Partner2Connect High-Level Dialogue

Summary

This discussion focused on the Partner to Connect (P2C) Digital Coalition’s progress toward achieving universal connectivity and bridging the digital divide globally. ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin announced that the coalition has reached $75 billion in pledges, representing a 34% increase from the beginning of the year, with a target of $100 billion by 2026. The session emphasized that despite 30 years of internet growth, one-third of humanity remains offline, making urgent action critical to achieve the 2030 goal of universal meaningful connectivity.

Several major organizations announced significant new commitments during the panel. Cisco revealed a $1 billion global AI investment fund to support entrepreneurs and expand digital skills training for 230,000 individuals over three years. China Unicom pledged $1.38 billion over five years for fiber network expansion and 5G access in rural areas, along with digital village construction. South African Minister Solly Malatsi highlighted his government’s efforts to connect 5.8 million residents through the South African Connect project and remove luxury taxes on smart devices to improve affordability.

Technology companies like ZTE, Amazon, Google, and others shared their infrastructure and capacity-building initiatives. Amazon’s Project Kuiper aims to provide satellite-based broadband to underserved communities, while Google announced investments in subsea cables and AI training programs reaching 100 million people globally. The Internet Society reported exceeding its original pledge to train 10,000 people in internet infrastructure maintenance and committed an additional $30 million over five years for community networks.

The discussion emphasized that partnerships across government, private sector, and civil society are essential for scaling digital transformation efforts. Speakers highlighted successful collaboration models, such as Haiti’s community network deployment and public-private partnerships in spectrum licensing with social obligations. The session concluded with announcements of upcoming P2C events and community meetings to continue mobilizing resources and partnerships toward achieving meaningful connectivity for all.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Partner to Connect Coalition Growth and Financial Milestones**: The coalition has achieved significant progress, growing from $54 billion to over $76 billion in pledges within a year, demonstrating strong momentum toward the $100 billion target by 2026.

– **Major Corporate AI and Infrastructure Investments**: Several major announcements were made, including Cisco’s $1 billion global AI investment fund, China Unicom’s $1.38 billion commitment for rural connectivity, and Google’s $120 million AI opportunity fund, all aimed at bridging digital divides.

– **Policy and Regulatory Barriers to Connectivity**: Discussion of practical obstacles like taxation of smart devices as luxury goods (highlighted by South Africa’s Minister) and the need for supportive regulatory frameworks, particularly for emerging technologies like LEO satellites.

– **Partnership-Driven Approach to Digital Inclusion**: Emphasis on multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments, private sector, civil society, and international organizations, with specific examples like Internet Society’s community networks in Haiti and various UN agency partnerships.

– **Addressing Both Connectivity and Skills Gaps**: Recognition that infrastructure alone is insufficient – there’s equal need for digital skills training, AI literacy, and capacity building, with multiple speakers announcing training programs reaching millions of people globally.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to showcase progress and mobilize additional commitments for the Partner to Connect Digital Coalition, which works to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity by 2030. The session served as both a progress report and a call to action, encouraging new pledges and partnerships while highlighting successful models for bridging the digital divide.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was consistently optimistic and collaborative throughout the discussion. It began with celebratory announcements of major financial commitments and maintained an encouraging, partnership-focused atmosphere. Speakers demonstrated urgency about the 2030 deadline while remaining positive about achievable solutions through cooperation. The moderator kept the energy high with interactive elements and clear calls to action, creating an atmosphere of shared commitment rather than criticism or concern.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Video**: No specific role or expertise mentioned (appears to be introductory content)

– **Alex Wong**: Executive Office, overseeing Partner to Connect initiative at ITU, session moderator

– **Doreen Bogdan-Martin**: Secretary General of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union)

– **Nicole Isaac**: Vice President of Global Public Policy at Cisco, expertise in digital inclusion and AI investment

– **Solly Malatsi**: His Excellency, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, South Africa, leadership in WSIS Plus 20 process and G20 South Africa presidency

– **Liqian Hao**: Senior Vice President at China Unicom, expertise in telecommunications infrastructure and connectivity

– **Summer Chen**: Vice President at ZTE, expertise in ICT infrastructure and AI deployment

– **Christopher Hemmerlein**: Senior Manager in Public Policy at Amazon, expertise in satellite connectivity and Project Kuiper

– **Melike Yetken Krilla**: Head of international organizations at Google, expertise in AI, digital infrastructure, and global connectivity

– **Sally Wentworth**: President and CEO of Internet Society (ISOC), expertise in Internet infrastructure and community networks

– **Yu Ping Chan**: Head of Digital Partnerships and Engagement in the Chief Digital Office at UNDP (United Nations Development Program)

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Comprehensive Report: Partner to Connect Digital Coalition Progress and Universal Connectivity Initiatives

## Executive Summary

The Partner to Connect (P2C) Digital Coalition convened a high-level session during the WSIS+20 process and AI for Good summit to report on significant progress towards achieving universal connectivity and addressing the global digital divide. Moderated by Alex Wong from the ITU’s Executive Office, the discussion brought together senior representatives from international organisations, governments, and major technology companies to announce new commitments and assess progress towards the coalition’s ambitious targets.

Following an opening video that highlighted P2C’s mission to achieve universal meaningful connectivity through “hundreds of pledges worth billions of dollars submitted by entities from all around the world,” ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin announced that the coalition had reached $75 billion in pledges from over 450 organisations. This represented a substantial increase from $54 billion at the beginning of the year. By the session’s conclusion, incorporating new pledges announced during the panel, Alex Wong updated this figure to $76.1 billion, demonstrating remarkable momentum towards the ultimate goal of $100 billion in commitments by 2026.

The urgency of this mission was underscored by the stark reality that approximately 2.6 billion people—one-third of humanity—remain offline despite three decades of internet growth. This digital divide represents not merely a technological challenge but a fundamental barrier to economic development, social inclusion, and human rights realisation globally.

## Major Financial Commitments and Corporate Investments

The session featured several transformative new financial commitments from P2C champions and other key partners. Cisco Vice President Nicole Isaac announced a $1 billion global AI investment fund designed to support entrepreneurs and expand digital skills training to 230,000 individuals over three years. This builds upon Cisco’s existing Networking Academy programme, which has trained over 20 million individuals globally, now expanding from cybersecurity to include AI competencies.

China Unicom Senior Vice President Hao Liqian (speaking in Chinese with English translation) pledged $1.38 billion over five years, with $1.14 billion allocated for fibre and 5G network expansion and $240 million for digital village construction. This commitment leverages China’s remarkable infrastructure achievements: 98% 4G coverage and 90% 5G coverage in villages, plus 66% fibre coverage. Through co-building partnerships with China Telecom across 4.5 million towers (with China Unicom building 700,000), the company has achieved $51.6 billion in cost savings, $6 billion in annual operating cost reductions, and 2 million tons in carbon emission reductions.

ZTE Vice President Summer Chen committed $400 million annually for ICT infrastructure deployment, complemented by training programmes reaching over 50,000 people in developing regions. ZTE’s innovative solar-powered base stations in remote areas like Liberia have connected over 800 previously offline individuals, demonstrating adaptive technological solutions.

Google’s Melike Yetken Krilla announced a $120 million AI opportunity fund and the goal of training 100 million people through Grow with Google programmes. Google also revealed “hot off the presses” a new partnership with UNICC for an AI hub announced just hours earlier, alongside collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization on flood prediction systems. Google’s tens of billions in subsea cable infrastructure investments carry 95% of global data traffic, providing critical backbone connectivity.

The Internet Society, through President and CEO Sally Wentworth, exceeded their original 10,000-person training pledge and announced an additional $30 million commitment over five years for community networks. Building on their Haiti success story of over 100 community networks connecting tens of thousands through local expertise and diaspora funding, they’ve established a co-fund with Meta as the first contributor.

## Government Policy Initiatives and Regulatory Frameworks

South African Minister Solly Malatsi provided compelling examples of policy-driven digital inclusion, particularly his government’s removal of luxury taxes on smart devices—a practical solution addressing fundamental affordability barriers. This initiative, developed in partnership with the Global Mobile Association, represents an immediately replicable model for other nations.

The South African Connect project aims to connect 5.8 million residents through government facilities and telecommunications partnerships, demonstrating effective public-private collaboration. Minister Malatsi also announced an upcoming July 18th roundtable as part of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group, extending P2C’s country-specific approach.

Amazon’s Christopher Hemmerlein, Senior Manager in Public Policy, emphasised that current regulatory frameworks inadequately address Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies, necessitating collaborative government-private sector efforts to develop appropriate regulatory structures for emerging connectivity solutions.

## Infrastructure Solutions and Technological Innovation

The session showcased diverse technological approaches to connectivity challenges. Amazon’s Project Kuiper represents a satellite-based solution providing broadband access to 95% of the global population between 56 degrees latitude north and south. With terminals measuring 28 centimeters squared, offering speeds up to 400 Mbps at costs of hundreds of dollars, this initiative demonstrates satellite technology’s potential to complement terrestrial infrastructure.

Amazon’s collaborative approach—working with incumbent operators like Vodafone, Vodacom, and Verizon rather than competing—exemplifies how global technology companies can support existing ecosystems whilst expanding connectivity. This partnership model builds comprehensive digital ecosystems rather than creating parallel infrastructure.

The combination of ZTE’s solar-powered base stations addressing power and connectivity challenges simultaneously, Google’s massive subsea cable investments enabling all other connectivity initiatives, and China Unicom’s extensive terrestrial network deployment demonstrates the multi-layered infrastructure approach required for universal connectivity.

## Skills Development and Capacity Building Initiatives

Infrastructure alone proves insufficient for meaningful digital inclusion, with multiple speakers emphasising critical skills development requirements. Cisco’s Networking Academy expansion to include AI skills addresses emerging technological challenges, whilst Google’s provision of open-source AI models like GEMMA to 7 million researchers and academics democratises access to advanced technologies.

ZTE’s CORA alliance, targeting 1,000 global players to accelerate AI industry applications, demonstrates industry collaboration overcoming technical barriers. The Internet Society’s focus on training local technicians reflects their community-driven sustainability approach, recognising that long-term success requires local expertise rather than external dependency.

## Addressing the AI Divide and Future Technologies

A forward-looking discussion theme was preventing the digital divide from becoming an “AI divide.” Multiple organisations announced AI-focused initiatives recognising that emerging technologies could exacerbate existing inequalities unless deliberately addressed through proactive measures.

The UNDP’s Yu Ping Chan highlighted their support for over 90 countries on inclusive digital transformation and 69 policies related to digital ecosystems between 2022-2024. UNDP also launched the AI Hub for Sustainable Development in collaboration with Italy’s G7 presidency, demonstrating international coordination on AI accessibility.

## Partnership Models and Accountability Mechanisms

Throughout the session, speakers consistently emphasised that addressing the digital divide requires collaborative partnerships across sectors. Alex Wong established clear accountability by requiring that “if you’re committing to doing something and you haven’t entered it into the Partner2Connect platform as a pledge, we’re going to chase you on that.”

The discussion revealed remarkable consensus on fundamental principles: the critical importance of partnerships, substantial financial investment needs, essential skills development roles, and comprehensive infrastructure solutions addressing both urban and rural connectivity challenges.

## Future Directions and Upcoming Initiatives

The session concluded with announcements of upcoming P2C events designed to maintain momentum: sessions at the Landlocked Developing Countries Conference in Turkmenistan, the UN General Assembly, the World Telecom Development Conference in Azerbaijan, and an annual partnership meeting in December.

Planned community events for pledge sharing, matchmaking, and partnership development recognise that achieving ambitious goals requires ongoing facilitation beyond one-time commitments. Country roundtables following the Guatemala and upcoming South Africa models represent approaches addressing national-level challenges through global-local coordination.

## Conclusion

The Partner to Connect Digital Coalition session demonstrated significant progress from $54 billion to $76.1 billion in pledges whilst highlighting the scale and complexity of connecting 2.6 billion people by 2030. The strong consensus among diverse stakeholders, combined with concrete accountability mechanisms and forward-thinking approaches to emerging technologies like AI, provides a comprehensive framework for addressing current and future digital inclusion challenges.

The session’s emphasis on partnerships, substantial financial commitments, skills development, and policy reform, coupled with recognition that the digital divide could evolve into an AI divide, positions the coalition to address both immediate connectivity needs and emerging technological developments. The combination of large-scale infrastructure investments, community-driven approaches, and capacity building initiatives demonstrates mature understanding of digital inclusion’s multifaceted nature, providing reason for optimism about achieving universal meaningful connectivity by 2030.

Video: and many others who have contributed to the development of the Internet. Despite 30 years of steady growth, today, millions of people remain offline, and hundreds of millions more still lack the connectivity required to tap onto the transformative power of the Internet. The Partner to Connect Digital Coalition is set to change this paradigm by mobilizing resources, partnerships, and commitments to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity. To date, hundreds of pledges worth billions of dollars have been submitted through the P2C platform by entities from all around the world. But the Coalition’s work doesn’t stop here. In fact, it’s just getting started. Partner to Connect will scale pledges, track progress on implementation, and mobilize more resources and partnerships. P2C will also be working with partner countries to facilitate the implementation of the P2C pledges to accelerate digital transformation at the national level. Join Partner to Connect. Make a pledge for any of the focus areas of the Coalition. And help us come closer to our goal of a meaningfully connected planet. For more information, visit www.itu.int.com

Alex Wong: Okay, good afternoon everyone. If you could all take a seat if you’re planning to stay for the session. My name is Alex Wong in the Executive Office. I’m overseeing our Partner to Connect initiative. Welcome. Without further delay, I’m pleased and honoured to introduce as a Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the Secretary General of the ITU, Doreen.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin: Thank you so much, Alex. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to have the Partner2Connect community join us in marking the WSIS plus 20 process, let’s say. I think as you know and you heard this morning, the WSIS gave us a powerful vision of an inclusive, people-centered information society, and it helped us to build a shared understanding that digital development means leaving no one behind. The Partner2Connect Digital Coalition gives us a framework, a framework that helps us bring the WSIS vision to life. Launched just three years ago, the coalition has grown into one of the most dynamic platforms to match digital transformation needs with resources to meaningfully connect the underserved communities all over the world. A platform that mobilizes investments, forges bold partnerships, and delivers tangible results where it matters the most. At the beginning of this year, we had recorded $54 billion in pledges, and ladies and gentlemen, today I’m proud to share that we have crossed the $75 billion mark. So thank you for that. And that 34% increase is something that I think we can all be proud of. It’s progress, and it’s progress that demonstrates the collective will of this coalition, Thank you all for joining us today. I want to begin by acknowledging the collective will of my amazing panelists here with us today, made up of governments, of companies, of civil society, and international organizations to bridge the digital divide. It shows that like the WSIS community, Partner to Connect Digital Coalition is more than the sum of its parts. Because behind each pledge is a story of digital opportunity, is a story of access to more affordable devices and services, a story of new skills learned, a story of more skills, more skills, more communities, more schools meaningfully connected, and it’s a story of greater economic potential being unlocked. While we have come a long way in three years, I think it’s fair to say we still have a long way to go because, ladies and gentlemen, a third of humanity remains unconnected, offline. And the window to achieve our 2030 goal of universal, meaningful connectivity is closing fast. What we do next and how quickly we do it matters. This afternoon you’re going to hear from public and private sector leaders who are delivering results and impact on the ground. You’ll hear about new high-impact pledges that push us closer to our target to get to $100 billion U.S. in commitments by the end of 2026. And you’ll see what’s possible, what’s possible when we come together and we act together across sectors, across borders, and across regions. So thank you for… Thank you for being part of this Partner2Connect journey. Let’s keep going with purpose, with urgency and with the people we serve always at the center of our actions. Again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. And with that, I hand back to our moderator.

Alex Wong: Thank you. Thank you, Doreen. So, we are looking forward to a great discussion and as Doreen mentioned, we have the pleasure of a panel of excellent leaders here who will share a bit more of what they’ve done in terms of Partner2Connect. And there’s going to be one rule here in this session which applies to both our panel and to those in the audience because we’re going to have some time for you to maybe make an intervention. If you’re committing to doing something and you haven’t entered it into the Partner2Connect platform as a pledge, we’re going to chase you on that. So, you’re welcome to announce what you’re doing, but you’re going to have to put it in the Partner2Connect system. So, with that, I’m going to introduce each panelist as they speak so you’ll get to hear who they are. We’re going to kick off with actually an exciting first speaker who’s going to get us off on the right track because she’s going to announce something new that’s being done by Cisco. So, with that in mind, my first speaker is going to be, as I look through my notes, excuse me. Our first speaker is going to be Nicole Isik, who’s the Vice President of Global Public Policy at Cisco. Cisco has long led on digital inclusion and they’ve been doing a lot of things with ITU on digital inclusion topic. And for today’s, to kick us off on our discussion, I’m pleased to invite Nicole to announce a major AI investment. Nicole, over to you.

Nicole Isaac: Thank you so much, Alex. It’s great to be here and thank you, Secretary General Doreen Bogdan-Martin. We truly appreciate all of the work that we’ve done together and we look forward to the work that’s to come. Cisco’s mission is to power an inclusive future for all. And we’re not just talking about some, we’re talking about everyone around the world everywhere. And we do that each and every day through our people, places, devices, and all of the technology, tools, and hardware that we’re investing in infrastructure, databases, and security to adequately and effectively connect everyone. As part of this commitment, our CEO just announced a global AI investment hub that we’re working on. that was created and leveraged for $1 billion. And we are looking forward to utilizing that fund to invest in entrepreneurs globally and to expand access to digital skills, not only through our NetAcademy partnership, but also through our greater work with the AI Internet Coalition Technology Forum, a partnership with multiple companies at the table. And we’re committed to expanding this work globally. And so not only do we have an investment fund of a billion dollars, but we also announced a global AI hub in France, where we are committed to expanding digital skills for over 230,000 individuals in the next three years. I’m happy to speak more as time goes on, but I know there are other panelists and really excited for the work that we’ll do together. Thank you for this work.

Alex Wong: All right. Okay, so the idea of Partners Connect is now people can go to talk to Nicole afterwards, because they might be doing something on AI capacity building or something to contribute. And the idea is that if you’re pledging on Partners Connect, you’re also open to exploring partnerships. So that will go to all of the pledges that are in the Partners Connect system. So thank you, Nicole. Next, I’m going to turn to my right. I have the pleasure to introduce His Excellency, Mr. Solly Malatsi, the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, South Africa. He of course is playing a leadership role in the WSIS Plus 20 process. He’s also been playing a leadership role in the G20 South Africa presidency, where I too has been a pleasure and an honor to be the knowledge partner on the Digital Economy Working Group. And within South Africa, connectivity begins at home. And Minister, you made that one of your key priorities. Would you like to share how you’re planning to make this a reality?

Solly Malatsi: Thanks very much for that. And greetings to everyone, including the panelists. And I think Nicola has set the bar high with that succinct contribution. I know you said we had three minutes, but her interventions was very succinct and way. and Mr. David M. Nguyen. So I’m going to try and break that. So our focus is several years ago the South African government recognized the power of connectivity towards uplifting people towards economic prosperity and it took a decision to initiate the South African Connect project to connect people who weren’t connected. And this targeted not only Wi-Fi high sports but also to connect government facilities as those are the central hubs for a lot of people who are outside the metros and the metropolitan areas and major cities. And the aim was to connect 5.8 million residents. And as this project has unfolded, we’ve also taken note of the fact that in order to achieve that goal, it requires an inclusive approach, working together with private sector, telcos and also small and micro-medium enterprises. So one of the things that our regulator does in the issuance of licensing and also selling auctioning spectrum is that it attaches to the telcos what are called social obligations, which is their commitment towards connecting public facilities so that together and collectively we can try and make the impact and the difference that we are making. But we also acknowledge that connectivity on its own is insufficient, right? So you have to also look what are the other barriers that stand in the way of people making meaningful participation to drive economic outputs. One of those, and Doreen touched on it slightly, is around the affordability of smart devices. In our taxation dispensation, they are classified as luxury goods and that drives their high cost. So one of the key milestones that we’ve been able to achieve in a short space of time was to persuade our national treasury to look at the entry point of those smart devices to remove that luxury tax so that they can be much more affordable to a lot of low-income households who we know with their access to this can drive more e-learning, e-commerce and even e-services.

Alex Wong: Thank you, Your Excellency. So taxes, I hope you all heard that because that’s what we always talk about as one of the inhibitors is to look at how taxes of ICT equipment are. I would also add, if you’re okay, Your Excellency, that as part of the G20 South Africa Digital Economy Working Group, there will be a roundtable in South Africa on July 18th to look specifically at the connectivity situation and some of the challenges and opportunities. So thank you for your leadership, sir. Okay, so our next speaker, and I’m going to invite all of you to pick up your headsets or your translation devices and switch to Channel 1 because our next speaker, Mr. Hao Liqian, who’s the Senior Vice President at China Unicom, will be speaking in Chinese. So we do have Chinese-English translation. We don’t have all the other languages, but we do have Chinese-English, so I’m giving everyone a moment to get their headsets on. Mr. Hao is going to be announcing also an ambitious new pledge. So I have the pleasure to pass the floor over to you, sir. Thank you very much.

Liqian Hao: Thank you. I’m Hao Liqian from China Unicom. Thank you. I’m Mr. Hao Liqian from China Unicom. Everyone knows China has 9.6 million square kilometers and we have 1.4 billion population. What you do not know is that China’s distribution of population is dense in the southeast and less dense in the northwest. 6% of the west regions only have 6% of the population, and in the west region we only have less than 20 people per square kilometers. The network building and the operation cost is quite high, and therefore this electricity supply stability is also an issue. As a Chinese operator, we try to get rid of the digital divide, and we need to overcome this challenge. In the past few years, with our efforts, we have been able to achieve that. In China, we have sold more than half a million villages, so we can achieve that for 98% 4G coverage in these villages, and 90% of the villages with 5G coverage. And for our fiber villages, we can achieve about 66%. With these numbers, you can see that we have achievement, but there is still a gap. Therefore, ITVU has this strategy, and we are planning for the next five years, we will invest 1.38 billion U.S. dollars, and this 1.1 billion will be used on the fixed fiber network and the 5G access, and also 0.24 billion will be used on the digital villages construction, meaning the digital infrastructures and applications. We were also planning on this $14 million to be used on the globalization and also for the disabled seniors and the low-income people. We have these discounts for the service charges within our plan. The next phase, we will have $250 million to be used for these discounts. These initiatives have been put into practice in China. We hope to do better in the future. Thank you.

Alex Wong: Thank you, Mr. Hao. Again, as I mentioned, anyone interested or doing work in China, or I think you have some international component to the pledge, if I heard correctly, please see Mr. Hao. Our next three speakers, who are from ZTE, Amazon, and Google, are especially recognized as part of our Partner2Connect champions community. In addition to the three organizations I just mentioned, I should also add Microsoft and the Inter-American Development Bank. The five P2C champions have played as very strong advisors and supporters of Partner2Connect at the ITU, so we want to give a little bit of the extra recognition for the leadership they’ve played. With our next speaker, I’m pleased to call on Summer Chen, who is the vice president at ZTE, one of our P2C champions. She will share some of the most recent exciting opportunities that ZTE is exploring. Over to you, Summer.

Summer Chen: Thank you. It’s very exciting to come here and share some interesting progress ZTE has contributed to the whole industries. As you know, ZTE is a kind of infrastructure supplier. We developed IT and city infrastructure for all the worlds, especially for the… and Mr. Eric L. Liqian. So, what we have done is not just making the connection, we also overcome the AI divider now. So, I want to focus on three points. First, we’re making the connectivity, especially in some non-connected area for these recent years, as we are one of the champions for P2P, we have insisted every year we are making the deployment of ICT infrastructure for 400 million U.S. dollars. And we also making the AI infrastructure to handle the barrier of technical barriers, making it easier to deploy the AI applications and smart computing deployments. And the most important thing is empower human. We give the lectures, lessons for the people that learn technological courses. We do this kind of courses for over 50,000 years to some developing areas like South Africa, like Indonesia and Estonia. They give the power or ability for this kind of people to learn technical, to learn a skill or a capability for their facing in the future. So, what we have done is not just technical, we give this kind of solutions, this kind of infrastructures for all global people, not just for the modern city or we also gaming for the chance to their remote areas. For example, this year we have some use case in Liberia with an orange operator. For these people, we set up a base station with solar power to serve more than 800% of the people. They are offline, they are not connecting to the internet. So all these kinds of projects give them a chance to catch up to digital life. So what we have done is help them, and the technical folks and the people, that’s what we have done. Thank you.

Alex Wong: Thank you, Summer. So I think for those of you listening, you’re getting a sense that we have to address the demand side, the supply side, policy, and Partner Connect is that place where all these kinds of commitments can be announced so we can also see how they can support each other and what we call matchmaking. Next I have the pleasure to introduce Chris Hemmerlein, Christopher Hemmerlein from Amazon. He is Senior Manager in Public Policy. Chris and Amazon have also been long-standing supporters of Partner Connect, as I mentioned earlier. Chris, over to you to give a little more details on some plans that you have on achieving universal connectivity.

Christopher Hemmerlein: Thanks, Alex. It’s a real pleasure to be here today. As you know, we’ve been a long supporter of the P2C program. I’d really like to talk a little bit today about Project Kuiper, although we’re not making a specific pledge about Kuiper today. It really does aspire towards the same goals as that program. Project Kuiper is Amazon’s initiative to bring high-speed, low-latency, affordable broadband connectivity to communities that are currently unserved or underserved by that type of connectivity today. It’s based upon a satellite system that operates in low-Earth orbit. or Leo. And there are really three dimensions of the program that are really helping to bridge the digital divide, and those are affordability, ubiquitous coverage, and partnerships. When it comes to affordability, historically the biggest barrier to affordable satellite service has been the customer terminal. But at Amazon, we’ve engineered a customer terminal that is lighter and more compact than legacy systems. It’s going to be easier to manufacture and to ship and to install. And so our major terminal, our prime terminal, is going to be about 28 centimeters squared, about the size of a laptop, capable of downloading speeds up to 400 megabits per second. And we’re producing them in-house for a couple of hundred dollars, a price that we think we’re going to make even lower and lower, and of course pass that savings on to consumers. When it comes to coverage, we all know that the areas that have long lagged behind when it comes to access are communities that are in rural and remote areas, perhaps challenged by topography such as mountains or islands. And we are going to be able to deliver service to those types of communities because we’re less reliant upon terrestrial infrastructure. Our service footprint is going to be between 56 degrees latitude north and south, so that’s about 95 percent of the global population. So together, those two dimensions mean we can really bring tens of millions of new customers online with high-speed broadband connectivity. And finally, when it comes to partnerships, a partner-to-connect would be a great slogan for Kuiper. Unfortunately, I can’t use it, but otherwise…

Alex Wong: We’ll sell it to you.

Christopher Hemmerlein: We’ll sell it to me, okay. Because in a way, we understand at Amazon that the digital divide is too great a challenge for one company or one organization to overcome alone. So we’re working with partners who share our vision for bringing universal connectivity. A prime example is working with mobile network operators to expand the reach. The four G or five G networks by providing satellite backhaul to new extended reaches of the network and bring it back to the to the core network. What’s really important about that, I think is, you know, we’re working with incumbent local operators. And so we’re supporting local economies, we’re building the overall digital ecosystem. And then I’ll leave it at there, but I look forward to further discussion. Thank you.

Alex Wong: Thank you, Chris. So Matt, next I have Malika Yetken Krilla, who’s heading international organizations at Google. Malika, over to you to share the latest developments on Google and its pledges to partner and connect.

Melike Yetken Krilla: Thanks very much, Alex. And thanks to the ITU family for hosting such an important gathering for AI for Good and certainly partner to connect. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We are tech optimists. We think tech is a place to go that can transform the world and do so in a very positive way, while realizing that we need to ensure that the digital divide does not become the AI divide. And when we have 2.6 billion people unconnected still, the mechanics of how we do that is in partnership, it’s being bold and responsible, is in our innovation. And so there’s three things I want to talk about today. The first is infrastructure. Google has spent tens of billions of dollars on data center and subsea cable development to connect people all over the world. Last year alone, we announced high frequency optic cables that will connect Latin America to Africa, Africa to APEC, remote areas in the Pacific Ocean to the Americas. 95% of the world’s data is now free flowing through subsea cable. So the connectivity and others. We are committed to open-source models, so if you look at things like our GEMMA AI model that we give to researchers for free to be able to create innovations, create them in their local language, think about local challenges they have, and build local solutions to global issues. We now have 7 million researchers and academics and scientists using these open models to build and create their own destiny. It’s a five-times increase from what we saw this time last year. Second, if we think about global skilling, particularly around our Grow with Google program, which is looking at AI essentials, training in data science, how to use new large-language models like GEMMA and I, we are training 100 million people globally on that program. Second to looking at a global AI opportunity fund that we announced, $120 million to help grant local organizations throughout the world to get the skills they need, the training they need, the capacity that they need. And third, Chris covered this and Nicole did as well, is partnerships. We like to think of ourselves as a bold and innovative company, but we want our innovations to be deployed responsibly, and part of that is in the partnerships we create and the relationships we do and the work we do with the UN. So when we’re talking about the transformational nature of AI with healthcare, with agriculture, with education, we want to partner with all of you to do that. Thanks very much.

Alex Wong: Thank you, Adhiya. And last but not least, of course, Partner Connect and WSIS is all about mobile. and Ms. Sally Wentworth, President and CEO of Internet Society. I think many of you are familiar with ISOC, who has been an organization making the forefront of making the Internet more open and accessible for years. And ISOC, your original pledge was to support 10,000 people to build and maintain Internet infrastructure and also supporting 100 complementary connectivity solutions. Kyrgyzstan, your chapter there, has been very active as well. So maybe over to you, Sally, to give an update and share anything else.

Sally Wentworth: Thank you, and it’s a real pleasure to be here and to be participating in the high-level event in Partnered Connect. It’s so important that we remain committed and steadfast in our work to ensure that the remaining unconnected are brought online. And that is part of the Internet Society’s mission and vision, is that the Internet is for everyone. As you said, Alex, we made a commitment in 2022 to train 10,000 people to maintain Internet infrastructure and to support 100 complementary connectivity solutions. And I’m happy to report that we have achieved those pledges and even exceeded them, as you point out, with the Kyrgyzstan chapter. And before I speak about where we want to go next, I want to tell a little bit of a story that affirms that we think we’re on the right path here. The Internet Society has chapters all over the world that are carrying out our mission at the local level, and we’re tremendously proud of the work that they do and we’re honored that they are a part of the global community. Back in 2019, the Internet Society chapter in Haiti participated in the national IGF that was focused on connectivity. Working out of that, the chapter decided that they wanted to take a more proactive role in connecting the unconnected in Haiti. They reached out to colleagues in India who had been successfully deploying community networks, and they went to India to learn how to do that. And they brought back lessons learned that they incorporated into their own plans. They did a national survey of where the connectivity gaps were, and they worked with the local regulators to ensure that they were complying with national law. They then found contributions from across the globe, particularly in the diaspora living overseas. And after five years, they have been able to implement over 100 community networks or points of presence across Haiti. They’ve done that with a sustainable business model that’s connecting tens of thousands of people and training local experts to both build and maintain that connectivity. So that’s the kind of model that we think is very successful in the hardest-to-reach communities. And on the basis of that, I’m happy to report that we made another Partner Connect pledge in April to scale this model across the world. We’re committed to training over 15,000 more people to build and maintain Internet infrastructure worldwide. And we’re committing, through a connectivity co-fund initiative, $30 million over the next five years to support locally scalable, sustainable networks that create jobs and foster entrepreneurship, scale these training solutions through train-the-trainer models, and expand local infrastructure and make it more reliable and more resilient going forward. So we are always happy to partner with organizations. We’re happy to report that Metta was our first contributor to the co-fund, and we’re delighted to have them as a partner. And we’re in conversations with others to continue to do that. to build out this fund. But this is our contribution to achieving the vision that we have, that the Internet truly is for everyone. Thank you.

Alex Wong: Thank you. Okay, so before I turn it to a second rapid round, and also open it up to the audience for any comments, I see our good colleague and friend Yu-Ping Chan in the front row here from the UNDP. The reason is, I want to mention is, Partner Connect has over 450 organizations now involved who have made pledges, and we’re really proud that 29 UN agencies have made pledges, because Partner Connect, we built it for the UN as well as the global world to also share commitments. We had many of the UN leaders. Your former Administrator, Akram Steiner, was one of our original leaders of the Partner Connect initiative. USG Rabab Fatima, the Undersecretary General of the OHRLLS, has been a steadfast presence. Let me invite Yu-Ping to share. I’ll give you my mic here, Yu-Ping. Yu-Ping is the Head of Digital Partnerships and Engagement in the Chief Digital Office. Maybe to share a bit of UNDP’s progress on the Partner Connect pledges.

Yu Ping Chan: Thank you so much, Alex. Indeed, UNDP has been proud to be a close partner of the ITU in this as well as many other initiatives, including, for instance, the work around SDG Digital and the convenings that we’ve done around the United Nations about the power of technology to really accelerate development and the achievement of sustainable development. On behalf of the United Nations Development Program, the UN’s development arm present in over 170 countries and territories around the world, I just wanted to reaffirm our full commitment to the P2C through our pledges on supporting development of local digital ecosystems built on inclusivity, sustainability, and human rights. As Doreen, the ITU Secretary General has said, we believe that the P2C coalition is a critical part of the WSIS framework and community. Indeed, our pledges speak directly to the WSIS Action Line’s own capacity building, enabling environment, and the international region of and our environment. We’ve make significant progress on our PTC pledges, for instance between 2022 and 2024, UNDP has supported over 90 countries on inclusive digital transformation and has supported 69 policies and strategies related to enabling digital ecosystem. This year we will further expand our work on capacity building, digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence which will advance the objectives of PTC and data-wise outcomes. Just last month, UNDP, in collaboration with Italy’s G7 presidency, launched the AI Hub for Sustainable Development which involves many of the partners around the room, which focuses on accelerating local private sector innovation and partnerships, which was also highlighted and mentioned by many of the speakers on stage, for advancing AI for sustainable development in Africa. We’re doing much more, I would be happy to speak with any other colleagues in the room, but I don’t want to take up more time, but please do continue to count on UNDP as a committed partner in all of this.

Alex Wong: Thank you. All right, thank you Yuqing. So the question I’m going to turn to the panel, but you know, offer one or two or three or however many wish to to quickly respond and then open it up to the floor if you have a question or a commitment you’d like to make or a partnership you’d like to talk about, but the question is about partnerships. I mean that is the spirit of WSIS, the spirit of Partner Connect, and I’d like to just ask the panel if in implementing their pledges do they have an example of a partnership they’d like to highlight and maybe a lesson learned for those of you that might come to talk to you afterwards to see how they can work with you. So maybe an example if you have one and maybe a lesson learned that you’d like to share, but I’m just opening it up if anyone wishes to start and we can take a few minutes on the panel to speak. Summer, you have the mic. I have some information to share. Okay, over to you Summer.

Summer Chen: Okay, as all you know, ZTE is very ambitious in ecosystem cooperation and actually we have joined more than 200 ecosystem organizations to do our, to help the organization, to help the whole industry’s development. So this year, we just mentioned, we are upgrade our strategy, more focus on AI. So it’s not just connecting, it’s more helping to use AI. We are focused on AI for all, so AI accessible. So how to realize AI for all? In supporting this, we are set up a kind of organization, we call it CORA, it’s a cooperating, it’s a open cooperation, intelligent industry cooperation alliance. Some industry top player, they join this kind of alliance. What we are target is to making the AI more quick, and it’s accelerate the using AI to the industry applications. So our target is to involving more than 1,000 players in this alliance globally. So it’s quite important to collecting all the different forces to get together to accelerate this kind of development, making the technicals to overcome the financial, to overcome the technical, or overcome the equal resources challenges. And I’m happy to hear, to engage in all this, a deep discussion, so I want to hear more voices from different players to join us. Thank you.

Nicole Isaac: Sure, thank you Alex. I mentioned briefly the Cisco Networking Academy, which is our educational academy that’s been training on cyber security skills for the last 20. and others, and have trained over 20 million individuals globally. We’ve committed of course to expanding that offering to include AI skill sets and what are some of the more foundational digitization skills that need to be taught to really bring up those 2.6 billion individuals who are disconnected and ensure they have the requisite training to be connected to the internet and to have a deep understanding of the skills for tomorrow. I will say that to Alex’s question, what are the lessons that we’ve learned? And it actually goes back to what the minister outlined. It’s so important to have every partner that’s at the table be a committed partner that’s willing to not only leverage their respective expertise, but to help us get to scale. And that’s also the unique role of government. When government comes to the table and works with the private sector, works with civil society, we’re able to not only execute on our objectives, but get it to scale in a way that’s most impactful and that will drive outcomes for those who are most marginalized. So very grateful for that work. We recently announced a partnership with Humane AI in Saudi Arabia and a number of other companies. Really excited to what’s to come and just very grateful for all the work that’s happening across the board and all the work that’s happening in the room. Thank you.

Alex Wong: Okay, great. Thank you. I think Chris was going to go and then Malika. And did you want to close? Okay, Chris, over to you. Let’s try to keep them pretty quick responses so we have a chance.

Christopher Hemmerlein: You got it, Alex. Thank you. I just wanted to touch briefly in my previous intervention, I mentioned the type of partnerships that Kuiper is forming with mobile network operators. And so for a couple of examples, we have partnerships with Vodafone and Vodacom in Europe and Africa, and in the United States with Verizon. But because I’m a policy person, I’d be remiss just to note how valuable we see partnerships with governments. and Mr. David Borenstein. Governments have connectivity objectives, they have social and economic development objectives. And in many cases, because LEO satellites are still a new and evolving technology, regulatory frameworks don’t yet account for them. And so we’re working with governments really hand-in-hand at the ITU and at the national level in developing kind of the type of regulatory and policy frameworks that work both for ourselves and for the government and for local operators as well to really develop that win-win-win win-win-win. So I’ll be thrilled to talk about sort of our relationship with governments and what we can do more to further those relationships. Thank you.

Alex Wong: All right. Thank you. Melike.

Melike Yetken Krilla: Thanks very much. At Google, as I said, we really are excited about partnering with other people to address and identify solutions to some of these great challenges and how AI can be the primary tool. Two partnerships I want to highlight both with the UN. First, hot off the presses, just upstairs at 2 p.m., UNICC, the UN Shared Service Provider, announced they are creating an AI hub in order to deploy AI systems within the UN to transform daily ability to get your job done and to AI capacity building. Google is thrilled to be a partner with UNICC to be able to build solutions that UN officials throughout the world are able to deploy and use and make their life easier and make their life more efficient and reduce redundancies, et cetera. And we’re doing that as well with training through their AI academy with our apolitical relationship to be able to have virtual training. That’s first. Second is the World Meteorological Organization just endorsed our flood hub program, which is geospatial data and large language models use predictive analytics to predict floods in advance. The technology is so good, we’ve been able to identify floods seven days in advance.

Alex Wong: Thank you. I’m going to go to the Minister last. So, Sally, you can take the floor next, and then over to you to end. Go ahead, Sally.

Sally Wentworth: Thank you. I think it’s definitely true within the Internet technical community that the way the Internet is developed is through partnership. It’s through collaboration. It is fundamental to the Internet itself, and so we at the Internet Society have sort of emerged out of that tradition. For our work, especially on connectivity, a key dimension of our work is the need to have a strong local partner. We don’t want to be in the position of being in from the outside and claiming to understand what’s going to work best in any particular environment. So we really are looking for that local expertise that can help shape the connectivity approach that will work best in a particular market. I think the Haiti example is an example of, in this case, the local chapter of the Internet Society really having that kind of expertise. But then if you take that further, you see that they worked with the government. They worked with other local partners, international partners to make that possible, but they were the locus of that work. They understood what the community needed, what the environmental position was. They’re a small island, and so they faced unique challenges that they understand best, and we come in behind that as a supporting function. So local Digital partners is critical to our strategy.

Alex Wong: Thank you. Mr. Hao, did you want to add?

Liqian Hao: Yeah.

Alex Wong: Thank you, please.

Liqian Hao: For partners for getting rid of the digital divide, it’s very important. First, the network, this ubiquitous connectivity and the China Unicom and China Telecom, we have built together the largest, this co-built, co-shared, this 5G network. This is for getting rid of digital divide. It’s very helpful to carriers. We work together on the 4.5 million and these towers. And China Unicom built about 700,000 and these towers. It’s for the villages. It’s tried to get rid of the digital divide. We saved 51.6 billion and annually we can save 6 billion operating costs and we can reduce carbon emission and 2 million tons per year. And with these network access, what’s more important now is about the computing power and also the AI equality. And this is more of a conflict than the network access. We work with the government and the different civil societies together, especially on the agriculture production and the medical education, using our infrastructure, using our digital platforms. and others. We have to make sure that we continue to work with our partners and our applications to provide services and we expect to do more on these areas. Thanks.

Alex Wong: Thank you. Thanks very much.

Solly Malatsi: Two of the partnerships that are worth sharing in here is we are working together with the Global Mobile Association, particularly looking at the impact where in the removal of the luxury techs can make in making smart devices more affordable. We think it’s a very important instrument, as I shared earlier, in terms of expanding access to the smart devices and the impact that they can do in empowering citizens from being much more digitally active and connected. Secondly, it’s around the public services and young people with digital skills. We’ve got an ongoing partnership that will be finalized. It’s in the pipelines with the private sector, but it’s on assessment of our needs in the public service, looking in terms of the capacity of the digital skills of public servants, because as the drivers of digital transformation in the state, we’ve got to make sure that they are fully capacitated and empowered to be able to drive the digital transformation that we want. Thanks.

Alex Wong: Thank you, panel. I’m sorry I’m not going to have time to go to the audience. I will wrap up the session now, and then we can give a round of applause to our panel at the end. If we can just go to the next slide, I wanted to make sure our colleagues here and everyone in the room is aware that Partner Connect is not just a session, and what we have planned in the coming few months, if the slide can come up, it’s a bit of a busy slide on purpose because we think there’s a lot to be done, but we will be convening Partner to Connect sessions at the upcoming Landlocked Developing Countries Conference that will be taking place in Turkmenistan in August. If you want to be on the session and say a few words and share your pledge, please. come talk to us. We plan to be having a session to celebrate again progress and pledges that are during the UN General Assembly. We’re still finalizing the exact date but most likely September 22nd and we’ll also of course be present at our World Telecom Development Conference hosted in Azerbaijan. That’ll be taking place in November and then we have our partnership annual meeting. I will be in probably Geneva and perhaps also paired with New York during the WSIS plus 20 event in December. I guess I’ll just want to finish off on the calendar by sharing that also on the bottom line we are continuing to hold community events for the PDC community to share pledges, to share opportunities to match make and partner and we’re also convening country roundtables. We held one recently in Guatemala with the government which we’re very pleased together with Inter-American Development Bank and the private sector where we brought together the community to talk about the Guatemala challenges and opportunities. So please stay tuned on that. If you go to the next slide I think there’s a QR code for you to scan if you want to be added to the PDC emailing list. So I will finish by sharing an update on the number of pledges. Because of some of the new pledges announced in the panel, correcting my Secretary General which I never get to do, we’re now actually at 76.1 billion in pledges. So give a round of applause to yourselves and also to our panel. And with that I’d like to thank our panel. Thank all of you for listening. Again I’m sorry we hadn’t had a chance to hear from some of you on the floor but hopefully next time there’ll be plenty of occasions. Thank you again panelists and enjoy the rest of the WSIS. Thank you.

Agreement points

Partnerships are essential for achieving digital connectivity and transformation goals

Speakers

– Nicole Isaac
– Christopher Hemmerlein
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Sally Wentworth
– Solly Malatsi
– Liqian Hao

Arguments

Government-private sector collaboration is crucial for achieving scale and impact in digital transformation initiatives

Private sector partnerships with mobile network operators are essential for extending 4G/5G networks through satellite backhaul

UNICC partnership with Google creates AI hub for UN system deployment and capacity building

Local partnerships are critical for understanding community needs and environmental challenges in connectivity projects

South Africa partners with Global Mobile Association on smart device affordability and with private sector on public service digital skills assessment

China Unicom works with government and civil society on agriculture, medical, and education applications using digital platforms

Summary

All speakers emphasized that addressing the digital divide requires collaborative partnerships across sectors, with government, private sector, civil society, and international organizations working together to leverage their respective expertise and achieve scale.

Topics

Development | Economic | Legal and regulatory

Massive financial commitments are needed to bridge the digital divide

Speakers

– Doreen Bogdan-Martin
– Nicole Isaac
– Liqian Hao
– Summer Chen
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Sally Wentworth

Arguments

Coalition has grown to over 450 organizations with pledges worth $76.1 billion, exceeding the $75 billion milestone with 34% increase this year

Cisco announced $1 billion global AI investment fund to invest in entrepreneurs and expand digital skills access to 230,000 individuals over three years

China Unicom pledged $1.38 billion over five years, with $1.14 billion for fiber and 5G networks and $240 million for digital village construction

ZTE commits $400 million annually for ICT infrastructure deployment and has trained over 50,000 people in developing areas

Google announced $120 million AI opportunity fund and is training 100 million people globally through Grow with Google program

Internet Society pledged to train 15,000 more people and committed $30 million over five years for locally scalable, sustainable networks

Summary

All speakers demonstrated commitment through substantial financial pledges, ranging from millions to billions of dollars, showing consensus that significant investment is required to achieve universal connectivity goals.

Topics

Development | Economic | Infrastructure

Skills development and capacity building are critical components of digital inclusion

Speakers

– Nicole Isaac
– Summer Chen
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Sally Wentworth
– Liqian Hao

Arguments

Cisco Networking Academy has trained over 20 million individuals globally on cybersecurity and is expanding to include AI skills

ZTE commits $400 million annually for ICT infrastructure deployment and has trained over 50,000 people in developing areas

Google announced $120 million AI opportunity fund and is training 100 million people globally through Grow with Google program

Internet Society pledged to train 15,000 more people and committed $30 million over five years for locally scalable, sustainable networks

China Unicom allocated $14 million for discounts to disabled, senior, and low-income users, with additional $250 million planned

Summary

Speakers agreed that providing digital skills training and capacity building is essential for meaningful connectivity, with commitments to train millions of people globally in various technical and digital literacy skills.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Infrastructure investment must address both urban and rural connectivity challenges

Speakers

– Liqian Hao
– Summer Chen
– Christopher Hemmerlein
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Solly Malatsi

Arguments

China has achieved 98% 4G coverage and 90% 5G coverage in villages, with 66% fiber coverage despite geographic challenges

ZTE deployed solar-powered base stations in remote areas like Liberia, connecting over 800 previously offline people

Amazon’s Project Kuiper will provide satellite broadband to 95% of global population with terminals costing hundreds of dollars and speeds up to 400 Mbps

Google has invested tens of billions in subsea cables connecting regions globally, with 95% of world’s data flowing through subsea infrastructure

South African Connect project aims to connect 5.8 million residents through government facilities and partnerships with telcos

Summary

All speakers recognized the need for comprehensive infrastructure solutions that can reach both urban and remote areas, using various technologies including terrestrial networks, satellite systems, and innovative power solutions.

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Similar viewpoints

These speakers share a focus on AI as a transformative technology that requires significant investment, open collaboration, and global partnerships to ensure equitable access and prevent the digital divide from becoming an AI divide.

Speakers

– Nicole Isaac
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Summer Chen

Arguments

Cisco announced $1 billion global AI investment fund to invest in entrepreneurs and expand digital skills access to 230,000 individuals over three years

Google provides open-source AI models like GEMMA to 7 million researchers and academics for local innovation

ZTE established CORA alliance targeting 1,000 global players to accelerate AI industry applications and overcome technical barriers

Topics

Development | Economic | Sociocultural

These speakers emphasize community-based and locally-driven approaches to connectivity, recognizing that successful digital inclusion requires understanding local needs, leveraging local expertise, and creating sustainable solutions tailored to specific communities.

Speakers

– Sally Wentworth
– Summer Chen
– Solly Malatsi

Arguments

Internet Society’s Haiti chapter implemented over 100 community networks connecting tens of thousands through local expertise and diaspora funding

ZTE deployed solar-powered base stations in remote areas like Liberia, connecting over 800 previously offline people

South African Connect project aims to connect 5.8 million residents through government facilities and partnerships with telcos

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize that emerging technologies require updated regulatory frameworks and institutional partnerships to ensure proper deployment and governance, emphasizing the need for collaborative approaches between technology companies and regulatory bodies.

Speakers

– Christopher Hemmerlein
– Melike Yetken Krilla

Arguments

Regulatory frameworks need updating to accommodate new LEO satellite technologies through government-private sector collaboration

UNICC partnership with Google creates AI hub for UN system deployment and capacity building

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected consensus

Tax policy as a tool for digital inclusion

Speakers

– Solly Malatsi
– Alex Wong

Arguments

South Africa removed luxury taxes on smart devices to make them more affordable for low-income households

So taxes, I hope you all heard that because that’s what we always talk about as one of the inhibitors is to look at how taxes of ICT equipment are

Explanation

The consensus on tax policy reform as a critical tool for digital inclusion was unexpected in a discussion primarily focused on infrastructure and partnerships. This represents a sophisticated understanding that policy barriers, not just technical or financial ones, significantly impact digital access.

Topics

Economic | Development | Legal and regulatory

Open-source approaches to AI and technology development

Speakers

– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Summer Chen

Arguments

Google provides open-source AI models like GEMMA to 7 million researchers and academics for local innovation

ZTE established CORA alliance targeting 1,000 global players to accelerate AI industry applications and overcome technical barriers

Explanation

The consensus on open-source and collaborative approaches to AI development was unexpected given that these are competing technology companies. This suggests a shared recognition that the scale of the digital divide challenge requires collaborative rather than competitive approaches.

Topics

Development | Economic | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed strong consensus across all speakers on the need for partnerships, substantial financial investment, skills development, and comprehensive infrastructure solutions to address the digital divide. There was also unexpected agreement on policy reforms and open-source approaches.

Consensus level

Very high level of consensus with no significant disagreements identified. This strong alignment suggests that the Partner2Connect initiative has successfully created a shared understanding of challenges and solutions among diverse stakeholders, which bodes well for coordinated implementation of digital inclusion efforts globally.

Different viewpoints

Approach to AI accessibility and deployment

Speakers

– Summer Chen
– Melike Yetken Krilla

Arguments

ZTE established CORA alliance targeting 1,000 global players to accelerate AI industry applications and overcome technical barriers

Google provides open-source AI models like GEMMA to 7 million researchers and academics for local innovation

Summary

ZTE focuses on creating a closed alliance of industry players to accelerate AI applications, while Google emphasizes open-source models for broader accessibility to researchers and academics

Topics

Development | Economic

Infrastructure deployment strategy

Speakers

– Christopher Hemmerlein
– Liqian Hao

Arguments

Amazon’s Project Kuiper will provide satellite broadband to 95% of global population with terminals costing hundreds of dollars and speeds up to 400 Mbps

China has achieved 98% 4G coverage and 90% 5G coverage in villages, with 66% fiber coverage despite geographic challenges

Summary

Amazon focuses on satellite-based solutions for global coverage, while China Unicom emphasizes terrestrial infrastructure (4G/5G/fiber) for comprehensive coverage

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Unexpected differences

Role of taxation in digital access

Speakers

– Solly Malatsi

Arguments

South Africa removed luxury taxes on smart devices to make them more affordable for low-income households

Explanation

While other speakers focused on investment and infrastructure, only South Africa addressed taxation policy as a barrier to digital access. This represents an unexpected policy dimension that other speakers did not consider or mention in their approaches

Topics

Economic | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkably high consensus among speakers, with most disagreements being tactical rather than strategic. All speakers agreed on the fundamental goals of universal connectivity and digital inclusion, but differed in their preferred methods and emphasis areas.

Disagreement level

Low level of disagreement with high collaborative potential. The differences represent complementary approaches rather than conflicting philosophies, suggesting strong potential for partnership and coordination among the various initiatives. The main implication is that the Partner2Connect platform successfully brings together diverse stakeholders who share common goals while contributing different expertise and resources.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

These speakers share a focus on AI as a transformative technology that requires significant investment, open collaboration, and global partnerships to ensure equitable access and prevent the digital divide from becoming an AI divide.

Speakers

– Nicole Isaac
– Melike Yetken Krilla
– Summer Chen

Arguments

Cisco announced $1 billion global AI investment fund to invest in entrepreneurs and expand digital skills access to 230,000 individuals over three years

Google provides open-source AI models like GEMMA to 7 million researchers and academics for local innovation

ZTE established CORA alliance targeting 1,000 global players to accelerate AI industry applications and overcome technical barriers

Topics

Development | Economic | Sociocultural

These speakers emphasize community-based and locally-driven approaches to connectivity, recognizing that successful digital inclusion requires understanding local needs, leveraging local expertise, and creating sustainable solutions tailored to specific communities.

Speakers

– Sally Wentworth
– Summer Chen
– Solly Malatsi

Arguments

Internet Society’s Haiti chapter implemented over 100 community networks connecting tens of thousands through local expertise and diaspora funding

ZTE deployed solar-powered base stations in remote areas like Liberia, connecting over 800 previously offline people

South African Connect project aims to connect 5.8 million residents through government facilities and partnerships with telcos

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize that emerging technologies require updated regulatory frameworks and institutional partnerships to ensure proper deployment and governance, emphasizing the need for collaborative approaches between technology companies and regulatory bodies.

Speakers

– Christopher Hemmerlein
– Melike Yetken Krilla

Arguments

Regulatory frameworks need updating to accommodate new LEO satellite technologies through government-private sector collaboration

UNICC partnership with Google creates AI hub for UN system deployment and capacity building

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Key takeaways

The Partner2Connect Coalition has achieved significant growth, reaching $76.1 billion in pledges from over 450 organizations, demonstrating strong global commitment to digital connectivity

Universal meaningful connectivity by 2030 requires urgent action as one-third of humanity (2.6 billion people) remains unconnected, with the window for achieving goals closing rapidly

Multi-stakeholder partnerships across government, private sector, and civil society are essential for bridging the digital divide at scale

Major technology companies are making substantial investments in AI infrastructure, connectivity solutions, and skills development programs

Policy reforms such as removing luxury taxes on smart devices and updating regulatory frameworks are critical enablers for digital inclusion

Local expertise and community-based approaches are fundamental to successful connectivity projects, as demonstrated by successful models in Haiti and other regions

The digital divide risks becoming an AI divide, requiring proactive measures to ensure equitable access to emerging technologies

Capacity building and skills development must accompany infrastructure investments to achieve meaningful connectivity

Resolutions and action items

Participants making commitments during the session must enter their pledges into the Partner2Connect platform system

Continue scaling pledges and tracking implementation progress toward the $100 billion commitment goal by end of 2026

Convene Partner2Connect sessions at upcoming conferences: Landlocked Developing Countries Conference in Turkmenistan (August), UN General Assembly (likely September 22nd), World Telecom Development Conference in Azerbaijan (November), and annual partnership meeting in December

Hold community events for pledge sharing, matchmaking, and partnership development

Conduct country roundtables following the Guatemala model to address national-level challenges and opportunities

Facilitate implementation of P2C pledges to accelerate digital transformation at national levels

Expand the Partner2Connect emailing list for broader community engagement

Unresolved issues

Specific mechanisms for coordinating the numerous pledges and ensuring effective implementation across different organizations and regions

How to address the affordability challenge for the remaining 2.6 billion unconnected people, particularly in the most remote and economically disadvantaged areas

Standardization and interoperability issues across different connectivity technologies and platforms being deployed by various organizations

Measurement and evaluation frameworks for tracking the actual impact of pledges on meaningful connectivity outcomes

Regulatory harmonization across different countries to facilitate cross-border connectivity initiatives

Sustainability models for community-based connectivity projects beyond initial funding periods

Suggested compromises

Public-private partnerships that combine government policy support with private sector technical expertise and funding

Shared infrastructure models like China Unicom’s co-building approach with other carriers to reduce costs and environmental impact

Flexible pricing models and subsidies for underserved populations while maintaining commercial viability

Open-source technology sharing (like Google’s GEMMA AI model) balanced with proprietary innovation incentives

Gradual regulatory framework updates that accommodate new technologies while ensuring security and competition

In our taxation dispensation, they [smart devices] are classified as luxury goods and that drives their high cost. So one of the key milestones that we’ve been able to achieve in a short space of time was to persuade our national treasury to look at the entry point of those smart devices to remove that luxury tax so that they can be much more affordable to a lot of low-income households.

Speaker

Solly Malatsi (Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, South Africa)

Reason

This comment was particularly insightful because it identified a concrete, actionable policy barrier that governments can immediately address. Rather than focusing solely on infrastructure or technology solutions, it highlighted how tax policy directly impacts digital inclusion. This represents a practical, replicable solution that other governments could implement.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from purely technological and infrastructure-focused solutions to include policy and regulatory approaches. Alex Wong immediately reinforced its importance, stating ‘taxes, I hope you all heard that because that’s what we always talk about as one of the inhibitors.’ This validation elevated tax policy as a key theme and likely influenced other participants to consider policy barriers alongside technical ones.

We understand at Amazon that the digital divide is too great a challenge for one company or one organization to overcome alone. So we’re working with partners who share our vision for bringing universal connectivity… we’re working with incumbent local operators. And so we’re supporting local economies, we’re building the overall digital ecosystem.

Speaker

Christopher Hemmerlein (Amazon)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it explicitly acknowledged the limitations of individual corporate efforts and emphasized the importance of working with existing local infrastructure rather than replacing it. This represents a more sustainable and collaborative approach to addressing connectivity challenges.

Impact

This comment reinforced the partnership theme that became central to the discussion. It influenced the moderator’s follow-up questions about partnerships and lessons learned, leading to a dedicated segment where all panelists shared their partnership experiences and strategies.

We want to ensure that the digital divide does not become the AI divide. And when we have 2.6 billion people unconnected still, the mechanics of how we do that is in partnership, it’s being bold and responsible, is in our innovation.

Speaker

Melike Yetken Krilla (Google)

Reason

This comment was particularly insightful because it introduced the concept of an ‘AI divide’ as a new dimension of digital inequality. It connected the current connectivity challenges to emerging AI technologies, suggesting that without addressing basic connectivity, the gap could widen further with AI advancement.

Impact

This comment expanded the scope of the discussion beyond traditional connectivity to include AI accessibility. It influenced Summer Chen from ZTE to elaborate on their ‘AI for all’ strategy and contributed to the session’s evolution toward discussing not just connection, but meaningful participation in the digital economy including AI technologies.

We don’t want to be in the position of being in from the outside and claiming to understand what’s going to work best in any particular environment. So we really are looking for that local expertise that can help shape the connectivity approach that will work best in a particular market.

Speaker

Sally Wentworth (Internet Society)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it challenged the traditional top-down approach to development aid and technology deployment. It emphasized the importance of local knowledge and community-driven solutions, which is often overlooked in technology-focused discussions.

Impact

This comment provided a counterbalance to the corporate presentations by emphasizing grassroots, community-driven approaches. It influenced the discussion by highlighting the Haiti success story as an example of local empowerment, and reinforced the importance of sustainable, locally-owned solutions rather than externally imposed ones.

If you’re committing to doing something and you haven’t entered it into the Partner2Connect platform as a pledge, we’re going to chase you on that. So, you’re welcome to announce what you’re doing, but you’re going to have to put it in the Partner2Connect system.

Speaker

Alex Wong (Moderator)

Reason

This comment was significant because it established accountability and transparency as core principles of the session. It moved beyond rhetoric to demand concrete, trackable commitments, which is often missing in international development discussions.

Impact

This comment set the tone for the entire session, creating an expectation of concrete deliverables rather than just aspirational statements. It influenced all subsequent presentations to include specific, measurable pledges and encouraged a more results-oriented discussion throughout the session.

Overall assessment

These key comments collectively shaped the discussion by expanding it beyond traditional infrastructure-focused approaches to digital connectivity. They introduced multiple dimensions including policy reform (tax policy), partnership strategies, emerging challenges (AI divide), community-driven solutions, and accountability mechanisms. The comments created a more holistic framework for addressing digital inclusion that encompasses technology, policy, partnerships, and local empowerment. Most importantly, they shifted the conversation from theoretical discussions to practical, actionable solutions with built-in accountability measures. The emphasis on partnerships and local ownership became a recurring theme that influenced how subsequent speakers framed their contributions, creating a more collaborative and sustainable approach to addressing the digital divide.

How can partnerships be effectively structured and scaled to maximize impact in bridging the digital divide?

Speaker

Alex Wong

Explanation

This was a key question posed to the panel about partnership examples and lessons learned, as partnerships are fundamental to the WSIS and Partner2Connect initiatives

What are the most effective regulatory and policy frameworks for emerging LEO satellite technologies?

Speaker

Christopher Hemmerlein

Explanation

He noted that regulatory frameworks don’t yet account for LEO satellites and emphasized the need to work with governments to develop appropriate frameworks

How can the luxury tax removal model for smart devices be replicated in other countries?

Speaker

Solly Malatsi

Explanation

The Minister mentioned their success in removing luxury taxes on smart devices and indicated they are working with the Global Mobile Association to study this impact, suggesting broader applicability

What are the specific digital skills capacity needs in public services across different countries?

Speaker

Solly Malatsi

Explanation

He mentioned an ongoing partnership to assess digital skills needs of public servants, indicating this is an area requiring further research and development

How can AI flood prediction technology be scaled and implemented globally?

Speaker

Melike Yetken Krilla

Explanation

She mentioned Google’s flood hub program that can predict floods seven days in advance, suggesting potential for broader implementation and research into scaling this technology

What are the most effective models for sustainable community networks in hard-to-reach areas?

Speaker

Sally Wentworth

Explanation

She highlighted the Haiti community network model as successful and mentioned plans to scale this approach globally, indicating need for further research on replication strategies

How can the digital divide be prevented from becoming an AI divide?

Speaker

Melike Yetken Krilla

Explanation

She specifically mentioned the concern that the digital divide should not become an AI divide, suggesting this is an important area for ongoing research and intervention