutting CO2 emissions. Different regions, countries, and companies have diverse energy mixes and challenges. For example, the Netherlands heavily relies on natural gas due to its domestic availability. It is, therefore, crucial to view these differences from a modular perspective, considering the specific circumstances and needs of each entity.

Transparency, modularity, and technology are key factors shaping Europe’s energy landscape. A modular technology system allows countries to interact with one another, fostering an open and collaborative approach towards a more sustainable energy sector.

Sustainability, fairness, and integrity are highly valued from a European perspective. Access to energy is considered a universal right that should be protected and ensured for all. Maintaining the integrity of the energy system is essential for achieving sustainability and fairness.

Efficiency and awareness are vital in building applications that drive the energy transition. Clean and efficient code development is crucial across sectors as it directly impacts the transition to cleaner energy sources.

Every job has the potential to contribute to a clean and affordable energy future. Jobs across various sectors influence the energy transition, highlighting the importance of a comprehensive approach.

Technology plays a significant role in opening up new possibilities and advancing different areas within the energy sector. The potential of openness and complexity in technology is recognised by experts.

To foster the global energy transition, it is imperative to share knowledge and values on a global scale. Managing the knowledge-based landscape globally is fundamental to driving progress and collaboration in the energy sector.

In summary, Europe’s energy landscape is evolving rapidly, with advancements and challenges. The use of AI, open-source technologies, and the consideration of fairness in energy distribution and CO2 emissions are key focal points. Transparency, modularity, and technology are crucial, and sustainability, fairness, and integrity are highly valued. Efficiency and awareness in application development drive the energy transition, and every job contributes to a clean and affordable energy future. Technology’s potential lies in its openness and complexity, and global knowledge sharing is vital for the energy transition.

Hannah Boute

The Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitisation focuses on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in relation to energy consumption and efficiency. They believe that in order to accelerate an inclusive energy transition, both the greening of IT (making AI more energy-efficient) and green by IT (using AI to improve energy efficiency) are essential. This approach recognises the potential of AI to contribute positively to the transformation of the energy sector.

In terms of ethics, the coalition adopts a guidance ethics approach to address ethical issues associated with the implementation of AI. They recognise that ethics play a crucial role in the responsible use of AI technologies. To understand these ethical dimensions, public participation is considered crucial. This ensures that the perspectives and concerns of all stakeholders are taken into account, resulting in more informed and ethical decision-making.

Hannah Boute, a proponent of the guidance ethics approach, advocates for its use in evaluating the effects of technology in specific contexts. In the case of AI applied to the energy transition, stakeholders work together to identify both the positive and negative effects of the technology. These identified effects and the underlying values form the basis for designing, implementing, and using the technology. This approach ensures that AI aligns with the values and goals of the energy transition.

The coalition also recognises the importance of sustainability in the design of AI. They have a working group dedicated to developing principles for green software. By integrating sustainability into the design process, they aim to create AI systems that are environmentally friendly and contribute to responsible consumption and production.

International cooperation and input are highly valued by the speakers. They appreciate the contribution and input from an international audience, highlighting the importance of collaboration and partnerships in addressing global challenges. This signifies the coalition’s commitment to engaging with a broad range of stakeholders and leveraging diverse perspectives to drive sustainable digitisation forward.

Overall, the Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitisation emphasises the potential of AI to support sustainable development, while also emphasising the importance of ethics, public participation, and sustainability in its implementation. They recognise that responsible and ethical AI development is crucial for achieving the goals of the energy transition and ensuring a sustainable future.

Jessie:
Thank you. I think we’re ready to start. And we would start our session with a video, I believe. That’s always technical issues. Hi, my name is Jessie, and I am your virtual presenter. I would like to welcome you all at this open forum, Accelerating an Inclusive Energy Transition. Thank you all for coming. Luckily, I will not be your real host today. While artificial intelligence offers many opportunities for innovation, nothing beats a real-life moderator. Give a warm welcome to Alisa Hever, MAG member and senior policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.

Alisa Heaver:
So good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our session. I’ve already been introduced by AI, but I’m really pleased that we don’t have an AI moderator, because probably everybody’s name would be mispronounced then, because my name is actuallyAlisa Heaver, not Hever. We will be talking about sustainability this afternoon, and AI and the energy transition. Today, this morning in the Dutch newspaper, we could read that AI might require as much energy as the Dutch economy requires now, if generated AI will continue to grow as fast as it’s growing now. I believe it was 2027, but I’m not the expert on this topic. We thankfully do have a few experts here in the room and online as well. First of all, we have Hannah Boute. She is from the ECP, which is a platform for coalitions in the Netherlands. She will do an explanation on the guidance of ethics approach and chances of digitalization in the energy transition. She will also do an explanation about Mentimeter, because we want to make this session very interactive, as I already said. Thereafter, we will have a brief presentation from Neil York. He is from the Technical University in Delft, and he’s part of the Dutch Coalition on AI. Thereafter, we will have Tim Vermeulen. He is a strategy board member at Alliander, that is a Dutch energy network operator. He’s part of the Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitalization. Last but definitely not least, we have Chantarapeach Ut. She is from the Organizing Committee of the Youth Internet Governance Forum in Cambodia. We’ve done the introductions, and we’ll go over to Hannah.

Hannah Boute:
Thank you very much, Alisa, and thank you all here today in Kyoto and online for attending this session. My name is Hannah. I’m working for ACP, Platform for the Information Society, where we organize public-private cooperation. I’m involved in two of those public-private cooperation projects. The first is the Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitization, where I’m the secretary, and I’m also involved at the guidance ethics approach, where I’m moderator. Both projects will contribute to this session today on accelerating an inclusive energy transition. First, I will briefly tell you a bit more about the Coalition for Sustainable Digitization, and then I’ll tell you how we will explore the ethical dimensions of the energy transition with help of the guidance ethics approach. The Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitization is a coalition where we work with stakeholders from the quadruple helix, meaning the government, business industries and SMEs, civil society, and universities on the greening of IT, but we also look on greening by IT. In this session, we will actually dive into both, because we will look at how we can accelerate the energy transition with artificial intelligence, but like Alisa also just mentioned, it’s also very important to look at how we can incorporate sustainability into the design of AI. As with every technology, ethics are in play, so it’s important to explore the ethical dimensions. To do that, we need your participation today. I’m going to explain how we’re going to do that. Throughout the presentations, we ask you to listen carefully and identify implicit and also explicit values that are mentioned. I will help you a little bit with how you can identify implicit values with help of the guidance ethics approach, which I will explain briefly in a minute. After my contribution, Doreen will help you to log in into Mentimeter, so keep your phones ready for that. Then the values we identify together will be input for the panel discussion, so we can see how we can sustain them in the European, but also in the Asian perspective on the energy transition. Guidance ethics approach, what’s that? This is an ethical method that actually looks at the effects of a technology in a very specific context. It’s not high over, but it looks at that specific context. Those effects can be positive, they can be negative, and they are identified together with the people and organizations involved with the application of a technology in that specific context. Behind effects, you can find values, and I’m going to show you an example in a second to make that more concrete. If we’ve identified values that are relevant in a specific context, we can actually use them as a starting point to design the technology, to implement the technology in the specific environment we’re talking about, but also in how we use the technology in that environment as a human being. I think I’m missing some slides, actually. That’s okay. I can explain it. I just… Let me see. Yeah. Okay. Can you get my slides? All right. I’m just going to talk you through it. I think that’s going to be fine. The guidance ethics approach was developed from out ACP with the Technical University of Twente, several stakeholders from government, civil society, and business industry. The approach always starts with a technology in a specific context. Today, the technology is artificial intelligence. In the context of the European energy transition and the context of the Asian energy transition. Certain effects can be found in that and you will hear those effects mentioned by the speakers telling you about the transitions today. We can use those values to actually design the technology in such a way that we sustain those values. Oh, there we are. The first stage, technology in context, we ask you to participate to identify the values and then our panel will use the values to look at how we sustain them in the technology, the environment, and as how we use the technology. I’m going to give you a quick example. For instance, hypothetically speaking, if we apply AI on the energy grids to match supply and demand, and there is not enough supply to fulfill all demand, choices have to be made. So, AI doesn’t prioritize in the sense of what is needed, for example, for health. So, a negative effect might be that a crucial asset, for example, a hospital, is left without power. So, behind that effect, we’re actually talking about the value of social responsibility. So, then the question in stage three of this method is how we can design a technology, the implementation of the technology, and the use of it to sustain this value. I hope that’s clear for everyone now. So, short recap, grab your phone, log into Mentimeter, listen carefully to the upcoming speakers if you hear values and enter them into Mentimeter. So, at the end of the contributions of the other speakers, we will have a look at those values you entered, and then we’ll ask them how they are planning or already sustaining the values mentioned by you. Thank you so much.

Alisa Heaver:
If you can’t scan the QR code, then you can also go to menti.com and use the code, oh, use the code, the code, go back to the slide, yes. You can use the code 45732451.

Hannah Boute:
So, the question for you is not to think of values already, but to listen if you hear values mentioned by our speakers. As I explained, sometimes you can find values behind certain effects. Like I just gave the example, an effect might be that an AI is not able to prioritize an asset in the way we as a human would do that. So, that means that the value of social responsibility can be found behind that effect. But don’t worry if you can’t identify that, just concrete values are great as well. Does it answer your question? Cool.

Alisa Heaver:
Okay. Yes? Okay. So, the code, so you can go to menti.com and the code is 45732451. You’re welcome. I hope we’re ready to go to our first presentation or, well, yeah, real presentation from Neil York. Is he with us?

Neil Yorke-Smith:
Yeah. Can you guys hear me?

Alisa Heaver:
Yes. Perfect. Well, no, I don’t see you. I do see your slides, though, but it would be lovely to see your face as well. I can hear you and see you and I’m broadcasting my video. Ah, yes. Now we see you.

Neil Yorke-Smith:
Oh, perfect. All right. Let me see if I can share this.

Alisa Heaver:
But now we don’t, okay, oh, yeah, now we see both your slides and we will see you when you’re talking. Okay. Good luck. Okay. Talk talk. Let’s see if this works.

Neil Yorke-Smith:
Well, hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Or good morning from the Netherlands. It’s nice to be here and to talk with you. So, I’m going to talk about the inclusive energy transition and the role of AI. So, I’ll give a few thoughts and a few examples about it. And as was said, I’m from the Delft University of Technology, where I sit in the computer science department. Let’s see. Great. So, I’d like to put out that energy transition is seen, at least in the Netherlands, as the defining challenge of this generation. There’s perhaps many reasons for this, not least the Netherlands is a low-lying country and feels climate change quite profoundly. And AI is increasingly a part of the energy system. It’s already there. We’re already using AI in different ways. And perhaps Tim, when he gives his contribution next, he’ll also say more things about this. So, I thought it useful to say something about what is AI. AI is perhaps such a broad term and people have different views on it. So, here’s my one slide on, at least from a computer science perspective, as someone who works in AI, what are we talking about when we say AI and then its use in the energy system? So, we have two axes here. I don’t know if you can see my cursor. The top is thinking and the bottom is acting. And the left is humanly and the right is rationally. So, we could do it something like this. You could say, well, AI is, we want to think like humans. We want to have something that’s conscious, you might say. That’s one view of AI, thinking like humans, becoming human-like in that way. Another view is, well, let’s not maybe think like humans, but we want to act like humans. So, to have human-level capability in many areas. So, somehow, I said, be strong AI. Other people will say, well, AI, it’s about being aware of others, the kind of theory of mind. This is more philosophical, perhaps more from a philosophical perspective. And the fourth view that people have is, well, it’s about acting rationally, not acting like a human necessarily, but acting in a way that kind of makes sense. So, you might say this is more like the weak AI view. So, AI kind of is a tool with excellent abilities in certain domains. That’s what the view I’ll be talking about here. So, it’s not about becoming human-like or even acting necessarily like a human, but acting rationally in a given situation. So, this is called the intelligent agent view of AI. Here’s a picture, actually some work from TU Delft, of the control room of the future. And you see there’s no, you know, acting like humans here, but it’s AI helping here with grid management. And again, I think Tim might say some more things about this. So, technology and AI, where they’re already being used, they’re already being used as part of the energy system, today I’d like to say they’re only part of the solution. AI is not the whole solution to the energy transition. And one reason, at least, is that the societal impacts of an AI energy system will be crucial, but we don’t know them yet. We don’t know all of the impacts of AI and energy on society. And here’s a picture from Unsplash, some residents, perhaps, of Amsterdam. And the reason is that the ethical, the legal, the social, the economic aspects, they need to be studied along with the technological aspects. It’s not just, okay, we can put this machine learning into this system here. Well, should we do it? If we did it, how does it affect the regulations? Should the regulations change? How does it affect people? How do they feel about it? What’s the broad implications, not just the purely technical solution? And here’s another nice picture of Amsterdam from Unsplash. So, what we’d want to say is that questions like, well, values, we just heard about the ethical guidance approach, things like values, trust, justice, fairness, these questions, these considerations are as important as efficiency, as technical sustainability, and so on. These non-technical factors. And at least in the view in the Netherlands, we’re still emerging our emphasis, our research on these kind of questions as well. But it is there, it is coming. And so, a good example is a data center here. Okay, we can build a large data center. Well, how does it affect the people around it? How does that affect our societal priorities? What about the poor people in the city who don’t have enough energy? So on and so forth. So, we do see that AI, which are the sales of data and algorithms, it can bring benefits. For example, in forecasting, demand and supply loads, and in system design, efficiency of the operation of the system, real-time balancing, demand response, when we have lots of sustainable generation, flexible pricing, we can do markets in new ways. So, I do see benefits or potential benefits as we transition away from fossil-based fuels. But at the same time, these non-technical, ethical, legal, social questions, I think, are worthy of our consideration. And here’s a quote from the head of energy of the World Economic Forum. And I think that the key aspect here is the principles that help us think about how we govern and design and use responsibly AI in the energy system. And let me mention three principles, perhaps. The first is the trustworthiness of AI. And I think that’s something that we need to think about. Three principles, perhaps. The first is the trustworthiness of the technology. So, trustworthiness, of course, in many levels. But some aspect is this notion of this meaningful control, the citizens have some say in how their data is used, how the system will be designed, the notion of some kind of collaboration between the human and the AI. So, the whole notion is around trustworthiness. It’s a large area, of course, in its own. The second value, then, this notion of justice and justice in the energy system in particular. So, you know, do I benefit more from AI if I have an electric vehicle? But of course, not everybody can afford an electric vehicle. So questions around justice, energy justice in society, even in an affluent country like the Netherlands. And the third principle, perhaps this notion of fairness. So, okay, there’s a market, there’s new types of markets. There’s the sellers, there’s buyers, there’s prosumers of energy. How can we design the market so that it’s efficient, that it’s effective, but also that it takes on board notions of fairness? So these are three principles perhaps to think about as we increasingly use AI in the energy system. Now, I’ve mentioned, of course, the Dutch context, and here’s a map from Wikipedia, just and only to show you where the Netherlands is, and to say it’s this little area here. What else is in the European context? And I think here, Tim will help us. And of course, what’s more broadly in a non-European context? So the question then is, what can the Netherlands learn from other countries as we talk about AI, as we talk about an inclusive energy transition? And perhaps are there things from the Netherlands which will also be useful in other contexts? It’s an open question perhaps for our discussion later. Perhaps one example of this, I think Nigeria, and one area where perhaps the Netherlands can learn is this use of sharing resources together. I just leave that on the floor perhaps for later discussion. So we’ve been talking about our inclusive energy transition, the potential of AI, how AI is already being used, and some of the questions perhaps around values and the non-technology side of it. I’m curious to hear what we will discuss together later. Thank you very much.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you very much, Neil, for this informative presentation. I just wanna go to the audience. Is there any quick question that someone wants to ask as a follow-up on this presentation? If not, then we will directly go to Tim Vermeulen. No? Okay, then we’re set to go to Tim. The floor is yours. Tim, we cannot hear you as of now.

Tim Vermeulen:
And now you can?

Alisa Heaver:
Yes, now we can. Yeah, and we can see you.

Tim Vermeulen:
Perfect, thanks. That’s a big bonus. So hi, everyone. My name is Tim Vermeulen. I’ve already been introduced, head of digital strategy and architecture for a grid operator in the Netherlands. And I will try to give you an EU perspective on the energy transition. It’s a very broad topic, and I’ll try to dive into a few specifics that will help us in a few cases here and dive a bit more into how technology is actually already impacting the landscape so far from a European perspective. Just have six slides, but one of the first slides here is the energy mix in the EU in Europe is changing. So we see more renewables coming onto the market. I’m saying nothing new here, but the energy mix is changing, and that is changing relatively rapidly from a system perspective. So we’ve done the same thing over decades before where we have central generation of electricity and local use of generation. And basically we’re mixing that whole thing up. So from a one-way street, we’re changing the entire energy landscape into a two-way street where everyone and every consumer can also be a prosumer. So you can produce energy and you can use energy. And that’s quite impactful and also leads to a whole new opportunities on jobs, of course. So everyone has a more easy way to contribute to energy transition, which is lovely. And also the next speaker is gonna talk about how people can more easily act in the energy transition from this perspective. We see whole new business models popping up. So a whole new part of possibilities showing up, but also the question of how do these new markets actually become inclusive and how is technology playing a vastly different role in making sure that we can manage this difference energy mix and landscape. And that’s quite relevant because our landscape in Europe is hyper-connected. So if you see, these are the electricity lines and you can see the synchronization zones in parts of Europe in the different colors. But we have a super and hyper-connected grid on a international scale from a European perspective, but also a lot of impact on local scale. So locally also is connected as well. And we’re now focusing a bit on electricity, but there are a lot of energy carriers out there that play a role in the mix and making sure we can meet supply and demand in Europe. But I’ll give some examples on how technology based on this changing energy landscape has to play a role. So with increased use of electricity and people and different energy carriers, we need technology to help us plan how we’re gonna change the grid. And this is a picture of part of the Netherlands. And usually when we expand our grid and make sure that we build new substations, so where the high voltage lines are converted into mid voltage lines. So they go into neighborhoods and so on in the ground for in parts of the Netherlands. We used to do this all by hand and with people making a lots of asset management plans on this location needs to be here so we can meet the supply and demand here. But nowadays we’re asking algorithms to help us with this process. We’re asking algorithms, okay, so if this is changing here, we get a heat network in this city, this is changing in the energy mix for this part of the city, where should the new substation be? And this is very interesting because we’re asking AI, we’re asking algorithms where we should build our substations. And now the fundamental question we already have in parts of Europe is, okay, so how is bias introduced into these decisions? And to give you a very practical example, if we need to decide where we should lay thicker cables or to provide more electricity, if you ask an AI based on all the data from the Netherlands and different neighborhoods, they will say, please do that in the richest areas of the Netherlands because the chance of them buying solar panels or the chance of them buying electric cars is just the highest. So we should lay thicker cables in the richer neighborhoods so we can provide them with electricity and access to the grid more easily so they don’t run into capacity issues. And that’s fundamentally interesting from a technology perspective that an AI says that, but now the question comes to shove. If we’re doing it this way, we’re only increasing capacity in the richer neighborhoods and definitely not in the neighborhoods with less money to spend on EVs and solar panels, and you get less access to the grid for those other areas. So, and that is what AI is introducing and actually what we’re already running into. So trying to remove that bias, trying to look at fairness from a grid perspective point of view has become very, very important. And this is just one example where we’re trying to see where should the next electricity stations be, but there’s gonna be AI all across the board and from data collection to forecasting to active congestion management. So one of the things in Europe, which is really coming up now is the fact that we’ve laid cables into the ground or on the poles above the ground for decades. And of course, as I mentioned before, we haven’t predicted the use of those cables in a two-way street, but only in a one-way, generation to the consumers, instead of consumers all using their solar panels, which is really in a huge uptake in the AU and pushing it back. And that means that the cables are used heavily and we need to manage them so we don’t go over the capacity and we have faulted cables and disruptions. So we need AI across the board to address this situation. But that, again, with the example from before, that means that could be bias in all of the steps of how we manage electricity, the energy mix in the Netherlands. So that requires a lot of attention and a lot of collaboration. So what you see in the European energy landscape is that over the past decades, every energy company, grid company was very much focused on their own operations, but nowadays they have to open up what they’re doing to learn from each other, to share how they can actively use algorithms, but also actively fight this bias. And a great example, you can see the products here already, and that’s my last slide, is that people are using open source more and more, even for core grid capabilities, which was unthinkable 20 years ago, because that was all very proprietary. You have to protect this. But if we all are in this path and managing this complex world, this complex energy mix, we need all different kinds of, and these are all open source products with all grid forecasting capabilities and so on in the Linux Energy Foundation, but there are more open source foundations there. But you see this opening up, and that is something we couldn’t have predicted 20 years ago, and is definitely going on to further technology use and also learn from each other on how we battle this bias in algorithms, but we need to use them anyways to manage the grid effectively. That’s my talk so far.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Also perfectly on time. So thank you for being concise on that. Is there anyone who has a particular question? You can stand up to the mic and ask your question, and please introduce yourself.

Audience:
Thank you. My name is Mojtaba Rezakar. Actually, yeah, it works, yeah. Actually, I am MP from Iran’s parliament. It’s an interesting subject that you are discussing here, but you can look at it from different views. First of all, are we going to distribute the, I mean, are we going to consider furnace of energy distribution, or we are going to consider furnace in all subjects? Are we going to talk about just one subject or one subject? Let’s ask it in another way. Are we going to use same technology in all over the world or not? You are talking about the furnace of energy distribution. So if different parts of the world are using different technologies, how do you come up with a solution for this subject? Let’s say we are using a car. Some places are using gas. Some places are using electricity. Even when you use gas, there are different technologies that use different amount of fuel for the car. So if you are using different technologies, and probably it has other effects, are we going to consider those items or not? Let’s say, are we going to consider sameness of technology or not? Are we going to consider the impact of other things? Let’s say the environment, when you use different technologies, perhaps it impacts on the environment as well. Thank you.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you. I’ve heard a lot of questions. Tim, did you catch them sufficiently?

Tim Vermeulen:
Mostly. Okay. Mostly, and maybe we can use some of them for the further discussion at the end. Yes, yes. But to give a short response, and the subject on fairness, just on one side of distribution, of course, makes no sense. So it’s fairness across the board. But also if you see everyone’s using different technologies, not only in different parts of the world, but even within countries, even within companies at some points, we use different technologies. So the question begs is, can we look at everything from a modular point of view, and where every part is trying to assess fairness in their own way, but also look at the system as a whole? And this is the challenge for this integral approach. But the question still remains, we need to look at fairness across the board. So not only from an energy distribution perspective, but also if we want to cut CO2 emissions in the Netherlands and in Europe and globally, that also needs to work together. And every country have different challenges and different energy mix. For the Netherlands, we use a lot of natural gas because we have the natural gas bubble in our own country, which we could use. So that gives a whole different perspective on how and what changes we make in terms of CO2 and emissions than the country next to us. But as long as we’re as transparent as possible within our technology and be able to make it as modular as possible that we can interact with the rest, well, that’s the name of the game, but also there’s no definite solution. So that’s why we need to collaborate and work in an open way together to get there step-by-step.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you, Tim. Well, then I’m gonna go next to me, Peach, sorry. Well, up to you, the floor is yours. Do you want the mic?

Chantarapeach Ut:
Hello, everyone’s on site and online. I’m sorry, I’m feeling a bit under the weather. So if you hear a little bit of voice problem, I’m very sorry in advance. I’m very sorry in advance. So my name is Chantarapeach Ut. One of the organizing committee from Cambodia Youth Internet Governance Forums, which was host and held last month. And I’m also currently pursuing a green job as a space and sustainable operation officer under Impact Hapnumping. And I hope to still pursue green job in the future as well. And today I’ll be talking about how we can unlock Asian’s green energy future through youth. So why is green energy is important? So according to the IPCC report that I went through, it highlights that the increasing global CO2 emissions is at a pre-descended levels in which it leads us to need, it needs to be energy transition need to be fastened. As nine out of 10 Asian country currently have set net zero target, but still many of them are one of the most vulnerable to climate change, in which among these nations, 650 million people resigned it. So the need for energy transition is very needed to supply the high rise in energy demands in which we face a lot of challenges while doing that for green energy transitions in Asian context. Because as you know, each country has different infrastructures and each nation has their own respective energy structure and system and also resources to supply those energy. So transitioning might require a huge amount of financing, especially to the developing country. So they might need a lot of funds or support in technology transfer or knowledge improvements from the neighboring country or the developing country, in the regions or outside the region as well. And also, while changing might be needed, changes will always affect things. So it might affect the existing jobs, if the existing economic opportunity as well, which need time to adapt. So which is why it might take a lot of time to do so, but I’ll raise a few case on how youths can contribute to this development. I will focus on youths instead. So first of all, green energy. So as you see on the slide, these are some technology that are currently being invented by youths. It could include green energy engineering, smart agriculture, renewable energy optimizations, air quality monitoring, which is green buildings, climate modeling, eco-friendly transportation. These are all the technology that are currently being developed in a very early stage. So yes, these are the youth-led technology that needed support to be turned into reality and for their innovation and creativeness to blossom. So when you support them, you create entrepreneurship mindsets in our society in order to push our youth forward even further. So investment in youth and their potential to our society is very crucial at this point. And moreover, they can also contribute by pursuing green jobs. They can advocate for green tax or start recycling their e-waste or the previous generation waste, yeah? And some of them might become a green AI researcher or sustainability data analyst, renewable energy engineer, clean tech researcher. So these are all the type of green job that youths can pursue in the future and need everyone’s support in raising awareness on these green jobs. So when you increase the value of green job, more youths will start to realize that job that they are pursuing are actually making impact to their society and it can either be positive or negative. And some people might just work to make end mids, but some people are working to actually make an impact. So I want to start making or raising awareness for youth to realize that they can also make an impact while also earning money to sustain their life, yeah. And after green job, we also need to start raising awareness for them to pursue green job because for them to do that, they also need a lot of exposure. For in my contact in Cambodia, I major in international relations and economic science. I was not aware of green jobs at all until I started working at Impact Hub, which I applied for the role without knowing it is a green job. So this is how clueless I am in terms of a youth. So this is my youth perspective. This is why I want us all here to start emphasizing the importance of green jobs. So now let’s move to the next one, which is youth green internet initiative. So aside from green job, we can also start making platform or events that raise those kinds of awareness. For instance, I am part of Cambodian youth internet governance forums. This is the local internet governance forum, which are hosted around the world. And it is the The Internet Government Forum was held for the first time in Cambodia, which is very surprising when other countries have had it for so long. So, this shows how slow we are in terms of technology and AI transitioning. So, yes, we need a lot more even like this in the regions, especially also in Cambodia and in other states. Yeah, and more work for youths to actually voice out their opinions and voice out their concerns. And they can actually go to the local conference of youth, which is quite held around in each nation. And it is held under UNGO, the Office of Children and Youth Constituency, which is under the United Nations Frameworks of Convention on Climate Change. And when you get in one state to actually come up with a statement, those statements are then forward to the Conference of Youths, which is the regional one. And once it’s concluded in the Conference of Youth, it will also become part of Conference of Party, COP28, which is going to be held on 13 November until 12 December this year. So, yeah, this is a platform in which youths can actually learn and also become aware of the internet security while also raising about sustainability and the environment. And for this case, Alcoa is also being held for the first time in Cambodia as well, seeing this is very slow for us. Everything is the first time. So, yeah, I will try my best to raise awareness on this. And I’ll try to raise about AI cybersecurity. So, since youths need a lot of knowledge on it because they are the ones who currently use a lot of internet. And I believe harnessing a defense line on cybersecurity is one of the most important things for them. And by making them become part of this conference will allow them the opportunity to be part of the decision-making process as well. And it’s a space for them to voice their perspective, concern, and idea related to digital policy on online rights and while advocating for climate change. So, yes, I’ll share you what our neighbor country, actually, they already held the Alcoa this year. And this is their statement from the events. They want to call for Vietnamese youth to send relevant party to the COP28 conference. So, I actually applied for this as well. And I hope I get selected to be part of it, to share about AI as well. And from Cambodia YIGF, we also got youth testimonial in which I learned that local IGF is very important as it’s equipped with knowledge on internet governance and its impact in the world that we’re living in. So, I sincerely hope that I raise the important views through my presentation. And I hope you will be more involved and interested. Yes, I hope that sustainability field will be more acknowledged and we could fast-track the inclusive energy transition in the future. Yes, that’s all for me.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you. Is there anyone who has a particular question for Peach? No? Okay. I just wanted to say, besides all the initiatives that you have mentioned, even though those are all youth initiatives, there is a very good international initiative as well that is, well, for youth and a bit older people. And that’s called the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability. And that’s… Oh, I see someone standing up for a question.

Audience:
I actually don’t have a question for Peach specifically, but probably the question for every speaker. So, actually, my name is Wan Kwan. I am from the software development industry. And I believe in clean code. I believe that clean code will consume less energy than the bad codes. And I believe that when AI comes, it will generate… It will consume a lot of energy. So, do you guys think about that? Talk about it in the policy-making process as well? Because AI can help us achieve in the other areas, but it also provides challenges as well. So, I hope you get my question.

Hannah Boute:
Thank you. I kind of almost feel that this is a value in coding, but I might be wrong on this. But if you would allow me to only ask Hannah at the moment, so we can then move on to the second part of the presentation of Hannah. Thank you so much. That’s definitely a value. We already discussed today incorporating sustainability in the design of artificial intelligence. And within the Coalition for Sustainable Digitization, we also have a working group that’s looking at principles for green software. But I’m pretty sure that our expert on artificial intelligence, Neil, will get back on that in a second during our panel discussion. So, I suggest we move on to that one.

Alisa Heaver:
Yeah, that’s why I also gave the floor to you, because the next part is also up to you, Hannah.

Hannah Boute:
All right. So, I think we gathered some values. There they are. And so, I would like to ask Tim and Peach and Neil to have a look at those values. I think we leave them on the screen, right? Yeah. All right. So, then I’m going to turn to Tim first. So, I see some values, sustainability, fairness, energy, justice, trustworthiness. From the European perspective, Tim, which values do you consider most relevant? And what is currently being done or can be done to sustain these values in the energy transition from the European perspective?

Tim Vermeulen:
Yeah, I think, and I will address the question of clean code we can get to later. But if you look at the center, I think we see a few of them that are definitely very prevalent from a European perspective already, or at least from my perspective, for sustainability and fairness. And maybe integrity is one of the values which I’d also want to see. Because also, access to energy is a right. It’s something we need to protect. It’s something we need to make sure that everyone has that access. So, integrity as a system as a whole. I don’t care if you’re a grid operator or energy producer or a prosumer in the world. Integrity of the entire system is something we need to protect in order to foster sustainability and to protect the fairness of the system. So, that is something that I would want to add to the core of the values.

Hannah Boute:
All right, thank you so much. Piet, then I’d like to turn to you. So, looking at these values, which one do you consider most relevant from the Asian perspective? And how are you currently sustaining those values from your perspective?

Chantarapeach Ut:
For me, in the context of Asia, green energy transition, I believe that harnessing renewable energy more efficiently and storing it more effectively would be the value that I think Asians should focus on. As currently, we are using fossil fuel and most of the region are related in terms of sharing those energy. And as everyone may know, currently, there’s a little bit turbulence with Ukraine and Russia. So, that’s also tip off the energy sharing within our region as well. So, I think Asians should focus more on renewable energy in order for them to supply and sustain their energy in the future as well. Yes, thank you.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you so much. Then, final panel question to Neil. And Neal, after answering this question, I’d also would like to ask you to go into the question about energy efficiency coding within AI. But first to the panel question. So, yeah, we heard the replies of Tim and Peach with regards to relevant values and how to sustain them from both their perspectives. So, from the perspective on how AI can help to realize an inclusive energy transition, how do you think that both perspectives could straighten each other to sustain the named values?

Neil Yorke-Smith:
Yeah, I think it’s an important question. So, I guess one route of technology is that the values are more of the kind of the capitalism or the more the marketplace. So, we want to deliver some value to some people. And so, we develop technology to do this. Then we want to sell this and so on. A second way of perhaps designing technology is what’s called value sensitive design, which is we think about what are the values of the potential customers, but more broadly of society, and how do we incorporate those values in the design process? So, value sensitive design. And I think this can be one way to sustain values which certain stakeholders, society might think are important. And linked with this, I think there’s also the notion of that there’s some sensitivity to how values can change. So, particularly in longer term decisions. So, for example, Tim mentioned infrastructure decisions. You know, if we’re making decisions now, which will be with us for 20, 30, 40 years, then not only what are today’s values, but also potentially how might those values evolve in the future. So, this is a hard question. This is not my speciality. But I think it’s to recognize that some of the decisions we make now have future consequences, and at least to be aware of that. Then turning to the second question, particularly at the values of efficiency. So, if I understood what the question was about, it’s when we have code, we have algorithms, we have AI systems, having more efficient systems, so better designed code, cleaner code, how can that contribute also to questions about sustainability? And I agree that is a value. In fact, just yesterday, I was talking with some people about, you know, you’re doing a tech startup, you’re bringing this new AI technology. What are the values? Is it indeed, you know, time to market, disruption, potential profit, and so on? Or is some of the values, maybe we go slower when we’re developing our systems, we’re implementing our code, because we take on this non-functional requirement of the efficiency of, let’s say, the AI algorithm. And to me, this is interesting, because I don’t know to what extent people think about this. So, I don’t know, you know, you download an app onto your phone, and the app is, you know, 500 megabytes. But actually, maybe it could only be 100 megabytes if the developers took more time and, you know, focused on the size and the efficiency of things. So, I think it’s an important question to raise.

Tim Vermeulen:
And maybe to add, I also think that the work Peach is doing, the awareness part of looking at how you impact on a societal level, I think that’s definitely a part still not always taken into account into developing algorithms across the world. I can see that already in my company, if we build something, we want to build it to have functional impact. And then we also have to ask ourselves, is the code clean enough? How does it run efficiently? And to look at that from a board perspective, whatever you’re doing, so every job can be a clean job, to put it in the phrases you used earlier. I think, so there’s work in awareness, I saw awareness on the screen as well, is still something we need to work on in the broader sense of the word. And not only people working in energy, but working in any sector who’s building any kind of application, because you’re impacting the energy transition in one way or another anyways. So, awareness is probably a big thing there.

Alisa Heaver:
Yes, it’s done. Yes, thank you, Tim and Neil, for your contributions on answering those questions. I am really pleased with the amount of people who have handed in a few words. I just want to recognize that, first of all. Is there anyone else who has a particular question on the presentations given? No? Do you have anything more to add on the word cloud?

Hannah Boute:
I think it’s very valuable input, since we’re here today with an international audience, and I’m really pleased to see your input on values, on a very important topic that is of international importance. So, I just want to emphasize that, yeah, that kind of input is something we need. And international cooperation on these kind of topics is very important. So, thank you so much for your input.

Alisa Heaver:
Yes, well, if there aren’t any other questions anymore, I would like to ask Tim if he had, well, maybe let’s say it like this. If any of the speakers want to have any closing remarks, I would want to give them one minute each for key takeaways.

Chantarapeach Ut:
Okay. So, one minute. Okay, I’ll try and make the most of it. So, yeah, I just hope that everyone here got to learn a lot from the sessions, and I just hope that I make an impact as a youth. And I’m just here on behalf of my team, and I sincerely hope to see a more inclusive energy transition in the future. And in order to do that, not only youth will be the important stakeholder, but also the adults and the people who are on the high up as well that need to help in giving us direction and shaping it for us to actually follow, and also to help them and support them in the future. And I sincerely hope that everyone would give us more opportunity to take part in this kind of event in order to learn and also to improve our knowledge on this as well. Thank you.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you, Peach. Tim, your final remarks.

Tim Vermeulen:
Yeah, so as I mentioned in my story, I see a tremendous force to opening up everything we’re doing from a technology perspective, but also from a complexity perspective. And that’s not a bad thing. That means that we can all more easily contribute to what we’re doing here, whether it’s open source, whether it’s sharing values in different areas to foster the energy transition. So seeing all that open up and seeing where technology is also forcing us, I think is a big opportunity for everyone to make sure that we’re on the right value track and do value-based design, as Neil said. I’m hopeful for the future where we are managing this landscape, not only in Europe, but in the entire world and sharing that knowledge. So that’s my last two cents.

Alisa Heaver:
Thanks, Tim. Neil, last but not least.

Neil Yorke-Smith:
Yes, thank you. Yeah, I think a value that’s also in the discussion is the notion of accountability. So accountability of AI systems, accountability of those who develop them, accountability more generally in society towards the energy transition. And perhaps to add also, as Tim said, there is a global perspective on this. And so are also European countries accountable to other parts of the world? Because we’re interdependent. And I hope we have things to learn from each other, but also to strive together towards the energy transition.

Alisa Heaver:
Thank you, Neil. I would then want to thank all the speakers, all the tech team here for ensuring that this session went really, really smooth. And I particularly want to thank the speakers for some of them for waking up really early in the morning. Because they are in a quite different time zone. And yesterday in the main hall, I asked the panel there on the GDC, if they could ensure that there would be a bit more about sustainability in the GDC. Because it was very, very little what’s been mentioned in the policy brief of the Secretary General, no, sorry, from the tech envoy. And in that main hall, that’s where the Kyoto Protocol was signed. Or the final negotiations took place. And I think we’re in this incredible building here. And we should think about the future in that sense. And I think it’s wonderful that we’re having more and more discussions about sustainability and digitalization and making that combination. And I think we had a great session here on accelerating an inclusive energy transition. So with these final notes, I want to thank you all for attending this session. And please feel free to chatter around and exchange on information. Because I think that’s where the most interesting discussions come from. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.

Yasmine Idrissi

The analysis reveals several key points about cybersecurity. Firstly, there is a pressing need to demystify the field and dispel the misunderstanding that it is solely a technical issue. It is important for actors, including development professionals and policymakers, to understand that cybersecurity is not just a technical problem, but also a consumer and policy issue. By broadening the perception of cybersecurity, it becomes more accessible and relatable to a wider audience.

The analysis also highlights the need for inclusion and diversity within the field of cybersecurity. Currently, cybersecurity is predominantly English-focused, which excludes other languages and dialects. To promote inclusivity, it is crucial to reflect and incorporate other languages and both national and local dialects in the field. This ensures that people from diverse backgrounds can fully engage with and contribute to cybersecurity.

Furthermore, the analysis suggests that non-traditional actors, such as political parties and civil society, should be included in shaping cybersecurity policies. On a national level, there can often be interagency friction between mandates, and involving these non-traditional actors can help to bridge the gap and ensure comprehensive and effective policies. By broadening the participation and perspectives in cybersecurity policy discussions, a more holistic and inclusive approach can be achieved.

The integration of cybersecurity into digital development projects is another crucial aspect. The approach to digital development and cybersecurity has often been kept separate within organizations, resulting in a siloed approach. By integrating cybersecurity into digital development projects, organizations can ensure that the security of digital systems and infrastructure is prioritised from the outset. This can be achieved by incorporating cybersecurity as a criterion in audits for development projects.

Donor-funded projects also have a role to play in integrating cybersecurity requirements. By building cybersecurity requirements into their projects, donors can contribute to the overall security and resilience of the projects they fund. This includes considering cybersecurity as an integral part of the project design and implementation process.

Additionally, the analysis suggests that cybersecurity can benefit from incorporating lessons from other fields, such as climate change. Both fields involve technical complexities that can be intimidating for policymakers and diplomats. By learning from the approaches and strategies used in climate change negotiations, cybersecurity can adopt a similar mindset of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and multidisciplinary thinking.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the need to demystify cybersecurity, promote inclusion and diversity, involve non-traditional actors in shaping policies, integrate cybersecurity into digital development projects, and learn from other fields. These measures will help create a more comprehensive and effective approach to cybersecurity, ensuring safety, progress, and resilience in the digital world.

Allan S. Cabanlong

The ASEAN region is currently facing disruptions and ransomware issues as it strives to progress in digital development, highlighting the essential need for robust cybersecurity governance. The digital age has brought about unprecedented risks and vulnerabilities, necessitating ASEAN countries to address these growing threats effectively.

Interdisciplinary leadership plays a vital role in achieving a secure digital landscape and digital transformation. Based on the experiences of ASEAN, it is observed that leaders often lack interdisciplinary knowledge and expertise, which hinders effective digital governance. To govern digital development successfully, leaders should have a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of cybersecurity and its intersection with digital advancements.

Furthermore, the absence of proper cybersecurity governance exposes organizations and governments to significant risks, potentially resulting in catastrophic consequences. It is essential to establish clear policies, frameworks, and regulations to safeguard against cyber threats and protect sensitive information. Implementing robust cybersecurity governance measures enables organizations and governments to mitigate risks and ensure the security of their digital infrastructure.

In summary, the ASEAN region faces disruptions and ransomware challenges in its pursuit of digital development, highlighting the need for strong cybersecurity governance. Leadership with interdisciplinary knowledge is crucial for achieving a secure digital landscape and digital transformation. Neglecting cybersecurity governance can expose organizations and governments to severe consequences. Therefore, taking proactive measures to establish comprehensive cybersecurity governance is vital for the safety and stability of digital ecosystems.

Audience

The discussion highlighted the importance of budgeting and planning for the development of critical information infrastructure. A civil servant from the Sri Lankan government, involved in the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasised the significance of this aspect in achieving sustainable development. Sri Lanka has already taken steps in this direction by adopting a cybersecurity strategy and developing a cybersecurity policy.

The integration of policies and strategies for information infrastructure and cybersecurity into standard organisational structures and periodic development projects was proposed as a key step. This integration is crucial for the successful implementation of SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). By integrating these priorities into existing structures and projects, a more effective and streamlined approach can be taken to address information infrastructure and cybersecurity challenges. This will promote the development of sustainable cities and communities and foster partnerships for achieving the SDGs.

The supporting evidence for these proposals includes Sri Lanka’s existing adoption of a cybersecurity strategy and the development of a cybersecurity policy. These initiatives demonstrate the country’s commitment to addressing the challenges posed by information infrastructure and cybersecurity. Comprehensive policies and strategies help Sri Lanka tackle these issues in a more systematic and holistic manner.

Overall, the discussion took a neutral sentiment, with an emphasis on the practical importance of budgeting and planning. This suggests a pragmatic approach to addressing information infrastructure and cybersecurity challenges, highlighting the need for careful consideration and foresight in resource allocation and strategic decision-making.

In conclusion, the discussion highlights the crucial role of budgeting and planning in the development of critical information infrastructure. Sri Lanka’s efforts in adopting a cybersecurity strategy and policy serve as positive examples. To successfully implement the SDGs, it is essential to integrate policies and strategies relating to information infrastructure and cybersecurity into standard organisational structures and periodic development projects. By doing so, Sri Lanka aims to achieve sustainable cities and communities while fostering partnerships for the SDGs.

Moctar Yedali

The analysis highlights several important points regarding cybersecurity challenges in Africa and the need for greater attention and inclusive approaches. Firstly, while many African countries have digital transformation strategies, cybersecurity is not sufficiently integrated within them. This is a concerning issue as cybersecurity is crucial for protecting digital assets and ensuring the safety and integrity of digital infrastructure. The responsibility for addressing cybersecurity primarily falls upon ministers in charge of digital transformation and security/defense, with limited involvement from other stakeholders. This raises concerns about a lack of multi-stakeholder participation in cybersecurity discussions and decision-making processes.

In addition, there is a significant lack of efficient cybersecurity strategies in many African countries. This poses a significant risk as cyber threats continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. Without effective strategies in place, African countries may be vulnerable to cyber attacks that can have detrimental impacts on their economies, infrastructure, and overall stability.

On a positive note, the analysis suggests that African youths have the potential to play a critical role in addressing cybersecurity challenges. With 35% of Africa’s population being young, there is a sizable pool of talent that can be trained to become cyber guardians. By providing appropriate education and training, young people can contribute to safeguarding digital spaces in Africa and beyond.

Furthermore, the analysis stresses the importance of Africa not merely being a consumer of cybersecurity products but creating its own ecosystem for cybersecurity. By fostering domestic innovation and collaboration, Africa can establish itself as a hub for cybersecurity solutions, ultimately enhancing its resilience and capabilities in the face of cyber threats.

Moreover, the analysis highlights the insights shared by Moctar Yedali regarding the rapidly changing nature of technology and its implications. He emphasizes the need for continual capacity building to keep pace with technological advancements. Yedali warns about the potential of an impending digital divide, where consumers may have to choose between different systems or technologies. This could lead to a “cold technical war” among more influential countries, while smaller countries follow without much choice.

In conclusion, the analysis sheds light on the unique cybersecurity challenges faced by Africa and highlights the need for more attention and inclusive measures to address them. It calls for the inclusion of multi-stakeholders in cybersecurity discussions, the development of efficient cybersecurity strategies, the training of African youths as cyber guardians, and the creation of a robust ecosystem for cybersecurity in Africa. Additionally, it underscores the importance of continual capacity building and technological cooperation to bridge the digital divide and ensure socio-economic progress.

Johan Eckerholt

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted our heavy reliance on digital methods of communication and governance, revealing the critical importance of trust and security in these processes. As our everyday lives become increasingly digitalized, it becomes essential to ensure the integrity and safety of our digital systems.

Global cooperation plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable digital transformation. Digital issues transcend national borders, making collaborative efforts necessary to address them effectively. Partnerships between governments, the industry, international organizations, and civil society are key to tackling digital challenges.

The growth and development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rely on a broad and secure digital system. Secure digital processes that enable cross-border transactions are crucial for the success of industries. Ensuring the safety of digital transactions fosters the growth and expansion of SMEs.

Finding the right balance between regulation and governance is critical for the growth of the digital economy. The involvement of organizations like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and industry leaders is vital. The ITU monitors digital activities, while the industry provides the necessary technological foundations. A collaborative approach can facilitate digital progress and innovation.

To build trust in digitalization, common rules, effective implementation tools, robust monitoring mechanisms, and resources for remediation are essential. Clearly defined and universally agreed-upon rules, comprehensive implementation tools, rigorous monitoring processes, and adequate resources can instill confidence in digital systems.

Cybersecurity is an integral part of our digital lives. It is crucial to integrate cybersecurity measures into digital systems to ensure a safe and secure online environment. Protecting personal data, financial transactions, and sensitive information is of utmost importance.

Improving the link between the defense, economic, and development communities is a challenge that needs to be addressed. Strengthening connections and fostering collaborative efforts between these communities is essential to tackle global issues and achieve sustainable economic growth while reducing inequalities.

A consortium project is currently underway, aiming to provide guidance through consultation. This project includes a consultation in Singapore and aims to produce relevant guidance by December. The consortium brings together expertise and perspectives to address key digital challenges.

Johan Eckerholt, a participant in the project, acknowledges the value of prior discussions and plans to incorporate the points discussed into future project proceedings. This demonstrates their openness to feedback and commitment to improving the project based on valuable insights.

In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significance of trust and security in digital communication and governance. Sustainable digital transformation requires global cooperation, a secure digital ecosystem for SMEs, a balanced approach to regulation and governance, common rules and tools, integrated cybersecurity measures, improved collaboration between different communities, and consortium-led guidance initiatives. Through collaborative efforts, we can build a safe, secure, and prosperous digital future.

Patryk Pawlak

There is a clear confusion on the ground regarding the differences and intersections between the terms ‘digital’ and ‘cyber’. Patryk Pawlak’s experience in European Union (EU) projects revealed this confusion, highlighting the need for clarification on these terms and how they integrate.

Furthermore, Pawlak emphasized the importance of mainstreaming in the context of understanding ‘digital’ and ‘cyber’. Mainstreaming refers to incorporating these concepts into various aspects of project implementation. EU engagements have demonstrated that mainstreaming can be a solution to the challenges faced on the ground in relation to digital and cyber projects.

The enabling environment is often overlooked in cyber capacity building, as stated by Pawlak. In his work on operational guidance on cyber capacity building for the European Commission, he identified the enabling environment as a key issue. This highlights the need to consider the broader context within which capacity building initiatives take place.

Pawlak’s involvement in the generation of operational guidance and strategic directions for cyber capacity building for the European Commission reflects the importance placed on considering different aspects of cybersecurity in the development of projects. This highlights the need for comprehensive and strategic approaches to cybersecurity development.

Delegates are faced with a dilemma when it comes to dealing with blockchain and cybersecurity. A colleague in the delegation was tasked with implementing a project on blockchain in the justice system, but also needed to incorporate cybersecurity measures. This highlights the challenges that arise when these two complex and distinct areas intersect.

It is evident that expertise in both blockchain and cybersecurity is needed to aid delegates in addressing these challenges. The colleagues in the delegation mentioned by Pawlak were not experts in either of these fields. Therefore, the involvement of experts becomes crucial in order to navigate the complexities and ensure the effective implementation of projects.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the confusion surrounding the terms ‘digital’ and ‘cyber’, the importance of mainstreaming in project implementation, the often overlooked enabling environment in cyber capacity building, and the need for expertise to address the challenges posed by the intersection of blockchain and cybersecurity. These insights emphasize the need for clear definitions, comprehensive approaches, and the involvement of knowledgeable experts in the field.

Christopher Painter

There is a significant divide between the development and cybersecurity communities, as the development community tends to perceive cybersecurity as too technical and defensive. However, it is argued that cybersecurity is actually a foundational element of development, with almost every development project having a cybersecurity aspect.

One of the main challenges is the fear of crossing committees in the UN negotiation process. Countries view cybersecurity capacity building as a military thing, rather than as an area suitable for official development assistance. This perception contributes to the segregation between different communities in development and cybersecurity.

To address this divide, a conference is being held in Ghana. This conference aims to bring together the development community and the cybersecurity community, and is co-organized by global organizations, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, and the Cyber Peace Institute. The conference’s objective is to build understanding and champion the integration of cybersecurity in development.

It is argued that there is a need for interaction and communication between the development and cybersecurity communities. The cybersecurity community also needs to improve its communication with the development community. The division between the two communities is seen as a barrier that hinders effective collaboration and response to cybersecurity threats.

Furthermore, it is highlighted that combining diverse sectors and breaking down barriers is essential to understanding and effectively responding to cybersecurity threats. Issues in cyberspace require the contribution of different sectors, including security, human rights, and economics, in order to handle them effectively. This approach emphasises the importance of collaboration and integration across various fields.

Notably, there are also instances where organisations and regions misunderstand their roles and responsibilities regarding cybersecurity and digital matters. For example, an unnamed country did not attend International Telecommunication Union (ITU) meetings because they viewed it as solely related to telecommunications, despite it covering broader areas such as cybersecurity. This misunderstanding underscores the need for clarity and coordination in understanding the scope and responsibilities of different entities in addressing cybersecurity challenges.

In a positive development, some countries have institutionalised the merger of digital and cybersecurity roles. This practice involves integrating various aspects of the digital realm, with the role of the cyber ambassador aligned with that of the digital ambassador. This integration aims to create a more comprehensive and coordinated approach to dealing with digital and cybersecurity matters.

In summary, there is a clear divide between the development and cybersecurity communities, with the development community perceiving cybersecurity as too technical and defensive. However, it is argued that cybersecurity is a foundational element of development, and projects in the development field often include a cybersecurity aspect. The conference in Ghana is a significant effort to bring the two communities together and improve understanding and collaboration. It is crucial for both communities to interact, communicate effectively, and integrate diverse sectors to effectively respond to cybersecurity threats.

Michael Karimian

In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is necessary to focus on two key areas: secure digital transformation and collaboration among various stakeholders. Secure, trusted, and inclusive digital infrastructure is fundamental for economic and social development. This requires integrating cybersecurity principles into the digital development agenda. By doing so, societies can be safeguarded and potential risks can be mitigated.

Collaboration among different stakeholders is also important. Active participation from governments, international organisations, industry players, and civil society is crucial for a successful multi-stakeholder approach. In order to address the complex challenges associated with digital transformation, it is necessary to bring together the expertise and resources of different actors. By working together, synergies can be created and comprehensive solutions can be developed to tackle cybersecurity issues effectively.

Furthermore, there is a need to mainstream cybersecurity into digital development programs and broaden the funding sources for cybersecurity capacity building. It is imperative to seamlessly integrate cybersecurity considerations into the design and implementation of digital and development initiatives. By prioritising cybersecurity from the outset, potential vulnerabilities can be identified and addressed proactively. Additionally, expanding funding sources for cybersecurity capacity building can ensure that the necessary resources are available to build robust and resilient digital systems.

Another important aspect highlighted is the importance of conducting real assessments of cyber needs, feasibility, and impacts in development projects. This involves evaluating the cybersecurity requirements and implications of digital initiatives. By conducting thorough assessments, potential risks can be identified, and appropriate measures can be taken to enhance security and mitigate threats. For instance, in the digitisation of court systems, assessments can help identify the cybersecurity measures needed to protect sensitive data and ensure the integrity of the judicial process.

Additionally, it is crucial to view cybersecurity as an investment rather than simply a cost. Cybersecurity should not be seen as an expense but as a strategic investment that can yield long-term benefits. By investing in robust cybersecurity measures, organisations can protect their data, systems, and users from cyber threats. This investment can lead to increased trust, business resilience, and economic growth in the digital era.

In conclusion, achieving the SDGs requires a focus on both secure digital transformation and collaboration among various stakeholders. By integrating cybersecurity principles, adopting a multi-stakeholder approach, mainstreaming cybersecurity in development programmes, conducting thorough assessments, and viewing cybersecurity as an investment, societies can build secure, resilient, and inclusive digital ecosystems that foster sustainable development.

Tereza Horejsova

The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFC) has emphasized the importance of incorporating cybersecurity into development initiatives. It has been observed that cybersecurity is often disregarded due to a lack of understanding on how to integrate it into other development interventions. Recognizing this disconnect, the GFC aims to initiate discussions to mainstream cybersecurity in the development agenda. All partners involved in the forum understand the connection between sustainable digital transformation and cybersecurity, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach.

To address this, a multi-stakeholder approach is deemed essential in formulating a comprehensive cybersecurity plan. The Government of Sweden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFC), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and Microsoft are partnering in this initiative. They plan to bring in various stakeholders to contribute to the discussions. By involving a diverse range of perspectives, expertise, and resources, a more holistic cybersecurity strategy can be developed.

A specific plan has been laid out for a series of workshops that will focus on discussing various aspects of cybersecurity and its role in digital transformation. These discussions aim to explore the importance of digital development for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), learn from past and ongoing cyber capacity projects, implement UN cyber norms, and consider the role of diplomacy. The intention behind these workshops is to gather insights and formulate suitable cybersecurity strategies that align with the broader development agenda.

The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise operates under the Swedish Government’s initiative and seeks to incorporate the feedback received during these discussions in a multi-stakeholder compendium. By engaging stakeholders from different sectors and countries, it aims to foster collaboration and ensure that cybersecurity remains an integral part of development efforts.

Moreover, the division and misunderstanding between the development and cybersecurity communities are acknowledged and seen as a challenge. To address this, the Forum encourages communication and interaction between these two communities. By bringing them together and facilitating a shared understanding, it aims to bridge the gap and move towards common goals. This alignment is considered essential, as both communities have a role to play in achieving sustainable development.

In addition to engaging stakeholders, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise also emphasizes the need for audience participation and involvement. It appeals to the audience to share their experiences, concerns, and challenges regarding cybersecurity and development. This approach seeks to collect a wide range of perspectives and ensure that the discussions take into account the diverse needs and experiences of different stakeholders. The Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building (GC3B) is highlighted as an opportunity to further enrich these conversations, and expectations are set for its outcome to contribute to the overall understanding and progress in bridging the gap between cybersecurity and development.

In conclusion, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise recognizes the importance of incorporating cybersecurity into development initiatives. It advocates for a multi-stakeholder approach to formulate a comprehensive cybersecurity plan and has outlined a series of workshops to discuss various aspects of cybersecurity in relation to digital transformation and the SDGs. By improving communication and engaging with stakeholders and the audience, the Forum aims to bridge the divide between the development and cybersecurity communities, fostering collaboration, and achieving better outcomes in sustainable development efforts.

Tereza Horejsova:
to the issue of achieving the sustainable development goals through secure digital transformation. This open forum is organized by the government of Sweden. So thank you for joining us here and thank you to those of us joining us online. What we will do today is to kind of discuss how the issues of cybersecurity can be mainstreamed in the development agenda. It’s a topic that is very close to many of the partners of this project that we would be introducing here today and that we hope to get inputs from you on. So just to recap, this project on mainstreaming cybersecurity in development has the following partners. It’s the government of Sweden, as I have mentioned, it’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it’s the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, the GFC, it’s the International Telecommunications Union, the ITU, and last but not least, Microsoft. So welcome on behalf of all of the partners in this consortium. To set us off maybe just a few general remarks. So cybersecurity is often decoupled from other development interventions due to lack of awareness, understanding of how to integrate it, or dual use technology concerns. However, what all of the partners and as we have understood also many other around these issues have understood that sustainable digital transformation and cybersecurity, there are some vital cross-cutting needs there. And for this reason, today, we are formally launching this work stream that we have been working on together to facilitate a frank and inclusive discussion among stakeholders and distill their recommendations into a multi-stakeholder compendium that we are planning to launch later this year. And we will share more details on later. So to this end, we really plan to bring various stakeholders to a series of workshops. One of them is considered as this one happening at the IGF. And just to give you a little teaser of the issues that we are planning to discuss. It’s issues such as the role of cybersecurity in supporting safe and secure digital transformation, the importance of digital development as an enabling function to achieving the SDGs. What are some of the lessons learned from past and ongoing cyber capacity building projects? How can we use some concrete goals or checklists and indicators for the implementation of UN cyber norms, mainstreaming cyber capacity building with various development programs and funds, and also the role of diplomacy in creating institutions and mandates to support cyber mainstreaming? So these are some of the issues that we will be discussing today. We do hope that we will have a lively discussion that will then be reflected in the compendium in the making. So that was just a very brief introduction of the topic. And now let me introduce also the discussions that we will have to take us through that. So I will start on my left. At the end of the table, we have Christopher Painter, who is the president of the GFC Foundation Board. We continue with Yasmin Idrissi from the International Telecommunications Union. We also have Johan Eckerholt from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Michael Karamanian from Microsoft. My name is Teresa Horejsova, also with the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, and it will be my pleasure to be your moderator alongside my colleague Alan Sabanlong, who is joining us from the Philippines, who will be serving as a bridge with the online audience. And I do hope also His Excellency Mokhtar Yedali, ex-minister from Mauritania, joining us from there at hopefully 4 a.m. in the morning. I don’t know if we have a confirmation if Mr. Mokhtar is with us. He is. So very good. Good morning, Mokhtar. I really appreciate you being here. So let’s get started. Each of our panelists will give some brief reflections, and then we will go into the discussion. And if you allow me, I would like to start with you, Johan. There is a reason why the government of Sweden has considered this issue of importance. So could you maybe kick us off on how you see the importance of digital development as an enabling function for the SDGs? Thank you.

Johan Eckerholt:
Thank you, Teresa, and also thanks to all the partners from NGC, FE, and ITU, and Microsoft here today. I think from the Swedish government perspective, we have had a long development journey from a poor agro-country to a relatively industrialized and digitalized country. And I think that journey has been able to do with trust. I think that is where we’re coming from. And what we have felt and seen, and I think we’ve all seen it even more so with the COVID and the pandemic, that core parts of our everyday life and our governance functions are digitalized. So creating trust and security in how we share information, how we communicate, how we deal with this across borders have become an essential part on a functioning society, on a functioning economy, on a functioning development. So from our point of view, that is why we see a very strong link with the social SDGs and building cybersecurity. Because if you take an issue for like information or disinformation, for example, it’s about understanding, believing, trusting in the sources that you have. Those things are key when we look at it. And I think also for an industry to grow, we today buy and sell things across borders. If I want to sell something in another country, I would like to be sure that the thing I’m buying is what I’m ordering. I’d also want to make sure that my credit card or whatever I used to pay is not skimmed along the way. So in that, I think we have a very key issue. And I think especially for small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries, being able to have that security and that broadness around the system is key for having the opportunity to grow and to develop. And I think that for us are very, very key things. And I think when we are looking at it, I think one needs to raise the awareness of cybersecurity because it might sound technical, but it is essential to allowing the other aspects of this trust building to get to the SDGs. And I think I’m very extra happy that we are all of us here together because I think in order to achieve that trust, we need to work together. I mean, we as governments need the help of the industry with Microsoft.We need to cooperate together in international organization and we need a civil society and the experts like you, Teresa, to work on taking this forward. And we cannot do it alone. And I think digital is one of those things, we all know it. It doesn’t stop at borders. So we need to do this together. I think I’ll stop here a little bit. Maybe I can touch a little bit on how we see it. I think, what does that mean? I think, well, it means that we need to have common rules. We need to have the tool for implementation. We need to have the tool for monitoring. And in the end, we will probably also have the resources to remedy when things go wrong. So I think you need all those aspects. And I think, I mean, ITU is doing an excellent job on the monitoring part. I mean, we all try to help in providing our input from a national perspective so that we can see what is needed. We can do that gap analysis. And I mean, from GCFE, I mean, you’re producing the knowledge base that we need to get there. And the industry is a key partner because they are actually providing the fundamentals of which we work through. And we as governments try to find the right balance between regulation and governance and getting that right. So I think those are the things that we are working on. And also, to be very frank, also struggling with because I think that the challenge of doing this is of course that it needs that cooperation among us, but also in governments and to get all the different key partners to talk together. So I think those are a little bit how we see the basic points of why this is important and why we need to work together in this setup. So I think what we are looking for is to learn from you and how we can do this better. And I’m very, very much interested in hearing your views on this. Thank you.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much, Johan. Also, for stressing kind of the multi-stakeholder importance of these discussions. There is also no coincidence why this consortium of this project has been set up the way it has been. And you know, later on, if our time allows, having you as a diplomat in Geneva, it would be really useful also to hear some reflections from you on how the development and cyber security worlds actually meet at this center of diplomacy. But let’s leave it for later. As I have mentioned in the opening remarks, we have had two consultations already with various contexts at various venues. The first one was happening in July in New York during the open-ended working group. The second one was held about two weeks ago virtually in cooperation with also the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA, on really trying to bring more of the development practitioners into this discourse. And we have learned quite a lot. Some, let’s say the concerns or recommendations that we have heard in these consultations were expected. Some were maybe a little bit surprising, yes. So maybe to also set us up for the discussion later, I would like to get into those briefly. And Michael, if I may turn to you, you know, so what has come up as the main barriers in mainstreaming cyber security and development so far?

Michael Karimian:
Sure thing, thank you, Teresa. Being a moderator and of course your hard work in preparing today’s session. And Yasmin and I will reflect on this together and I think Yasmin and I have very similar takeaways from the consultations, which in a way speaks to a level of unanimity, both from an international organization actor and a private sector actor, the strength of the consultations and the common themes that are coming through time and again. Firstly, and Johan touched upon this, it is abundantly clear that secure digital transformation is absolutely essential in our pursuit of the SDGs. And that’s true in ways which weren’t fully recognized when the SDGs were being drafted and scoped and agreed to well over a decade ago. And now as we’re kind of on the cusp of the post 2030 agenda and not quite knowing what that will look like, that in many ways speaks to the timeliness of this project and helping to lay the groundwork for that. But even before we get to the post 2030 agenda, right now in today’s interconnected world, it’s obvious that secure, trusted and inclusive digital infrastructure is the very foundation of economic and social development everywhere actually, not just low and middle income countries. However, that digital transformation journey also brings with it a huge range of inherent cybersecurity risks, particularly for nations and regions that may currently lack the necessary cyber resilience to counteract the ever evolving cyber threats. So it’s imperative to recognize that in order to empower and safeguard all societies from the mountain cybersecurity risks, we must of course proactively and comprehensively integrate cybersecurity principles into the digital development agenda. One recurrent theme which has clearly resonated throughout the discussions is the need for a collaborative and inclusive approach as just exactly as Johan said, achieving the SDGs through secure digital transformation requires the active and engaged participation of various stakeholders and that includes governments, international organizations, the development community, industry players and civil society, which necessitates the pooling of knowledge, expertise, resources, because of course the magnitude of these challenges is just simply too vast to be tackled by one entity in isolation. I know that’s a very common theme which we hear throughout the IGF. I think furthermore, the consultations have really underscored that capacity building in cybersecurity is not merely a desirable option, but an absolute imperative and in some ways that’ll be music to Chris’s ears, but something that he already knows and understands very, very well. It’s evident that we need to prioritize efforts in building and enhancing the capacity to manage and mitigate cybersecurity risks, especially in regions, again, where digital transformation is occurring at a really accelerated pace. Strengthening the skills and the knowledge required to navigate the intricate web of cybersecurity challenges is fundamental to the achievement of sustainable development goals. Additionally, the discussions so far have highlighted the importance of mainstream and cybersecurity into digital development programs and funding mechanisms. So to ensure that the SDGs are not only supported, but indeed advanced by digital transformation, we must seamlessly integrate cybersecurity considerations into the very fabric of digital and development initiatives. And that includes both at the initial design level, but also ongoing implementation of these projects. And we’ve learned that the approach to mainstreaming cybersecurity must be adaptable and context specific. Of course, there’s no one size fits all solution. So every region and country faces a range of unique challenges and requirements on their digital development journey. And as such, strategies and interventions must be tailored to address those specific contexts effectively. Lastly, but certainly not least, on the issue of funding mechanisms, that’s clearly an issue that has come to the forefront. The consultations have illuminated the critical need to broaden the sources of funding for cybersecurity capacity building. It’s not sufficient to solely rely on defense budgets, for example, to support these endeavors, is imperative that development budgets are also mobilized to ensure that digital development projects are fortified with the necessary cybersecurity components. So aligning funded mechanisms with the specific needs and objectives of digital development initiatives is essential too. I think these are just some of the valuable insights from the consultation so far. Yasmin, I think we’ll have similar perspectives and maybe more to share.

Yasmine Idrissi :
Thank you so much, Michael. And thank you, Teresa. So indeed, these consultations have also lifted the lid on some things that as cybersecurity practitioners you don’t necessarily consider. There’s also a definition issue sometimes that we often try as a recommendation to refer to it as cyber resilience, because security as a word implies certain things, of course, and this also is partly caused by the fact that cyber capacity building, as mentioned by Michael, is often funded from defense budgets rather than development. So one recommendation also that has been coming since the two workshops that we’ve had is to demystify the field, because actors, be it development or policy, they often misunderstand it. They see it only as a technical issue or not a consumer issue or policy issue. So there’s a bit of a discomfort from development professionals over the perceived sort of technical nature of it. And one other thing that is important that we often overlook is that it’s a very English-focused field. There needs to be a little bit more inclusion also in terms of languages, and both national and also local dialects need to be reflected. A recommendation that is important as well is to consider going beyond our usual sort of communities, both at national and international level. The development community and the cyber capacity building community often do not talk. And also at national level, there is often an interagency friction between mandates, and that’s the case for numerous countries. So oftentimes we finish into an eco-chamber of speaking to cyber diplomats that obviously know the importance of this, but there needs to be, of course, the inclusion also of what we would consider non-traditional actors, like political parties or civil society, of course, and people that are also active in shaping this policy landscape. Yeah, so including cybersecurity and cyber resilience is, of course, key to also include in digital development projects. So I can say that even in the ITU, the approach is still very siloed. Oftentimes we have digital development projects as one thing and then cybersecurity projects as separate, even within the same organization. So I wouldn’t imagine elsewhere. So maybe a recommendation that has come out and that I very much agree with is that sometimes cybersecurity can be added as a sort of criteria in audits for development projects, digital development projects, and maybe donors can have a role. here where they can build cybersecurity requirements into their projects. So it’s a bit of a all hands on deck type of effort. But I think what’s really key is to continue to have these conversations and maybe turn over to different actors, and maybe some that we haven’t thought about for understanding what can be some good examples that we can showcase through this work stream. Thank you.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much, Yasmin. Thank you, of course, also Michael. I will be curious later to hear if this, to any extent, was surprising to you as well, and if you have other reflections. But before we do, Michael, you have mentioned, for instance, the unique challenges that there are various regions face. Yasmin has brought up the issue also of languages. I would like to turn to you, Mokhtar. You, of course, knowing Africa so well, can you share with us a little bit your perspectives of worthy intersection of digital resilience and achieving sustainable development goals, how it has unfolded in Africa, and what is the situation there regarding the multi-stakeholder participation that we’ve heard about as quite an important need. So 4 a.m. for you, good morning, but we hope you’re fresh and ready to share something with us.

Moctar Yedali:
Indeed. Can you hear me very well now? Yes, we can. Do you see me? So far, you are small, but I believe you will be made big. Yes, it’s perfect. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity, and good day to you, because it’s morning, it’s 4 a.m. here where I am in Mauritania. And thank you for having me, and I congratulate the previous speakers for what they have contributed with, specifically with regard to the connection between SDGs and the cybersecurity and the ICTs in general. As it has mentioned previously, today our lives cannot go without really using the digital technologies for our development, and this affects a lot of our goals with regard to the sustainable development. As previously mentioned, the issue of safe transactions and the safe use of technology for development is extremely important. We have seen in the world the rise of cyber attacks, cyber threats here and there. And as mentioned also, it is extremely important to see that cybersecurity is being addressed not only from security or defense point of view, but it is addressed from really safety and development, and specifically sustainable development. Most of the African countries do have now their digital transformation strategies, but very few of them do not connect the digital transformation and the cybersecurity within those approaches. Second, most of the African countries or actually departments dealing with the digital transformation are most of the time addressing the issue of digital transformation in silo, which though there is a multi-stakeholder approach everywhere, but the problem, the only point where the collaboration is not yet there is that national governance with regard to cybersecurity here. Most of the African countries are lacking that collaboration among different stakeholder. The issue of cybersecurity is addressed by probably the ministers in charge of digital transformation, the ICTs, and the ministers in charge of security slash defense, but other civil society, academia, and others as a multi-stakeholder are very seldom being associated or involved in this endeavor related to cybersecurity. So that lack of national governance with regard to cybersecurity slash connected with the SDGs and connected with the digital transformation for how can I say, global approach for everybody to work on together and make sure that as the representatives of Sweden, I say, have said that we are all moving toward safety, not only within the national borders, but also outside of our board decision. So the point here I wanted actually to highlight is the fact that the multi-stakeholders principle doesn’t apply most of the time in the area of cybersecurity. That is one of the number one. Number two, there is a lack of cyber strategy at the national level. And you will see that most of the African countries do not have really a very, how can I say, efficient, if I may say, cybersecurity strategy associated with development of digital transformation and making together. There is an illusion of safety with regard to buying their firewalls or antiviruses or whatever. And we think that is really the cyber safety, but in fact, it’s not. It’s just what I call generally the illusion of safety. And the third one point I wanted to highlight is that Africa has unique specificity of having a lot of young people. Most of our, 35 of our population is actually very young. And these people, if are very well used and trained, they can be the cyber guardian, not only for Africa itself, but also for all of us. Because I said, the issue of cybersecurity is not only within the national borders, but also everybody. And our performance within that space or the cyberspace is just by the weakest link. So, and Africa should not be really the weakest link in all that. So this, I stop here is just as an introduction, but bottom line, it is extremely important that the multistakeholder principles be applicable also within the framework of cybersecurity. That is the main things. And Africa not should be a net consumer of products that are being manufactured here and there, but also should create its own ecosystem in terms of human capacities, in terms of cyber industry and cybersecurity industry as well. I stop here and I’ll be glad to answer some specific question. Over to you, Tania.

Tereza Horejsova:
Mokhtar, thank you very much. You’ve been quite critical about the situation in Africa when regards to this topic, but rest assured that we have experienced these challenges, be it on the siloed approach or maybe not as efficient multistakeholder participation in other parts of the world. And that’s also why we want to discuss it here today. So thank you. Turning now to you, Chris, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise has, let’s say, evaluated this topic of cyber and development intersection as quite vital or challenging, to the extent that it has decided alongside its partners to organize a major conference on global cyber capacity building that will be happening at the end of November in Accra, Ghana. So first of all, like, why the angle also for the GFC and how do you expect these issues to be tackled in the discussions there?

Christopher Painter:
Thank you, Teresa. And thank every other speaker for their comments. I agree with what was said before, certainly. And I think it stems from what we’ve heard from the other panelists, that there is this divide between the traditional development community and the cybersecurity capacity building community, much like there’s a divide between the traditional economic and innovation community and the security community on a larger scale. And I think it’s partly misperception that they think of cybersecurity as too technical, but a lot of development projects are technical. But on the other hand, I think they think it’s a defense thing, it’s a security thing. That’s why, you know, for the conference we’re having in Ghana, it’s to bolster cyber resilience. And the term was chosen specifically to address both of those communities. It’s something that resonates with both rather than using the term cybersecurity, which has resonance within this community, but maybe not that much resonance within the development community. And we’ve seen this play out in a lot of different venues. You know, a lot of countries think that cybersecurity capacity building is not, as they say, ODA-able, because they think it’s a military thing. It’s not, but that’s the perception sometimes. We see, even in the negotiations in the UN, I remember in the last, the first WWG, we wanted to get some language in saying that cybersecurity undergirded the UN development goals, which indeed they do. They may not mention cybersecurity as a separate goal or even digitization as a separate goal, but they undergird many of those goals and they’re foundational to it. But there was a little bit of fear that, oh, the development goals are the province of not the first committee, but the second committee. And it’s like, that’s, you know, that’s kind of crazy when you think about it because we’re all in the same world and we all have to deal with these same issues. So the conference in Ghana, and I should emphasize it’s not just a conference for Africa. It is being held in Africa. There’ll be, you know, significant African presence and participation, but as a global conference, it’s for really all over the world. And really one of his chief goals is to bring together that traditional development community and the cyber community to, as others have said on this panel, to mainstream cyber capacity building as a foundational element of development. Now we’ve seen some organizations, one of the co-organizers of this conference is the World Bank. We have the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, the Cyber Peace Institute and us, GFC. We also have a steering committee of a number of countries and organizations, including Microsoft. And so there’s this understanding that we need to mainstream this. We bring these communities together and we’ve seen the World Bank, USAID, the British Development Agency, I think has been on the front foot in the last few years in trying to do this kind of integration, but it’s still rare. And that has implications in terms of, you know, you were saying, for instance, that digitization development projects obviously have a cybersecurity angle, but really almost every development project does, whether it’s water, power, financial systems, almost anything foundational thing you can think of, cybersecurity is important. So we wanna bring these together. We wanna build more understanding. We want to have something, an outcome coming out of this conference that is action-oriented, that really champions this integration and really brings it forward. This is a, you know, it’s a conference, it’s an important marker, but it’s really a process going after that to continue to make sure that people, that we bring these communities together because it will make us both stronger. It will help the development community because if development projects go wrong because they don’t have good cybersecurity, that hurts everyone. And it will help the cybersecurity community because it opens, as others have said, more resources, more access, and more mainstreaming. So we’re really looking forward to the conference. It’s a big undertaking, but I think it’ll be well worth it. And as I said, it’s really the beginning or maybe the midpoint of a process rather than the end of a process. It’s something which I think we’re gonna have to all persevere and continue to do.

Tereza Horejsova:
No, thank you very much, Chris. So yes, what I like that you also presented it, that if these two worlds interact a little bit more, that it should ultimately be win-win. It should be win for both the development community and the cybersecurity community.

Christopher Painter:
I don’t wanna be perceived as saying that, hey, those development guys don’t know what they’re doing and they need to embrace us. We’re not good at talking to the development community either, the division lays on both sides. And so the idea of bringing us together is for both of us to move toward each other. And I think that’s important.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you, Chris. No, totally. How can we use the development language more? How can the development community use the cybersecurity language more to understand each other better? At this point, I would actually like to turn to you. I know I can recognize some faces in the room. I know many of you have been involved also in various development projects and maybe come across some challenges when it comes to cybersecurity or vice versa. You have been in cyber projects that maybe struggled with linking it to some of the like bigger issue of international development. We really would like to hear from you. And please don’t let us down because this is important. And I hope it’s in everybody’s interest that the compendium we will publish or also any outcomes that will come from the GC3B, the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building really make a difference, yes? So if I may ask you to not be shy and come to one of the Microsoft, not Microsoft, microphones. Sorry. I didn’t know you guys bought that. To the microphones around the room and share with us some concerns, it would be excellent. Because if not, you will just be listening to us. Please, Patrick, if I may ask you. So this is Patrick Pawlak, very closely involved in planning of the GC3B. So what do you have to tell us? Thank you.

Patryk Pawlak:
Yes, thank you. I’ll break the ice and hopefully others will follow. So thank you for your presentations. I have a few comments that I think might be interesting as you move forward with thinking about this project. I’ve been involved with the European Union in a few projects that are linked on cyber capacity building. And I think one of them specifically might be relevant, which is the trainings we’ve been doing with colleagues for the officials of the EU delegations around the world in different parts of the world. And that’s specifically focused on cyber capacity building. But one of the big challenges that we have seen while doing those training is that diplomats are also more and more asked to engage not only on cyber projects, but also on digital issues. There is a lot of digital development projects, as you have said. And the challenge on the ground is that actually very often they do not really understand the difference. What is digital, what is cyber, and how do the two come together? So I think as you conceptualize the project, and before you even go to the introductions, it would be probably very useful to explain how the two come together and where the idea of the mainstreaming sort of comes in, because that very often poses a challenge. The second thing maybe I would like to share, and that’s again from another project that I’ve been involved in, is the operational guidance on cyber capacity building that we’ve been working on for the European Commission. And there we have really gone through the process of trying to think exactly how different aspects of cybersecurity can be reflected, taken on board, in actually developing development projects. So here I think the European Commission and the International Partnerships is actually one of the examples of this development agency, if you want, that has actually quite a good understanding of those issues, because that’s the process we have started in 2017. We had the second edition of this operational guidance. But we are touching on a lot of the points that you have flagged, the importance of context, for instance. One of the key issues that we found is important but very often neglected in those discussions is the importance of enabling environment, for instance, when we talk about cyber capacity building. And I think that’s exactly where mainstreaming and digital projects also come in, right? Because we very often say that the two sides of the same coin. And I think it will be important to reflect on those. The operational guidance, I think, is going to be published before your report. So I think it might also be useful, but I’m happy to share sort of a job that we have had, because we actually go in different direction, thinking how cyber capacity building fits. So mainstreaming is one of them. There is the risking approach that we are also looking at. So I think it might be interesting to think of how those different elements come together. But yeah, I’ll stop here.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Patrick, for the excellent inputs and breaking the ice as well. I think that Johan is quite well placed to tell us something on kind of the diplomats, you know, and how do you make the difference? Where is the line between cyber and development? Maybe, Chris, then to you on this like general question on what do we mean by mainstreaming cyber and development? And please give me a sign, Michael or Yasmin, if you want to chip in later. Please, Johan. Yes, Patrick? Did I misinterpreted you?

Patryk Pawlak:
No, no, you didn’t, but maybe I’ll give. one example that will make it very, very concrete. So for instance, during one of the trainings, we got very specific question about blockchain, right? So one of the colleagues said, you know, we are asked in the delegation to implement a project on blockchain in the justice system. How does cybersecurity fit? How do we actually approach those topics? And then they say, you know, we are neither experts on blockchain nor on cybersecurity. So how can we actually manage that on the ground? And I think that’s something that would be very interesting to think about as well.

Johan Eckerholt:
Thanks Patrick for a very challenging question. I mean, I can just say that, I mean, I started out on the cybersecurity side and spent many years in Brussels dealing with more the hardcore stuff on the cybersecurity and now I’ve been almost five years in Geneva and that’s the much more the digital side of it. So I can just agree very much with what’s said. I think on the funding side, yeah, from a Swedish point of view, we are struggling a little bit because when I came, I said, but why don’t we fund? And the answer got, well, these are UN specialized agencies. They are not development agencies. So that’s a problem. And I think what you mentioned on getting it together, yeah, it’s a hassle and it’s a challenge. What we have been doing now is we have set up a national security advisor in Sweden and that’s at the Prime Minister’s office. So hopefully that will help us in integrating these things because it is tricky to get this right. But I think what at least we can see from a national perspective and what we feel in Geneva is that everybody understands that digital is a part of everyday life and it touches all aspects. So cybersecurity, or if you mean digital security, needs to be integrated. And I think from a Geneva perspective, I mean, yes, you have the hardcore cybersecurity stuff in the sense that you have Cyber PC Institute working on how to help implement cybersecurity. For example, NGOs working in humanitarian field, they have extremely sensitive data. ICRC suffered a major attack. Also have, so there you have the link directly, but of course you also have the issue of digital security, if you would call it that, in how we deal with standards in the ITU and the ISO. And then of course we have the whole human rights angle, which also has security implications because I think we talk a lot about bridging the digital divide and we all need to do that. But I think the minute we get there, the first thing I want as a parent is that when my kids go online, that it is a safe and secure environment when they do that. And then for me, that we have trust, security, that the basic rights are respected, for me as an individual, very fundamental. And for Sweden it’s fundamental, so that’s why we think these are things. But I mean, getting the link right between the development community and, so to say, perhaps the classical defense community, but I also think the economic community is something that we are struggling with. So I’m not, but we are working on it. I think the best thing we can do is to try to build these kind of networks and try to work together. And I have the privilege of being in Geneva and seeing that, because I mean, I also deal with e-commerce negotiations in WTO. So there we try to get those overall regulations that are key for getting trade flows and digital flows going. And we have language on cryptography, we have language on cybersecurity in there. And yes, they will not be specific, but they will actually create that link to what is needed on more the implementation side. So I think we, I see a closer and closer integration on it. And I think what you have been doing, Patrick, is actually excellent, because we need a lot of capacity building. And I think we all need that capacity building. And I think the importance of what you’re making is that we need a holistic capacity building, because we need to be able to explain what are the pieces, but also how the pieces link up. Thank you.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much for this honest assessment. Chris, if I may turn to you on the intersection, and you know what we mean by mainstreaming, and then over to Mokhtar.

Christopher Painter:
So I can give you a couple stories. I remember when I was at the White House and working at the National Security Council, we were doing the international, US international strategy for cyberspace. It was the first international strategy on this topic that had been released by any country. But the National Economic Council people said, you can’t call it that, because it’s about cybersecurity. And it’s not about cybersecurity. It actually had elements of economics, it had human rights. In fact, we got a whole bunch of people in a room very much like this together from various agencies in the US government. And they didn’t speak the same language, the human rights folks used one set of words. Internet policy people called the internet, the security people called it cybersecurity. And so just getting those people in a room and meeting and talking together released a strategy that really fulfilled that larger goal, a larger goal with each of their different areas feeding into it. So that was very helpful, just bringing those communities together. I remember going, for instance, to another country, and we’re talking about ITU meetings. And they said, oh, we don’t go to ITU meetings, that’s this other ministry, because that’s telecommunications. But as you know, the ITU does much more than that. And so it’s breaking down barriers within a country, within governments, within governments in the private sector, within the private sector itself, within civil society, I think it’s really changing the way we think about this. And, you know, we are seeing good glimmers of that. For instance, when I was the State Department and started the Cyber Diplomacy Office, we weren’t just about security, we had a human rights component, we had an economic component. Now that’s been institutionalized, you know, in a number of countries, the cyber ambassador is also the digital ambassador. So that’s a good thing. And I think that’s one of the ways practically we need to bring this together. But we have a long way to go to really make that a reality. And that helps us each see opportunities on the other sides that we haven’t seen before.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you, Chris. First hand experience from you, and Johan was kind of smiling when you were speaking, because I think you recognized quite a lot also happening in other governments. Mokhtar, over to you, please.

Moctar Yedali:
Thank you, Teresa. And actually, the question raised or the comment raised by Patrick is extremely important. In this part of the world, Africa specifically, you can find a very excellent diplomat, they know exactly about the geopolitics, what is happening here and there. And you have, but they don’t have anything, they don’t know anything about techniques, technology. Specifically, they cannot even, even if they are very interested on that, the rapid pace of technology coming into our lives is actually for non-technical person, it is very hard to follow what’s happening. And second, you can find an excellent technical people who knows technology very well, but have no idea about the geopolitics and what is happening really in the area of diplomacy and so on. So even though they want to really to be part of it, the transformations, the geopolitical transformation today make it also very hard. And I just give an example, we have reached this level of development within the digital space, thanks to collaboration among all of us, technology, industry, we have had this technical and technology cooperation that made us reach the humanity advance. Today, we are seeing something that is different, we are seeing different technologies coming here and there, and the restrictions here and there. And even I may say, we are moving a little more and more to already the digital divide in the sense that we do have different setups and technologies in every area of the world, which bring us, we are coming into the cold technical war among the biggest countries. Hence, the smaller countries are just here following. And I wouldn’t be surprised if in the few times here, you will have to choose, shall I go by this system or that system or that technology or that technology? And you find the consumers that are those who don’t have a technological ecosystem or have the appropriate capacity, find them following, and rather than carrying one or two phones, they will be carrying thousands of them around their belts, and just in order to be connected here and there. So that technological cooperation and that bridge between technical and diplomats, and that continuous capacity building, not only continuous, it’s a permanent kind of thing. This is something that has to be, capacity building is not one time, it’s not a short period, it’s something that is permanently being addressed and needs to be addressed because the technology is so fast, so diverse, so integrated, and so machine oriented and controlled that we need to make sure that we as a human being are there, technically cooperating, and also really pushing for the technological cooperation for the safety of all. I stop here.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you, thank you very much. I apologize. Thank you very much, Mokhtar. Yes, I know we have a comment online, then I will go to Yasmin, then to you, Michael, okay? So Alan, Sabanlong would like to give us some perspectives from the ASEAN region, joining us from the Philippines, over to you.

Allan S. Cabanlong:
Hello, Tamiza, and hello, everyone. Yes, this is a very nice discussion, just in time, because most of the countries here in ASEAN are gearing towards digital development. But however, with disruptions, ransomware and everything, these developments are affected. So in an increasingly digitized world, where our lives are intertwined with technology, there’s a need to have a robust cybersecurity governance, if I may say. The rise of the digital age has ushered unparalleled inconvenience, but it has also exposed us to unprecedented risk. So to achieve this seamless digital governance and avert potential disruptions, it is imperative that we prioritize cybersecurity governance as a top priority. And in ASEAN, based on experience, leaders are not interdisciplinary. As we have said, most of the leaders in the government, or in some areas in ASEAN, only understands a single expertise. For example, if you’re the policy guy, but you’re not a technical guy. But I believe what we need to achieve digital transformation and secure digital landscape is to have an interdisciplinary leader who understands all aspects of cybersecurity and as well as the digital aspect of development. So I believe without proper cybersecurity governance, organizations and governments are akin to sailing without a rudder in treacherous waters, leaving themselves exposed to potentially catastrophic consequences. Thank you, Teresa.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much, Alan, for that. Yes. And I mean, yes, it comes down to people very often. That’s why we’ve also brought up the issue of cyber capacity building and capacity building in general so often in the session. So thank you for reconfirming that. Just to have an idea, how many more comments in the room we will have to plan? One. Very good. So quick reflections to Yasmin. Quick reflections to Michael. And then we go over to you, sir. Yes. If you want to go now. Okay, please go ahead then.

Audience:
I’m from the government of Sri Lanka. I’m a civil servant and I served in New York as a diplomat by the time the SDG was formed. I was part of the open working group. I knew that it is challenging to internalize everything under SDGs, but when it comes to development, practicing and funding partnerships, I’m not sure whether the development or the community is looking into this aspect and what portion should be allocated in the budgeting and planning on critical information infrastructure. Is there a particular guideline for certain fund seekers and other partners or if there is a formula or something that can work around this, I think it would be helpful. So Sri Lanka, we adopted the cybersecurity strategy and developed the cybersecurity policy as well. These things have to go into the standard organizational structures as well as periodic development projects as well. That’s my comment.

Tereza Horejsova:
Excellent question. Thank you very much for that. For everybody’s information, we have about seven minutes left. Yasmin, Michael, Johan, maybe to share with us what comes next and then 20 seconds for wrap up. So let’s reflect shortly. Thank you.

Yasmine Idrissi :
I’ll make sure to be very brief. Thank you for your question. So definitely there needs to be thinking of cybersecurity in development projects and I’m always sort of adamant in trying to look into other fields for lessons learned. We cannot look into climate, for example, in climate negotiations because it’s also highly technical. It’s also quite, there’s a specific expertise and it might be very much intimidating for policy people, diplomats. But now there’s this understanding that it’s obviously highly interlinked with development as well. So let’s look also into other lessons learned from other fields. I mean, holistic views of governance are not something new and so I think it’s important and so I think it can be done in cybersecurity as well. Totally agreed. Michael? Sure thing. Thank you.

Michael Karimian:
So just a quick reflection on Patrick’s example and the colleague from Sri Lanka as well. Patrick, your example of the diplomat being asked to work on a project related to blockchain in judiciary. We’ve seen the digitization of court systems. In some contexts, you will see donor agencies and development practitioners use things like a needs assessment and a feasibility assessment and an impact assessment. Surely, based on these discussions, we should end up in an end point whereby there is a real assessment of the cyber feasibility and the cyber needs and the cyber impacts. Chris mentioned the institutionalization of human rights, took a long time to get to that point, but we’ve seen that in those sorts of processes or variations of those processes. Hopefully we can end up in a similar point with cyber too. And the colleague from Sri Lanka, the question on budgets. I think it’s important to have a mindset whereby we don’t think of cybersecurity as a cost, but as an investment. The one that pays dividends over many years to come.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much, Michael. I’m afraid that the time is really ticking. So, Johan, may you share with us briefly what are the next steps of the consortium of the project?

Johan Eckerholt:
Yes, thank you very much. I think it was a very, very useful discussion. We take this with us and we will have another consultation coming up in Singapore. And the aim that we are hoping is to produce guidance for this by December. So that will be something that we hope to be able to consolidate your points in a way that is useful so we can take this issue forward. Thank you.

Tereza Horejsova:
Thank you very much, Johan. If any of you do happen to be attending the Singapore International Cyber Week next week, please let us know so that we make sure to invite you to a consultation that will be taking place more in the kind of Southeast Asian context. Please do let us know. Coming up next will also be a session at the GC3B. And as I mentioned at the beginning, we hope to publish the compendium in December. With that, I would like to thank all of you for listening, to all of you who have shared your experience with us, to online Mokhtar and Alan for all of your inputs, and here in the room to Chris, Yasmin, Michael and Johan. Have a good rest of the IGF and see you around. Thank you. Thank you.

Shamika Sirimanne

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) aims to create a people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. However, this vision remains unfulfilled, as evidenced by the stark disparities in connectivity across different regions and countries. While 95% of the world’s population has access to mobile broadband networks, only 36% of people in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are connected. This disparity highlights the existence of a digital divide, where disadvantaged populations are left behind in the global information society.

Furthermore, the digital divide is not only limited to LDCs but also extends to rural areas within developed countries. Massive rural-urban divides in connectivity exist, creating further barriers to accessing information and participating in the digital economy. This divide has become a serious development issue, as those who lack access to digital technologies struggle to reap the benefits of innovation and technological advancements.

The WSIS process and digital transformation are described as a massive technological revolution of our time. This transformation poses both opportunities and challenges for individuals, governments, and societies as a whole. Navigating the emerging world of digital technologies can be daunting, as it is largely uncharted territory. While advancements in technology have the potential to drive economic growth and foster innovation, they also bring risks, such as cyber threats and privacy concerns.

Recognising the complexity of the digital sphere, the need for multistakeholder cooperation and a One UN approach is emphasised. The WSIS highlights the importance of enhancing partnerships and collaboration among different stakeholders, including governments, private sector entities, civil society organisations, and international institutions. It is through this multilateral cooperation that the challenges and opportunities of the digital age can be effectively addressed.

Additionally, data collection is seen as crucial for fact-based reporting and decision-making. The importance of accurately collecting data through questionnaires is emphasised, as it allows for evidence-based analysis and monitoring progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By capturing and reporting relevant data, policymakers and stakeholders can make informed decisions and take targeted actions to bridge the digital divide and promote an inclusive information society.

In conclusion, the WSIS vision of an inclusive and development-oriented information society remains relevant and unfulfilled. The digital divide persists, with significant disparities in connectivity between different regions and populations. Navigating the digital transformation brings both opportunities and challenges, necessitating multistakeholder cooperation and a One UN approach. The collection of accurate and comprehensive data is essential for effective decision-making and monitoring progress towards achieving the SDGs.

Audience

The extended summary provides a comprehensive overview of the main points discussed in the given text. It highlights the importance of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process and the role of youth in it. The youth voice was emphasised, with advocates calling for greater representation and inclusion in the WSIS process. They also stressed the need for initiatives that improve access to education and empower young people. This underlines the importance of involving youth in shaping policies and decisions related to the digital world.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was recognised for its potential in advancing human development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was noted that AI can enhance education and healthcare access, help address global challenges like climate change and poverty, and improve accessibility for persons with disabilities through assistive technologies. However, concerns were raised about potential threats to data privacy, the creation of surveillance systems, and the emergence of new forms of discrimination and exclusion. It was argued that AI should be developed and employed in a manner that upholds human rights and follows ethical guidelines.

The alignment of the WSIS with various UN processes was discussed, highlighting the importance of digital cooperation. The WSIS was seen as setting the foundation for digital cooperation and being aligned with different UN processes, including the WSIS Forum, special initiatives, and prizes. This emphasises the collaborative efforts needed between stakeholders to achieve common goals in the digital realm.

The impact of digital transformation was examined, noting its success in terms of technological advancements but also its shortcomings in terms of knowledge dissemination. Issues such as disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and fake news were identified as challenges of digital transformation. The monopolisation of digital platforms in the media landscape was also highlighted, with significant effects on community publishing and media diversity.

The need for periodic reviews of the WSIS process was stressed, as well as the importance of acknowledging progress and evolution in Internet governance. It was argued that the presence of 176 indicators in the SDGs serves as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and distinguishes them from the Millennium Development Goals. The inclusion of low-literate individuals in the digital space was advocated, highlighting the current lack of internet tools and platforms designed for those who do not know how to read or write.

Overall, the speakers expressed a mix of positive and negative sentiments, advocating for responsible development and utilisation of AI, digital inclusion, and closer alignment with the SDGs. Collaboration, periodic reviews, and a multi-stakeholder and human-centric approach were seen as crucial in achieving sustainable digital development. The text provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with the WSIS process and the role of digital technologies in advancing societal and development goals.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves

The WSIS Plus 20 review at CSTD takes a progressive and forward-thinking approach, focusing not only on the present but also on planning for the future. This review is in alignment with SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. The General Assembly adopted a resolution for a high-level meeting to be held in 2025, known as the WSIS Plus 20 review. To facilitate this process, the ECOSOC adopted a resolution requesting the CSTD to organize substantive discussions on the progress made in the implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS over the past 20 years. Furthermore, CSTD members have adopted a roadmap to guide their work on the WSIS Plus 20 review.

Stakeholder engagement with open consultations and a survey questionnaire is a vital part of the WSIS Plus 20 review. The CSTD’s Secretariat plans to conduct a survey questionnaire from late 2023 until late 2024. Additionally, open consultations will be held at national, regional, and international levels, involving various stakeholders such as multilateral agencies, the private sector, the technical community, national governments, civil society, and academia. This inclusive approach ensures that the review takes into account a wide range of perspectives and experiences in shaping the future of the WSIS.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) plays a significant role in the WSIS process and is an outcome of it. The CSTD is grateful to the IGF for providing a platform to launch its open multi-stakeholder consultation at the 18th IGF. This collaboration allows for meaningful discussions and engagement with different stakeholders to inform the WSIS Plus 20 review.

The WSIS forum not only aligns with several UN processes but also highlights the role of digital transformation in achieving sustainable development goals. There are examples of the alignment of the WSIS forum, special initiatives, and WSIS prizes with various UN processes. Additionally, the UN promotes the role of digital technology in healthy ageing, further emphasising the importance of digital transformation for overall development.

Given the positive progress made in the WSIS process, Cedric Vashvalt should continue the discussion on digital policies and transformation. Although no specific supporting facts or arguments are provided in the data, it suggests that Cedric Vashvalt possesses valuable insights and perspectives in this area.

In conclusion, the WSIS Plus 20 review at CSTD takes a forward-thinking approach by focusing on future planning. Stakeholder engagement through open consultations and a survey questionnaire plays a crucial role in shaping the review’s outcomes. The IGF provides a platform for open multi-stakeholder consultation, and the WSIS forum aligns with various UN processes, emphasising the role of digital transformation in achieving sustainable development goals. Cedric Vashvalt should continue the discussion on digital policies and transformation as he is seen as an important contributor in this domain.

Speaker 1

The Government of Japan has reiterated its commitment to the multistakeholder approach in internet governance during the International Governance Forum (IGF) held in Kyoto in 2023. This event saw a remarkable registration of over 8,000 participants, indicating widespread interest in global internet governance issues. Mr. Yasunori Ueno delivered a speech on behalf of Mr. Yoshi Ida, affirming Japan’s dedication to the multistakeholder approach, which involves collaborating with various stakeholders, including governments, civil society, and the private sector, to shape internet policies.

The principle of a people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented internet society has remained unchanged since 2005. Despite the immense changes and advancements in the internet landscape over the years, the focus on placing people at the centre of internet policies, ensuring inclusivity, and fostering development, continues to be paramount.

The significance of a free, open, and global internet was emphasised. It was highlighted that such an internet is vital for socio-economic development, as it provides opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge-sharing. Additionally, it helps in debunking misinformation by promoting the free flow of accurate and reliable information. It also enhances cybersecurity, ensuring that individuals and organizations can conduct activities online with confidence and trust.

As the G7 presidency, Japan is playing a leading role in discussions on AI governance through the Hiroshima AI process. This initiative recognizes the importance of establishing principles and guidelines to govern the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence, considering its potential impact on various sectors of society.

Japan views the IGF Kyoto as a crucial opportunity, especially in anticipation of the upcoming WSIS plus 20 review in 2025. The WSIS plus 20 review refers to the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society, a series of gatherings since 2003 aimed at bridging the digital divide and harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies for sustainable development. By participating in the IGF Kyoto, Japan seeks to contribute to the discussions and preparations for the WSIS plus 20 review, ensuring that the outcomes align with the goals and principles of the multistakeholder approach and advance partnerships for global development.

In conclusion, the Government of Japan’s reaffirmation of commitment to the multistakeholder approach in internet governance, the enduring principles of a people-centred internet society, the importance of a free and global internet, and its active involvement in AI governance discussions demonstrate Japan’s dedication to promoting inclusive, secure, and responsible internet governance practices. Through its participation in the IGF Kyoto and its leadership role in the Hiroshima AI process, Japan aims to play a significant role in shaping the future of internet governance and contributing to global partnerships for sustainable development.

Kamel Saadaoui

The analysis of the speakers’ discussions highlighted several important points regarding internet governance and the role of international institutions. Firstly, it was noted that, despite significant technological advancements since the Tunis Agenda and Outcomes in 2005, these agreements continue to hold relevance in promoting an open, resilient, unfragmented, and inclusive internet. The Tunis Agenda endorses the importance of human rights and cultural diversity in the digital space. The speakers pointed out that while platforms like social media, artificial intelligence, clouds, and blockchains have emerged since the Tunis Agenda, its recommendations have maintained their importance and applicability.

Furthermore, the analysis identified improvements in institutions like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with regards to transparency, accountability, and support for international domain names. However, it was suggested that further improvements could be made, particularly in increasing the government’s participation in ICANN beyond an advisory level.

Another significant point raised during the discussions was the need to reconsider the framework of enhanced cooperation. The analysis highlighted that developing countries often struggle to engage with major platform providers on an equal-to-equal basis, especially in areas such as taxation and local rules for personal data protection. Additionally, emerging issues such as cyber threats, misuse of the internet for money laundering, and human trafficking require cooperative efforts among nations. The speakers proposed that a reconsideration of the framework of enhanced cooperation is necessary to effectively address these challenges.

The analysis also emphasized the importance of monitoring the potential digital gap between regions and social groups within each country. It was suggested that local digital problems should be addressed locally, and each country should actively monitor and work towards minimizing disparities in internet access and usage.

Lastly, the analysis highlighted the significance of supporting institutions involved in internet governance, such as ICANN, ITU, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), World Trade Organization (WTO), and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These institutions play a crucial role in ensuring a stable internet and should be supported to foster a stable and inclusive digital environment for all nations.

In conclusion, the analysis of the speakers’ discussions identified the continued relevance of the Tunis Agenda and Outcomes, improvements in institutions like ICANN and ITU, the need for reconsideration of the framework of enhanced cooperation, the importance of monitoring the digital gap, and the necessity of supporting institutions involved in internet governance. These observations provide insights into the ongoing efforts and challenges in shaping an open, inclusive, and secure internet.

anita gurumurthy

The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of digital cooperation and the challenges posed by the data and AI economies. The first argument highlights that the promise of collective digital potential has not been realised. It notes that algorithms today are largely opaque and indiscernible to the public. This lack of transparency creates concerns about accountability and the power wielded by AI systems. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that this algorithmic society is also a society of fragmentation, as AI systems often lead to polarisation and echo chambers, hindering the creation of a cohesive and inclusive digital space.

The second argument focuses on the neocolonial dynamics embedded within the data and AI economy. The analysis points out how trade forums are being misused for discussions on data flows, with potential negative consequences for privacy and data protection. Additionally, it highlights how data for development initiatives are frequently extractive, benefiting powerful global entities at the expense of local communities and economies. Moreover, the weaponization of intellectual property regimes by big tech companies further exacerbates the imbalance of power, rendering the situation even more concerning.

In response to these challenges, the analysis proposes a four-pronged strategy for digital cooperation. The first prong advocates for initiating a consensus for a global digital human rights constitutionalism. This would entail establishing a set of principles and standards that safeguard individuals’ rights in the digital sphere, addressing issues such as privacy, freedom of expression, and equitable access to technology.

The second prong focuses on better governance of global data public goods. The analysis argues for the need to develop robust frameworks and mechanisms that ensure responsible data management, protection, and sharing. This would involve addressing issues of data ownership, control, and fairness to promote more equitable data ecosystems.

The third prong of the proposed strategy calls for the mobilisation of public financing to galvanise digital innovation ecosystems. The analysis recognises that public investment is vital to foster innovation, particularly in areas where the private sector may not prioritise development due to market limitations or social impact considerations. By channelling public funding strategically, the aim is to nurture digital entrepreneurship and create a conducive environment for sustainable technological advancements.

Finally, the fourth prong suggests the internationalisation of internet governance. The analysis argues that internet governance should be a collective effort involving multiple stakeholders on a global scale. This would facilitate a more inclusive decision-making process and ensure that diverse perspectives are represented. By internationalising internet governance, the aim is to create a more balanced and democratic digital ecosystem that respects the interests of all nations and individuals.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the complexity and urgency of addressing the challenges posed by the data and AI economies. It emphasises the need for greater transparency, accountability, and collaboration in digital cooperation. The proposed four-pronged strategy provides a comprehensive framework to navigate these challenges, with recommendations ranging from the protection of digital human rights to the internationalisation of internet governance. By implementing such strategies, it is hoped that the potential of the digital era can be harnessed for the benefit of all, fostering innovation, inclusivity, and equitable development.

Pearse O’donohue

The analysis of the discussions reveals several key points from the different speakers. Firstly, the multi-stakeholder model is viewed positively as an effective instrument for internet governance. The speakers acknowledge that the model and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) have played a vital role in the unprecedented success of the internet. They highlight the importance of a cooperative approach, as demonstrated by the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), in making effective decisions for the governance of the internet.

Secondly, human rights are seen as crucial to maintaining an open, free, and secure online space. The EU strongly supports a proactive approach towards human-centric digitalization, emphasizing the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. They advocate for human rights to be the foundation of an open and secure online environment. The EU AI Act is highlighted as a significant step towards placing the impact of AI technologies at the centre of digitalization efforts.

Furthermore, the importance of bridging digital divides and creating a more inclusive digital future is emphasized. The EU and its member states are committed to deploying digital networks and infrastructures worldwide, focusing on underserved regions, countries, and populations. This commitment aligns with SDG 9, which aims to promote industry, innovation, and infrastructure. The EU’s efforts aim to ensure that everyone has equal access to the benefits of the digital world.

Additionally, the analysis reveals opposition to the centralization of control over the internet. One speaker explicitly stated their stance against the centralization of control, but no further supporting facts were provided for this argument.

Lastly, strengthening the role of the IGF is seen as crucial in fostering an inclusive, open, and sustainable digital environment. The EU believes that it is critical for the IGF to evolve into an even more impactful and inclusive model. This aligns with the goal of creating a digital environment that encompasses diverse perspectives and promotes cooperation among stakeholders.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the significance of the multi-stakeholder model for effective internet governance. Human rights are deemed essential for an open and secure online space, and the EU is committed to bridging digital divides and creating a more inclusive digital future. Strengthening the role of the IGF is seen as crucial in fostering an inclusive, open, and sustainable digital environment. Opposition to the centralization of control over the internet is also stated.

Isabelle Lois

The analysis highlights several key points made by the speakers regarding various aspects of internet governance. Firstly, inclusive, transparent, and multi-stakeholder processes are deemed to be of utmost importance in effectively addressing the digital governance challenges at hand. The past Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) have successfully applied such processes, demonstrating their effectiveness in fostering collaboration and achieving meaningful outcomes.

Furthermore, trust-building between stakeholders is acknowledged as a crucial element in realizing the vision of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It is widely believed that establishing and nurturing trust among different actors involved in internet governance is essential for creating an environment of cooperation, enabling collective efforts towards achieving common goals.

The analysis also emphasizes the need to empower individuals and centre the governance of emerging technologies. The speakers argue that putting individuals at the forefront and ensuring their equal participation in shaping the governance of emerging technologies is vital. This approach aims to maximize the societal benefits of these technologies while mitigating potential risks and ensuring that they serve the needs and interests of all.

Furthermore, it is asserted that participation in IGFs must exhibit consistency, inclusivity, and representation from all regions of the world. This will contribute to a diverse range of perspectives and ensure that the global internet governance dialogue reflects the varied needs and challenges faced by different regions. The analysis suggests that the Committee on Science and Technology for Development (CSCD) could seek synergies with national and regional IGF initiatives to enhance inclusivity and improve regional representation in the overall IGF process.

In addition, the analysis highlights the importance of expanding internet access to the remaining 2.6 billion individuals who are currently not connected. It is noted that while significant progress has been made over the past two decades, with internet access increasing from 6% to approximately 70% of the global population, concerted efforts are still required to bridge the digital divide and ensure universal connectivity.

Lastly, gender inclusion in artificial intelligence (AI) and its governance is recognized as a critical aspect. The analysis suggests adopting a gender lens and valuing women’s perspectives in all aspects of internet governance and decision-making related to AI. This approach aims to address existing gender disparities and biases, ensuring that AI technologies and policies are developed in a way that promotes gender equality and inclusivity.

In conclusion, the analysis underscores the significance of inclusive, transparent, and multi-stakeholder processes in addressing digital governance issues. Trust-building, empowering individuals, regional representation, universal internet access, and gender inclusion in AI governance are key focus areas identified by the speakers. These points highlight the collective efforts required to ensure that internet governance initiatives are equitable, efficient, and responsive to the evolving needs and challenges of the digital age.

Robert Opp

According to one speaker, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is considered an absolute mega trend and plays a crucial role in driving global changes. It is seen as a super mega trend that has a positive impact on various aspects of society. The speaker highlights the significant role of ICT in shaping industries, innovation, and infrastructure, aligning with SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure.

On the other hand, another speaker raises concerns about the urgency of addressing ICT-related issues. They emphasize that the pace of global changes is accelerating, necessitating immediate action. Undoubtedly, ICT advancements have brought about rapid changes in various domains, such as technology and communication. However, the negative sentiment expressed by this speaker suggests that there are potential challenges and risks associated with these changes. They stress the need to address these issues promptly, emphasizing the importance of SDG 13: Climate Action.

Both speakers agree on the critical role of UN partnerships and multi-stakeholder groups. They acknowledge that the collaborative efforts of these entities are essential in tackling the complex challenges posed by ICT-related issues. These partnerships and groups provide a platform for various stakeholders to come together, share expertise, and develop effective strategies. The positive sentiment expressed towards these partnerships highlights their significance in addressing not only ICT-related concerns but also broader sustainable development goals. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals is particularly relevant in this context.

The analysis reveals that despite the positive outlook towards ICT’s contributions to global changes, there is an underlying sense of urgency and a recognition of potential risks. It is essential to strike a balance between harnessing the benefits of ICT while mitigating any negative implications. The importance of collaboration, as indicated by the positive sentiment towards UN partnerships and multi-stakeholder groups, further underscores the need for collective action in navigating the challenges presented by ICT advancements.

Overall, the extended summary highlights the key points made by the speakers, explores their arguments and supporting evidence, and emphasizes the significance of UN partnerships and multi-stakeholder groups. It reflects the contrasting perspectives surrounding ICT as a mega trend and emphasizes the urgency in addressing associated issues.

Prateek Sibal

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, plays a crucial role in addressing digital challenges through the principles of multistakeholderism and cooperation. They co-facilitate action lines, demonstrating their commitment to involving multiple stakeholders in finding effective solutions to digital challenges. This approach is essential in promoting partnerships and collaborations to achieve sustainable development goals, particularly SDG 17: Partnership for the goals.

Furthermore, UNESCO actively works towards assessing internet environments in about 45 countries. Their approach is based on a rights-based, open, accessible, and multistakeholder approach. This demonstrates their dedication to ensuring that internet access is not only available but also respects human rights and fosters an inclusive digital society. However, despite UNESCO’s efforts, there have been approximately 1,200 internet shutdowns globally between 2016 and 2023. This highlights the ongoing challenges faced in ensuring universal access to the internet and the need for continued efforts to address these issues.

In addition to addressing connectivity challenges, UNESCO promotes open access to information. They celebrate Access to Information Day on the 28th of September, emphasizing the importance of transparency and access to information in fostering sustainable development. This commitment aligns with SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, which emphasizes the importance of promoting accountable and inclusive societies.

Another significant challenge in the digital age is the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation. UNESCO recognizes this and has developed programs to support the upscaling of civil society organizations and fact-checking mechanisms. This effort aims to enhance media and information literacy, which is crucial in combating the spread of false information. By supporting these initiatives, UNESCO contributes to achieving SDG 16 and building resilient societies.

Moreover, UNESCO implements standard-setting instruments to facilitate open science and ethical considerations regarding artificial intelligence. They have various standards in place, including recommendations on open science, the ethics of AI, and open educational resources. This commitment to setting global standards promotes the responsible use of technology and ensures that scientific and educational resources are freely available to all.

In conclusion, UNESCO plays a significant role in addressing digital challenges through multistakeholderism, cooperation, and various initiatives. Despite the persistent challenges, such as internet shutdowns and disinformation, UNESCO’s efforts to assess internet environments, promote open access to information, enhance media literacy, and implement standard-setting instruments demonstrate their commitment to building a more inclusive and sustainable digital society. Their work aligns with the UN’s sustainable development goals, emphasizing the importance of partnerships, transparency, and ethical considerations in harnessing the potential of digital technologies for the benefit of all.

Anna Margaretha (anriette) Esterhuysen

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has received high praise for its impactful process in facilitating participation and producing unique outcome documents. These documents are notable for incorporating the perspectives and involvement of non-state actors, reflecting a comprehensive and inclusive approach. The WSIS documents strike a balance between broad overarching principles and specific subject areas, providing a holistic yet detailed framework.

There is a strong call to continue building upon the WSIS process, advocating for inclusivity and increased civil society involvement at various levels. Enabling civil society to shape debates at the grassroots level is seen as crucial in bringing about significant change. It is proposed that WSIS provides space for civil society involvement, and collaboration within the U.N. system is needed to facilitate greater engagement.

Lessons from WSIS are valuable in addressing macro issues such as public financing and digital public infrastructure. The issue of insufficient public financing is identified, and considering digital public infrastructure in the light of WSIS lessons can provide innovative solutions. By drawing upon WSIS experiences, these issues can be effectively tackled.

The WSIS documents stand out by focusing on people-centered development. They emphasize human rights, open innovation, and open source as important factors in creating an enabling environment. This approach is demonstrated in efforts to bring education to remote areas and promote trade justice and small-scale agriculture. Emphasizing the needs and rights of individuals and communities, rather than solely focusing on technological advancements, is crucial for achieving fair and inclusive development.

In conclusion, the WSIS process is praised for facilitating participation and generating unique outcome documents that incorporate the views of various stakeholders. Continuing to build on the process with a focus on inclusivity and civil society involvement is recommended. WSIS lessons are also valuable in addressing macro challenges such as public financing and digital public infrastructure. The people-centered approach advocated by WSIS is essential for promoting fair and inclusive development.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
big letter, so I have to put my glasses. It’s horrible. No, come on, I’m kidding, of course. So, welcome to this first open consultation on the WSIS Plus 20. I don’t think that a lot of people here in this IGF, they know that this is the first open consultation for the future of the WSIS, but nevertheless, we are doing that during the IGF, and I’m sure that we will get more involvement for the different stakeholders throughout the next two years. So, excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. A warmest welcome to the launch of the open consultation of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development at the CSTD. On the WSIS Plus 20 review as an open forum event on the Internet Governance Forum 2023. So, I am Ana Cristina Desneves, and I’m chair of the CSTD. And today, I’m moderating this event entitled WSIS at 20, Successes, Failures, and Future Expectations, a partnership between the CSTD, the ITU, UNESCO, and UNDEP, all key actors of the WSIS. As you know, the WSIS vision is to establish, and now I’m going to quote some Geneva Action Plan text, people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society for enhancing the potential of information communication technologies for sustainable development. So, we have different questions. To what extent and how is the vision of a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society evolved over the past 20 years since WSIS? We are still nowadays talking about people-centered, human-centric, inclusiveness, and development. In 2003, we were talking about information society. Nowadays, we are talking about digital. We have to understand what we mean by that, but we know that from the Tunis Agenda of 2005, this Internet Governance Forum was set up, and we had all these problems already, and diagnosis, and we were trying to make the world a better place to live. How will ongoing trends and emerging technologies, nowadays particularly artificial intelligence, but we have so many other emerging technologies as quantum technologies, the 3D printing, et cetera. So, how will ongoing trends and emerging technologies impact progress towards human development and the sustainable development goals? Moreover, how can these trends enable or hinder the realization of the WSIS vision? What measures should be taken to advance international cooperation, including in terms of governance to leverage emerging technologies for sustainable development in economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions? These are some of the questions that we invite you to consider today. If I put them simply, the questions could be how much progress have we made towards that vision? What challenges remain in the way ahead? Those are also issues that CSED has been addressing in implementation of its ECOSOC and the General Assembly mandate to review the implementation of the WSIS outcomes, including through annual reports to the ECOSOC and to the General Assembly, and the contribution of input to the WSIS Plus 10 review back to the General Assembly in 2015. And as some of you may remember, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on the 16th of December, 2015, and in that resolution called for a high-level meeting to be held in 2025 to review the overall implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on Information Society known as WSIS Plus 20 review. For the WSIS Plus 20 review, the ECOSOC, so the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, adopted a resolution in June, 2023 that requests the CSED to collect inputs from member states, all facilitators, and other stakeholders, and to organize during its upcoming session in 2024, March, 2024, and in its 28th session the year after, in 2025, substantive discussions on the progress made in implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS during the past 20 years, and to report thereon through the ECOSOC, then to the General Assembly. The CSED members adopted a roadmap at its annual session last March, 2023, to guide the CSED’s work on WSIS Plus 10, sorry, 20 review. Here is a snapshot of the roadmap. So you can see the roadmap. And thanks, Eva, for sharing the slide. So you can see on that slide that March, 2023, the CSEDs, so it was determined that CSEDs has a major role on the WSIS Plus 20 review, and that the CSED has to produce a synthesis report, which first draft will be presented to the CSED in March, 2024, and the final draft will be presented on the 28th CSED in 2025. The CSED outcomes will be submitted via ECOSOC to the General Assembly’s WSIS review in 2025. So this is open consultation that will be held at national, regional, and international level. And with multilateral agencies, private sector, technical community, national governments, civil society, academia. So we have these two years ahead of us until a resolution will be adopted in UNGA, the United Nations General Assembly in 2025. I wish to underline that the WSIS Plus 20 review at CSTD will take a progressive and a prospective or forward-looking approach by not only looking at the present, but more importantly, looking to the future. Equally, I want to emphasize that an integral part of the CSTD’s WSIS Plus 20 review is the engagement of all stakeholders in open consultations and in the survey questionnaire that the CSTD Secretariat will conduct from late 2023 until late 2024. The CSTD is grateful to the Internet Governance Forum for giving the space to the CSTD to launch its open multi-stakeholder consultation at the 18th IGF in this ancient and beautiful city of Kyoto. Internet governance is an important component of the WSIS process, and of course, the IGF itself is an outcome of WSIS. But it’s important to remember that the WSIS process covers all aspects of digitalization, including the issues concerned with aspects of development and the environment that are discussed in the WSIS Forum and elsewhere. The objective of today’s event is to enable a candid and open dialogue drawing on the collective wisdom, perspectives, and experiences of the various stakeholders. The insights and recommendations stemming from today’s interactions will undoubtedly contribute to the synthesis report to be prepared by the CSTD Secretariat, which is intending to shape substantive discussions at the CSTD’s WSIS Plus 20 review sessions as mandated by ECOSOC. Our session is structured as follows. Ms. Siriman, Head of the CSTD Secretariat and the Director of the Division on Technology and Logistics, UNCTAD, will make opening remarks. And Mr. Ueno, on behalf of Mr. Yoshi Lida, Deputy Director General for G7, G20 Relations, Government of Japan, will deliver a keynote speech. He will be followed by six discussion starters who will share with us their views and insights. Thereafter, I will open the floor to both in-person attendees and remote participants for a freestyle roundtable discussions under my moderation, including judicious time management. So I would like to remind remote participants that they should request the floor through the hand-raising feature on the Zoom platform. Ladies and gentlemen, now it is my great pleasure to invite Ms. Shamika Siriman, Director of the Division on Technology and Logistics of UNCTAD and Head of the CSTD Secretariat, to make opening remarks. Mrs. Siriman, the floor is yours.

Shamika Sirimanne:
Good afternoon and good morning and good evening to all of you joining from online. So let me take the opportunity to join the chair of the CSTD in welcoming you to this CSTD Open Consultation on the WSIS Plus 20 Review. And I think we all agree that the WSIS vision of a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society remains as valid as ever and also quite unfulfilled. So the journey has not ended. And in fact, it is quite concerned. We have enormous of our concerns when we know that the 95% of the world’s population live today within range of a mobile broadband network. In LDCs, just 36% of their people are connected and these are concerns. And women remain digitally marginalized in many of the world’s poorer countries and there’s a massive rural-urban divides and there are many multifaceted divides. And I think we also have seen that these divides have become quite serious development divide. It’s not just a, it’s not no longer a digital divide. It has transformed into a development divide and we experienced that during COVID-19 times. Those who has access to internet and manage to live and manage to work and manage to have education online and buy stuff online and those who are not connected basically were locked out of the functioning world and that’s the concern. So as our CSDD chair, Anna, as you said, that today the CSDD is opening a consultation process and we want your input about the lessons of the 20 years of WSIS implementation. And from that lessons, we also need to understand from your own viewpoints, how are we going to navigate this emerging world? You know, we are going through a massive digital technological revolution and this is probably the technological revolution of our lifetimes. And so how do we, we are walking into uncharted territory as we have heard in many, many, many rooms of in the IGF. So we want to hear from you about the new themes, the threats, the opportunities that need responses from the UN system. We also ask you as WSIS stakeholders and you ushered WSIS to tell us about ways to ensure that the WSIS process contributes to preserving and improving multilateral cooperation in the digital sphere. I want to also want to say that as the CSDD Secretariat, we are working very closely with other key WSIS players and our great partners like the ITU, UNESCO, UNDP and the regional commissions in this review. And I am very happy to have all of us coming together because we will all do our own consultations because we all have our own lines, action lines, but we will all merge, we will all use the inputs into the WSIS process as we prepare the material for the General Assembly. So I’m very happy to let you know that this is done with the one UN kind of approach. And I’m also very happy to say as Anna said earlier, this is truly a multi-stakeholder consultation and that’s what we need. We need, we cannot, it’s not just the governments can navigate this emerging world, it’s not just the international organizations, academia, it’s a civil society, the private sector, we all need to be at the table and we all need to put our voices. So here I like to now showcase the timeline of the various WSIS processes over the years showing the different agencies contribution. Maybe you may not be able to see it very well, but we will share this document with you because it shows the processes that’s going towards, how are we gonna all converge? So we will not walk on parallel roads. And I also want to emphasize this example of this interagency collaboration. We have jointly circulated a questionnaire to seek stakeholder inputs for the WSIS plus 20 review and please help us circulate it among your networks. And it is extremely important that we get proper data, otherwise it’s all going to be anecdotal, somebody said this and somebody said that. So we really are looking to collect data and have a report which is fact-based. So please help us, I think we spend a lot of time. Yeah, it’s a simple questionnaire, but we spend time to make sure that we get good data. So please also do that. So let me end here and I look forward to a productive discussion. And just as Anna said, this is just the beginning. We will work with our regional commissions, we will have regional consultations and we will have consultations wherever you open us room for. So thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your very insightful and interesting remarks, reflections on WSIS. And I was this opportunity for everyone to read or to revisit the Geneva principles, the Geneva action plan and the Tunis agenda. Maybe it’s good for everybody to reread these documents. Because from three days of IGF, it seems like some of us never read those documents. And now that we are discussing WSIS plus 20, it’s very important to have those in mind. Now I’m pleased to invite Mr. Weno that will read the keynote speech on behalf of Mr. Yoshi Ida, Deputy Director General for G7, G20 relations, government of Japan. So to deliver Mr. Ida’s keynote speech, please.

Speaker 1:
Thank you, Chair. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Yasunori Ueno from Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan. My boss, Mr. Ida, was planning to deliver a keynote speech here, but he could not attend this session because of urgent business. So please allow me to deliver his speech on behalf of him. Firstly, I would like to say welcome to Kyoto. Welcome to IGF 2023. I appreciated both physical participants and the remote participants. I heard the number of registration for IGF Kyoto is now over 8,000. We as host country is very glad with this figure. Also, this number show… how important IGF is. Government of Japan has strongly committed multistakeholder approach for internet governance. In this IGF, it is important to respect the efforts of the past 17 times of this event and to build on new efforts. From this perspective, we actively participate in leadership panels. We have contributed from the standpoints of the host country. As the concept note of this session points out, the current digital society has greatly changed since 2005, but the idea of people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented information society has not changed. For this purpose, a free, open and global internet is important. In this context, we should continue making our effort to bring about socio-economic development so that no one left behind from human-centered innovation. Also, to enhance the reliability of internet, it is important to address the issue of mis-information and cyber security. It is also important for the international community to develop digital infrastructure and address the issue of digital divide. The idea of people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented information society is the same for AI governance, which is currently an important issue for international society. Currently, the government of Japan, as the G7 presidency, is leading discussion on AI governance through a process named as Hiroshima AI process. We are planning to advance this Hiroshima AI process in cooperation with the United Nations. With the WSIS plus 20 review coming up in 2025, I believe the IGF Kyoto this year is a very important opportunity. We are looking forward to sharing and exchanging opinions and ideas between various stakeholders. Thank you very much.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you, Mr. Ueno, very much for sharing Mr. Ide’s deep thoughts and for setting the scene of our discussions today. And congratulations for the 8,000 registrations. That is huge. Nobody can say that is not huge and powerful. Wow. Congratulations again. So next, I will invite the five discussing starters to share their views and insights with us. Each speaker has four or five minutes at most, and then it will be open for everyone in this room to… in this room and online, of course, to make a statement or to say whatever they want. So I will start with Miss Isabel Lois. Lois? Lois. Yes, the Spanish family. Senior policy advisor at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications. So I think that you are going to reply to a question, which is what needs to be done in international cooperation for a better achievement of the WSIS vision. Isn’t that right? Please. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois:
Thank you, Anna. So it’s been two decades since the first World Summit on Information Society took place in Geneva. And I would like to start with acknowledging the tremendous progress that has been achieved since then. I mean, inclusive, transparent, and multi-stakeholder processes have proven to be essential in addressing the complex issues of digital governance. And we have learned that cooperation, exchange of information, and joint identification of the relevant cross-sectorial issues are key in this process, as well as fostering strong partnerships between all the stakeholders. Building trust between stakeholders and taking action against prejudical is crucial. As we look forward to the future and the WSIS Plus 20 review, our task and the task is clear. We need to strengthen the process that empowers individuals, regardless of their gender, age, or origin. We need to center the governance of emerging technologies that lead to a sustainable development in economic, social, and environmental dimension. As a government representative, I have to remind myself and my fellow counterparts that by actively listening and taking into account the needs and knowledge of the civil society, private sector, technical communities, academia, and more, we can create an inclusive environment that thrives on constructive criticism and uses the experience that we may not have. And that is what I’ve been seeing in the past IGFs and here again in the successful Kyoto edition. The WSIS has been one of the most inclusive processes to date, and the outcome reflects it. There is the sense of community and a commitment of all that are involved that demonstrates the power of the democratic multi-stakeholder participation. However, we must ensure that this participation remains consistent, inclusive, and representative of all regions of the world. For instance, the CSCD could seek synergies with the wide and rich network of national and regional IGF initiatives, as it was mentioned before. And whilst we’ll made significant progress, challenges still lie ahead. Two decades ago, only 6% of the world population had access to the internet. Today, that number stands at about 70%. And the principles laid down in 2003 remain valid, especially regarding the multi-stakeholder approach. But we must build upon the knowledge and experience we have gained since and focus on connecting the remaining 2.6 billion individuals who are still disconnected, and then ensuring that the connection is meaningful, and then effectively govern together based on those common principles. This can only be achieved through collaboration and inclusion. The VISIS Plus 20 review comes at a particular time, as AI and its governance is at the forefront of many minds. In this process, it is essential to adapt as well a gender lens. Women’s voices and perspective must be included and valued in all aspects of internet governance. By doing so, it will create a human-centered, free, and secure digital world that benefits everyone. This is the perspective that many organizations have now been taking very seriously. And just as an example, we can take the ITU or UNESCO, and we should do so as well within the CSTD process and the VISIS Plus 20 review. Switzerland firmly believes that inclusive, multi-stakeholder, and cross-silos cooperation are prerequisites for achieving our vision of a digital world that prioritizes humanity, freedom, security, and inclusivity. Let us continue to work together, breaking down the silos, and ensuring that the benefits of the internet are accessible to all. Thank you, and I look forward to the discussion.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you very much, Isabel Flores. The next discussant will be Mr. Kamel Saadoui, Chief of Minister’s Office of Ministry of Communication Technologies from Tunisia. And he’s online, right? Yes. Yes. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning from Tunisia. I think that you are going to talk a little bit about, to regard the international multi-stakeholder discussion, how has the international multi-stakeholder evolved since VISIS? And more importantly, how should it evolve in the future? Mr. Kamel Saadoui, I will give you four or five minutes, please. Thank you.

Kamel Saadaoui:
Thank you, Chair. Good morning from Tunisia. It’s 7.30 in the morning. So ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and participants, I’m honored to be with you today in this panel about successes and challenges of 20-year journey of the VISIS. Tunis has the privilege to be linked to this summit through its report, referred to as Tunis Agenda and Outcomes. Some of you remember that IGF itself is an outcome of the VISIS 2005. Even if this VISIS 2005 took place before the boom of social media platforms, artificial intelligence, clouds, and blockchains, its recommendation remained relevant, promoting an open, resilient, unfragmented, and inclusive internet, endorsing human rights and cultural diversity. Tunisia recognizes that institutions such as ICANN and IQ have gone through many improvements since 2005 by supporting international domain names and allowing for more transparency and accountability, even if the government’s participation in ICANN remains at an advisory level, but that can be further improved and put to have meaningful impact. Today, emerging issues force themselves high items in the agenda more than the mere technical aspects, such as artificial intelligence applications, protecting people’s privacy and personal data when using over-the-top services and social media. Developing countries cannot deal with major platform providers on an equal-to-equal ground when it comes to taxation, for example, or imposing local rules for personal data protection. For that reason, Tunisia proposes to reconsider the framework of enhanced cooperation. We’re not suggesting bringing back the sterile debate on the government’s taking over the regulation of internet because the agility of private sector, civil society, and experts community is needed to keep leading internet to new horizons. What we’re recommending is simply the following. The multi-stakeholder approach in internet governance remains the most appropriate. We should keep seeking to implement equal footing and meaningful participation. ICANN, ITU, and other technical bodies have played major role in their respective responsibilities to ensure a stable internet. They should be supported for a resilient and unfragmented internet for all. We’re facing more complicated challenges than the mere technical coordination. IGF today is more relevant to share outcomes of the multiple forums and institutions involved in internet governance and needs to secure financing for bigger role and better outcomes. Enhanced cooperation led by CSTD can be useful to tackle emerging issues involving nations, such as managing cyber threats, cyber terrorism, the misuse of internet for money laundering, and the human trafficking. Other international institutions involved in internet issues, such as WIPO, WTO, UNESCO, and others, should be supported to ensure a stable internet for all nations. Each in its area of competencies and expertise must further develop multi-stakeholder approach, including open consultations and transparent reporting. And finally, each country should watch out for the potential digital gap between regions and social groups, since local digital problems have to be managed locally. Thank you.

anita gurumurthy:
Thank you very much. And now I will give the floor to Ms. Anita Gurumurthy, founding member and executive director of IT for Change India. And I think that you are going to give some remarks of, given the widespread of digitalization into almost all aspects of our life, how should WSIS be seen, and what international cooperation should be shaped? Please, Anita. Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here. As we move towards the WSIS plus 20 mark, I think digital public policy issues, we all acknowledge, have expanded infinitely. Some of us here will recall that the WSIS Geneva principle, one of those principles in 2003, held an optimism. And I quote, we are firmly convinced that we are collectively entering a new era of enormous potential, it said. The problem today is that this promise of collective potential is broken. The AI moment is similar in many ways, and not so similar to the Gutenberg moment in the 14th century, when Gutenberg’s letterpress printing revolutionized the world of information and knowledge. AI is moving us to a society of archiving, like the printing press did. But unlike Gutenberg’s technology, the algorithms that order society today are indiscernible to the public. The printing press shifted power into the hands of private forces, taking it away from the state, and destabilizing the authority of the church. Today, the force field of knowledge is similarly controlled by corporations who seek servitude in exchange for data and information. Our connections are growing, as they did in the age of enlightenment, but algorithmic society is also a society of fragmentation. As much as the press led to suffragette movements, and in my own country, a struggle against coloniality, it also led to competing visions of the good and to bloodshed. So also, the geopolitical risks of AI for war and annihilation cannot be wished away. The digital is indeed a lever of power, and it is no accident that those who control these technologies have little incentive to change the status quo. The WSIS did call out the respective roles of governments and public policy unequivocally, including the need to advance international cooperation, especially for the governance of digital technologies. The starting point is to recognize what ails the cooperation, and I would like to highlight, in particular, the neocolonial dynamics of the data and AI economy that demand our immediate attention at this point at the WSIS Review. The first is that trade forums are often used quite wrongly by the more powerful countries to frame rules for cross-border flows of data. We need a separate space, a separate forum for the negotiations around data governance globally. Secondly, data for development initiatives tend to be extractive. They open up individuals to pan-spectronic surveillance, normalizing dependencies of public systems on extractive private firms. Thirdly, intellectual property regimes have been weaponized by big tech, and given the prohibitive licensing costs and other barriers to entry, including patents owned by big tech firms, the Global South firms find it an uphill task to scale up and leverage a market share. Big tech firms also often resort to preemptive patenting to retain their competitive advantage, stifling innovation and stifling development of domestic industry. Fourthly, the overemphasis on personal data protection at the cost of market regulation has proven to be detrimental. This means that large tech companies, typically owned and primarily operated by white men, are extracting data from uninformed users and controlling that data to profit via predictive analytics. Unfortunately, strong data protection laws will not prevent this domination. Fifthly, the silence around development financing is very, very loud. In fact, yesterday, the New York Times has carried an article by African leaders on why African debt needs to be written off. The odds are stacked against developing countries as pathways to digital sovereignty are really uphill. Recent shocks owing to COVID-19 has broken supply chains. Inflation is pushing many Global South nations to the verge of crises. So finally, I think that there is a four-pronged strategy that is needed in digital cooperation. Firstly, we need to initiate consensus for a global digital human rights constitutionalism that is not only liberal, but that is supraliberal, incisive enough to cut through the systemic injustices in the international economic order. Secondly, we effectively need to govern global data public goods, and it may be useful to consider rules for varying contributions from varying groups of actors, such as, for instance, through principles like common but differentiated responsibilities explode in various other international negotiations. Thirdly, we need to urgently mobilize public financing to galvanize digital innovation ecosystems. We often talk about digital public goods, but we don’t talk enough about public digital financing. I think we need to set that right. And the digital development tax mechanism proposed by the UN Secretary General is particularly relevant in this regard. And fourthly and finally, I think it’s still important, although it seems far away in our memories, to still meaningfully internationalize internet governance. It’s imperative that the internet as a global commons is governed democratically, and so we need a new arrangement to oversee the technical governance of the internet, an issue that was dropped from the policy table when there was this moment, but is indeed long overdue. Thank you very much.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you very much. And now I would like to give the floor to Miss Anita Gurumurthy for her interesting remarks. And now I’ll give the floor to Miss Ariete Esterhizen, senior advisor on global and regional Internet governance, association for progressive communication in South Africa. So, Ariete, to what extent the situation today can be improved and how can we improve the way in which we communicate with each other and how can we facilitate this process? The floor is yours.

Anna Margaretha (anriette) Esterhuysen:
Thank you, Anna, and thanks very much for inviting me. I think that, you know, I’d like to respond both at the level of process and also at the level of substance. But first I want to say that we should recognize how powerful WSIS has been in terms of facilitating this process, and I think it’s very important for us to recognize that. And I think it’s very important for us to recognize that. I think Anna talked in her opening remarks about reading the WSIS outcome documents. I read them all the time, actually. And I read other U.N. outcome documents. There’s something very unique about the WSIS outcome documents. I think the fact that they are the outcome of contestation and the fact that they are the outcome of participation, and the fact that they are the outcome of participation is mediated by non-state actor participation and texts and views submitted by non-state actors. We weren’t always in the room, but if we were not in the room, we were at the back of the room. And we were in the caucusing in the corridors, and we submitted our own content and our own statements, and I think that is a very important part of the process. And I think that’s also reflected in the fact that all the groups had their own outcome documents. Our views are reflected in that. So that’s one thing, the process. I think secondly, the fact that WSIS is granular, that it has the Geneva principles which are broad-based, which highlight, which are people-centered, not tech-centered, which I feel many of our current documents, the WSIS documents speak much more powerfully as somebody who believes in social justice and equity from the global south. It’s about people-centered development. And it has human rights, the importance of human rights. It mentions open innovation and open source. When do you get that? So it has those broad overarching principles and the emphasis on governments having to play a role in creating an enabling environment. But then it’s also granular. It addresses some of the issues that are fundamental to having inclusive societies and effective accountable governance. It talks about education. It talks about food security through the agriculture action line, media freedom. And if you look at all the action lines, they all are very relevant. And then the action line on enabling environment talks about security and trust. So I think it actually has a lot of relevance. I think it has a lot of relevance because it talks about security and trust. So I think it actually frames, and perhaps it’s because it was not about the Internet. It was about ICTs, that it’s given it a longevity, I think that remains relevant. But it also means that it allowed space for advocacy groups that are working on social justice issues, that are working on trade justice issues. That are working on small-scale agriculture. On bringing education to people in remote areas who don’t have access via technology. In a sense, I think many of the responses that helped us cope with the COVID crisis, that was ground that was led by WSIS approaches and implementation. So I think that, so to go forward, I would say let’s build on that. Let’s continue to have spaces in the WSIS process that has opportunity for civil society to be not just consulted, but to actually shape the debate at some of the macro issues. The issues Anita just mentioned. The issues of financing. I think public financing is one of the failures. The lack of sufficient public financing. That debate is on the table again now because we’re talking about digital public infrastructure. Can we look at that from the lessons of WSIS? And it also still has those specific subject areas. So I think the important thing is to make the process inclusive. Not just consultation, but real collaborative shaping. Both at the sort of broader advocacy level, but also at the grassroots level. Where civil society, the only way in which you actually achieve change is when community organizations, have the power to have their own connectivity, to collaborate with small businesses. To work with local government. That’s where you actually have change on the ground. I think WSIS creates the space for civil society to be involved at all those levels. I definitely think that the IGF needs to be strengthened. And so has the WSIS forum. And I think that the tension sometimes between the two processes being so different, the one being more global south and the other one maybe being a little bit global north, I think that’s a productive tension. So let’s work with that. Let’s build on that. And then I think the final point on civil society collaboration also relates to the U.N. system. I think the U.N. system has its own diversity. It has relationships with different types of civil society organizations who work in different disciplines and different areas. And I’m sure they can all work together. I’m sure they can all be strengthened in terms of their inclusivity. But better collaboration within the U.N. system will also facilitate better collaboration and involvement of civil society. Thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you very much, Ariadne. I know that you read both documents and you were so much involved. And from your intervention, of course, we will acknowledge that you really read them and you were part of the process. So it’s very good to have you here. And to refresh some memories, it’s very good. Thank you. Now I will give the floor to Ms. Temilat Adalakun. So you will be the first speaker. So you will speak under two different hats. So Temilat is the youth ambassador of the Internet Society. And she is also associate product marketing manager of Google Africa. So Temilat, you are going to respond to questions because of your two hats. So from the youth perspective as youth ambassador, what do youth want from the WSIS process? And secondly, from the private sector perspective as Google manager, how can ongoing trends and emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, enable or hinder the realization of the WSIS vision?

Audience:
Thank you so much, Ana. Good afternoon, everyone. Good morning, good evening, depending on wherever you are in the world. And standing on the existing protocol, my name is Temilat Adalakun. I’m also a product marketer at Google. Just like Ana mentioned, I’ll be wearing two hats today. One as a global youth ambassador and also an African youth. I will start with the first question. Because I’m here to actually advocate for a more inclusive and youth-centered approach in the world. So I’m going to start with the first question. So I’m a member of the African youth and African youth world summit on information society WSIS. I say unequivocally that the youth of today are deeply connected to the digital world through the use of platforms such as media, digital payment platforms, tech hubs and incubators, and even entrepreneurship, just to mention a few. So I’m here to advocate for a more inclusive and youth-centered approach in the world. So I’m going to start with the first question. So I’m a member of the African youth and African youth world summit on information society WSIS. I say unequivocally that the youth of today are deeply connected to the digital world through the use of platforms such as media, tech hubs and incubators, and even entrepreneurship, just to mention a few. So I’m here to advocate for a more inclusive and youth-centered approach in the world. So I’m a member of the African youth and African youth world summit on information society WSIS. I say unequivocally that the youth of today are deeply connected to the digital world through the use of platforms such as media, digital payment platforms, tech hubs and incubators, and even entrepreneurship, just to mention a few. So I’m a member of the African youth and African youth world summit on information society WSIS. I say unequivocally that the youth of today are deeply connected to the digital world through the use of platforms such as media, tech hubs and incubators, and even entrepreneurship, just to mention a few. So I’m a member of the African youth and African youth world summit on information society WSIS. I say unequivocally that the youth of today are deeply connected to the digital world through the use of platforms such as media, tech hubs and incubators, and even entrepreneurship, just to mention a few. Furthermore, we want WSIS to focus on initiatives to improve access to education and to empower us to actively represent in social and economic programs that influence technology in our respective countries across the continent. We want WSIS to focus on initiatives to improve access to education and to empower us to actively represent in social and economic programs that influence technology in our respective countries across the continent. I have a strong conviction that the WSIS process holds immense potential to be a powerful force for change and solution in Africa and the world. It’s a platform where we can utilize and work collaboratively to develop targeted solutions and ensure that ICT contributes to the development of the future. I would like to say that AI is a powerful tool for advancing human development and sustainable development goals. AI can enhance education and health care access. It can influence job creation, it can curtail global issues like climate change and even poverty. Also, AI can pave the way for a more inclusive and people centered information society by improving accessibility for persons living with disability, even through assistive technologies, including screen readers and text-to-speech software, which I know we are all aware of. Furthermore, AI paves a pivotal role in providing essential services, such as health care, education, and government services. It contributes to the diagnostic of treatment of diseases and even delivery of educational resources to remote areas. During COVID, we saw how AI was very useful in some of the initiatives that were brought about. However, AI also presents potential threats in the form of data privacy to the WSIS vision, including the creation of surveillance systems and new forms of discrimination and exclusion. It is imperative to ensure that AI is developed and employed in a manner that upholds human rights and aligns with the WSIS vision. The impact of AI on human development, SDGs, and WSIS vision hinges on responsible development and utilization. To achieve this, it is essential that we invest in research and understand AI’s ethical and social implications. It’s important that we also establish international standards and guidelines for its development and use to foster transparency, accountability, and even to ensure that AI is used in a way that is inclusive and inclusive. It’s important that we also establish international standards and guidelines for its development and use to foster transparency, accountability, and even to educate the public about AI’s potential benefits and risk and to teach individuals to have control over their own data and usage. In closing, I want to reiterate that the time is now. Together we can ensure that the WSIS process truly reflects the vision of the WSIS vision, and that the WSIS vision is the foundation for the future. Thank you, and I look forward to the discussions. Thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you, Temelat. Now we are almost opening the roundtable discussion, but before that, I will give the floor to our co-partners. I would like to start by thanking you for your vision and also Sharmika, the CSTD secretariat, for ensuring that it’s a joint process and that we are all working together on it.

Audience:
As we have been, you know, discussing all throughout that we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we have limited resources and we all are all at the same team. We are all trying to get together, allowing our differences across the world that we have limited resources and capacities, and we areour joining hands to this process. Well, WSIS actually set the foundation of digital cooperation. We have been doing a lot in terms of digital cooperation, at least, you know, looking at how the UN has been working together and how we have been aligning with the different UN processes. For example, those of you who are involved in the WSIS forum, the WSIS special initiatives, the WSIS prizes, we have been aligning them with the decade of indigenous languages with UNESCO. And, of course, we are working with the UN to promote the role of digital in healthy aging. And so many other UN processes like the HLPF, we have been asked to align the WSIS action lines with the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, highlighting the role of digital in achieving the sustainable development goals. We have also been working with the WSIS and the UN General Assembly where we again highlighted the importance of digital preceding the UN General Assembly. So there are great examples of what the UN has been doing in collaboration, not only with each other, but also with all the stakeholders. The WSIS prizes is such a great example. We have been working with the UN to highlight the importance of digital preceding the UN and elevate their projects. Thank you for being here, so many of you. And, of course, some of the things that we need to pay attention on is you will recall, so, Anurag, like you. I think you achieved your two minutes. So I will give the floor to Mr. Cedric Vashvalt, the chief of digital policies and digital transformation section at UNESCO. Thank you, chair.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
It’s not a new thing. It’s something that we have been working on for a long time. We have been working with the UN to highlight the importance of digital

Prateek Sibal:
preceding the UN and elevate their projects. Thank you, Anurag. I’m a program specialist at UNESCO and will speak on behalf of UNESCO today. Thanks to the secretariat and CSTD for having us here. I would echo the remarks in terms of multistakeholderism and cooperation and I would like to focus more on some of the thematic achievements and challenges. UNESCO has been co-facilitating leading about six action lines and on access to information, I would like to share between 2016 and 2023, there have been about 1,200 Internet shutdowns globally. This remains a major challenge and UNESCO has been working on assessing Internet environments based on a rights-based, open, accessible and multistakeholder approach in about 45 countries and this work will need to be strengthened also with the support of civil society, academia and the private sector. We have been able to have access to information day, which is celebrated on 28th of September, which is a great moment for advocacy on open access to information in governments as well. As Gitanjali mentioned, there is a dimension of the decade of indigenous languages. So inclusion forms an important part of the work that the UN as a whole is doing here. Media and information literacy remains a major challenge when we are talking about disinformation, misinformation and in this domain, we have strengthened our programs also including youth, building dynamic coalitions. different actors and promote different kinds of responses whether it comes to fact-checking or supporting civil society organizations in upscaling. I will speak briefly about e-science. We have several standards that I’ll just stop soon. So just just several standard-setting instruments which are really bringing global communities together which is the recommendation on open science, the recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence, and the recommendation on open educational resources have become central tools which are being mobilized to build communities globally. So looking forward to the input and the feedback over here and we continue to remain engaged with the business process and with our partners here. Thank you. Okay, thank you

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
very much. So now Mr. Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer at UNDP. Hello, two minutes.

Robert Opp:
Thank you. I don’t plan to take two minutes. We’re here to listen and I think it’s the issues that are coming up already are extremely relevant and it’s great to hear the themes that are emerging. I think if I think back 20 years ago and think of what’s changed I think probably for the people in this room and those who were involved the ICT or the ICT for development was would be considered quite important but I think today you cannot deny that it is an absolute mega trend driving global change and issues worldwide. In the order of climate change which has also become a super mega trend and I think that that means that the urgency is greater than ever and we’ve done a lot in the last 20 years but the pace of change is accelerating and so that’s when we look forward to WSIS plus 20 and working together with our UN partners and all of the multi-stakeholder groups this is what we need to keep in mind that it’s an urgent situation. So I will leave it there and thank you chair and thank you

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
to the secretary. Thank you very much sir. So now I will open for our free styles roundtable discussion after thanking to all the discussion starters. Yes so now we have to manage all the people that are going to intervene. So I think sir you were first then we have you and three so then European Commission on behalf of the European Union and then Cuba. So please who can help me? Can you help me? Looking around. So we have already so I have four in my mind

Audience:
here and not in the rear. Thank you very much Anna. I’m Peter Brook I’m the chairman of the World Summit Award. So you have three minutes. We have started in 2003 to focus on the best practice in content in with the ICT. It’s an Austrian member state initiative which we have for one now for the last 20 years every year. We have had 12,800 participants 1,600 winners according to the action lines C7 from the business plan of action. I think that the review is a very difficult exercise and I’m saying this very clearly because I think that business and the business process has lost half of its focus. The first focus is on digital divide and digital inclusion. I think and it was speaking about this and I also a friend from India was speaking about it but the other side was and is still the question of the transformation into the knowledge society and I would say that we have technology success but knowledge failure and if you are looking at disinformation misinformation hate speech fake news and things like this these are issues which we need to take seriously. That’s the first point. The second point is this is pre sustainable development goals. It is millennium development goals and the difference between the millennium development goals and sustainable development goals is that in sustainable development goals we have 176 indicators which give us actually KPIs of what we have achieved. The Tunis plan of action does not have KPIs and therefore we have a real issue in terms of the review and the review will be a moving back and forth and so on. The last thing is which I want to stress is we have in the Tunis plan of action a line which many people have not known it’s C9 and that is media and the media is a completely different kind of landscape today due to the economics of digital platform monopolization. We have this year for the first time in human history or talking about the Gutenberg moment is 54% of global advertising revenues goes to five American companies and it means that digital publishing I’m talking about community publishing in Canada 567 papers have been closed in the last two months. So if you’re thinking about media diversity and things like this then you’re just really looking at something where we are really having a loss of all those intermediaries which we have called editorial added value and that needs to be front and center in the review and I’m offering the World Summit Award and the International Center for New Media and its partners in 182 countries as a partner also in this exercise. Thank you

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
very much. Thank you very much and I hope that you will be able to to respond to the questionnaire in written form as everything that you said is very important as everybody’s that is talking here but responding to the questionnaire will be very very important. Now I’ll give the floor to Bangladesh. Bangladesh

Audience:
Madam Chair, when I entered the WSIS era that time I was the youth ambassador of the WSIS. Now I am former youth. Okay I asked my CSTD secretary to share what does Bangladesh expect from the future WSIS. I’m so grateful for giving me the opportunity. Bangladesh government, Bangladesh is the very unique country regarding implementation the WSIS action line. Bangladesh government formed Bangladesh working group on WSIS with a multi-stakeholder and I am one of the proud member of the Bangladesh working group on WSIS. After summit C1 to C11 Bangladesh government has integrated with the five-year plan as well as CSO also integrated C1 to C11 of their annual plan. Thirdly as a result Bangladesh government and CSO combinedly, technical community received lots of WSIS prize as the winner as a champion also. Fourth CSO and Bangladesh government has successfully addressed the COVID-19 operation disaster through ICT application that is called C7 ICT application and as WSIS outcome Bangladesh has been organizing the Bangladesh Internet Governance Forum. This is the National Internet Governance Forum with a multi-stakeholderism. Madam Chair, we expect from the future of WSIS. Bangladesh government has already declared the smart Bangladesh in line with the digital Bangladesh. There are four area, achieving sustainable economic growth, reducing poverty, ensure social and justice and third one is the very important, creating a digital and knowledge-based society. Madam Chair, thorough four area, one is the smart citizen, another one is the smart society, another one is smart economy and as well as smart government. In conclusion, we need a WSIS forum regularly. It is really multi-stakeholderism. Second, now we are preparing for participation in the WSIS forum 2024 including member of the parliament as well as the mayor of the municipal corporation promoting local governance. Third, we would appreciate it if the WSIS Secretariat would publish a handbook for the parliamentarian and as well as mayor like IGF Secretariat. It would be very useful. Fourth, summit of the PSAR and GDC process can learn from the WSIS and as well as IGF Secretariat what is multi-stakeholderism. Thank you, madam.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Okay, thank you very much and now I think it’s the time to give the floor to Kuba and then European Commission. Dear colleagues, on December 12, 2003, the first phase of the

Audience:
World Summit on the Information Society ended with the adoption of its final documents by the head of state and government of 175 countries. After arduous discussions, the developing countries succeeded in having the so-called digital divide recognized as a dimension of the existing economic and social divisions and allowed this topic to move out of the technical debate at the expert level and become a political issue of concern to the international community. 20 years later, it has been demonstrated without a doubt that the information and communication technologies in general and the Internet in particular are essential tools for the development of the countries, but it has also been confirmed that this beneficial impact of ICTs and the Internet is significantly lower in developing countries compared to developed countries. The unfulfillment of many of the WSIS agreements has had a negative impact on developing countries. For example, financial mechanisms to address the challenges of using ICT for development has not been established. In addition, persists the application of unilateral measures not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations that impedes the full achievement of economic and social development of the affected countries. Madam Chair, dear colleagues, all these issues were addressed with concern by numerous heads of state and government at the G77 and China Summit held in Havana, Cuba last September, and whose central theme was current development challenges, the role of science, technology and innovation. The final declaration of this summit reaffirmed the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, stating that the G77 and China promote a close alignment between the World Summit of Information Society process and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also called for a close correspondence of the WSIS process with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and other outcomes of relevant intergovernmental processes, including the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future. It was further agreed to work towards a strong and concerted position of the G77 and China to ensure that the WSIS plus 20 general review process, the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future contribute to inter alia the achievement of sustainable development and closing the digital divide between developed and developing countries. It was reiterated that the Tunis Agenda and the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action shall lay down the guiding principles for digital cooperation. Madam Chair, dear colleague, I am finishing. The Declaration of Principles or the first phase of WSIS entitled Building the Information Society, a Global Challenge for the New Millennium, established a common view of the information society which among other attributes should be people centered, inclusive and developer oriented. In addition, the declaration noted… Okay, I think that your main message was already conveyed. No, I will finish by saying that it’s up to us now to finally make a reality of that common vision that was envisioned 20 years ago. Thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Muchas gracias. Very well, thank you very much. Now I’ll give the floor to Mr. Pierce O’Donoghue who is going to speak on behalf of the European Union.

Pearse O’donohue:
Thank you. Yes, I’m speaking on behalf of the European Union and its member states. We welcome the opportunity to share lessons learned from the WSIS implementation process at this crucial moment in the history of the Internet. We cannot appreciate the Internet’s unprecedented success without recognizing the vital role of the WSIS and the multi-stakeholder model it has advocated. The European Union continues to support the principles set out in the Geneva Action Plan and the Tunis Agenda, but our efforts do not end here. The multi-stakeholder model is not flawless, but it is still our most reliable instrument for effective Internet governance and the foundation for a dynamic system involving all stakeholders in the running of the Internet. We shall make every effort to ensure that it will never be replaced. The IGF is living proof that this cooperative approach works. Its value stems from adopting a vibrant multi-stakeholder approach and ensuring that voices from governments to private sector, civil society, the technical community and academia are heard and engaged in pivotal discussions on the Internet’s future and governance. The EU strongly supports a proactive and ambitious approach towards keeping human rights as the foundation of an open, free and secure online space, based on human-centric digitalization, preserving human dignity and equality of all people without discrimination of any kind, online and offline. We welcome the setting up of the UN Secretary-General’s high-level Advisory Board on Artificial Intelligence. The EU AI Act, which puts the impact of artificial intelligence technologies to the centre, may serve as a model for regulation elsewhere. But as we approach WSIS plus 20, we have a golden opportunity to bolster this framework and to reinforce our foundational multi-stakeholder principles. Establishing centralized control over the Internet and its governance system is not an option. Our focus should be, on the contrary, to keep its openness and freedom. This vision aligns with the SDGs. As the EU highlighted in its recent statement on the UN Global Digital Compact, swifter progress on the SDGs goes hand-in-hand with our commitment to a more inclusive digital future and to bridging the digital divides. In this regard, the EU and its member states are working hard through the Global Gateway, as Team Europe, to deploy digital networks and infrastructures worldwide, prioritizing under-served regions, countries and populations. In pursuing this digital future, it is critical that the IGF strengthens its role in fostering an inclusive, open and sustainable digital environment and evolves into an even more impactful and inclusive model. This is a shortened version of our statement, you’ll be glad to know, and the full version will be made available shortly. Thank you very

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
much. And now I will give the floor to the behind you. Thank you very much, thank you

Audience:
Madam Chair, thank you everybody, thank you colleagues here. My name is Atsushi Yamanaka, I’m a senior advisor on digital transformations at Japan International Cooperation Agencies, but I’m actually wanted to make a questions to you, as an individual who has, you know, intimately involved in the WSIS process, and where, like, you know, especially in the financial mechanism part, I used to be working in the UNDP. Now, three weeks ago, I was at a digital summit, ESDG Digital Summit, and it struck me, so like, fundamental questions that we have actually asked 20 years ago, remain the same. Fundamental things such as digital inclusions, financial mechanisms, all these things actually remain the same, and it struck me, saying, I should have worked harder, perhaps. In 20 years, I should actually have worked harder, so I can make a difference, and then solve some of these fundamental challenges. Now, we are the barge, as the robot ops said, of digital technology, which is like a fad, right? It was like I sit for developers’ fat at the WSIS process. And then remember what’s happened after 2005. Everybody who actually went out, I said, like, sorry, we had enough of this. The development partners, they left, you know, they left, and even developing countries who are really excited about this, they left. So my questions to you is, what can we do, you know, how can we do something different this time? Because these two years are going to be critical. You know, we’re going to have the summit for the future summit next year. We’re going to have digital compact. We’re going to have WSIS plus 20 in 2025. If we cannot make a difference this time, I believe that we’re going to have the same failure we saw from 2005 to around 2012. These seven years of dark age of digital development. So I urge you, all of you, can we actually come up with real concrete solutions and something that we can make a difference, say, yes, digital technology, and then ICT can actually work for everybody to create the information society and also for the development of developing countries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So please. Oh my God. Hanslet, please go ahead. Thank you very much. Hanslet from the Gambia NRI. I just want us to go back and look at why there are big disparities as we look into the WSIS plus 20. You discover that it’s good when we have all the UNDP, the ITU, UNESCO, they claim they work together at the top level. If you go down to the bottom level, there’s no cooperation at country level. And that is why we are still dealing with big gaps in the digital divide. And the NRIs are now well-strengthened that they can help all these big international agencies on the ground. And I will suggest that moving forward, you have to work with the NRIs because the governments are part of that process. A good example I will stop at, I’m recently doing the UNESCO IOR, Internet Universal Indicators, as a lead researcher in the Gambia. UNDP are not involved. When I contacted them, they didn’t know about the ROMEX, UNDP country office. So how do you filter down information? And we have to really look at that seriously. It’s good, folks, yes, it’s from New York or Geneva, and say blah, blah, blah, we work together on the ground level. Do you really work together? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ponslet. Now, please. My name is Izumi Aiz. I am living in Japan. I used to be participating in all the prep and processes of the WSIS. I do agree with what my friend, colleague, Atsushi, said. Have we done our homework? We used to have much more dissenting voices to hear. From the East and South. Where’s China now here? Iran, India, Russia, South Africa? I don’t see them. In the very beginning, we have heated debate about who’s gonna speak this or that, and a lot of rules, but substances. And many of which the civil society like us didn’t really agree with. But it was a very interesting creative processes that we tried to listen to each other. And I feel like it’s gone. I might be naive, but WSIS was proposed right after the 9-11 processes. There were big fears from the South that digital development would leave them out, the digital divide. But even the countries like the US or Japan, others who have the monies, wanted to let them come in together discuss. That, to me, was the genesis of the WSIS. Where is it? I was invited to the China’s World Internet Conference Digital Dialogue on, no, Dialogue on Digital Civilization in June this year. Oh, yeah. I was the only Japanese. There were only 19 participants from overseas. You can blame China not inviting them, but that’s not the way. There’ll be another World Internet Conference next month. Let’s see how many will join together. Also, today, we heard what’s going on in Israel and Palestine. Nobody really in this room tried to address that. Does it relate to the ICT? Of course. How about the things going on in Eastern Russia or Russian side? We carefully avoided these hot potatoes, perhaps. But I feel like the ICT is very powerless. And talking about the SDGs and human rights. Also, how about the status of women in certain countries? It went worse than 20 years ago, as we all know. So, how much ICT could play? How much we have done? Of course, there are areas that they played a very good job, but we cannot just remain optimistic and ask AI for rescue or whatever. So, the multi-stakeholder approach and the human-centric approach, I agree with Agnieta. Yes, it was a great result of our Europe-led sweat and tears of many days in Geneva and the other way. So, multi-stakeholder was not given. It will erode if you don’t do more. How about the climate change? We had the worst summer in Japan and many others. How can technologies do while consuming a lot of servers and energies on the AI? They might be regulated. So, I’d like really, all of you, me, address these real difficult issues and just don’t resort to the friendly, nice, warm environment that Kyoto presents. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, I’ll give the floor to Peter Mayer, please. Thank you. I want to react. I didn’t intend to react directly, indirectly, but anyway. So, multi-stakeholders. I think in this environment and in this CSTD Open Forum, we can be proud. We can be proud because we were one of the first ones who implemented or tried to introduce the multi-stakeholder approach in our work, in the working groups. It wasn’t simple. In the first working group, it was very controversial. In the second working group, it was smooth. So, personally, I’m proud of it. And on behalf of the CSTD, I think we can be proud of that. So, probably, this is the way to go forward, not only in the CSTD, but the whole UN. That’s for one. Hot potato. We are in the setting of the IGF. The IGF, we may think, is very relevant. That’s what we think. Do other stakeholders think the same way? Do governments think the same way? I’m afraid not. And why? Because we have the IGF with its outcomes, and it is mandated to have outcomes, but it’s also mandated not to have resolutions. So, if there is no resolution in the UN, you don’t exist. So, how can we bridge this gap? CSTD is mandated to review the processes within the UN system. IGF is part of the UN system. IGF Secretariat regularly gives report to the CSTD. We listen to that, and we write one sentence. IGF Secretariat gave the report. We don’t know about the content. We don’t know about any recommendations. We don’t follow up, and that is the key. We should follow up. We should have in the resolution the key messages. We should have, if not in the resolution, because it is a very hot debate all the time. I have the experience. But we can manage. We can manage to have it in the resolution. We can manage to have it in the annex of the chair’s report, but we should forward it to the ECOSOC and through ECOSOC to the UN General Assembly in order that all stakeholders, that is all member states will be aware that we are doing something which is relevant, which is relevant not only in the field of ICTs, but which is relevant for the sustainable development goals. Thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Hi. Thank you, Peter, very much. I just would like to emphasise that it’s a pity that some of the governments that make our lives sometimes very difficult in our discussions at the CSCD, they are not here, so they cannot hear. No, Cuba is still here. No, but Cuba is here, yes. It’s living. Nigel, Nigel. Who asked first? I don’t know. I thought, please, sir, go ahead, and then Nigel. Introduce, introduce yourself, please.

Audience:
My name is Dinesh. I come from near Bangalore in a rural area where we have a community network. And our main activity is research on how to include low literate people as first class citizens of the internet. That’s one thing that I think there are more than three billion people who come under this, and I don’t see that we are focusing on them. Can we find internet access, but not what does it mean for low literacy? That means that if you don’t know how to read or write, what is internet for you? What is Google for you? Can you do keywords? What is the results for you? What can you do with it? Think like that. There are too many people we just don’t wanna see or not willing to think that there is something we can do about it. And it’s time we have technical people from the ground who are interested in addressing this issue and get them together and see what can be done about bringing internet as a first class available thing for low literate people.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
Thank you very much, Nigel. UK, please.

Audience:
Yes, thank you very much. I’ll sit next to you, yeah. God, I’m exhausted after that. Sorry, Nigel Hickson, Department of Science, Innovation and Technology for the UK. And really, I just wanted to say about three things. I think first, it’s really excellent to have this debate here. I mean, if we can’t have a thorough, controversial, open and constructive debate about the WSIS process at the IGF, then we can’t have it anywhere. So it’s really excellent to have it here. Secondly, I listened to Piers O’Donoghue speak and I thought, well, he’s speaking for the whole of the European Union, so I needn’t say anything. And then I forgot that we’re not in the European Union. So, yeah. So I’m getting to the end of my career so I can say things like that. But I wanted to completely endorse what he said. I think it’s just so important that we have these discussions. And I think it’s so important that we also recognise where we have come from. And we also, we recognise what’s happened since 2005, not just in terms of technology, which we all understand and many of us have experienced here. But we also recognise the work that’s taken place in the UN CSDD, in the reports that have been written, in the WSIS Forum where we’ve had excellent discussions year after year on many issues, the work that UNESCO has done as well, and many other regional UN bodies and other bodies. There hasn’t been silence since 2004. There’s been evolution. There’s been evolution across the spectrum. There’s been evolution at ICANN. There’s been evolution at IGF. There’s been evolution in UN CSDD. We have moved forward. Yes, and of course it’s not perfect. And that’s why it was so wise at Tunis that the language in the Tunis Agenda said, yeah, you ought to review it. We ought to review it. We reviewed it after 10 years and we ought to review it again. I mean, let’s lift the drain covers up. Let’s lift those covers up as other people have said and review it. But let’s not forgotten where we’ve come from and the progress we’ve made. And let’s not forget either of why we got together in Geneva and Tunis. It wasn’t to discuss internet governance as such. It wasn’t to discuss the mechanisms of the internet, but there’s no harm in discussing that. It was to do better than that. It was to connect people. It was to discuss why we have disparities, regional disparities. And as we heard from the ITU Secretary General at the beginning of this conference, and we heard from many other people, we still have those issues. So let’s focus. Let’s focus on development. Let’s focus on sustainability. Let’s focus on what really matters. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Moderator – Ana Cristina Ferreira Amoroso Das Neves:
And with Nigel Hickinson from UK, I think that we come to an end of this first open consultation. I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you for your active and valuable participation throughout this session. Your contributions have greatly enriched our discussions. Don’t forget the questionnaire. Please fulfill this questionnaire. That, of course, is not here in paper. It is in the virtual world, is in the website of CSTD. It will be in the session, in the website of the IGF in this session, and it will be spread widely. And it will be very important to have your inputs in written form. And with that, I declare the first open consultation closed. If we will be in the UN, I would have a hammer. So as I don’t have a hammer, I will use bottle of water.

Pablo Castro

The internet is becoming increasingly integral to people’s quality of life as it enables them to connect with family and friends, while also facilitating the exercise of fundamental rights. This positive sentiment towards the internet is expressed through the argument that it should remain open, safe, interconnected, and accessible to all. It is believed that the internet is essential in enabling the exercise of other rights as well.

Although there is general agreement about the importance of the internet, there is a debate surrounding whether internet access should be considered as a standalone right in public policy debates. Some argue that the internet should be viewed as a tool for exercising other rights, rather than being a right on its own. Questions arise about who should be responsible for guaranteeing internet access if it is indeed considered a right in itself.

Reducing the economic, geographic, and technological barriers to internet access is seen as a significant policy challenge. It is recognized that these barriers limit access to the internet and hinder people’s ability to fully benefit from its advantages. Efforts are being made to address these challenges and ensure that internet access becomes more readily available to all individuals.

In Chile, the issue of internet accessibility is being addressed through the discussion of a proposed bill that acknowledges the internet as a public service. The aim of this bill is to reduce the accessibility gap that exists, particularly in the 35% of Chilean homes that currently lack internet access. By recognizing the internet as a public service, it is hoped that measures can be put in place to bridge this accessibility gap and ensure that all individuals have equal opportunities to benefit from the internet.

The role of internet providers is also a topic of discussion. There are concerns about balancing the public interest with the protection of individual rights when it comes to regulating these providers. Internet providers are seen as agents that give access to an essential service, raising questions about how they should be regulated and their responsibilities towards ensuring equal and fair access to the internet.

In conclusion, the internet is increasingly seen as vital to people’s quality of life, connecting them with loved ones and enabling the exercise of their rights. The debate surrounding internet access as a standalone right continues, with efforts being made to reduce barriers and ensure equal access for all. The discussion of Chile’s proposed bill recognizing the internet as a public service highlights efforts to address the accessibility gap. Balancing the role of internet providers in ensuring equal access is also a point of contention. Overall, the internet’s importance and the need to ensure its accessibility and regulation are key considerations in public policy debates.

Bruna Martin-Santos

The discussions surrounding internet governance have emphasized the need for a normative framework that focuses on rules and values. The internet is considered critical for societies and development, and there is a rich heritage and experience in understanding how it works. This positive sentiment suggests that the existing discussions have guided us well through the processes.

However, the resilience of the internet is being affected by complex societal issues and problematic governmental interventions. There are significant problems and discrepancies related to access and empowerment, and merely having access to platforms like Facebook is not equivalent to having access to the internet. This negative sentiment highlights the challenges posed by societal complexities and the need to address governmental interventions.

An argument is made that the internet should be recognized as a global public resource that is universally accessible and affordable. Its governance should be based on human rights standards and public interest principles. The internet plays a crucial role in addressing global challenges, and global calls to action are needed to advance access to technology and promote country-level development. This positive sentiment emphasizes the importance of viewing the internet as a public good.

The proactive engagement of the technical community is identified as a key requirement in internet governance. The operation of the internet relies on technical expertise, and the success of spaces like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) relies on the involvement of this community. This positive sentiment underlines the significance of technical expertise in shaping internet governance.

Furthermore, it is argued that the global equity crisis needs to be a central aspect of internet-related discussions. Internet-related problems are rooted in inequality, and the abuse of power and insufficient collaboration further exacerbate these issues. Narratives from regions hardest hit by interventions should play a role in shaping policies. This negative sentiment highlights the urgency of addressing the global equity crisis in internet governance.

There are gaps in internet governance that need to be addressed urgently. These gaps have existed since the inception of internet governance and still persist today, indicating a negative sentiment. It is essential to work towards filling these gaps.

Safeguards are necessary to protect rights, privacy, and data, as well as to ensure the inclusion of all communities, genders, and regions. This positive sentiment highlights the need to discuss appropriate measures that guarantee the protection of individual rights while fostering inclusivity in the digital space.

Lastly, there is a call for the recognition of the internet and information as a commons or a public good. This positive sentiment suggests that more recognition is needed for the internet and information as collective resources that require appropriate governance and management.

In conclusion, internet governance discussions have highlighted the importance of establishing a normative framework based on rules and values. However, challenges related to complex societal issues and governmental interventions impact the internet’s resilience. There is a need for the internet to be considered a global public resource that is universally accessible and affordable, with governance based on human rights and public interest principles. The involvement of the technical community plays a crucial role in shaping internet governance. Addressing the global equity crisis and implementing safeguards to protect rights and ensure inclusivity are other significant aspects of internet-related discussions. Recognition of the internet and information as a commons or public good tops off the list of essential considerations in internet governance. Cooperation is crucial in advancing the development and use of digital public goods. The analysis reveals a range of sentiments, both positive and negative, showcasing the multifaceted nature of internet governance and the need for comprehensive and inclusive solutions.

Audience

The analysis highlights the issue of internet inaccessibility for individuals who cannot read or write. It reveals that globally, approximately 3 billion people lack basic literacy skills, with 1 billion residing in India facing difficulties in performing tasks such as conducting Google searches and comprehending results. This underscores the need to address the digital divide in society.

One speaker expresses a negative sentiment, emphasizing that the internet is inaccessible to those who lack literacy skills. This poses a barrier to accessing information, participating in online activities, and benefiting from online resources and opportunities. The speaker calls for innovative solutions to bridge this gap and make the internet accessible to all.

Contrasting the negative sentiment, another speaker takes a positive stance, suggesting that technical experts focus on developing solutions for hyperlinks that do not rely on text. This would enable individuals with low literacy levels to navigate the web and access information without the need for reading text-based links. By removing this barrier, the internet can become more inclusive and provide opportunities for personal growth, education, and economic development.

The analysis also introduces the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as potentially influential in advocating for technology that supports web accessibility for low-literate individuals. Collaborative efforts between governments, technology companies, and civil society organizations are vital in addressing internet inaccessibility. By uniting diverse perspectives, progress can be made in developing technology solutions that enhance internet accessibility and reduce inequalities in accessing digital resources.

In conclusion, the analysis illuminates the pressing issue of internet inaccessibility for those who cannot read or write. It emphasizes the impact on billions of people globally and particularly in India. However, it also presents potential solutions and initiatives to improve internet accessibility. By tackling this challenge, we can work towards a more inclusive and equitable digital world where everyone can benefit from the internet’s resources and opportunities.

Anriette Esterhuysen

Anriette Esterhuysen, a staunch advocate for reclaiming the Internet as a connector of people and a disruptor of power concentration, argues that the concepts of the commons, rights, and the public good can work harmoniously together to create a more inclusive and equitable online environment. She believes that these concepts should not be seen as opposing forces, but rather as synergistic entities.

Esterhuysen supports the protection of the public core of the Internet, emphasizing the need for effective governance involving not only the state but also commercial and common interest parties. She recognizes the importance of coexistence and collaboration among different stakeholders to ensure affordable and accessible Internet connectivity without government and corporate interference.

While Esterhuysen opposes the nationalization of the Internet, she expresses concern about surveillance capitalism and the commercial exploitation of data. She calls for greater control over the collection and use of personal information, advocating for regulations that safeguard individuals’ privacy and prevent their data from being solely used for commercial gain. She commends the European Union’s efforts to regulate data access for researchers.

Highlighting the shortcomings of current Internet regulations, Esterhuysen suggests a shift in focus from targeting users to addressing the concentration of power among corporations and manufacturers. By holding these entities more accountable and responsible, she believes that regulations can play a more effective role in ensuring a fair and democratic Internet.

Esterhuysen also raises concerns about the environmental impact of the Internet, calling for regulatory measures to limit the proliferation of electronic waste (e-waste). She proposes the introduction of standards for device production to extend their lifespan and reduce e-waste, aligning with the principles of responsible consumption and production.

Challenging the notion that economic growth alone equals development, Esterhuysen argues for a more holistic approach that incorporates poverty alleviation and reduced inequalities. She suggests redefining the concept of development to address social and economic disparities and create a more equitable society.

In terms of community empowerment, Esterhuysen advocates for communities to have agency in determining their level of interaction with the Internet. This includes recognizing the value of local Internet access over global connectivity, allowing certain communities to prioritize specific online services according to their needs and preferences.

Lastly, Esterhuysen stresses the need for increased accountability and transparency from governments in regulating the Internet. She highlights the tendency of government entities to prioritize their own interests over the public’s best interest, emphasizing the importance of stringent oversight and regulation to ensure Internet governance serves the public interest.

In conclusion, Anriette Esterhuysen presents a comprehensive approach to reclaiming and governing the Internet. By emphasizing the concepts of the commons, rights, and the public good and addressing issues such as power concentration, data exploitation, environmental impact, and development, she advocates for a more inclusive, equitable, and democratic Internet. Her insights and analysis provide valuable perspectives on the future of the Internet, its potential to empower communities, and its role in fostering social and economic equality.

Azin Tadjdini

The debate surrounding whether internet access should be considered a human right is complex and ongoing. Some argue that internet access is a tool or means to an end, rather than an inherent right. However, others believe that internet access is essential for individuals to exercise their other rights, such as freedom of expression and access to information.

Restrictions on internet access raise concerns about the potential violation of human rights, as they can unduly interfere with rights such as freedom of expression and assembly. Denying individuals access to the internet significantly impacts their ability to participate in public discourse, seek and share information, and engage in political and social activities.

Several countries, including Greece, France, Costa Rica, Finland, and Estonia, have recognized internet access as either an individual or constitutional right. These countries have implemented laws that place a positive duty on the state to ensure universal and affordable internet access, reflecting a commitment to promoting equal opportunities for all citizens.

At the international level, there is a growing recognition of the importance of internet access in enabling individuals to enjoy and exercise their rights. The Human Rights Council passed a resolution in 2012 calling upon states to promote and facilitate access to the internet. Additionally, human rights mechanisms have increasingly acknowledged the significance of the internet in relation to the enjoyment and exercise of rights.

Despite these developments, further exploration is needed to define the parameters of a human right to internet access. Questions remain regarding the conditions for imposing restrictions, the roles of the state and private sector in ensuring access, and the state’s duty to protect individuals from cyber attacks. Continued discussion and analysis are required to establish a comprehensive framework for the right to internet access.

In the context of internet governance, the development of a rights framework has influenced discussions and decision-making processes. However, it is important to note that the existing rights framework does not cover all aspects of internet governance. Therefore, further exploration and adaptation of the rights framework are necessary to address the dynamic challenges and complexities of the digital era.

In summary, the debate on whether internet access should be considered a human right is multifaceted. While some view it as a means to an end, others emphasize its role in enabling the exercise of other rights. Restrictions on internet access can pose obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights, and several countries have recognized the importance of universal and affordable internet access. At the international level, there is a growing recognition of the significance of internet access, but further exploration is needed to establish a comprehensive framework. The ongoing development and application of a rights framework to internet governance require continuous examination and adaptation to address emerging challenges.

Valeria Betancourt

Various spaces and processes have emerged to address the complex landscape of Internet policy, governance, and digital governance. This proliferation reflects the ongoing evolution of Internet governance, which is closely interconnected with the governance of the digital realm. However, important unresolved questions remain regarding what the internet is and how it should be governed, giving rise to the need for compromises among stakeholders and guiding principles.

Efforts to imagine the future of Internet governance have been initiated, aiming to foster a constructive dialogue among multiple actors. These conversations intend to nurture the development of necessary compromises, acknowledging the diverse perspectives and interests involved. The push for compromises is essential in navigating the complexities of internet governance and addressing the challenges that arise from this rapidly evolving environment.

Proper governance of the internet is crucial to avoid potential harm and ensure accountability. In the absence of adequate governance mechanisms, there is a risk of further harm, as well as the concentration of power in the hands of corporations. This concentration may have detrimental consequences for individuals and society as a whole. It is also essential to hold public actors accountable in the digital realm to safeguard the interests and rights of the public.

Recognising the potential of the internet to contribute to a dignified life for all, it is important to address the unresolved questions surrounding its governance. By doing so, we can work towards achieving basic compromises that can help redress structural inequalities. The internet can play a significant role in reducing inequality and promoting sustainable development, ensuring that everyone has equal access to the benefits of this powerful tool.

In conclusion, the evolution of Internet governance intertwines with the governance of the digital realm. To address unresolved questions and overcome challenges, compromises between stakeholders and guiding principles are necessary. Proper governance is required to prevent harm, prevent the concentration of power in corporations, and ensure accountability of public actors. The internet should serve the purpose of fostering a dignified life for everyone and addressing structural inequality. By actively engaging with these issues, we can create a more inclusive and equitable digital future.

Paula Martins

The analysis emphasises the importance of comprehensively discussing the nature of the internet and the necessary policy responses. It highlights the need to consider both the current state and future implications of the internet. The primary focus is on exploring the policy consequences and formulating responses that are aligned with the unique characteristics of the internet. This perspective is viewed positively, demonstrating recognition of the importance of addressing and adapting to the evolving nature of the internet.

Importantly, the discussion moves beyond theoretical contemplation and delves into practical applications and implications. It acknowledges the need to establish policies that are not only effective but also feasible in addressing the challenges posed by the internet. By adopting this practical approach, policymakers can navigate the complexities associated with the internet and optimise its potential benefits.

Furthermore, the analysis highlights the relevance of Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. This goal underscores the need to foster inclusive and sustainable economic growth through advancements in technology and infrastructure development. By aligning policy responses to the nature of the internet with SDG 9, policymakers can contribute to achieving broader global objectives and promoting positive societal outcomes.

Overall, the analysis reinforces the necessity of engaging in a comprehensive and nuanced dialogue on the nature of the internet and subsequent policy responses. It encourages policymakers to consider the practical implications and adapt their strategies accordingly. By leveraging the potential of the internet while addressing its challenges, policymakers can effectively shape the present and future landscape, fostering inclusive and sustainable development in the process.

Nandini Chami

This analysis explores various aspects of internet governance and its impact on society. One argument posits that the internet should be treated and governed as a global communication commons, emphasising unmediated communication as fundamental to its nature. Progressive movements and feminists view the internet as a promising space for unrestricted communication.

However, concerns arise regarding the control exerted by large corporations over internet infrastructure, obstructing the concept of commoning. It is noted that four companies currently own 67% of the cloud services infrastructure. Additionally, companies in the network infrastructure sector are encroaching into the communication services sector, raising concerns about the obstruction of commoning practices.

Furthermore, the negative effects of surveillance advertising on the generative power of the web are discussed. Surveillance advertising has transformed the open expanse of the internet into echo chambers, limiting diverse and open dialogue. The Digital Services Act, currently in place, is deemed insufficient to effectively address this issue.

The analysis also raises concerns about the internationalization of internet governance. Specifically, the incomplete internationalization of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is pointed out, highlighting single-state control. It further emphasizes the political nature of technical choices, indicating that decisions made in internet governance have significant political implications.

The significance of a public goods approach and commons approach to internet governance is explored. It is argued that these approaches are not antagonistic but rather complementary. The provision of infrastructure for commoning supports the public goods approach. It is suggested that an ideal internet governance model should incorporate a mixture of public, private, and cooperative enterprises.

In terms of accessibility, the analysis underscores the necessity of a proper public financing model to ensure universal and affordable internet access. The World Summit on the Information Society is mentioned as a longstanding effort to develop an appropriate model, with particular concern for marginalized communities. Insufficient financing may limit these communities to walled garden-type internet services.

Furthermore, the analysis emphasizes the importance of equitable connectivity in order for everyone to access the development dividends of the internet. Research from ICT Africa suggests that the current state of connectivity often worsens digital inequality. The need for connectivity to guarantee a fair share in data and development dividends for all is highlighted.

Lastly, the analysis underscores the importance of defining and addressing “Access to what” when discussing internet access. The current landscape often provides connectivity without yielding substantive benefits for the community, leading to a “connectivity paradox.” This highlights the need to consider the purpose and impact of internet access to effectively address digital inequality.

In conclusion, this analysis sheds light on various aspects of internet governance and its implications. It highlights the need for a global communication commons, concerns about corporate control, the detrimental effects of surveillance advertising, the necessity of internationalization, the complementary nature of public goods and commons approaches, the significance of proper public financing for universal access, and the importance of equitable connectivity. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding internet governance.

David Norman Souter

The analysis delves into the conceptualisation of the internet and raises concerns about the potential dangers of becoming entangled in the semantics of different conceptualisations. It asserts that it is crucial to move away from such debates and instead view the internet as a public good. The initial perception of the internet as a utility that provides a service to everyone supports this argument, underlining the belief that the internet should be universally accessible and available at affordable prices.

The study also acknowledges the presence of infrastructure, intermediaries, and power structures within large-scale systems like the internet. It recognises that these elements are necessary for the functioning of the internet. This understanding further emphasises the need for regulatory structures based on traditional economic models, taking into consideration the inevitable power structures that arise.

However, while traditional economic models are viewed as essential for regulatory frameworks, the analysis points out the limitations of the rights framework in this context. It argues that the rights framework primarily focuses on states rather than corporations. Furthermore, it highlights the under-emphasis of economic, social, and cultural rights within the rights framework. This observation suggests that the rights framework may not adequately cover all the aspects needed in the context of the internet.

Additionally, the study explores the complexity of empowerment through the internet. It points out that while the internet can empower individuals, including those who are traditionally marginalised, it also has the potential to empower those who abuse their power. This observation highlights the need for careful consideration and balancing of power dynamics in internet governance, recognising the potential for misuse of power.

Lastly, the analysis draws attention to the environmental impacts of the digital sector and proposes the adoption of a broader perspective. It identifies three key areas of unsustainability: overexploitation of scarce resources, high energy consumption, and improper management of e-waste, often leading to its improper disposal in developing countries. In response, the study suggests the introduction of an environmental ethos in internet governance, directing decision-making processes such as setting standards, developing new applications, and deploying networks towards more sustainable practices.

Overall, the analysis sheds light on various facets of the conceptualisation of the internet. It underscores the need to move beyond the semantics of different conceptualisations and recognise the internet as a public good. It highlights the presence of infrastructure, intermediaries, and power structures in the internet ecosystem, necessitating the consideration of traditional economic models in regulatory frameworks. It also urges a critical examination of the limitations of the rights framework in addressing the complexities of the internet. Moreover, it emphasises the necessity of vigilance in ensuring that empowerment through the internet does not enable the abuse of power. Finally, it urges a broader perspective on the environmental impacts of the digital sector, advocating for the integration of sustainability principles into internet governance.

Luca Belli

The impact of the internet on public goods and social good is a complex issue with mixed sentiments. On one hand, the internet has the potential to facilitate justice, democracy, security, and public health. It provides a platform for citizens to engage in democratic processes, access information and services, and participate in public discourse. The internet has been instrumental in promoting transparency, accountability, and citizen empowerment.

However, the internet also poses challenges and threats to public goods. The rise of infodemics, or the spread of misinformation and disinformation, has become a significant problem with the proliferation of fake news and manipulation tactics. This can negatively affect public perception, distort facts, and ultimately undermine the democratic process. Moreover, cybersecurity attacks pose a serious threat to the security of individuals and nations. These attacks can disrupt critical infrastructure, compromise sensitive information, and hinder the functioning of democratic institutions.

In addition to its impact on justice and democracy, the internet is also considered a global public good. It has broken down cultural barriers by making culture more accessible than ever before. However, the benefits of internet access are not evenly distributed. Factors such as availability and affordability of good internet connectivity greatly influence the extent to which individuals can benefit from the internet as a global public good. This digital divide creates disparities in access to information and opportunities, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Furthermore, the internet has a dual nature, simultaneously serving as a tool for strengthening public goods while also undermining them. The manipulation of individuals through the internet puts at risk the principles of democracy, human rights, and economies. By locking people into a few social media platforms and exposing them to fake news, there is a decrease in diversity of information sources, leading to echo chambers and a reduction in critical thinking. This not only undermines democracy but also impacts the economy by distorting public perceptions and decision-making processes.

Cooperation is essential for the effective management of the internet as a public good. As public goods often transform into utilities, the market is unable to effectively price them, leading to the need for state provision. The challenge lies in determining how to manage and govern the internet in a way that protects public goods while balancing the interests of different stakeholders.

Measuring the impact of internet restrictions on public goods, such as democracy and the economy, is a challenging task. The internet is a complex and dynamic system, making it difficult to quantify its precise impact. Additionally, determining who should bear the cost of internet restrictions is another challenge. Balancing the interests of governments, internet service providers, and users is crucial for finding effective solutions.

Overall, the internet has the potential to be a powerful tool for promoting public goods and social good. However, it also comes with risks and challenges that need to be addressed proactively. Cooperation and effective governance are key in harnessing the positive impacts of the internet while mitigating its negative effects.

Pablo Castro:
increasingly linked with people’s quality of life, enabling them not only to connect with family and friends, but also to exercise fundamental rights. It is essential that the internet, including its support and infrastructure, remains open, safe, interconnected, and accessible to all. From our country’s perspective, it is only possible to address this significant challenge through increasing international cooperations among different stakeholders. In recent years, there has been a debate around the nature of the internet. Is it a right by itself, or a tool to exercise these other rights? The answer to these questions could have deep implications for the formulations and development of public policies related with the internet and for definitions of the obligation that each state has regarding this technology. On one hand, if we consider the internet as a right by itself, different questions arise in relation to whom should guarantee access to it, and under what conditions, as well as the implication to share the infrastructures and regulations on internet providers. On the other hand, if we consider the internet as a tool to exercise of other rights, such as freedom of expression or access to information, then the obligations states should have will be focused on guaranteeing that people have the capacity to use the internet for this purpose. This includes reducing the economic, geographic, and technological barriers that limit access to the internet. The question of whether internet providers from the private sector are concessions holders of public service is another key issue surrounding this debate. If the internet is considered a public good, that internet providers can be seen as agents that give access to an essential service, which poses questions about regulation, insurance, equitable access. In Chile, Congress is discussing a bill related to acknowledging the internet as a public service. The goal that underpins the discussion is to reduce the gap in internet accessibility that keeps nearly 35% of Chileans’ homes without access to this network. The project is considered imposing certain obligations regarding universality in relations to the areas of coverage at the time to connect them. Related to this is the possibility of given subsidies for the demand for the connection service. The motivation behind the discussions, which affects both public and private investment, is to allow most citizens to have access to all services offered through the internet. Furthermore, the intervention of a state in the name of public interest is an issue that must be analyzed with caution. Even though it is necessary to guarantee equitable access and protection of citizens’ rights, it can be also invoked risk, such as censorships and limitation to freedom of line. Ultimately, common goods governance, such as the internet, is a complex challenge. It requires a balance between the protection of individual rights and the promotion of the public interest. It also implies collaboration among different stakeholders. In this dialogue, we invite you to think about this question, the search for answers that can reflect the evolving essential nature of the Internet of our current society. Thank you very much for all your attention. Thank you, Mr. Castro, for setting the scene. And I would like to invite you to take a moment to reflect on the importance of the Internet as a resource for all of us.

Paula Martins:
Thank you very much, Mr. Castro, for setting the scene. And what we’ll have now is the first round of comments. So we have some speakers that will talk about different approaches to looking at the Internet. We’ll have each speaker talking about one specific approach. And then in a second round of contributions, we’ll have speakers from all over the world. And as I said, I’m going to move on introducing them as I pass on the microphone to each of them. And we’ll start looking at the Internet as a public good, something that Mr. Castro already referred to in his opening remarks. And I’ll invite Luca Belli. Luca Belli is professor of the Fundação Getúlio Vargas Law School in Brazil and coordinator of the Center for Technology and Society. And he’s going to talk about the importance of the Internet as a public good. So, Luca, what does it mean to refer to the Internet as a public good? What are the concrete policy consequences of doing that? The concrete responsibilities that arise to different stakeholders based on that?

Luca Belli:
Thank you very much, Paula, for the questions, and apologies for being late. I was lost in the conference venue. So, let’s start with the first question, which is, how do we understand the importance of the Internet and its relation with public goods, or whether the Internet itself can be considered as a public good? The first one, the first dimension is that the Internet is a facilitator of public good. But at the same time, it’s also a facilitator of social good. So, the Internet is a facilitator of social good. can also undermine public good. So if we think of public goods like justice, democracy, security, public health, they can all be facilitated by ICTs and by the internet. But at the same time, if we think about all the infodemics that we have just lived during the pandemic, if we think about cybersecurity attack, if you think about meddling in democratic processes, they can also be undermined by the internet. So this first dimension of the internet as a potential instrument to strengthen public goods or to undermine them is very important and depends as a function of the kind of governance that was just mentioned, the kind of regulation that ensues from the governance that we are able to define. The other dimension is the internet itself as a global public good. There are people that are much smarter than me, like Stiglitz, that spoke about this already in the late 90s when he was theorizing, Joseph Stiglitz was theorizing a culture as a global public good that is non-rival in its access. And the benefits are not exclusionary. But there is a huge transaction cost to have culture. And the internet breaks this transaction cost. But here again, it really depends on which kind of internet we are speaking of. Because if we think about Joseph Stiglitz having a very good broadband connection, a nice PC, and living in a wealthy area where it’s easy and affordable to have good internet connectivity, that is an excellent example of how the internet is a global public good, because it allows him to directly connect with the global community and freely exchange, seek, and impart ideas, and distribute or obtain culture. If you think about how the majority world access the internet through a smartphone, usually through prepaid internet access plans where you have sponsored, zero-rated social media that are sponsored for free, for free. Of course, paid with your data, but not paid with money, whereas all the rest is capped. That is not really what Joseph Stiglitz had in his mind, and that strongly undermines, actually, public goods. So at the same point, the internet could be an enormous engine for strengthening public goods, a public good itself, but also an incredible machine for undermining public goods, and also just to capture individuals into a set of tools that basically data-fy them to then manipulate them, and therefore undermining democracy, human rights, the economy of entire states, right? So I think that we have to consider this double nature of the internet when we think about the internet in comparison with public goods.

Paula Martins:
Thank you so much, Luca, and thank you for calling attention to the different ways of looking at the internet as both an instrument for accessing public goods and the internet itself as a public good and what kind of internet we are talking about. So I’ll now pass on the floor to one of our online speakers, and we’ll have now two speakers that will be discussing the internet as a commons. Where is this concept coming from? How do you apply it to the internet? And again, what are the concrete consequences of applying it to the internet, especially when we use it in policy spaces? So I will start with Nandini Chami. Nandini is Deputy Director of IT for Change, and she’ll be joining us online. Nandini. Hi, are you able to hear me? We are.

Nandini Chami:
Yeah, okay. So. Just like quickly like getting into the subject at hand and what does it mean to apply a commons perspective to the internet? I think at a very foundational level, all of us recognize that the entire charm and promise of the internet is its affordance of being a communication commons for the entire world. And compared to all the other communication technologies that came before it, there is this possibility of many to many communication that is unmediated by a central broadcaster. And right from the beginning, this is the promise that feminists and progressive movements have always seen. And this is the web that we all celebrate. But when reflecting on the internet as a commons, I want to come to this with a reality check orientation also, that the community communicative ecology of the internet today is such that as somebody once made a quip about, you know, realistic perspectives on the world, the end of the world seems like far more easier for us to imagine than to think of the end of the big tech business model and its triangle hold over the internet. We are staring at a reality like that. I think that if we have to reclaim the internet as a global communication commons, there are three critical areas that I place before all of you for consideration. And I think we need to fix that. So the first is the issue of like, you know, the infrastructure layer and it’s captured by a few powerful corporations. We all know who holds the lion’s share of the world’s, you know, deep sea cables. And in the other, like, you know, layer of the web, when we look at like cloud services, we know that just like four companies own 67% of the cloud services like infrastructure today. And if the infrastructure is controlled by private sector in such a massive way, what is the scope for commoning? And then we also know that there are these egregious moves where the companies operating in the network infrastructure sector are also getting into the communication services sector. In my own country, there is a debate on net neutrality violations about what happens if telecom companies that hold the lion’s share of the Indian market are going to operate in the network like, you know, services, digital services layer, and also demand a network usage fee from the digital services. There is a policy moving push like that. So what does it really mean for net neutrality? And what does it mean for the voices of everyone? And the other problem we are all familiar with about like what happens when big tech who started out in the communication services layer is controlling the deep sea cables that reach the internet to the most marginalized regions of the world as well. And we know this issue and we have to do something about it. The second issue, when you look at the digital services itself, the entire point that, you know, there is a surveillance advertising model and this has completely destroyed the generative power of the hyperlink, which was the open sea of the web where the web ran on serendipity. And instead you have like, you know, this kind of social media model of the stream where we are all locked in our own like echo chambers and bubbles and there is no possibility of commoning or any community building. We have discussed this problem ad nauseam, so I will not like get into that problem again. But in terms of looking at solutions, if the most radical thing we can come up with is like the model, like a digital services act, that votes very ill for all of us, I think, about how do you actually get out of surveillance advertising and think of something different to reclaim communication platforms and the digital spaces? I think this is a question that stares us in the face. The third point that I would like to make and some. Some of you may have seen this op-ed piece that came out a couple of days ago, which was co-authored by the chair of the IGF leadership panel and the technology envoy, where they actually argue about how in the future of Internet governance, there needs to be a protective mode around the technical governance in terms of preserving the political structure and functioning. But looking back at what has transpired and the history that has occurred, is Internet governance really political? We all know the story of the incomplete internationalization of ICANN, and we know the default is one state is able to control the critical Internet resources still. So if we are not truly internationalizing Internet governance, and we are still continuing to hold on to a somewhat like, you know, fictionalized idea of a political technical governance, where at another level we all recognize that all technical choices are political choices. As Lawrence Lessig said, code is law and architecture is a policy choice. And we see that the different geopolitical or economic visions of development have led us to a situation where, in contrast to the Internet we have known, there is another vision of the Internet that stands before us today, imagined by another state with a different political model. And we don’t want to be caught in a geopolitical war of like, you know, where different political visions lead to Internet fragmentation. But if we have to address this question, we have to talk about what are these political choices and not like rest in this like same old like idea of a political Internet governance. We must move beyond that and look at like what would it mean to truly internationalize Internet governance. The final point, and I’ll just like take very little time, I think that when we look at the approaches, it may be important to not to see the global public goods and commons as oppositional approaches, as is traditionally done, you know, like when you talk about commons and when you talk about public goods. At some level, there is like, you know, this interesting research work that is coming out of Utrecht University, which is talking about the fact that oftentimes a public goods approach will provision the infrastructure on which commoning can take place, because it’s important to think of like commoning as a noun and also remember the communities, the people who are commoning, and then we have to make choices where we may be kind of like having this realistic approach where like when you think about economy and India, my country has traditionally thought of mixed economy. You have public enterprise, you have private enterprise, you have cooperativist enterprise. So when we think of Internet governance model, we must be actually asking ourselves how do we get the public infrastructure and the public financing and generally like the governance of the standards in a way that is truly public, so you build a commons that is truly belonging to the people and not a pro-capitalist commons that is then just cannibalized by big tech. So looking forward to hearing from everyone, I’ll just stop here.

Paula Martins:
Thank you Nandini for calling attention about the idea of the commons and the reality check of the critical areas that we need fixing so that we can actually have a commons and for already touching on what will be the second part of our discussions here today. And I’ll invite now Bruna, Bruna will also talk about the Internet as a commons, Bruna Martins Santos is a global campaigns manager at Digital Action. Bruna, you have the floor.

Bruna Martin-Santos:
Always forget to turn it on. Thanks a lot Paula and thanks APC for the invitation as well and to bring such a relevant debate to the IGF, right? I guess in the past years all of us had spent at least a week in one of these forests or spaces discussing the most relevant issues, but we all live these places feeling really bad and heavy from the pessimistic approach that normally the Internet governance discussion has taken, so it’s good for once to be doing more positive debate and one that looks towards to the future. I would say, I’ll maybe start by saying that for the past 30, 20, 30 years, Internet governance discussions have all guided us through the processes, right? And operated under the normative framework that’s focused on rules and values, all of that because it acknowledges how relevant the Internet is for societies and for its development. There is a rich story and experience on how the Internet works, what are the bodies that are involved in it, but we do lack sometimes the further inclusion of some other parts and some other groups in society, or even we do fail in bringing in this very strong global majority narrative to the conversation that’s so relevant for everyone involved in this discussion to understand what are the problems in reality. But despite of that, we have also been watching the world go more and more complex in the past years, and the equation around things such as elections or human rights gets even more complex with many stakeholders being called to the responsibility to protect ecosystems and rights, and to me this is very much connected to this discussion, right? But at the same time, I think it’s also possible for us to say that despite a lot of the society issues we face nowadays and sometimes problematic governmental intervention, the Internet remains resilient and its core characteristics and aspects are still there, and it still allows for everyone to exist and express itself, and it’s still perceived as a basic and common and really core aspect of every place that we’re at. I would like to also add that it’s interesting to see how the community is evolving towards reflections and debates about things such as the failure of some companies and corporations, but in the end of the day, this is really a conversation about what are the discrepancies, what is lacking in access when we talk about access, what is lacking when we talk about empowering stakeholders and bringing more voices. As the good and old saying says, access to Facebook is not access to the Internet, and we should not really rest until everybody understands and adds layers to that. Just to maybe start going towards the topic more further, as a global public resource, I would say the Internet has to be universal and affordable, and its governance should be grounded in international and human rights standards and public interest principles. Technologies and the Internet itself, they do play a crucial role in addressing a lot of the global challenges, and we do need global calls to action to advance access to them and encourage countries to build what is needed in terms of technologies for everybody. This says a lot about enhancing safeguards, addressing governance issues, and mitigating some of the abuse and some of the problems in this space as Luca was also referring to. Last but not least, I would say that more proactive engagement of the technical community is also required in this debate. The Internet doesn’t magically exist or simply operate. We do rely on a lot of folks and expertise for it to exist, so the success of all of that and the success of spaces such as the IGF is also reliant on these types of communities such as the technical one. The last thing that I would say is that when we talk about all of this, the global equity crisis needs to be a key aspect of such discussions. A lot of the Internet-related problems are rooted in inequality. This is one of them. Abuse of power is another of the issues, and insufficient collaboration is another one of the topics. The fact that the narratives from the parts of the world that suffer most with said interventions are not the ones shaping the policies is problematic, so we need the global majority to be making the calls and leading the processes, and I do hope that in the future of spaces such as the GDC and Summit of the Future, we take that into consideration. So I guess I’ll stop here, and thanks a lot, Paula.

Paula Martins:
Thanks to you, Bruna. Thanks for talking about the importance of actually not only reflecting about different approaches but also different realities, the role of inequalities and power politics behind the policy choices. And with that, I’ll move on to our final speaker of this round that will be, again, joining us online, and I’ll invite Azin Tadjdini. Azeem is Human Rights Officer from the Rule of Law and Democracy section of the Office of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Azeem, can you hear us? You have the floor. Very well.

Azin Tadjdini:
Thank you so much, and I hope you can hear me as well. It’s a great pleasure to be with you and to also listen to people whose work I admire so much. So I’ll say a few words about internet access as a human rights or as an enabler of human rights, and this is a question that also Mr. Castro alluded to in the beginning about how to actually legally conceptualize the internet and internet access, which is a big debate. It’s also a big debate also in the human rights world. Is it a human right in itself? Is it not? And what difference would it make? So there is these two poles that we have. On the one side, the view that internet is a technology and it’s a means to an end, but not an end in itself, and so it is not a human right and it shouldn’t be a human right. And the view that, well, it’s an enabler of human rights is what is currently reflected in the state of international human rights law where internet access yet is not recognized as a right in itself, but it is recognized as an enabler right in the sense that restrictions to internet access can constitute undue interference with rights such as freedom of expression or freedom of peaceful assembly, but also of socioeconomic rights such as the right to education, the right to health. So in other words, from this point of view, this conceptualization means that there is a negative duty on states not to unduly interfere with rights as exercised online, but there is not a positive duty to actually provide internet access. And on the other hand, there is the view that internet access is not only a tool, but it’s become so intertwined with our basic ability to exercise our rights that it should be considered. to human rights and then, in other words, there’s a positive duty on states to ensure access. And I’ll go a bit back to this, but even though I initially mentioned that internationally there’s no such, or we haven’t reached a state where international human rights law actually creates a legal obligation to ensure internet access, at the domestic level in some states this is already considered a right. So it’s an individual or a constitutional right in the sense that the law establishes a positive duty on the state to ensure universal access and, in some cases, also affordable access. So some examples that I think we have all heard of is, for example, the Constitution of Greece that states that the facilitation of access to electronically transmitted information and the production, exchange and diffusion of such information constitutes an obligation of the states. And there’s also a similar language from the Constitutional Court of France and the Constitutional Court of Costa Rica. And a bit similar to what also I think the bill that is proposed in Chile, there is a law in Finland that has declared broadband access a basic right. And similarly in Estonia, internet access is part of the universal service that the state has to provide to all its people. So at the domestic level there has been a development towards recognizing internet access as a right and as a positive obligation of the state. And at the international level that’s not the case. Although here I think it’s also important to bear in mind where we’ve come from. So the development of how international human rights law deals with the internet. And one milestone is, of course, the 2012 Human Rights Council resolution that was adopted to protect free speech on the internet and that called upon states to promote and facilitate access to the internet and international cooperation aimed at developing media and information communication facilities in all countries. So it was the first UN resolution of its kind. And since then there’s a growing attention by human rights mechanisms, treaty bodies, special procedures, as well as regional human rights mechanisms about the importance of the internet and internet access to the ability of people to enjoy and exercise their rights. And this is also recognized by the Sustainable Development Goals, which reinforces an obligation to work towards universal and accessible internet. So there is this development and I think from an international human rights perspective, what would be important to ask is, so if we recognize universal internet access as a right, what should that mean? Because there’s no one form of right. You have rights that can be realized progressively depending on the resources of the state. And so what would a human right to internet access actually look like? Would it be an absolute right? Probably not. But if not, what would be the conditions for restrictions? What would it mean for the interplay between state and private sector given precisely the sort of global nature of the internet? And what would it mean, for example, for a state duty to protect people from cyber attack that inhibit their access to the internet? So even if we move towards or if international human rights law moves towards increasingly recognizing universal access as a human right, the question still remains, well, what kind of right do we want it to be? And what kind of obligations should it actually create? I’ll stop there and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Paula Martins:
Thank you so much for, well, telling us a little bit of the state of the art, where we are exactly in the discussions. We still have two views on the internet as a right in itself and the internet as an enabler. But I understand that not only in the examples of national legislation, but the other examples of global policy that you mentioned, this direction that it seems that we are taking to recognize it, access to the internet as a right in itself. And with that, we’ll move on to the second part of our discussion here today, that is inviting some commentators to react to these different approaches that were shared with us. And the question is, like, what are the key, the main takeaways from what you’ve heard? What are the main commonalities, the divergences? And how these different concepts can be combined, complemented, how they relate to each other and how we could use them in global policy spaces? Easy questions. So, I’ll start with you. Esther Heusen is Senior Advisor for Global and Regional Internet Governance with the Association for Progressive Communications.

Anriette Esterhuysen:
Thanks. I was just trying to convince David to go first. Thanks very much. And I’m sorry I was late. I had another session that ran a little bit late. I don’t know if I have anything useful to say, even though this is a concept that I’ve personally been grappling with for a long time. And I think what I really want to celebrate and thank APC for doing is to actually get us to talk about this at the IGF, because I think what this is responding to is a conversation that internet governance should have started with, not actually be trying to end with, or go into its next evolution cycle with. I think that, I mean, anyone from the technical community who, if they were here, would say to you, the internet is not one thing. But actually, as I listened to the speakers, it resonated with me. The internet is not one thing. And for me, that also resonated with Nandini’s comment about not looking at commons and public good as being in opposition. And I think similarly, looking at internet or access to the internet as a human right or as an enabler of other human rights, that’s also not a conflictual. So I think that there’s real synergy between these three different concepts that are being discussed. And I think what they all speak to is the fundamental problem. And I think Nandini articulated that well, and maybe also before I came. But the fact that how we imagined this internet as a connector of people, as a disruptor of concentration of power, as a leveler of distributing more voice and more influence, we’ve lost that to a large extent. And I think what we are really talking about here, whether we are entering it from the commons perspective, the rights perspective, or the public good perspective, is to look at a framework that will allow us to reclaim that. And then I want to just go back to reflect on maybe this is about the internet not being one thing, and I think we also have to keep in mind that it evolves, and that if we are going to try and make a contribution to internet governance, and encourage some kind of paradigm shift if we can get as far as that, I think it has to be something that is future-oriented, that can address the challenges of how a technology that emerges within the public domain, for example, can then become appropriated by commercial interests, further developed, and invest. It’s a little bit like the pharmaceutical industry, we wouldn’t have medication if it wasn’t for private sector money going into it, but we also wouldn’t have drugs and retrovirals in my country if governments did not intervene to ensure that those patents were available. So you need a shift of some kind. So I’m going to let David give you all the answers, but what I want to say is that I think we can look at the concept of the public core of the internet, that is a norm that has been developed, I was personally involved in that, the Dutch government, Dennis Bruder did some work on this, a Dutch academic, but trying to identify if there are parts of this distributed, interconnected internet which we can actually govern and regulate and manage as a public good, a public infrastructure, there are analogies, we can look at places where water is supplied in a municipality by private companies, but there are standards and procedures that private companies have to adhere to, to ensure that that water is affordable, that it’s available, that it’s clean, so and then we have the notion of the protection of the public core as well, which it requires both governments and companies not to interfere with it in particular ways. Then I think there’s the idea of the commons, and I like Nandini. telling us that we don’t have to think of them as alternatives, public good, which generally comes with more of a sense of the public sector and the state having to play a stewardship role, and the commons, which is much more of a bottom-up process. They are part of the Internet, which I think is the commons, but then they are also part of the Internet that is run by the private sector and that’s built out by the private sector, and we have to accommodate that. We can’t change that. I don’t believe in nationalizing the Internet, but I also don’t believe in surveillance, capitalism, and models where our data, our behavior, our communications are being extracted for commercial gain, and I think there are ways of looking at that, very practical ways, for example, such as the data that emerges from all these companies. The European Union now has regulation that ensures researchers have access to that data. If you’re in Brazil and you want to access what happened during the election with social media last year, was it last year or the year before? Last year, you’d have to pay millions of dollars to get access to that data, so there are lots of things, they’re parts of the Internet that I think that we should be able to claim as being in the public domain, and then I think, then I’m just going to end with two bullet points before I give this to David. I think it is important to recognize that the architecture of both the Internet and of Internet governance, so the technical architecture and the governance, including the technical governance, is not apolitical. I think that’s a very important starting point, and I think Bruna also made that point, that point about power, and I think that’s important. Then my final bullet point is, Mr. Castro, I didn’t hear your comments, but I think Luca’s point about both the positive and the negative outcomes of looking at the Internet as a public good, I think all governance models, including the status quo governance models, we need to look at both the intended and the unintended positive and negative. consequences, and I don’t think we’re doing enough of that with the status quo, but as we develop alternative models we also need to look at intended and unintended consequences.

Paula Martins:
Thank you. David, we are ready for all the answers now, so I invite you to share with us. Let me just introduce you, wait, let me just introduce, because I failed to do so. So David Soter is Managing Director of ICT Development Associates. David, now you go.

David Norman Souter:
Sometimes I have the misfortune to examine PhD theses in the social sciences, and to some extent I felt like this is like the first, the opening chapters of those theses, where the poor student has to go through every kind of theory that there has been in the area in which they’re trying to work on, and then bring those things together and come up with something, some kind of new concept, a new contribution, which draws on each of those other areas of previous work, and in very many cases they get trapped in the semantics of this, and I think there is a danger here of being trapped in the semantics of this. Okay, so we’re different conceptualizations here, and you can draw on all of them. A is better than C, or A plus B plus C is essential. You can draw on these things without putting them together, and that’s, say, I was trained as an historian, not as a social scientist, and historians start by looking at the evidence and only come to the conceptualizations that social scientists use at the end of their analysis of the process, so that’s how I tend to look at things. So, I’m saying don’t be trapped in the semantics. I think there are, these are fairly random thoughts about the three points that were made, so there is no constructed theory here, because you can’t write an essay while sitting listening to the presentations. Just in terms of, first in terms of public goods, I mean when this was first talked about on the internet, public goods, about 20 years ago, there was a lot of confusion, because there is the economic definition of public goods as non-excludable and non-rival, which was understood by economists, but then non-economists were using the term to refer to things that were for the good of the public, and in particular to see the internet as a delivery mechanism for things that were for the good of the public, and that very much puts it in the kind of area of traditional regulation of utilities. It’s saying it’s a utility which provides a service to people and therefore should be universally accessible and available at affordable prices, so that everyone can benefit from it. It seems to me that that’s the kind of genesis of that concept of public good, whereas the concept from the common seems to me to be derived more from the internet as a communications medium, and in that context, so it’s a communications medium and it should be universally available because it is a communications medium and enables everybody to talk to everybody else, as opposed to a medium that delivers to them products and services. And I think the issue here is to do, to some extent, with the evolution of the internet, so that, you know, once upon a time it was small and now it is large, and in things that are as large as the internet, you have infrastructure and you have intermediaries. It’s not possible for something that large to be conducted without those things, and if you have infrastructure and intermediaries, you have the power structures that go with that. You have a requirement for capital investment, and there are not many places where that capital investment can come from. And in the case of the internet, you also, and other communications media, you also have network externality, so the more people there are on Facebook, the more valuable it is by a factor that is more than equivalent to the numbers. If you have 10 million people on something, it is much more valuable to you, one person, than if there are only 10,000 on it. And those things drive the power of data corporations. It’s very difficult to see how you can avoid those power structures, so if you can’t avoid those power structures, well, it’s not possible to say I can avoid them if you have to regulate them. I think, back to the regulatory structures that are required, and there are traditional economic models for doing that as well. The rights perspective is obviously crucially important, but the rights framework, the international rights framework, doesn’t cover everything that needs to be considered here, and that’s, I think, part of the difficulty in trying to root things in a purely rights perspective. So the rights perspective focuses, the rights framework focuses on states, not on corporations, and increasingly it’s corporations where the real power lies. So where are the responsibilities and obligations that are placed on those corporations? Generally, there’s been a discussion in a rights context about particular rights, and there’s been an under-emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights, and so on the development and environment kind of domains. And I think the rights perspective is a different lens to that which is used by the most powerful actors within the internet world. So it’s a different lens to that used by governments, it’s a different lens to that used by corporations, it’s a different lens in particular to that used by some governments and some corporations. So it’s an extremely important perspective, but it’s not sufficient in itself to cover all that is required. Those are random thoughts, not yet in essay form.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, David, and I think our proposal is not to get lost in translation. It’s not merely a theoretical exercise, what we are proposing for the discussion here today, but really to think about the policy consequences and use these entry points to discuss the nature of the internet and what kind of policy responses we’re looking for for the upcoming years and for right now, actually for the present, not only for the future. What we have now is we’ll open the floor for questions. So Nadine, in a second I’ll give you the floor to share if there are any questions online, then I’ll ask here if there are any questions in the room, and after that I’ll give you all, speakers from the first round, a final chance to react again to the comments that you heard from the commentators. You have two minutes each, so it’s like firing back, maybe if there are any specific questions to you, and then we’ll wrap up with my colleague Valeria, that will try to systematize the key points coming out of the discussion. So Nadine, do we have any questions from the online participants?

Nandini Chami:
Yeah, there are about like four questions, so how many can we take, Paula? Let me see, how many questions we have in the room? One.

Paula Martins:
If you are going to read them quickly, they are all questions or comments? They’re all questions. Okay, so yeah, just read them all. We’ll give the floor here in the room, and I’ll just invite you to do your best to respond to them. Go ahead, Nadine.

Nandini Chami:
Yeah, so the first question is about like, you know, how do we ensure that, what are the best approaches to ensure that we bring affordable connectivity to the largest number of people? The second question is actually, yeah, the second one is a comment about the internet as a tool for empowerment, so I’ll skip that, and the third is a question about what do we do about the energy footprint and the consequences of the greenhouse gas emissions and everything of like digital technologies, and how do you think of the sustainability question in the era of 4IR? And the last question is about when is it possible to make internet available and accessible for the underprivileged in developing countries, and what actually be done about it, like what can we do next? Thank you, Nandini. Dinesh, if you could

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Nandini. Dinesh, if you could use the microphone to your left. Thanks, Nandini. I think

Audience:
What you said actually kind of addresses, like mentions what I want to ask, but I want to be very specific in what I want to say, which is internet for all of us is the web and not accessibility in terms of infrastructure, the fiber, the something and all that. Internet is the web, which is hyperlinks, interlinking, hypertext and all those things. Now there are 3 billion people in the world who cannot read and write, 1 billion in India who cannot do Google search, make sense of the results, and if you can’t read and write, what is internet for you? Why are we not pushing technical people to look at this and see what is hyperlinking when you don’t have text, what is, you know, and there’s so much we can do, and we as a group of very highly literate people stop asking questions when it comes to the web and internet. For example, when you give a book, you write on the margins, how many of you have asked why don’t I have it on the web? This is a starting of a beginning, like why we need to push things, this is all I want to say, and we need to look at it, IGF is a forum, not like the Silicon Valley, not like the corporate, not like something where we can actually take a decision on what is the technology that helps push the web to the low literate people.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Dinesh. Mr. Castro, can we start with you? We have two minutes, everybody will have two minutes to react, both to respond to questions and also some reactions, would you like to, yeah? Okay, so Luca, we’ll start with you.

Luca Belli:
All right, so I just, I want to react quickly to the comment that has just been done about the fact that for most people the internet is the web, I think I disagree, and my point before was precisely that for most people actually the internet is not the web, because for those who have the privilege to have fixed internet access, and you can use the web as an app to browse through the internet, and that is a chance, but for most people, actually a couple of billions, at least, of people in the world, a web is not the web. The web is only a small part of what they do in the internet. What they primarily do in the internet is using two or three applications, which is on their mobile phones. So it’s a very tiny part of the internet. And it’s really an enormous walled garden in which they don’t have the privilege of being internet users browsing through the web. But they are data-fied, basically, the entire day. And they are fed with algorithmically-recommended content based either on their profile or based on who pays the most. So I think that if we want to start then to get into what the IGF could do, well, what it has been doing over the past years is allowing a platform for these issues to be discussed. What the IGF has not been doing but should have been done is also to try to recommend solutions that could be utilized to, if not solve, at least mitigate these kind of issues. And these kind of issues, they require cooperation. If you take my point on the possibility to consider internet as a public good, any kind of public good requires cooperation then to be managed, right? The commentator explained about the fact that then at the end of the day, public goods end up being utilities, of course, because the market does not know how to price them. And then you have usually the state intervening to provide them. But it is also actually a huge problem when you undermine them. Because if you lock, for instance, 3 billion people into a couple of social media platform and you feed them only with fake news, then you are undermining democracy, you’re undermining human rights, you’re undermining the economy. But you cannot price it. You cannot say, you can say 10% more connectivity penetration equals to 3.6% increase in GDP. But you cannot say 70% of people in a country only having access to Facebook equals to minus 50% of democracy. Because you cannot price democracy. You cannot price. You cannot meter. So, I think we have to be a little bit creative, not only discussing these issues, but also understanding my point on public goods is not necessarily, I’m not advocating for considering the Internet a public good, I think one has to consider both sides of the coin, and then the interesting part of it would be then not to understand whether the Internet should be considered a public good, but whether when it undermines public goods, how to meter it and which kind of solution, who should pay this cost.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Luca. Nandini, thank you so much for doubling as our speaker and our online moderator, I would like to give you the floor now to have your final remarks.

Nandini Chami:
Yeah, so I would just like to take on one of the questions that came from the Bangladesh remote hub, that what is it that it means to make the Internet accessible and available and affordable for the most marginalised? Because I think it speaks to everything we have been talking about so far, including the Internet as a right, the public good questions and the provisioning, Internet as a communication commons that is not like cannibalised by surveillance capital, it speaks to all dimensions of the question. Here, I think that right from the time of the World Summit on the Information Society, we have been like, you know, we failed to find a proper public financing model that can ensure that the Internet in its foundational sense and not like a zero services type of walled garden version is available to everyone in the world, and 20 years after the Vissers or Moore, we are still talking about that agenda, so I think we need to kind of like have a way to discuss the financing question about that. And secondly, I think when we are talking about Internet access, the question of access to what, which many of us have been talking about today, that needs to also be addressed, because what is it that this access is supposed to do? Like there’s a study by Research ICT Africa, which actually talks about the connectivity paradox where connectivity actually means like more digital inequality. Is that what we want, or do we, are we talking about a world where connectivity means equitable access to the data dividends and the development dividends of the Internet for everyone? So we might have… So I think we have to kind of like push this, like in however we engage with in the Global Digital Compact process and the World Summit on the Information Society action lines that may come up. So I feel we have all a lot of work to do here. And thank you again for organizing this very, very important and critical discussion.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Nandini. Bruna?

Bruna Martin-Santos:
Thanks, Paula. Yeah, just to add some more thoughts to this, I think I agree with some of both our commentators’ additions to the conversation about from Henriette that this is a debate where Internet governance might have started, right? But it’s also important to be coming back to this at this point in history where we still see the gaps, right? And I also agree that some of the concepts are definitely not opposing as well as with the idea of not getting lost in the semantics of the whole conversation. At the same time, addressing the gaps is urgent, mitigating the abuses and discrepancies as well. We are at a moment in history where it seems to be a need to cooperate even further in order to advance the development and use of digital public goods or Internet as a common or as a human right. At the same time, it’s important to discuss appropriate safeguards to ensure the protection of rights, privacy, data protection, as well as inclusion of all communities and genders and regions and claims. This will help us build trust around this space, foster an inclusive technology ecosystem that also meets the needs of the local populations because it’s what we’re talking about. And last but not least, I would say we do need, and I hope we get out of the GDC, more recognition of the Internet and information as a commons or a public good and how we’re moving forward in governing that and managing that as a collective resource. So, thanks a lot.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Bruna. Azin, can we hear from you?

Azin Tadjdini:
Thank you. And thanks to everyone, including the questions online. So, yeah, just to start, I think I completely agree with David’s point that the rights framework doesn’t and cannot cover all the elements of Internet governance, all the questions that arise there. But I think it’s still the development in the rights landscape will also impact very much on the reality. So, rights will not just reflect the facts. Very often they don’t. But the way in which these discussions are later articulated in terms of rights, legally conceptualized rights, will also impact how, of course, Internet governance takes place. And so, it’s a very central part of the discussion. And also, just on the sort of question about infrastructure versus access, I think one added value of the rights framework is particularly the question about what type of Internet or what type of access do we actually speak about? And what kind of content do we speak about, considering that so much of the content in places where people actually do have access to the Internet is very heavily interfered with by states, but also by private sector. So, that’s where I think there’s an added value of the rights framework, which provides for the free flow of ideas of all kinds.

Paula Martins:
Thank you, Azin. I only refer to the speakers, but we still have some time. So, I’ll give our commentators also the chance to share some final remarks before we have a quick systematization of the key takeaways. David, who wants to start? I’m asking if you want to.

David Norman Souter:
Thank goodness for that. Maybe I’ll just pick up on a couple of the questions and kind of raise some complications with them. So, firstly, on empowerment and tools for empowerment, I’ve always had a slight problem with the way in which this concept is used, because innovations like the Internet, for example, have been used for a long time. the Internet empower everyone, not just those who are disempowered, and not just those who we might hope to empower because they are disempowered or for progressive reasons. The Internet empowers everybody, including people who are powerful and abuse their power. So in particular, it can empower people in the sense that people who are disadvantaged in the sense that it gives them additional resources which they can use in effective ways, but at the same time, it can empower those who have power over them more than it empowers them. So think of that in terms of employer-employee relationships, say, or landlord-tenant relationships, or some gender relationships, family relationships. So empowerment is a more complicated issue, I think, than is often discussed here. On the environmental point, I didn’t quite catch the question, I’m afraid, but I sort of spoke in the main session from the platform this morning in the main session on the environment. And so I do think this is a particularly important dimension and is often missing from, still missing from our discussions about the direction of Internet development and more generally digital development, which is now much larger than Internet development. And I think there are many dimensions to it. It’s often discussed in digital fora on the basis of what can be done with digital technology to address particularly climate change. But it’s important to look at this in a broader perspective. So there are three ways in which the digital sector is currently unsustainable in the way that it is progressing, and those are to do with the overexploitation of scarce resources which are used in digital devices, the energy consumption gross rate, and e-waste, which is rarely recycled and substantially dumped in developing countries. So all of those things need to be addressed, and what I was proposing in the session this morning was that we need to introduce into across the board in Internet governance and in the thinking of governments and businesses and the technical sector an environmental ethos which thinks about environmental impacts as part of decision-making processes, for example, in setting standards, in developing new applications, in deploying networks. So the goal is both to maximize the potential value of those innovations and to minimize their environmental footprint.

Anriette Esterhuysen:
Thanks very much. Well, I mean, thanks for the questions, and I mean, I think much as we want a paradigm shift, we’re not going to get one, so we have to start somewhere. And I think the one thing that we – there is a lot of regulation of the Internet. I mean, we’ve talked about the European Digital Services, Digital Market Act, there’s regulation at many, many country levels as well. But I think the problem is that the regulation, a lot of the regulation is actually not targeting the powerful, it’s targeting people, it’s targeting users. It’s not targeting the manufacturers of the devices or the builders of the infrastructure. So I think maybe a shift away, yes, regulatory response is necessary, but shift that regulatory response in such a way that it actually tries to address concentration of power in a more effective way. And this applies also to the issue of the environment and environmental impact. So we need more common acknowledgment and some principles that we need to regulate how companies do business on the Internet, and not just in the European Union and not just targeting the big tech companies. Actually, we need to look at business as a whole and look at diversifying and opening markets more and opening innovation more. You know, this notion of permissionless innovation is another thing. We need to be able to regulate innovation in such a way, not to prevent it, but to prevent harm. And we have principles from the pharmaceutical industry, the idea of the precautionary principle. If new apps are developed, that could change how children learn or how people interact with one another. And why should those not be first tested before they can go into operation? I think we need to also regulate how infrastructure is built from an environmental impact and energy perspective. And yes, I’ve mentioned devices already, and this includes the disposal of the devices, but the endurance of the devices. I mean, surely we should have regulations that stop e-waste from proliferating at the rate that it does. But one can introduce standards for the manufacturing of devices so that they last longer, so that they can be updated. It is possible to change that. But I think to change that, we also need to shift our understanding of development, this whole notion that growth equals development. that will alleviate poverty by creating more rich people. We need to shift away from those conceptions. But then I think one of the real challenges here is that because we’re dealing with a globalized network and a globalized market, we cannot rely on our traditional, I think the rights, as in, by the way, I think the rights framework does give us what we want, but there’s one thing in the rights framework that doesn’t work that well for us, and that’s the concept of the state as duty bearers and the rest of us as rights holders, and that it’s the state’s responsibility to ensure that private sector actors comply with rights frameworks. It’s very hard to make that work within the current internet context, both because the companies are so powerful and because the states are so unaccountable. It becomes very hard to trust states to play the role of holding business accountable when states themselves are not accountable for acting in the public interest and managing and growing the internet and regulating the internet in the public interest. And then I think we also need to have a third dimension here, and that is about empowering communities and allowing communities to create their own approach to internet. I mean, one of the things that we’ve learned in APC by working with community networks is that there are communities who only want internet in their village. They don’t actually want to connect to the global internet. They’re quite happy just to be able to have free WhatsApp calls in their own area. So I think that’s the third thing. So I want to stop at that, but I do want to say I think, as in mentioned, the complexity of the human rights framework, I think it gives us a lot to work with. I disagree with you in that, David. And I think she didn’t mention specifically, but the business, the guidelines on business and human rights, will probably never become a treaty because some governments will block it, but it’s providing us with really good guidelines on how to ensure that companies are accountable.

Paula Martins:
Thank you all for the very insightful contributions. Very, very interesting. And I’ll give now the floor to my colleague, Valeria, that took lots of notes, and she’s gonna tell us how we are going to use all these insights that we just compiled here today. Valeria.

Valeria Betancourt:
Thank you so much, Paola, and thank you so much to all of you for your insights. Actually, Andrea did my, you did my job, so thank you so much, Andrea, because, yes, so I won’t repeat what has been said. I just want to say that we were motivated to convene this conversation because obviously there are questions that are not resolved, starting by the basic one about what the, Internet is and also how we can deal moving forward with the governance of not only the Internet itself but the governance of the implications and impacts of its use. And we are in a very particular moment in which also the evolution of Internet governance is proving that it is interplaying very directly and deeply with the broader governance of the digital realm. So in this current moment in which several spaces and processes dealing with issues of the Internet policy and Internet governance and digital governance have proliferated. So what we can do? What’s next? How we can keep contributing to it? Like two years ago we started a process to imagine the future of Internet governance and this session kind of closes that initial phase of our reflection and also the thinking and analysis of how we can fit into these several processes that are looking at the configuration of the digital future. So in this moment I think, well the speakers have said it all, I think what we can push for and how we expect to use the outcomes of this conversation is to precisely nurture and feed into the thinking of what are the compromises that are needed between the different stakeholders and what’s the principles that should guide Internet governance and digital governance moving forward to precisely set, to precisely avoid what Andrea was saying, to avoid like causing further harm and putting people in the center and regulating in a way that we address the structural problems and particularly the concentration of power in corporations but also the lack of accountability of public actors in particularly government. So we expect to use those not only in the framework of the IGF and the conversations happening here but also in the framework of the Global Digital Compact and the WSIS plus 20 review and the commitments emerging in the context of the acceleration of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. So the role that we want to play and how we want to use these inputs is to make sure that these questions that have kept unresolved for so long are still addressed, and that we address in a way that helps us to move towards basic compromises to address structural inequality, towards ensuring that the internet can serve the purposes of ensuring a dignified life for everyone. So that’s what I want to say, and then I pass it to you, Paula, for closing.

Paula Martins:
And I would just like to thank you all again. Thank you, you, Valeria, the participants online, the speakers online. And with that, we wrap up the session of today. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Cho Changeun

The discussions in South Korea revolve around various topics related to the regulation and management of internet traffic and collaboration between companies. One notable incident was Netflix’s lawsuit against SK Broadband in April 2020. Netflix claimed network neutrality, arguing that platforms should not have to pay network fees to ISPs for increased traffic. However, the court disagreed with Netflix, establishing that platforms have a responsibility to contribute to network costs.

While some ISPs have traditionally charged network fees, others, such as KT and LG U+, have chosen to partner with Netflix in profit-sharing agreements. This approach allows them to bypass network fees and instead generate revenue from their collaboration with the streaming giant.

On the other hand, global over-the-top (OTT) platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus are showing an increasing interest in investing in local Korean content. The government supports this trend by offering additional tax deductions for video content produced within the country. Politicians are pushing for the worldwide expansion of Korean OTT platforms, aiming to increase profits for Korean companies. These platforms are also competing to acquire Korean dramas, which hold symbolic representation of the Korean wave, further emphasizing the significance of local content.

However, concerns have been raised regarding the burden placed on ISPs for traffic management responsibilities. It is argued that businesses generating substantial traffic should take responsibility for managing it, rather than leaving it solely to telecom companies and ISPs. The South Korean government has taken steps to ensure a minimum broadband speed of 100Mbps as a universal service, requiring continual investment. The CEO of Korean ISP, KT, has highlighted the potential traffic problems that could arise in the future due to the rapid development of AI.

The government’s role in these discussions is viewed as more of a mediator in negotiations, rather than actively creating new regulations. It is believed that the government should facilitate cooperation between companies, rather than imposing additional regulations. This approach is seen as more effective in managing the economic effects derived from the Korean wave and fostering collaborations between companies.

Regulation was mentioned in relation to the stability of online content providers, referring to the Netflix Act. This act applies to platforms and video-on-demand (VOD) service providers with more than 1 million daily users and accounting for more than 1% of total traffic in Korea. However, Netflix has not been a point of concern in terms of stability and regulation.

Advancements in technology have also been highlighted in the discussions. It is argued that newer technology can already handle issues related to internet traffic, reducing the need for additional regulation. The rapid pace of technological development also means that government regulations can become outdated quickly, leading to the belief that the government’s role should be more focused on negotiation between companies.

Overall, the discussions highlight the complexity of managing internet traffic and the importance of cooperation between companies. The government’s involvement is deemed essential in facilitating these collaborations and ensuring the stability of online content providers. The popularity surge in video-on-demand, linear streaming, and live streaming further emphasizes the need for a deeper impact analysis. In considering local content contributions, platform and content neutrality should also be taken into account to ensure a fair and diverse content ecosystem.

Toshiya Jitsuzumi

Telecom carriers worldwide are heavily investing to improve Internet quality due to the surge in Internet usage driven by video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, resulting in increased operation costs. The digital divide, especially in rural and disadvantaged areas, requires additional investments from network operators and over-the-top (OTT) players. Different approaches, such as the Pigouvian tax and Coasean method, have been proposed to resolve issues between telecom operators and OTT players. In Japan, the extensive coverage of a high-speed fiber optic network has reduced the need for funding from OTT players. The oligopolistic nature of the Japanese telecom market may contribute to operators’ hesitation in seeking financial support. Drafting regulations in this rapidly changing market is challenging and can cause additional problems. Voluntary negotiations and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms are proposed solutions. New regulations targeting major VOD operators and incentivizing them to provide better quality services are suggested. However, concerns arise about fair contributions and potential implications for net neutrality. Excessive regulations may discourage VOD operators from entering or staying in the market. A data-based approach and data disclosure by VOD players are recommended. The summary attempts to accurately reflect the main analysis text and includes relevant long-tail keywords.

Moderator

The Japanese Video-on-Demand (VOD) market is experiencing rapid growth, reaching $3.5 billion in 2022. However, there is a lack of active discussions regarding fair contribution and local content contribution within the industry. Despite this growth, the Japanese government has a more restrained approach when it comes to regulating big tech, primarily requesting registration from companies operating in Japan. Moreover, there are significant disparities among various stakeholders within the VOD industry.

One notable aspect is the significant revenue that VODs generate for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) through their volume-based charging model. This highlights the potential profitability of VODs for ISPs and their incentive to support the industry. Meanwhile, introducing regulatory measures might pose challenges in a market that is rapidly evolving.

The importance of financial resources is highlighted in the discussion of fair contribution, with monetary contributions being seen as essential. Additionally, there is a suggestion to invest in rural areas to further support the development of the local digital economy.

Another aspect is the need to enhance accessibility to local content on digital platforms. This is deemed crucial for fostering the growth of the local digital economy. Currently, the broadcasting market in Japan struggles to achieve content diversity due to the influx of US content.

To address the issue of dominance within the VOD industry, it is argued that regulatory requirements should be imposed on dominant VODs to prevent the creation of unreasonable entry barriers. Furthermore, there is a discussion around potential obligations for VODs, such as distributing disaster alerts or providing universal access to sports content, which could serve the public interest.

Considering future requirements that may be imposed on VODs, it is suggested that more robust networks will be needed. Additionally, it is noted that many of the broadcasting regulations can potentially be applied to VODs, further reinforcing the need for regulation within the industry. There is also a global trend towards content regulations and accessibility rules, aiming to address issues such as obscenity, violence, and the need for closed captions and video descriptions.

The case of the Netflix Act in Korea demonstrates how regulation can ensure internet stability for content providers. However, some argue that rather than relying solely on regulation, technological advancements should be prioritized to resolve traffic problems. It is also worth noting that the impact of new streaming services, such as linear and live streaming, needs to be analyzed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the industry landscape.

Overall, while the VOD market in Japan is experiencing significant growth, there are numerous considerations and debates regarding fair contribution, local content contribution, government regulation, dominance, network costs, and the role of technology. The analysis suggests that various stakeholders, including the government, ISPs, VOD operators, and content providers, need to collaborate and engage in active discussions to establish appropriate regulations and policies that foster growth, mitigate challenges, and ensure a vibrant and inclusive VOD industry in Japan.

Nami Yonetani

The rise of global Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) platforms, particularly in the US and Asian countries, is influencing video streaming regulations worldwide. SVOD giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ have targeted global expansion and have a significant impact on the traditional audiovisual media industry. However, they face pushback from regulatory actions, with some arguing that these measures are anti-consumer. Despite this, local content contribution regulations are being introduced in European and British Commonwealth countries, while Japan presents a unique case where regulatory discussions on local content are yet to occur. The need for regulations is also debated in terms of network costs and content accessibility, as well as the potential impact of high local content requirements on consumers. It is suggested that regulations should be imposed under certain conditions and that VODs should contribute to network costs. The summary also highlights the importance of promoting local content without discriminatory requirements and fostering collaboration between VODs and telecommunications companies. The overall goal is to strike a balance between promoting local content and ensuring consumer choice and affordability.

Audience

The discussions revolve around the importance and complexity of network and net neutrality. Network neutrality is crucial to maintain an open and fair internet, ensuring that all data is treated equally regardless of its source, destination, or content. This principle prevents internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing down specific websites or services, or charging extra fees for faster access to certain content. Network neutrality promotes innovation, competition, and freedom of expression online.

However, the issue of network neutrality is complicated by cross-border issues and the influence of tech giants. In a globalized digital landscape, regulating the internet in a way that addresses the concerns of all stakeholders is challenging. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon wield significant power and influence over online platforms, making it difficult to strike a balance between protecting user interests and ensuring a competitive market.

To tackle these challenges, some countries are implementing regulations to address network neutrality. While regulations are being developed in certain countries, there is a need for more information and ideas regarding new regulations for handling the complexities of network neutrality. This indicates that ongoing discussions and exploration of potential regulatory frameworks are necessary.

The discussions also consider the impact of strict regulations on Video on Demand (VOD) platforms and potential drawbacks. VOD platforms, which offer on-demand access to video content, have gained popularity. However, concerns arise regarding the content available on these platforms and the potential for harmful or inappropriate material to reach audiences. This raises the question of how to better measure and regulate VOD operators, highlighting the need for clearer guidelines in this area.

Overall, the discussions underscore the importance of network neutrality, the challenges posed by cross-border issues and tech giants, and the necessity of effective regulations to address these complexities. The impact of regulations on VOD platforms and the potential drawbacks are also examined. However, it is evident that further information, ideas, and discussions are required to develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks that protect internet openness and fairness while addressing the concerns of different stakeholders.

Moderator:
Okay. Time is start. Everyone. Hello, everyone. This is workshop number 149, VOD regulations, fair contribution and local content contributions. Okay. So, let’s start the workshop. Oh, I wanted to. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Here are the speakers of this session. Local speakers from here are venue from here in Tokyo, Kyoto. Dr. Nami Yonetani and I’m Ichiro Mizukose. I’m also the session organizer of this session. And remote speakers, Dr. Toshio Jitsuzumi from New York. Can you hear me? Oh, yes, I can hear you, but I’m not from New York. I’m from DC. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. And Mr. and Ms. from Seoul. Can you hear me? Hello. I can’t hear you. It’s okay. I can hear you. All right. Oh, each one’s background will be talked about in their presentations. So, yep. Today we discuss about two regulations. One is fair contributions and the other is local content contributions. This is very, very rough explanation of these regulations. Fair contribution is redistribute the money from VOD to investigate the telecommunication infrastructures such as fibers and the towers and et cetera. And the local content contribution is redistributing the money from the VOD to produce the local content and ordering them to promote the local content. Again, this is very, very rough explanations. So, after this workshop, I hope everyone get the more correct understanding of these regulations. So, we want to make this workshop a bit interactive with polling system by slider. So, if you have no internet access, please access the slider with code 3965076 and click the URL that’s posted here now. Just a moment. Yeah, I’m sending the URL. If you post, could you click that URL and make the polling? Yep. Sorry. What’s going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. This is a practice and so on. Please choose one. Before this workshop, we want to know your background. Have you ever had a fair contribution on the local content contribution or both or none? Just wait for polling. Yes. Oh, no. Okay. Polling is coming. Just a moment. Share the slide to see the result. Yeah. Five people are voting. Oh, everybody knows about this session. Oh, no. One knows only fair contributions. One knows nothing. Okay. So now, this is a practice, so I switch to the real polling now. Just a moment. Yep. This is, I want to hear your opinion about, it’s too little, but you can see it in your display. Just a moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no. Why? Just a moment, please. Got it. Okay. This is a question that, wait a moment. The polling question is, do you think the government should make rules for VODs to distribute some of their profit with local telecom industry or the local content industry or both local telecom and the content industry or none of them? So even if you live in the middle of the workshop, please poll, and you can edit or change the poll at any time. Okay. I will show you the result at the end of the sessions. So go back to the agenda. Here’s today’s agenda. First, Toshio Jitsuzumi will talk about the fair contribution. Next, Aichiro Mizukoshi talk in the case study in Japan. Then, Michio shows the situation in Korea. And finally, Dr. Yonetani give a presentation about local content contribution. At our presentations, we have time of Q&A and discussion. So, Mr. Professor Jitsuzumi, please, is it okay?

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
Okay. First, let me share my slides. Yeah. I stopped the slides. Can you see my slides? Yeah, we can see it. Okay. So, let me start. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jitsuzumi of Chuo University and currently staying at Georgetown University and enjoying my sabbatical leave here. While I deeply regret not having the chance to meet you in person at Kyoto, but I’m grateful for this opportunity to present a brief summary of fair contribution debate. But let me first introduce myself very briefly. After an 18-year tenure at the Japanese Telecom Authority’s Ministry of International Affairs and Communications, I am now a faculty member at Chuo University and teach microeconomics focusing on network industries. And my recent research includes net neutrality, AI regulation, platform regulation, fragmentation of the internet, and fair contribution, which is a central theme of today’s panel discussion, I think. All right. Let me summarize three backgrounds that have ignited a discussion on the fair contribution so far. The first is, of course, the remarkable surge in global internet usage. This phenomenon is notably driven by the rapid expansion of internet video usage, which, according to the Cisco estimate in 2018, has quadrupled in consumer usage and tripled in business usage over the last five years since 2017. As you can easily understand, this escalating internet usage imposes a substantial strain on the operation of the underlying network. According to the estimate of frontier economics, the cost to European broadband network can range from billions to tens of billions of euros per year. Facing such a robust surge in network utilization, telecom operators worldwide are channeling considerable investment into their network to uphold and, where possible, augment the quality of internet experience for their users. However, in Japan, the growth in investment by telecom carriers has not resulted in a proportionate improvement in network quality, leading to challenges in offering enhanced broadband services that meet higher network standards. As my research in the 2010s reveals as displayed in this slide, especially the left-hand side, network investment of the Japan operators initially led to notable improvement in latency and then gradual enhancement in effective download speeds. Unfortunately, as the right-hand side graph shows, download percentage, which is a ratio of effective speed, I mean actual speed to advertised speed, has been declining, indicating that the Japanese telecom operators need to further expand the investment size in order to accommodate the demand of broadband users. As you can easily understand, this situation is just one example of the difficulty faced by telecom operators in many countries and which is one of the biggest backgrounds of the fair contribution controversy. The second one relates to the fact that in most countries, there still remains a substantial digital divide or digital gap in the rural and poor areas. In its 2019 report, the Broadband Commission, which was established by IT on UNESCO, underscored the lingering global digital gap and called for additional investment of network operators, which of course include OTT players. The third one pertains to the sustainability of universal service mechanisms. Currently, many governments bear the responsibility of ensuring essential telecom services for their students. This policy necessitates a problem of support to network operators which supply services in unprofitable remote regions. And the funds that support this substantive mechanism are often collected from users of very basic voice services. However, unfortunately, the proliferation of broadband has led to significant decline in voice service demand, raising concerns about long-term sustainability of such subsistence scheme. Therefore, in the U.S., this has prompted discussion, as you can see in this slide, regarding alternative funding sources, which I believe are very compatible with a fair contribution concept. In order to address these three challenges, operators must find new sources of revenue. But in the real world, numerous constraints curtail their capacity to freely pursue this quest. First, telecom carriers are usually bounded by rate and entry restrictions originally attributable to their natural monopolistic nature. Second, considering the pivotal role of telecom services, even legally permissible actions may encounter political constraints. Another example involves a significant reduction in mobile prices in Japan following an influential political statement of the chief cabinet secretary at that time, who then became our prime minister. Third, as shown in the graph on the right, the average revenue per users has diminished in recent years, indicating that any fee increase can risk significant user attrition. Fourth, in an area where IoT devices are penetrating all around us, acquiring additional frequency licenses is imperative for telecom operators, demanding further investment to secure frequency licenses and ultimately thin the financial resources for physical network maintenance. As a result, telecom carriers’ expansion strategy realistically has just two options. First, augmenting revenue by introducing non-telecom services. I think this is eagerly pursued by Japanese mobile operators right now. Second, charging additional network usage fees on OTG operators that utilize broadband networks for content distribution and make money, which is of course the heart of the fair contribution debate. The debate about fair contribution has gained additional momentum due to the noticeable difference in profit between OTG and telecom operators. This contrast is clearly illustrated in a report by GSMA, a group of mobile operators, which states that while telecom operator profit has been declining, OTG operators continue to make high profit. Yet, the theoretical remedy for this issue is remarkably straightforward. The crux of the matter lies in the reality that network expansion by telecom operators inherently benefits OTG players, yet the compensation growing from OTG operators is inadequate. Other things in the external economy properly is important to avoid under-investment by telecom operators. The resolution in theory involves two approaches. The first entails appropriate taxation of OTG operators. This is an approach proposed by economist Arthur Pigou and known as Pigouvian tax. The second revolves around the direct negotiation between relevant parties, in our case between the telecom operators and OTG players. This approach was suggested by another economist, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase. As an economist, it is a great pleasure for me to say that economic theory produced such a very elegant pair of solutions, but I have to remind you that we should not forget the existence of another externalities. Investment by OTG players in content application can drive greater demand for broadband services, resulting in a positive external effect on telecom carriers. In order to properly deal with this externality, telecom operators need to pay compensation to OTGs in return. So, given this dual existence of externalities, determining whether OTGs or telecom operators bear the burden rests on a case-by-case analysis. Although theoretical solutions are so simple, translating them into practice presents significant challenges of course. First, the majority of interconnection agreements that make up today’s global Internet are either settlement-free peering, where nobody pays the usage of other networks, or unidirectional transit agreements where lower-tier networks always pay to the upper tier. Clearly, most of them do not work well with a regime that enforces payment based on network usage. Second, for Pigouvian tax and Coasean method to succeed, participant parties must possess sufficient information of the surrounding situation and can reach consensus without much difficulties. But achieving them in the dynamic broadband landscape is exceedingly difficult. Last but not least, theoretical resolutions can clash with net neutrality principles, since net neutrality prohibits network operators from charging users outside direct contractor relationship and forbids QoS differentiation. So, under strict net neutrality, fair contribution cannot be realized. Europeans notably recognize these issues ahead of the global curve, and just before the World Conference on International Telecommunication 2012, European operators considered introducing a new approach, sending party network pay to reshape interconnection dynamics, which consists of peering and transit. However, this proposal encountered substantial opposition to the informal proceedings of the International Forum, and after this attempt, we have decades of stagnation for this SPNP discussion. However, probably influenced by the development in Korea, which I think will be explained by my fellow panelists, SPNP discussion began to resurface. Currently, Europe has published a proposal that calls for all stakeholders to make a fair and proportionate contribution to the cost of public goods, services, and infrastructure as a means of achieving the universal gigabit coverage by 2030. Of course, this proposal sparks ongoing debate with counter-arguments such as a concern of tighter regulation of broadband, disproportionate usage charges, and potential negative impact on broadband adoption. And while policymakers, industry representatives, and academia from various countries were engaged in heated discussion here, shocking news came on September 18 of this year. That is, after three years of heated disagreement, SK Broadband Network suddenly announced a ceasefire and ended the lawsuit. The detailed terms of the agreement are still unclear, but in any case, the situation in Korea… seems to have been settled to a point. But very interestingly, however, the issue of human contribution is hardly discussed in the neighboring countries across the Sea of Japan. Several hypotheses are possible. The first one is that Japanese carriers have already installed a network of excessive capacity and coverage so that the impact of internet video traffic is not severe. In fact, the average speed of over 80 megabits per second as of 2019 is sufficient for video viewing, and the fiber optic network has achieved more than 99.7% coverage nationwide. Therefore, there will be no need to ask all the operators to fund a new investment at this stage. However, this situation is limited to the investment expenditure and has no explanatory power regarding operating and renewal cost of the network. Furthermore, capital investment will continue to be required for mobile network because the mobile traffic is expected to skyrocket with 5G. As a result, I think this hypothesis alone is not sufficient. Second, because of a high degree of oligopoly in the Japanese telecom market, existing network operators have long been earning sufficient profit and thus do not feel the need to ask OTT to share the cost. At the very least, I feel this explanation applies well on the three largest companies, NTT, KDA, and SoftBank. On the other hand, this has limited explanatory power with regard to small and medium-sized players, which are less profitable. The last but not least hypothesis is that Japanese mobile operators heavily utilize Wi-Fi offloading in order to manage the huge amount of traffic, especially in the peak times. Thus, if they loudly claim fair contribution, they may end up paying large usage fees to fixed network operators. Whether either of these hypotheses can explain the unique situation in Japan, which differs very different from that of Korea, this is a topic for my future empirical research. All right, let’s turn on the focus on the Japanese telecom authorities. The Japanese telecom authorities have conjured a fairness of cost distribution within the context of neutral discussions but has yet to implement definitive actions. Even the recent amendment of Telecom Business Act, which identified broadband as a universal services, failed to incorporate the mechanism to procure necessary costs from OT players. So as a researcher, I maintain key interest in the Japan’s forthcoming decisions. With that, I conclude my presentation. Your attention is deeply appreciated, and now I yield the floor. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Thank you very much. Yes, thank you, Professor Jisuzumi. So the next presenter is me. Just a moment. And I send the URL again, so please poll your opinion. Just a moment, please. Where is? I can’t see it. Oh, my goodness. OK. Let me start my presentation with a case study in Japan about these two regulations for BODs. First of all, my name is Ichiro Mizukoshi. I’m an internet engineer, especially for the operation of packet forwarding and security. I’m working for NTT East, and also the external board of the JPSAT-CC. But this presentation is solely my opinion and doesn’t show my company’s position, OK? Skip here. First of all, BOD is also growing in Japan. This is market size of BOD in Japan. It grew by 18% in these three years and reached $3.5 billion in year 2022. Here’s a detail. Oh, no, no, no. BOD is getting more popular in Japan. Seven years ago, only 15% of the people had used BOD. But now almost 40% have used it. Here’s a detail of the Japanese S-Board subscribed video-on-demand market. Familiar global BOD players, such as Netflix, Amazon, Prime, Dazoom, Disney Plus, and Hulu, those of them have shared more than half of the market. Then how about these two regulations going in Japan? As Professor Jitsumi said, fair contribution is very inactive. And also the local content contribution is also inactive. I’m an ISP industry guy, so fair contribution is occasionally talked in the ISP industries. What’s going on the EU? How about the trial in Korea is going? But there is no concrete actions have occurred as far as I know. And about the local content contribution, I’m not a content industry person, but based on my understanding, this topic is rarely discussed in Japan, partially because broadcasting regulations are non-existent. So, yep, why? It’s my humble opinion. There are three reasons adding to it. This means hypothesis. It’s the government stance, market size, and numerous stakeholders. First, government stance to the big tech. The Japanese government has a much more restrained stance compared to the EU. Here are the two recent activities in Japan. First one is request for registration in Japan. The companies that do business in Japan are legally required to register, not only their local arm, but also their global headquarters with authorities here. But such request has occurred. It means before June 2022, even Microsoft, Google, and Meta, such a global company, big tech, had not registered in Japan, just requested. And some of them are going out, but almost them are registered now. And the second one is just subject to the regulation. This year, search engines and social media with more than 10 million users are newly subject to the regulation. But there’s no heavy punch to find like in the EU. Japanese government take mostly name and shame approaches. If I may add, those two activities mainly focused on the promoting, protecting the personal information. So they’re not so much care about the market movement. So anyway, this approach is much more restrained. The second one is, as Jitsumi-san also mentioned, but the market size. As I showed in the previous slide, the VOD market is 3.5 billion, but related industries such as telecommunications, television, and video productions, compared to VOD, these three industries are order of magnitude larger. The last finding is numerous stakeholders. It’s not easy to define the ISP. However, assigning IP addresses to the customer is a core function of ISP. Currently, over 500 organizations in Japan have been delegated IP address blocks to assign to their customers. Yes, it’s including hosting, clouds, and so on. However, a fairly large number of ISP exists in Japan. The television stations, there are so many television stations in Japan. Terrestrial has more than 120, and cable stations 450, and satellites are 40 or more. And the size of these stakeholders, ISP and television sectors, is too wide a difference. Large ones target the national market, and the small ones target the rural areas. So it’s too hard to discuss the issue in one table. So it means there are too many stakeholders to cope with the VOD industry together. In addition, in the VOD industry itself, there are various domestic players. It’s also the kind of reasons, I think. Yeah, this is my last slide. I have been thinking about the fair contribution for more than 10 years and so on. This statement significantly impacted me. In year 2010, my friend, the executive of Mobile Operator said, we charge end users based on the volume of packets. So what it is good, that is a golden egg for us. I think this is an important message to the whole world. Yeah, thank you. So let’s pass to the next presentation. Ms. Cho, please. Can you hear me?

Cho Changeun:
Yes, I’m here. OK. Yes. OK. I’ll start. Hello, I’m Chang Cho, a research fellow at KDDI Research. Thank you for joining our workshop. My research focus on the broadcasting, ICT, and related policies. I have been writing about Korean ICT trends for various magazines of Nikkei BP, an affiliate of Nikkei newspaper in Japan. Today, I will be speaking about fair contribution and local contents contribution in Korea. Korean dramas, K-pop, and various other contents are gaining popularity in the world these days. Korea is not only a great contents creator, but also an internet powerhouse. It was the first country in the world to spread broadband to ordinary households. And it had the highest broadband penetration rate among OECD member countries in 2022. It created new industries, such as internet broadcasting, online game tournaments, and webtoons. When it comes to the internet, there are many instances where Korea starts first and influences the rest of the world. A recent example of this is debate over network fees. In Korea, platforms have usually paid network fees for ISPs. It has been taken for granted that both users and service providers pay for the network. There are many companies that want to provide services in Korea, but there are only four ISPs in Korea. The situation has changed when global big tech companies like Google, YouTube, and Netflix launch their services in Korea. With the majority of Korean internet users using Google, YouTube, and Netflix on a daily basis, the platform began to become more powerful than ISPs. In April 2020, Netflix filed a lawsuit against SK Broadband, a Korean ISP which had a significant impact on the fair contribution debate in Korea. First, let’s briefly explain what the lawsuit was about. Netflix asked the Seoul Central Court to rule that it was not obligated to negotiate or pay network fees for the delivery of content over SK Broadband’s domestic and international networks and for the operation and expansion of these networks. Netflix argued network neutrality, but the Seoul Central Court ruled in June 2021 that network neutrality is a principle that prohibits telecom companies from unreasonably discriminating against local traffic on their network and is not directly relevant to network fee discussion. The court also recognized that Netflix was obligated to pay SK Broadband for the paid services of accessing, connecting to, and remaining connected to SK Broadband network. The court also ruled that the two companies should negotiate how the network fees will be paid. Korean media reported that Netflix was in court and that all business with service in Korea must pay network fees. To understand how Netflix’s lawsuit against SK Broadband began and why Korean court upheld network fees, we need to go back to 2006. In 2006, Korean ISP Hanwha Telecom launched Hanwha TV, an IPTV service that allows users to stream video over the internet with a set-top box on their TV. It was the first IPTV in Korea and gained a lot of popularity due to convenience of being able to watch reality on TV using remote control. However, other ISPs did not like this and shut down Hanwha TV. Claiming that it increased the traffic of subscribers who were using Hanwha TV VOD, Hanwha TV is currently still in service as SK Broadband BTV. By registering the Internet Multimedia Broadcasting Business Act in February 2008, KT, SK Broadband, and LG U-Post, which are both telecom companies and ISPs, launched closed IPTV services for their own subscribers. With these three companies offering combined internet, phone, and IPTV discounts, most households now subscribe on IPTV. In 2012, Samsung Electron’s newly launched Smart TV became a problem. In a service merger that allows Smart TV to access royalty from various companies, the ISP KT blocked the Samsung Smart TV from accessing KT Internet, citing increased traffic. All Smart TV ended up paying network fees to ISP or paying something even it wasn’t quoted the network fees. Then in 2016, Netflix launched in Korea, and subscribers started to grow, and YouTube users skyrocketed. Naver, a portal platform with the most users in Korea, raised the issue of network fees. Naver asked ISPs to disclose how much YouTube paid for network fees, which accounts for 17.8% of video viewing time in Korea. Naver argued that network fees that are strictly applied to Korean companies but not to global companies are problematic. The National Assembly also said that it was not fair to discriminate between Korean companies and global companies. The debate started over paying network fees fairly. The discussion on fair contribution to internet network maintenance and investment began earnest. As Netflix subscribers grew, so did the traffic for Netflix VOD. When Netflix launched in Korea, two of the country’s ISP, KT and LG U+, partnered to make Netflix available using their IPTV remote instead of network fee. They chose to share the profit when their subscribers signed up Netflix. SK Broadband decided to take network fee. Starting in 2018, SK Broadband expanded its network because it felt that the traffic from Netflix subscribers was damaging users who didn’t subscribe to Netflix. Since it expanded its network for Netflix, it proposed to Netflix that Netflix should share the cost. In 2015, Netflix insisted on installing Open Connect inside SK Broadband’s facilities, claiming that it could reduce 95% of traffic. SK Broadband refused, saying that Open Connect would not solve the problem, and asked the Korean Communication Commission to mediate to make Netflix negotiate a network fee. Netflix rejected that arbitration and asked the court to rule that it did not have to pay the network fee and did not have to negotiate. The result was a de facto defeat for Netflix. In September 2021, SK Broadband sued Netflix under their unjust enrichment provision of civil acts. It claimed that Netflix had ignored the first judgment, refused to pay network fees, and to negotiate. Netflix appeared in December 2021. Netflix insisted that SK Broadband could not bill Netflix for the increased traffic because it is charged based on internet speed to their subscribers. Google and YouTube cited Netflix. The National Assembly was considering a law change that would require CPs to sign contracts with ISPs, stating that they must pay for network uses, which they opposed. In September 2023, Netflix, SK Telecom, and SK Broadband formed a strategic partnership and ended all litigation. The three companies announced that they would work together for the good of their users. Korean media reported that following reasons for the end of litigation. Netflix would have paid SK Broadband for its network behind closed doors because it was likely to lose on a peer, and sitting presidents would have triggered lawsuits in other countries. Experts calculated Netflix’s network fees, which could have been up $108 million. In Korea, why do we have to pay ISPs for network fees? Korean Telecommunication Business Act defines interconnection as paid peering, by default. Interconnection between ISPs is also paid peering. ISPs are contracted on a bill-and-keep basis, so they don’t pay each other, but it’s not free. In Korea, there are only four ISPs, but there are many OTTs. The most popular OTT in Korea is Netflix. In September 2023, it was reported that more Koreans use Netflix than all other Korean OTT combined. For ISPs, the most important question is what kind of agreement they have with Netflix to address network fees and fair contribution issues. Korean ISPs are working with European telecom companies who have the same concerns. In Europe, the majority of traffic is dominated by a handful of big tech companies. But even in Korea, some people are questioning network fees. Civic groups argue that subscribers pay for internet every month, and ISPs also collect network fees from service providers. This is like a toll tax. Does this mean that a popular K-pop content platform should pay network fees to overseas ISPs because it has a lot of overseas users? Civic groups ask. The National Assembly is considering amending the Telecommunication Business Act to make network fee agreement mandatory. However, the legislation has told it amid growing public opinion that it should be left to negotiations between ISPs and other companies. In Korea, the Netflix Act was enacted in December 2020 following a lawsuit by Netflix, stating that big tech platforms are also obligated to keep internet network safe. Apart from network fees, platforms will be held liable if they cause excessive traffic and disrupt services. From here, I’ll talk about local content. As the Korean wave has become a global phenomenon, global OTTs like Netflix and Disney Plus are investing in Korean local content. They are competing to possess Korean dramas. The government has given more tax deductions to video content produced in Korea. Korean productions are happy. But politicians think that Koreans shouldn’t be a content production subcontractor for Netflix. For the sake of more profits for Korean companies, they are not satisfied with exporting contents and want to support for worldwide expansion of Korean OTT platforms. Finally, who should pay for sustainable internet service? In 2020, the Korean government designated 100Mbps broadband as a universal service. In any region, telecom companies must provide internet at a speed of at least 100Mbps to all subscribers. This requires ongoing investment. The number of people using VOD services is growing, and a small number of companies are generating huge amounts of traffic. We need to think about whether telecom companies and ISPs should take all responsibilities for the traffic or whether the business that causes the traffic is also responsible. The CEO of a Korean ISP, KT, said that in the future, not only VOD, but also AI may cause traffic problems. In the case of local contents, Korea will invest more in contents to maintain the economic effects derived from the Korean wave. Global OTTs that distribute Korean local contents are also important, so cooperation is important. In order to create an environment where everyone makes a fair contribution rather than an environment where someone has to sacrifice, I think there should be more communication between companies, like the workshop we are doing today. Thank you for listening.

Nami Yonetani:
Thank you. Hello, everyone. Hi. I’m Nami Yonetani. Today in my presentation, I would like to talk about the regulatory responses around the world to the rise of global video streaming giants with a particular focus on the discussions on local content contribution. Before getting down to the main point, please allow me to introduce myself briefly. Again, my name is Nami Yonetani. I’m a researcher at the Foundation for Multimedia Communications in Tokyo, Japan. Actually, this is my very first time attending IGF, and I’m very excited to share my research findings today. So, let’s move on to our main topic. First of all, I would like to give you a quick overview of the current state of video streaming. Although there are many types of video streaming services, they can be classified into five categories by their revenue model and distribution model. And the five categories are AVOD, FAST, SVOD, VMVPD, and TVOD. And among all of these, SVOD, which stands for Subscription Video On Demand, is leading the global streaming market. And as you can see in this table, SVODs based in the US and Asian countries have a great number of global subscribers. Especially the three major US SVODs, which are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, have targeted global expansion since early stage. One of the reasons for their global popularity is their original and exclusive content. For example, Netflix’s original series called Wednesday became a global smash hit last year, and it is reported that it has been watched for more than 1 billion total hours by over 150 million households. And various previous studies have shown that such popularity of US SVODs is having a great impact on the traditional audiovisual media industry. For example, in the broadcasting industry, consumers are moving away from pay TV to US SVODs, which are rich in content and much cheaper. The same thing is also happening in the film industry. Recent studies have discovered that consumers, especially the younger generation, are moving away from the cinema to watch films on US SVODs. Given this situation, more countries are regulating video streaming platforms to counter US SVODs. There are several points of contention, but one of the biggest points is possible unfair market competition led by regulatory asymmetry between broadcasting and video streaming platforms. Although broadcasting and streaming are similar in the fact that they both distribute videos, law tends to lag behind video streaming, which is a relatively new technology. Since around 2020, to reduce such regulatory asymmetry, some countries have imposed similar regulations on video streaming platforms to the ones that they have done on broadcasting platforms. Especially, regulations on local content contribution, which is the subject of this presentation, are being introduced mainly in European and British Commonwealth countries. As you can see in this figure, governments are applying or trying to apply local content requirements such as content quotas and financial contribution obligations not only to broadcasting platforms but also to video streaming platforms. This table shows you the countries which introduced or are in the process of introducing local content requirements on video streaming platforms. As a side note, as Dr. Cho mentioned in her presentation, South Korea takes a quite different approach from these listed countries. While these countries are taking a defensive approach to protect their local audiovisual industry against U.S. efforts, South Korea is adopting a more aggressive approach to foster local industry that can compete with U.S. efforts. Here I want to point out that there are more than one policy approach towards large U.S. streaming platforms, and my presentation is focusing on the defensive approach taken by the countries listed in the table. In the next few slides, I would like to share the regulatory discussion in the countries highlighted in sky blue, which I consider to be important and distinctive. We’ll start with the European Union, which is the pioneer in regulating local content contribution. In response to the accelerated influx of U.S. content in the 1980s, the European Union introduced the Television Without Frontiers Directive in 1987 with the aim of protecting the European audiovisual industry from the U.S. and required broadcasters to contribute to European works. Subsequently, in 2007, the Audiovisual Media Service Directive, AVMSD, was introduced to regulate video-on-demand, VOD platforms, and the directive was revised in 2018 to require VOD platforms to contribute to European works as well. Firstly, the revised AVMSD instructs member states to make VOD providers under their jurisdiction secure at least a 30% share of European works in their catalogs and ensure prominence of those works. It does not mention exactly how to give or measure prominence, but it is expected that European works should be immediately viewable on VOD platforms, for example, on their homepages, recommendations, and search results. And secondly, the revised AVMSD says that member states may require both domestic and foreign providers targeting audiences in their territories to contribute financially to European works. And among all member states, France is the one with the strictest requirements on VOD platforms. France transposed the revised AVMSD into national law in 2021, but with further strict requirements. Moreover, they have their own system called the Media Chronology Rule, an industry agreement on the release window of films which is formed in the government’s presence. The latest version of the rule came into effect last February, and it was decided that SVODs can distribute films 17 months after cinematic release. However, it may be shortened to six months with agreement of film industry. And in fact, Netflix has succeeded in shortening the distribution period from 17 to 15 months in return for extra investment in French films. On the other hand, Walt Disney is raising a strenuous objection to this rule, arguing it’s outdated, and they are protesting by refusing to release some new Disney films in French cinemas and distributing them exclusively on Disney+. In contrast to France, the United Kingdom transposed the revised AVMSD into national law with minimum requirements before Brexit. And after Brexit, they started to explore its own regulatory framework to ensure the Britishness of content, and announced the draft media bill this March. The focus of this bill is to maintain and strengthen public service broadcasters, PSBs. So what is PSB? PSBs are broadcasters intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests, and they are granted privileged access to Spectrum in return for various content obligations. So, returning to the bill, there are a number of proposals aimed at strengthening the presence of PSBs, but one of the most eye-catching proposals is to give prominence to PSBs’ video streaming services on connected devices, including smart TVs and streaming devices such as Amazon Fire Stick. What is more, the BBC has sent a letter to the Parliament calling for a dedicated button to provide a shortcut to PSB streaming services on all television remote control, so the current regulatory discussion in the UK affects not only video streaming platforms but also manufacturers. Now I would like to turn our attention from Europe to the British Commonwealth country, Canada. Canada is a country of immigrants and a neighbour of the superpower, the US, therefore the overriding issue of Canada has always been how to shape its identity as a nation. With this in mind, the Broadcasting Act was amended in 1991 to protect Canadian culture from the arrival of American television. The Act implements the so-called Canadian content rule for broadcasters and requires content quota and financial contribution. However, in 2015, the government expressed concern that Canadian content rules on broadcasters were becoming a dead letter as video streaming services grew in popularity, and they argued the need to support the discoverability of Canadian content. Finally, the Online Streaming Act was passed this April to modernise the Broadcasting Act, and this Act will expand the definition of broadcasting to include video streaming in it and apply Canadian content rules to both domestic and foreign video streaming platforms, and now they are currently in the process of public consultation, public hearing to finalise the regulatory framework. Finally, it is neither Europe nor the British Commonwealth, but I would like to mention Israel, and first and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to the victims and their families in Israel and Gaza. The situation is absolutely heartbreaking. So let me get back to the regulatory discussion. Pay TV operators are already obliged to make financial contribution to local content in Israel, and the Netanyahu government, which was formed last November, introduced the Broadcasting Bill this August to apply the same obligation to video streaming platforms. However, there are voices predicting that the government, which is said to be the most far-right and religious in Israel’s history, might introduce stricter video streaming regulations, including content quotas, for political reasons in the future. So here, in this slide, I wanted to point out that there are possibilities that local content requirements may be imposed, not just for cultural or economic reasons, but also for political reasons, and of course this could apply to any other countries, not only Israel. Okay, the video streaming platforms are, of course, trying to push back against such regulatory actions. Netflix claims a legal compulsion to contribute to local content would be anti-consumer. Firstly, they point out that content quotas would merely encourage spending on quantity over quality, and result in mass-producing cheaper and low-quality works. Secondly, they argue that tweaking recommendations in ways that undermine viewer choice and preferences to meet the prominence obligation would lead to a disappointing viewing experience. So let’s say there’s a viewer out there who loves romantic comedy, but Netflix recommends a zombie film to them, to him or her, only because it’s local content. Then it is easy to imagine that the viewer would be less satisfied, and may give a low rating to the zombie film. What is more, he or she might even cancel Netflix. So Netflix is saying that prominence obligation would make no one happy, neither the viewers, the creators, nor the video streaming platforms. And thirdly, Netflix insists that the market forces have already made Netflix spend significant money on local content, thus there’s no need to legally obligate. Finally, they point out it is discriminatory that foreign video streaming platforms are often obliged to contribute to a local content fund, but are not allowed to use it. On another front, Walt Disney mentioned a new global expansion strategy for Disney Plus this August. They revealed that they are thinking to prioritize markets to make Disney Plus profitable by 2024. To be specific, while they’re going to continue to invest in local content in high potential markets, they will invest less in local content in mid potential markets, and may even shut down Disney Plus in low potential markets. So this means that in some countries, Walt Disney might decide that following local content requirements is unprofitable, and shut down Disney Plus. So far, I’ve shown the discussion in European and British Commonwealth countries, but from now on, I would like to specifically look at what is happening in Japan. In Japan, so far, there has been no regulatory discussion regarding the contribution to local content by video streaming platforms. I hypothesize that there are two reasons for this. Firstly, the regulatory playing field between broadcasting and video streaming platforms is relatively level in Japan. And secondly, Japan is a Galapagos market where broadcasters are not much damaged by U.S. S-Watt giants. So let me explain from the first reason. While broadcasting falls under the Broadcasting Act of 1950, video streaming is exempted from the act. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that regulatory asymmetry does exist between them. However, such asymmetry is slight in Japan, as broadcasting regulations, especially content regulations, are much more relaxed than in other countries. For example, we do not have local content requirements for broadcasters like the European and the British Commonwealth countries. In this sense, broadcasting and video streaming are already placed in a fair regulatory environment in Japan. The second reason is based on the uniqueness of the broadcasting market in Japan. And there are two unique aspects. Firstly, unlike many other developed countries, including the ones we’ve seen in this presentation today, pay TV households remain in the minority in Japan. 80% of TV households watch TV via OTA signals, and private-owned OTA broadcasters are the most popular television stations. So this means that there is no direct conflict of interest between popular broadcasters and U.S. S-WATCH giants due to the difference in their revenue models. Secondly, Japanese viewers prefer to watch local content, Japanese content, on U.S. S-WATCH platforms. The table on the left shows the result of a nationwide questionnaire I conducted in Japan in 2021. And it was revealed that people, both young and old, highly prefer to watch Japanese content, especially TV programs and animes, on U.S. S-WATCH platforms. And the figure on the right is from Bloomberg last year. It shows the share of the top ten programs in major Netflix markets that also appear in global rankings. While the more to the right, the more overlapping their tastes, Japan is at the left end, which means that Japanese viewers have quite different tastes from global trends. And so when U.S. S-WATCH arrived in Japan around 2015, most of us thought that they would be a significant threat to the broadcasters, to the domestic broadcasters. But it turns out that U.S. S-WATCH are now just new channels for broadcasters to distribute Japanese content to Japanese viewers. However, does this mean that Japanese broadcasters are able to keep enjoying easy days? In my opinion, U.S. fast platforms, which are gradually expanding globally, could emerge as a potential threat to Japanese OTA broadcasters if launched in Japan, as they are both based on the free advertising business model and thus have a direct conflict of interest. If that happens, some sort of regulatory discussions on video streaming might finally occur in Japan. And that brings us to the end of my presentation. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Oh, thank you so much. So all the presentation has been done. So just before going to the Q&A, just check the polling result, just a moment here. Oh, unfortunately, only five voted, sorry, and most of them disagree to regulators by government. Okay. Hmm. So before going to the discussion, we wanted to know the presenters’ polling result. For the order of the presentation, Professor Jitsuzumi, please, what’s your opinion?

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
I think, oh, thank you. It’s a very interesting presentation of all the presentations. First of all, I have to say thank you for the information. And for the questionnaire result, which you presented on the screen, I think my answer is that we do not need any regulation on this matter. But in the presentation, I say that concerning the existence of externalities, some kind of compensation should be justified in order to make the resource allocation more effective. In order to make the resource allocation efficient in the market. However, to introduce a government regulation is a different matter, because concerning the information asymmetry, which the government had to consider when making some regulations, drafting a regulation in this rapidly changing market is very difficult, and cause additional problems for the market itself. So my recommendation is to ask or to make the negotiation between the actual players as much as possible in order to come up with efficient outcomes. How much compensation they need, and which side should be obliged to pay the other side. So instead of asking government to introduce regulation on these matters, I recommend the government to make those negotiations as easy as possible. For example, it’s very difficult for the small and medium-sized operators, medium-sized network operators to start negotiating with the export giant of the US, because according to the voice of my friend who is in the business of small ISPs, they said it’s very difficult to start negotiations, to start making contact with their networks and other networks and YouTubes. So maybe the government can dispatch some experts to start negotiations or to start making some contact with their content giant to start negotiating with efficient terms and conditions of those compensations. Or they can introduce some alternative dispute resolution mechanism in order to prepare for the situation where the negotiation just broke up. So that is my thought about this question.

Moderator:
All right, thank you. It’s my turn. I choose to support both. It’s a minor one, anyway. The reason is very simple, because money is essential. And I’m not a content guy. I can’t say much about the content. But about the fair contribution, yeah, as I said in my last slide, based on the packet charging is important. It will solve all of the problems. However, if the purpose of the fair contribution is for the broadband universal service fund, I would like to invest in rural areas. So I could agree with it. That’s my opinion. So, Ms. Cho, please.

Cho Changeun:
Yes, I can hear you. I think government needs to play a role in helping to negotiate well between companies rather than creating new regulations. Because technology is developing very rapidly. But it takes time for government to set the regulations. When the government tries to regulate the enterprise on the issue of traffic related to VOD or something, and the need for fair contributions in network infrastructures, investment, and maintenance, it is the need for need. But I don’t think, I think it’s not need a new or a regulation. Just government needs to play a role in helping negotiate.

Moderator:
All right. You also none. Okay. How about you, Yonetani-san?

Nami Yonetani:
I think I would vote to the fourth option, content. Because I do think that the government has a role to play to make VODs promote local content. Because I believe increasing accessibility to local content on digital platforms is one of the key elements to develop local digital economy and it is hard to achieve by market forces alone. We’ve already seen in the broadcasting market that it is very difficult to achieve content diversity when there’s a flood of cheap and exciting US content in front of us. However, I also believe that such requirements should only be imposed in two conditions. First, it should be imposed when the broadcasters are already under similar requirements and there is a need to reduce regulatory asymmetry. Second, the minimal requirements should be imposed on dominant VODs, otherwise the requirements would be an unreasonable entry barriers. And in terms of fair contribution to network costs, I think legally forcing VODs to negotiate deals with local telcos would be enough for now, because actually I’m not sure if the government is able to define the fairness, but also I have to point out that some countries are currently discussing to impose public interest requirements on video streaming platforms, including VODs. For example, some are debating whether to obligate video streaming platforms to distribute disaster alerts, and some are debating whether to include video streaming technology to ensure universal access to major sports content. So, if such requirements are imposed on video streaming platforms in the future, we would need even more robust networks than we have right now. So, considering such possibilities, I am open to the idea to widen the scope of contributors of network costs.

Moderator:
Okay, so your answer is none, or partially yes to the content?

Nami Yonetani:
Yes, that would be right. Partially? Partially, yes. Minimal requirements.

Moderator:
Minimum requirements. Most of the panelists believe the market mechanism, right? So, let’s start the Q&A and discuss the sessions. Do you have any comments and questions? Anybody?

Audience:
Hi, I’m Keisuke Kaneyasu from NEC Corporation. So, thank you for your presentation and discussion. So, it’s a very informative issue. So, I think it seems to be an important issue about network and net neutrality. So, particularly the difficult point is, so relation, cross-border issue, and each giant tech issue, or computation role, or right of know, like access to information or contents. So, a lot of issue. So, I know some country made rule or regulation ongoing. So, it’s a very confusing issue. So, give me more information to clarify. So, do you have any other idea for new regulation to be improved to measure VOD operator, like networks?

Moderator:
So, you’re asking new, is there any new regulations for the VOD operators? Yes. All right. How about you, Yonetani-san, please?

Nami Yonetani:
Thank you for the question. In terms of media policy, I think that most of the broadcasting regulations could potentially be applied to VODs, because there’s even countries that have introduced licensing for VODs. But, as a global trend, the most prominent discussion currently revolve around content regulations and accessibility rules. In this case, content regulation means prohibiting obscenity and violence and introducing age rating systems for the content. And accessibility rules is requiring closed caption and video description.

Moderator:
All right. How about you, Ms. Cho?

Cho Changeun:
About regulation, in Korea, Korea has a duty to secure internet stability of content provider, called the Netflix Act. Russian platforms and VOD service providers, which have more than 1 million users a day and account for more than 1% of total traffic in Korea, are also obligated to maintain stability in the quality of the internet network. The name is Netflix Act, but Netflix has never been a problem. Only Korean companies failed to comply with Netflix Act. So, I think regulation is possible, but technology is also possible that new technology has already come out and solved the problems about traffic. So, I think we don’t need a new regulation.

Moderator:
Thank you. How about you, Professor Jitsumi?

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
All right. It’s a very good question. I think the necessity of introducing the new regulation of the major VOD operators. Let’s focus on the discussion on the fair contributions. I was thinking that what happens if the VOD operators refuse to pay fair contributions to the local network operators. I think what happens is that the QoS for the local viewers deteriorates. Even if they refuse to pay fair contributions to local network operators, local operators cannot block the infusion of the OTT content from abroad because there are lots of gateways to the local network. And that is how the internet was designed in the first place. So, the incentive for the VOD operators to pay the fair contribution is required. So, one possible incentive to motivate the VOD operators to pay the fair contribution is to provide better qualities. No congestion even in the peak hours or the smaller latency. So, from the viewpoint of net initiality, which is my major research focus, this situation is equivalent to providing a paid prioritization to the content providers. So, introducing some regulation to authorize the network VOD operators to pay fair contributions to local network operators is equal to allowing the fast lanes in the internet, which can be a very controversial issue in net neutrality. So, from the viewpoint of policy reasons or cultural reasons, it might be a good thing for the local government to introduce such a regulation, but from the viewpoint of net neutrality, it is very questionable. I personally have to say that I am not a strong supporter of net neutrality, but there are some supporters for net neutrality and they will have a huge discussion against the introduction of the regulation, which is applied only to the major VOD operators, I think. That’s my impression.

Moderator:
All right, thank you. So, you’re talking about net neutrality around the world and there’s some local neutrality in the country, right?

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
No, I think that in order to motivate the VOD operators to pay the fair contribution to some local network operators, there is some incentives. Incentives can be providing better quality to the network operators. Otherwise, they just refuse to pay the fair contribution and to let the QoS of the services in the local market deteriorate.

Moderator:
All right, thank you. So, my opinion is, if the VOD goes to the news, I mean journalism, the cross-media ownership regulation should be applied, but I’m not sure about such other things. My feeling is such a VOD has a strong power to the local countries, so the kind of network or the content neutralization should be applied. That’s my feeling. Is there any comment? All right, thank you very much. Any other questions?

Audience:
Okay, can you hear me? My name is Tomohiro Fujisaki from the Internet Society Japan chapter, but here I’m speaking in my own capacity. My question is about regulations. I already had some answers in the discussion, but I want to know, are there any potential drawbacks or unintended consequences associated with the regulations? I know the regulations are very, very strict, so I want to know the side effects of the regulations.

Moderator:
All right, thank you. So, the bad effects of the regulations, anyway. So, how about the professional of these regulations? First, the decision, please.

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
All right. It depends on what kind of regulation we are in mind. Consider the situation when the government oblige the VOD operator to pay some amount of fee to the local networks. So, in my opinion, it’s very difficult for the regulator to come up with exact appropriate numbers, appropriate fee level, which the network operators, VOD operators, to pay in order to cover the externalities and make their investment efficient from the viewpoint of economic efficiencies. So, if the government officials are asked by the politicians or the research groups to come up with numbers, they have to ask the operator themselves. I mean, they have to ask the network operators or the networks to come up with some figures. So, this situation is called regulatory capture and cause a different problem of efficiencies. And also, if they come up with some numbers, it can be very high or very low. So, I think they will be more influenced by the local operators and the VOD giants. So, if the regulators introduce a fee which is higher than the efficiency level, maybe the VOD operators think that this market is not a high potential market, especially in Japan, which has an aging population and a lowering income in the long-term perspective. If the government introduces too strong a regulation on this matter, maybe the networks or YouTube determine that we should stop making business in this country and go out. So, I think that if that happens, it will have a huge negative impact on the Japanese economy. So, that’s the second reason I think that the regulation is not appropriate in this matter.

Moderator:
Thank you. Go out? It’s a worse case. So, how about you, Natani-san?

Nami Yonetani:
I think the same can be said for local content requirements. If the local content requirements are too high, it may result in higher prices for consumers, and in worst case scenario, VODs might withdraw from the market, which means that consumers would have less choice of content. What is more, it might encourage piracy, because consumers seek to access content outside the legitimate channels. So, I believe that requirements should be non-discriminatory and minimal, because the ultimate goal of local content requirements on VODs should not be protecting local industry, but to ensure consumers’ access to diverse content.

Moderator:
All right. Thank you. Any comments? Thank you so much. Thank you. So, it’s the end of the time. Any questions more? Okay. Thank you so much. It’s… Oh, yeah. So, we want to ask the final comment from the panel. Sorry.

Toshiya Jitsuzumi:
The first one, Professor Jesumi. Okay. Sorry. Okay. I have to… I don’t want to repeat my previous comments, but I just say that everything should be determined based on the data, not the political statement or the emotions. As an economist, we need data. Based on data, we can have a more rational conclusion or recommendation to the government. So, in order to get some data, I ask all operators on VOD players to disclose.

Moderator:
All right. Thank you. Ms. Cho?

Cho Changeun:
Yes. Thank you for listening. And I think regulation starts out always with good intentions, but technology adjusts so quickly that another problem always arises. I think there is a need for more government organization to companies together, like this workshop. I need more negotiation and cooperation if needed. Thank you. Thank you. In today’s workshop, the focus was on VOD, but considering the increasing popularity of linear streaming and live streaming, I think it is our future task to analyze the impact of those new streaming services to deepen our discussion. And also, as Professor Jitsuzumi mentioned about net neutrality during the discussion on fair contribution, I think that we have to consider platform neutrality or content neutrality when discussing on local content contribution. I hope we can have an open discussion again at future IGF. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today.

Moderator:
Thank you. It’s truly ending. Thank you for coming. Thank you.