The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ROSE PAYNE: Great, I think it is time to kickoff. First off, thank you everyone for joining us. I'm Rose Payne. I'm the Digital Policy Manager at International Chamber of Commerce. We represent 45 million businesses worldwide. That is everyone from huge multinational corporations down to SMEs. And pretty much from every sector.
First, housekeeping. We have two mics. In IGF the fashion we will ask you to queue up behind them for the Q&A session toward the end of the panel. This panel, entitled All Hands on Deck to Connect the Next Billions will take a deep dive in connectivity and Digital Divide.
Today, almost a third of the world 2.6 billion remain offline. We have made huge strides in expanding connectivity, clearly we have a long way to go. This issue has deep‑rooted causes. It is important to understand it is not a matter of people being able to connect.
Earlier in the conference the Doreen Bogdan‑Martin mentioned that the proportion of women relative to the proportion of men is increasing. The persistent Digital Divide shows reasons for digital exclusion are complicated. This is as much a social problem as technological challenge. People have skills for digital technologies, the relevant services and content they want to use to motivate them to be online. What are the experiences like in technologies? Do they feel safe and secure? That is why we refer to meaningful connectivity, infrastructure and devices are really one part of the puzzle.
We will start with an explanation of where we are today, where does the connectivity gap stand and why? Why is there persistent Digital Divide? This session innocent just about discussing problems, it is also about finding actionable solutions.
That is what we will discuss next. Identify the right policy environment to encourage investment and cross‑sectoral partnerships. This brings together experts in technology and policy that are dedicated to 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 lucky to be joined by the experts who work with the technology actually delivering connectivity, people carrying out essential research to help us understand barriers and people delivering Programmes to help overcome them.
Without further ado I will introduce you to the panel today in the order they will speak.
So joining us online we have Atsuko Okuda who works with the International Telecommunication Union regional office for Asia‑Pacific where she is the Regional Director.
We have Motohisa Takashi manager of International Regulatory Affairs for Project Kuiper at Amazon.
We have Pablo Barrionuevo, Public and Corporate Affairs Manager at Telefonica. We have Joe Welch of Vice President of Global public policy for Walt Disney that focuses on Asia‑Pacific. We have Michuki Mwangi, Distinguished Technologist, Internet Growth at the Internet Society.
We Onica Makwakwa Co‑Executive Director, Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. And finally, we have Giacomo Persi Paoli Head of the Security and Technology Programme at the United Nations Disarmament research. We will start with Atsuko Okuda online with a presentation on the state of Digital Inclusion today.
>> Atsuko Okuda: I would like to thank appreciation to invite ITU to the important session. I hope we can support and contribute with the statistics. And analysis that we have done. For the session. Now, next slide, please. I would like to start with a very short presentation on what ITU it. It is the oldest organization specialized in communication technologies. We have three distinctive areas of specialties one is the Radiocommunication dealing with the spectrum allocation and satellite orbit.
Second, standardization supporting the SMEs and industry to develop the technologies including Emerging Technologies. And third assisting member countries to connect the disconnected and meaningful connectivity.
I would like to start with the bigger picture on SDGs. I'm not sure if participants have seen the slides in the previous sessions. This is the highlight of where we are in achieving the SDGs by 2030. In Asia‑Pacific we have passed 2022 but we're nowhere near. It is unlikely to achieve all SDG goals all the time.
One SDG goal we're seeing a regression. There is a high expectation that Digital Transformation and connectivity will accelerate not only the connectivity but through connectivity the achievement of social economic development. Next slide, please.
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 has been steady improvement in the numbers. The previous number last year was 2.7. So there is ‑‑ you can see a significant progress. However the two years before that during COVID we have seen much faster progress. Almost 800 million people joined during the short period of two years of the COVID. So we can see that the space of connecting the unconnected is slowing down. I believe that this is one of the concerns that we have. And we share across the globe.
Next slide, please. 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. This is one presentation on the data analysis that we have done.
We can clearly see that there's 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 Digital Divide that we have. Next slide, please.
We also have very clear urban digital, rural divide and generational divide.
This is the granular view of Internet users and how many ‑‑ what is the percentage of Internet users in each Region as well as for income groups. You can clearly see that low‑income countries have much less Internet users.
And the same applies to LDCs and LLDCs which is least developed countries and landlocked developing countries. Next slide, please.
And I would like to go a little bit deeper into the affordability. As you may know, the broadband service affordability is measured as a benchmark, 2% GNI per capita. Over and above that, it is considered not affordable. And below that people can ‑‑ a number of populations can access and enjoy the service.
This is a snapshot in terms of which countries have affordable and unaffordable mobile broadband basket as of 2022.
We can see the countries with unaffordable broadband services have much less Internet users. Next slide, please. So we believe that the challenges of connecting the unconnected as you have seen in the previous graphs and charts, can be summarized in this Programme and solution trees. Of course, this is a High‑Level summary. You may have different perspectives and elements. But from where we see to connect the unconnected in remote and rural areas we believe that the actual investment, physical connectivity issue, affordability issues on the part of consumers and digital skills and lack of services and applications that 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 in the context of slowing down of our progress in connecting the unconnected, perhaps we need a qualitatively different approach to the issue. To the Digital Divide. One approach 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 is to connect the unconnected schools or hospitals or farmers. We have different initiatives, we believe that by connecting the different groups and Serbs, perhaps we can create efficiencies and economies of scale. And there is a lot we can gain by collaborating and through partnership.
This slide shows what that means concrete low as an ICT initiative. We start with SDGs on the left‑hand side. 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 a separate system and infrastructure.
And we hope that that will be delivered to the communities and people through Smart Cities and Smart Village and Smart Island. 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 can look like? This is a high‑level overview and summary.
As I said we need a whole of Government approach in the center to provide education and health and commerce, agriculture and so forth based on a common building block, as you see on the left‑hand side, which could be a national ID, it could a one‑payment mechanism, 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 island that will provide e‑health and e‑agriculture and those services to the people. Next slide, please.
In ITU as an example, we have about 15 countries that we are rolling out this initiative. I will 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 and make sure that there will be one perhaps solution 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. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I have a QR code in case you are interested in knowing the initiatives. I will be happy to answer any questions you have. Back to you. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. I think 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 the issue and the need for really innovative solutions that take an ecosystem approach. So I'm going to ask the rest of the panelists for their reactions, starting with Motohisa Takashi. So you work with Amazon's Project Kuiper with the low earth is the lights, what can you share about how the Private Sector is innovating technologically to close the gap?
>> Motohisa Takashi: Thank you. First of all I would like to state that I'm very excited to be part of this session. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to discuss how to bridge the gap with the experts in the field. That is a very fantastic chance for me. Because bridging the Digital Divide is exactly the project that Amazon is working on. This is also my personal motivation. And then personal reasons that I'm working in this project. So yeah, let me talk about the Project Kuiper as the example of the Private Sector is working for the Digital Transformation. I think, thank you. Yeah, please go back to it. Thank you. Oh, that is good. Please go to the next slide. Thank you. Project Kuiper is ‑‑ sorry, sorry.
Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase Global broadband access through the constellation of satellites through the more than 3200 satellites in low earth orbits. It is the Mission to deliver fast affordable connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
The Project Kuiper will deliver fast and latency on par with the existing terrestrial network. And like many other Amazon product and services, Project Kuiper is design said to affordable for the customers because we want to be accessible as many as customers as possible. Next slide.
Project Kuiper will serve individual households and schools and other locations without reliable broadband services. And Project Kuiper will also provide back hold solutions for the wireless carriers to extend each LTE or 5G network to new Regions.
Please go to the next slide. Thank you. We will deploy more than three thousand 200 satellites in low earth orbit at the altitude of 590 kilometers. 610 kilometers and 630 kilometers.
Coverage of the Project Kuiper will be 56 degree north to the 50 degree South of the equator. Which allows us to reach about the 95% of the world's population.
And then the satellite relay the customer data traffic to the ground infrastructure on the earth and then connecting to the Internet, public Cloud and private networks. This is how Project Kuiper network works. Please go to the next slide. 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, the ultra‑Compact one, which is only 18 centimeter square antenna. I believe it is a very incredible engineering.
And then it can deliver up to 100MBPS connection.
The largest one will deliver up to 1 GIGA BPS speed. Please go to the next slide.
Last Friday our launch partner United Launch Alliance successfully launch Project Kuiper first launch flight. This was a very one of our key milestones.
We are lining up our satellite manufacturing facility and will begin launching production satellite next year. So we can start to deliver service to the earliest customer by late 2024. That is the overview of our project.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Now that we heard about the technological innovation that can help close some of the gaps, I would like to move to usage and how to address the usage gap. Pablo, I think you are online. I hope that you have the ability to unmute yourself. If not, send me a message.
>> Barrionuevo Pablo: Can you hear me?
>> MODERATOR: We can hear you now, fantastic, great. Can you share about what Telefonica is doing to address usage?
>> Barrionuevo Pablo: Thank you for allowing me to participate in the panel. I am happy to be with the IGF again. I think the first idea I would like to transmit is well, the first impression when we talk about digital inclusion is that it is a problem of access. And it is true that the communication 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. Not the telecommunication networks.
But the truth is that I believe that in the last years, we have been observing an evolution in the conversation about digital inclusion. And I think that what we are observing is that there is a suite from the connectivity gap to the usage gap.
Following numbers presented by Atsuko Okuda at the beginning, the truth is now we have 2.3 billion people that are under the footprint of the mobile broadband connectivity and do not connect to the Internet.
So I think that the question we have to answer is why do we have ‑‑ are we still having people under the footprint of connectivity does not connection. And this is the usage gap, no?
And so it is important to understand what are the reasons for these people to not connect. We have talked about affordability, that is one, of course. Maybe they don't connect because they don't know how to connect.
So we have to improve the skills. Maybe they don't connect because they don't trust. So we have to work to the confidence and build digital trust. There are many reasons. Also the gender gap has been mentioned.
But I would like to underline this idea of a swift conversation in the digital inclusion from the connectivity gap to the usage gap.
Second idea I want to transmit is that I think that one of the learnings of last year's connecting the unconnected is that none of us can do it by ourselves. This is an idea transmitted by Atsuko Okuda also. 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 simple mention an example, which is a use case we put in place in Peru, which is called (No English translation) A collaboration, a partnership between ourselves and Meta and the inter‑American development bank. This is an example of this kind of partnership.
So ... for a conclusion, first idea. The conversation on digital inclusion has evolved from the connectivity 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 same direction to connect the unconnected. Thank you. Back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much for that. Joe, we have covered access, we have covered usage. But we have also heard that that is just one part of the puzzle. Can 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 is an amazing event. Is it my first IGF. Go figure.
And the weather is fantastic, makes it even nicer. Thank you ICC and fellow panelists. As Disney I'm honor said to be on with Project Kuiper, the Leo thing is happening, competition for Elon Musk amazing. The presenter frames it taupe Telefonica is building, respect. And I will do the humble Disney contribution.
I will back up and ask the question what do we do? We don't build connections, not a satellite company or Telco. What do we bring to the table? Well, we try to bring the demand side to the table, right? So backing up that means we try to make amazing content and put it on the Internet. And drive demand. That is our thing. That is why we're on this panel. Is that reason.
You know, enter Disney + that launched in 2019, 20, 21 around the world. Middle East Africa Asia, Europe, et cetera. And so that is where we can put our product online and help drive demand in particular. 60 countries, plus the Global content is there. The Lucas, Marvel, Pixar, Disney. Nat Geo as well. And then that takes us to each better is when you can add in‑country content, right? So then Disney+ allows us to bring ‑‑ sorry, to make local ‑‑ I hate that word, right. It sounds almost pejorative. In‑country content. The content in the language of that country that we create. We have a Korean show called moving. A Korean superhero doing well in Asia and doing well on Hulu in the US. It is Korean content in Korea and exporting it.
Even better. Driving demand around the world. India, we are doing great. Star brand in India for decades. Indian people making content in India for Indian people. We have been doing it a long time and now can do it through Disney+. It is India's credit you let us in. Another large country that doesn't let companies like mine in.
There is a Gandhi quote which goes, I'll paraphrase, it is something like this. You should have a house that is build strongly enough so you can throw open the windows and doors and let the breezes come through. So applied to our industry that we're allowed to come in and make content in the language. It is fantastic.
All right. I will now segue into three questions for the room. We can ‑‑ panelists including, Rose, you too. If you answer the three questions collectively, then what? I will give everyone a Disney token. Tchotchke of some sort.
I will read a quote. If you can identify the quote. This picks up on the in‑country language. If you can identify who said the quote, that is the first question. And then two following questions.
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.
Don't have to raise your hand. Just shout it out. Anyone? Very famous person.
I will give you continent. Africa.
Still no one?
>> (Off mic)
>> Joe Welch: Mandela! For language himself, what was his first language? There you go.
>> ATTENDEE: (Off mic)
>> Joe Welch: That was the harder one, the last one is easy and back to the Walt Disney Company. Which movie was the character a significant part? Cossa. Was a significant part. Disney movie. Thank you, Helen. Black Panther, of course. That is our piece of this is to drive the demand. If you can do it in the in‑country context then you are even more home and dry and motivated of that demand. I will end this part of the panel by plugging another panel. It is at 5:30 on the main stage, what is it called again?
>> ATTENDEE: (Off mic)
>> Joe Welch: It will feature producers from Uganda.
>> ATTENDEE: Two young female producers producing content in the Region, for the Region, in local languages including Uganda and Swahili.
>> Joe Welch: That is a way better story can I think of and happenstance on the main stage at 5:30.
Back to you Rose.
>> MODERATOR: There we go. Oh, yeah.
>> Joe Welch: (Off mic)
>> MODERATOR: You may see a lot of people lineup at the end. Mwangi Michuki I hope you can unmute yourself.
Atsuko Okuda broke down the state of connectivity across countries. That makes it clear that connecting the unconnected means very different things in different places. I was hoping you could speak to us a little bit about how we ensure efforts to expand connect are responsive to local specificities and needs?
>> Mwangi Michuki: Thank you. I hope you can hear me.
>> MODERATOR: We're all good. We can hear you.
>> Mwangi Michuki: First I want to thank the ICC for inviting us, the Internet Society to this session. Is it a key area for us and focus area for our work. It is very much align would to our vision that the Internet is for everyone.
Now, to the question on expanding connectivity with the need to make it more aligned to the needs of people in rural and underserved areas, the one thing we have come to realize is that there is a need for innovative approaches that can complement the traditional models for providing access and because it is 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 investment. It makes it much harder for the traditional models to extend connectivity to the areas.
Now, I would like to set a perspective of sort of reset or thinking about 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 the 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're in.
There was a study that was done, a paper produced going back to 1998, and it sort of said that the headline here was that the fast looking at those areas or the underserved areas as the first mile of connectivity. Today over the years the areas are looked at as the last mile. But essentially if we were to look at them as the first mile, it means we're building from the community outward.
Now, there is a lot of work that has gone into developing and piloting these kind of approach where you are looking from the community outbound. The approaches are deployment and tested the deployment in different environments. Topologies, settings, rural and urban. And as high as 3800 meters above sea level in the foothills of Mount Everest, where there are villages that need connectivity. There is work we have done there and trying to learn from the experience.
The objective here is to understand the challenges and opportunities and how we can refine the models to be able to bring connectivity to those who need it most. And make sure that it is sustainable and scalable.
There are a few things we faced and in helping to design this model, to make sure it is basically adapts to those areas or to those communities that are being connected. And I would like to touch on a few of them.
First, we make sure that the model looks at technology from an agonistic perspective. It is technology agnostic, can use and adapt any technology that best serves the needs. It adopts a nonprofit approach to address challenges that hinter the adoption. I think the issue of use is mentioned by a previous speaker.
And basically issues like digital literacy falls under 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 the local issues.
Affordability is another challenge. So the model that they use for charging fees is one designed to be beneficial to the community.
An important aspect of this is that these networks are less extractive than the traditional ways of 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 backhaul capacity. The rest of the funds are actually kept in the community.
Then they're used for other elements that are needed for developing the community to be able to take advantage or leverage the use of that connectivity. And most importantly, it is anchored within the social economic pillars of the community. So schools, health facilities, the local Government, the local institutions, cultural institutions. And also addressing the arts and entertainment that are key to the community.
Now, there is some opportunities to look at going forward.
Key to this is policy. These a need for many countries and many places around the world to develop policy and regulation that recognizes this new models are complementary access solutions like community networks. Because it empowers them to be able to go and engage with license operators, to connect to the rest of the Internet. They need to be able to build infrastructure. So makes it much easier. In some situations, access to financial services, once they're recognized, it is 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. Right now, they imagine conversations around the use of universal service fund can help support the initial deployment and extension of complementary access solutions. Backhaul still remains to be a challenge. We are very much excited about the deployment of new technologies like Leos because of the cost and availability of backhaul has been a big challenge that makes community and complementary access solutions to be less sustainable.
We're hoping that is going to change.
I would like to conclude by saying, of course, before I conclude, the content element is key. Most important is making the content relevant to those people that 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 they have to use for access.
As I conclude, at the Internet Society we're keen to see information about developing and deploying community networks, and other complementary access solutions becoming common knowledge. In the very same way it is common knowledge for many communities around the world that don't have access to potable water, to know they can collaborate and find partners to support them in digging up a hole to get access to the water. In our experience and working collaboratively with other partners, we're planning to produce a do it yourself toolkit in 2024, that is based on all of the experiences we have gained in the deployments we have had across the world. And we're 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 on 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.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. So Onica Makwakwa we will go to you next. We heard of the challenges in creating the traditional business models. There is a leverage of multistakeholder partnerships to deal with this. Can you talk to us about the role that the partnerships play?
>> Onica Makwakwa: Certainly. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for hosting this important conversation. So Global digital inclusion partnership, we work on policy regulatory frameworks to advance connectivity for the Global majority, specifically. We do this by bringing together different stakeholders at national level as well as 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 for as an example, we obviously use research to inform the policy frameworks that we want to gain support for. So I will give you an example with the 2% target that the first speaker spoke about on affordability in terms of how that is built. It was ‑‑ 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. That was actually informed through research that is done in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, we were able to get multiple stakeholders in Ghana and Nigeria to actually get their Governments to endorse this as a minimum standard before ITU adopted this as a minimum standard.
So that has sort of been our model. But apart from that, I want to divert from how we get to that, to talk about why it is important for us to be inclusive, even in our solutions. With multistakeholderism is about making sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute and have a voice in this. One of the missing conversations in the Digital Divide conversations we have been having is the economic impact of leaving certain stakeholders behind in our digital development. 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 ‑‑ let's say ‑‑ you know, we're in the World Cup, I was very disappointed a few days ago, I couldn't find anyone willing to watch the game with me a couple of days ago.
The rugby World Cup, who is your favorite team? Say South Africa, please. We're the best.
Your favorite soccer team, rugby team. If we take half the team and bench it, would we still win? Doesn't matter whether it is your best players or worst players. Just half the team benched. Your chances of winning are actually nonexistent at that moment. That is actually what is happening with us not paying attention to the digital gender gap that every conversation we have heard here at IGF has told us it is actually growing. So there is an economic impact and we have done a study to see what is the economic impact of leaving women behind.
The digital gender gap is estimated to cost a trillion dollars in GDP over 10 years in about 32 of the low and middle‑income countries that we studied. In 2020 this is 126 billion dollars last and $24 billion in tax revenue that is lost. 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. I think it is really critical for us as we continue to talk about closing the gaps, to hear you 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 the stakeholders when we're building for them upon I think, you know, we heard examples and good lessons on the digital centers that we built because we heard people in rural areas needed centers. We applied the build it and they will come approach. And we built, and the digital centers are now just sitting there not being heavily utilized.
I think 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. We want people to connect to the Internet to do what? It is not for the vibes. We want them to connect to the Internet to use it in a way they can help transform their lives.
One of my favorite stories is a young by a beneficiary of a public Wi‑Fi Programme in a city in South Africa. When he was interviewed why it is important for him to walk so far to the nearest hot spot to connect. His response was he lives in a shack. 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 is transformative. The people who need this kind of transformation in their lives the most are the 2.6 billion people that are actually offline at the moment. So I don't want to be too preachy about this.
Where do we go from here? How do we build forward? I think the biggest thing is Private Sector, Government and Civil Society needs to come together and raise the bow on affordability. We have been working on affordability since 2014, some of us, others much longer. You saw the graph showing how many achieved affordability. We're talking about 2%. Let me remind you of something that is sad about the 2%. We're talking about twos for% 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 during the lockdown of COVID. You cannot take a course and actually finish with 1 gig per month. You cannot attend meetings. So much that cannot be done. We need to raise the bar from a policy point of view on the standards for affordability and look at 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're doing all of this, but our standards are so low and we're calculating the gaps based on very low standards, which means the picture is actually worse than it is, if we use a meaningful connectivity standard.
Daily access, daily use. Unlimited access to data is a standard we should be pushing for. Adequate skills for connectivity, investing in the skills.
Minimum standard on device that is, you know, suitable for meaningful connectivity. A smart device, won't say phone. Smart device that is affordable. One of the studies we also did is 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 introduced are financing of devices. That is not affordability. That is you can't afford it now, but over six months you will afford it. We need people to be able to afford. We need to work around innovations, whether it is local Assembly or reducing of digital taxation on the devices themselves says as a way to release the uptake of digital technologies. You know, skills I already mentioned. And adequate speed. At least 4G level. If we truly are talking about people being able to do things 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. This requires policy approach for us. Lastly we have to mainstream gender and 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 the framework that was ultimately developed by women. We need a rights based approach towards et cetera development. Rights based approach because women experience violence online. There are safety issues, privacy issues. 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 everyone is able to truly participate at minimum level.
Maybe defined what is a digitally literate person like with the ABC. What is a digitally literate person? How do we achieve that? We need to double down on access. I joked say the running theme at IGF is that we are running out of team. We are running out of time. But you saw the SDGs and schedule. We are running out of time to reach universal access. $400 billion is estimated for infrastructure that is still needed for infrastructure investment to connect everyone.
If Private Sector can put up half of that, we still need Government to prioritize investment in digital development and infrastructure in particular.
So it is going to take the public‑private partnerships and take everyone, actually, contributing to this.
So access and affordability. Affordability we have to also admit that there may be communities that might never be able to afford even at the 2%. So initiatives like the one that the previous speaker was talking about, community networks. It is really important. You have to be open to different digital models and different financial models for connecting the unconnected. We have to focus on context. That is part of the react, REAC. Content for C. Local content. But content in languages that people can understand and can operate in. Like here, seriously we don't want to connect everyone for them to read English online. Most of the content now is from English. I come from continent where majority of people doesn't speak English. Content and economic opportunity. Content is a thing. Don't want to only be consumers online. Be investors and produce and content as well.
The T in the react framework is about setting targets. We can't measure something that we did not benchmark. We need to set targets and be intentional about closing, specifically the gender gap. It is because of the inequities in our community. It is not just a divide. We have to be intentional about fixing those. So a good starting plan is looking at the national development plan and see figure they specifically address any gender issues. Quite a number of plans are still mute on gender or women or just actually going the extra mile to be sure women are included in the digital economy that we all are talking about now. I will just pause you to say, you know, react, rights based education, access affordability content and setting realistic policy targets to connect those who are not connected is where we need to be. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. So next we have Giacomo joining us online. I hope he can unmute himself. Onica Makwakwa we heard from the gender Digital Divide that when people go online they may not feel safe. That may have a chilling effect. Another aspect is security online. If they don't feel the online space is not secure they may not engage with it. Giacomo we want to make sure that doesn't have the chilling effect.
>> Giacomo Persi Paoli: It is an honor and pleasure to be here today and speak on this panel.
Is challenging to be the last speaker. I prepared a bunch of notes as speakers on previous panels were presenting, I have to delete points to avoid repetition. I hope I can still add value here. I want to go back to where we started, if you want to tackle your question.
About the links between connect, digital technology and the SDGs. I will start with, you know a quote by the UN 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 transformation by reaching economies at scale and supporting more solutions for more people. I find this an interesting quote. Because we 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 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 use ars 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 they deliver.
What does, you know, actually be responsible and be safe mean? Going back to something that I believe also Pablo mentioned earlier is 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 also have to trust the Governments that in their roles both as regulators and as service providers have to create safety net a protection net around users. Without this combined effect it will be 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 unprotected on the Internet and can be on the other side of the coin may not be willing to connect if they feel like there is an abuse or misuse of the powers or companies or Governments, that take a symmetric power distribution they my perceive, users may perceive threat from their own rights. They're uncertain about what will happen to their personal information and data. Security is a very important point. But it is also a very delicate one that needs to be taken into consideration from the beginning.
This is what I want to focus on. We heard about the importance of affordability, of access and inclusivity and decreasing the gap. I want to add another important parameter. That is the parameter of preparedness. It is important if we focus on the role of the Governments, that they ensure the connectivity, and the able of people to connect. They do so 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 want to you know, reference, there was a recent report by the Economic Commission for Africa that highlighted how the relatively speaking for the African continent the low level of preparedness in cybersecurity cost about 10% of national GDP. This is a significant number if you think connectivity is boost social economic development. 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 reverse the positive effect that connectivity and digital technologies can actually bring.
With this preparedness means in this context? We have to look holistically at the whole of Government. Like was mentioned at the beginning. That is why I said I would like to finish where we started. All of Government approach is important. It means fundamentally intervening at a would say five different levels. The policy and regulatory part is key. You need to have ‑‑ Governments need to have policies and regulations that enable and support innovation but at the 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, operations. We have heard how public‑private partnerships are incredibly powerful tools that can be leveraged to really boosts connectivity and kind of development and absorption of the digital technologies. Now, these public‑private partnerships, they 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 to allow you to start with having the partnership. Structures are also important layers. Go back to safety and security. You cannot really think in 2023 to invest heavily in boosting your connectivity if you are not equally ready to invest in building your own capacity to deal with the incidents and emergencies that happen in the digital domain. Being able to build computer emergency response teams or computer incident response teams that can work, you know, at the public level work in cooperation with Private Sector, et cetera. It is key. You need to invest in building structures that ultimately deliver that feeling of safety and security to individuals. If you are asking me to trust e‑banking because it is safer than traditional banking and asking me to put all of my savings online, I want to be sure they're protected from criminal malicious actors that want to take advantage of me, my lack of school ‑‑ skill or knowledge. I want to make sure that there is someone I can rely on that protects the infrastructure and services.
And mention of skills. Skills is important. Globally there is a shortage of cybersecurity skills. It will 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, it would allow people to meaningfully engage with services and content online. But there is also the need to invest on the developing basic digital security or cyber skills through public campaigns, through education in schools, making sure that we invest in building that foundational knowledge to enable people to safely and secure engage online. Last but not least, it is technology. Technology is always being considered as a potentially kind of high barrier for some developing correspondents. 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 see the digital environment safe. It is important that it is not ‑‑ we do not let the challenges in a way prevent us from engaging on the discussion of how important it is that potentially by leverage 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. It is key. Can have so many positive effects. But it also, in a way, expands significantly the attack surface or entry points for malicious actors to really target individuals or society it's large. It is really important that we do not consider security as a cost line that needs to be minimized. But it is actually an asset. It is an investment that we need 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, security online environment. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. So I'm going to let the panelists know, I think we're a little behind the schedule. I will deviate from the plan. And actually begin straight away with the Q&A. I will cheat and take advantage of the role as Moderator to ask the first question. I want to go back to the point of Giacomo about partnerships. Every speaker agreed we can't work in silos, every stakeholder being it Government or Private Sector has a role to play. Whether you call it whole of society, ecosystem approach. Can you talk more about how you structure the roles and partnerships? I think I will hand the mic to you first of all Motohisa Takashi.
>> Motohisa Takashi: Actually, yeah, I would like to talk about Project Kuiper. Yeah, we are paying a lot of efforts for the successful project launch and service start. In the near future. And Amazon is investing the $10 billion. The number is little smaller than four hundred billion. But we are investing a lot. But we believe that we will be more successful if we get more partners if we go about the private Sector and public Sector. We are committed to work with the partner. Food can share our common concept of the bridging the Digital Divide.
We believe, we believe partners take on many variety of forms. For example, for the Private Sector it can be tarps with the wireless carrier to extend the 5G networks to the new Regions.
It is one of the form of the partners.
Actually last month, we announced the partners with the border com. They are going to use Project Kuiper services to extend their network for in the Region of Europe and Africa. We are excited to see how the partners 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 KA band radio frequency. The regulations that allow the technology. We expect public Sector support in both the country level and international level. Through the spectrum access and the necessary licenses in each country. Through the international regulations update.
Which can enable more than satellite, like a customer to reach the potential ability to bridge the Digital Divide. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for that. I'm going to ask if anyone has a question to please come forward to the mic. We'll 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. The question was when we talk about skills to engage with digital technologies, what skills do we mean? Joe, I think it would be great if you give the opening answer to that.
>> Joe Welch: (Off mic) Forgive me to defaulting for giving a little bit of what we do answer to that, which is we'll enter any given market with the service Disney+ mentioned and try to be good partners as we come in with the service. Partner with the in‑country Telcos, be a good partner to the creative industry. Part of the ecosystem. With the policymakers and just so we have the reputation of oh, they're a part of the fabric of our community. That is good for our business and it is good for the country in question. Then we try to do more on top of that, that is just the threshold. The more important is to actually do projects. We'll fund an NGO or work with the Government to do ‑‑ projects in 20 different countries. And we'll do digital literacy projects or online safety projects with the NGO or with Government. I give two examples. One is in Indonesia we partnered with an NGO called Ganara they go around to the schools, in the classroom to deal with digital literacy. Bullying and things like that. They do it with old school art, as a way to bring Indonesian children up the curve of digital literacy matters. In Latin America we have Chico.net, we train the teachers to do a similar thing as I described for Indonesia.
Those are two different approaches that we take. Hope that is responsive. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: That is fantastic. Would anyone else either in the room or online like to pick up on the question? That was when we talk about skills to engage with digital technology, what skills do we mean?
>> Onica Makwakwa: I humanize that and share what people do online with the right connectivity, the speed and the know‑how to utilize these. This is all part of the course of exclusion countries. We did qualitative research and ethnographic studies to dig deep and humanize the economic impact. This is from the women who were online that were included. What we learned in West Africa in particular. Women were using the Internet three time it's for every three men using the Internet only two women were. Those that were these are the things they were accomplishing. Able to utilize the Internet and during COVID‑19 did not lose income because they were able to convert the business of selling at the market by being able to create WhatsApp groups and sell their kids online as well. Those reported seven times more than those not online having completed and upgraded the skills by taking a course online and improving job skills by being connected.
A lot of the uses were connected to the financial ability to be able to take care of themselves and their families.
I think I will answer from that point of view to say, it was about digital skills, but we need a broader conversation is that coding or stills for the mobile money, skills to run your business only. But with the right device, connectivity and the skills, the theme we're seeing is women in particular are able to preserve ‑‑ ability to end economically during periods of crisis, such as the one we had recently with the pandemic.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much. I'm aware that we have got about 10 minutes left only. Just under. So I want to give everyone the chance to make a final statement because I kind of cut you off from your previous content that you were supposed to share. I'm going to start with Atsuko Okuda, if that is okay. And if I can request that people keep their comment to about one minute, that would be fantastic.
>> Atsuko Okuda: Thank you, perhaps I can combine my contribution to answer the skills question and the closing remarks. 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 technology development such as AI analytics. It will affect the connected and unconnected communities alike. The knowledge and skills, perhaps we need to address the reality in front of us to be different from what we anticipated five years ago.
Just very quickly give an example. There are already jobs which may become redundant or the jobs that may be created. Without the necessary new digital skills, perhaps the people would have tough time. So I believe that we all need to revisit what are the digital will skills that will be required in the new, new, new normal that we're seeing in front of us. I hope 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 speaker said.
So I hope that this will leave question and cautious optimism that perhaps together in partnership, we can dress and move forward. Thank you. Back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Next I will go to you Motohisa Takashi.
(Off mic)
>> Motohisa Takashi: Yeah, 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.
>> MODERATOR: Fantastic. Thank you.
Next on the list I have Pablo.
>> Barrionuevo Pablo: Yes, thank you, Rose. Well, I would like to congratulate the panelists and you, Rose because ... we have identified everything. We have all the ingredients on the table. For example, technology, we have technology to connect everybody. It is not a problem of technology. We have mentioned structure. I think that it is maybe another thing.
I mean, we have to understand what works somewhere may not work somewhere else. 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 the ‑‑ maybe the common ground? The common thing is that we have to work all together to connect the unconnected. This is the solution. We have the ingredient and the resolve, what we have to do is work all together to connect the unconnected. That's the thing. In my opinion. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Joe?
>> Joe Welch: I will end with an affirmation of the multilateral, multistakeholder approach. 9,000 people here this week. You know, dealing with existing issues and new ones like AI. And it is my first, and it has been amazing and it is a real treat.
And then this panel, Academia, Civil Society, industry, different parts of industry coming together to an important issue like this.
And I learned a famous South African quote today that I will use in future presentations, which is nothing for us without us.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Mwangi Michuki, can I ask you to come in next?
>> Mwangi Michuki: In conclusion as Pablo rightly noted, the solutions are there. Now we need to go to the next step. The next step is that we need to scale up the efforts, meaning that we need to scale these up to have the impact it needs to have. That is possible by increasing the funding available towards deployment of the solutions that have been identified. It is not about the technology, it is about getting more people connected. That needs to start happening. And we need to increase the partnerships, because it is an essential component or ingredient for the success as almost every other panelist here noted. We cannot individually do it alone. It needs a lot of collaboration and partnerships to achieve that goal.
If we are able to scale, make sure we get the funding, the partnerships, I believe that it is 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.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. I'm now going to ask Onica Makwakwa to give her summary.
>> Onica Makwakwa: So the gaps that exist today are actually a consequence of policy choices that we have either make or don't make. I will challenge us that we must work with policymakers to look at narrowing the gaps. One that we didn't talk much about is rural and urban divide. In the broadband policy Agenda to make sure we're not leaving people in rural and remote areas behind. Embedding meaningful indicators with key ICT statistics so we're going beyond basic access to actually make sure we're measuring based on meaningful connectivity. Lastly leverage public access solutions in order to provide affordable and meaningful resources to rural and remote areas in particular. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you. And then Giacomo, can I ask for your summary now?
>> Giacomo Persi Paoli: Absolutely and it will be brief. It is important we consider connectivity as not the end of the journey or point of arrival, but a point of departure where you are beginning.
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 is a big part of that. I don't think there is a single answer to what are the right skills, depending on the community you are talking about, those needs will be different. Definitely basic cyber skills for all users will be needed. We will have potentially 2.4 billion 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 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.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much. I think it would be impossible to summarize everything. But to quickly run through the last takeaways. I think that the message for all of us is that we need to go first, be flexible, defend and uphold the multistakeholder model we need better indicators and focus on rural areas and a challenge to Governments as well. Skills can be delivered by many different people, but particularly it would be great to see a focus on cyber hygiene was another thing that came up.
And finally it is clear that really what everyone is asking for is the whole ecosystem approach for everyone to move together. So I guess that that is a bit of a call to action to all of you. Thank you so much to all of our panelists today. That was fantastic. Thank you to everyone in the audience for participating.
(Applause)