The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Good morning, everybody. Can you hear me? Welcome to "The Internet and Jobs: Preparing Gen YZ for Future Work."
I will be moderating this session, along with Bruna Santos, from the youth observatory who is sitting on the other side of the table. I would like to start by telling you why we are here today, and what we are discussing this morning.
Well, as you know, access to the Internet, this is our platform, and other technologies are changing the natural work as we know it today. However, the impact that current technology will have on the labor force is not that obvious. So I range of scenarios are possible and in all of them, youth play a key role.
So as the Internet Society future of ‑‑ the future of the Internet, not of jobs, shows the revolution of the Internet and the technology it generates and the impact on the future, and in this context ‑‑ in context where employment plays the center of all in society and economic development.
And in addition, we don't have to forget that still more or half the population of the world has no access to the Internet ‑‑ for the Internet at home.
So in recent years it has been postulated that technology will go up 50% but at the same time, it sees an opportunity and many studies are showing that the movement of the economic activity to the Internet is beginning to have a positive impact on employment too. IT education has established specific goals to achieve by 2030.
In context with many possible path, we have chosen to be make the change, and that's the sustainable development goals. We see that also international forums such as G20 and g7, and we believe this is a relevant topic to discuss at the Internet forum today.
We are bringing together an amazing panel, representing different stakeholders and youth from different regions to discuss how the Internet is impacting on the future of work and what policies are needed to ensure young people benefit from technological changes.
We will have this morning Claudia Lucena, Maria Prieto from National Labor Organization, and Lars Steven from Eco, and Ms. Ndeye Fatau Coundoul, representing the Ministry of ICT of Senegal, and Pablo Hinojosa of APNIC. The youth program, where I'm seeing many, many phrases from the program here today, at this session.
So I would like to thank you all for coming this morning. We had planned for a round table but we found out we have a panel now. But I would like to encourage you to make comment, questions, and share your ideas as regarding this topic when we open the floor for ‑‑ for comment and questions.
Panel will be divided in two segments. One about the general scenario on youth and employment and another focused on digital skills. To begin with, we will have Claudio Lucena who is a professor at the University of Pariba and a researcher at the foundation of science, and technology of Portugal. So we will start with him.
We will give a pitch about the future of jobs and the Internet. So Claudio. Thank you very much. The floor is yours.
>> CLAUDIO LUCENA: Thank you all for coming. Let me start this by saying that I'm also speaking here in my capacity as an honorary youth. Which I take to understand that I have been there enough to be acknowledged, but I'm not there ‑‑ I'm to longer this enough to have, like, kind of an active membership in the youth group.
But still, we had ‑‑ I think this was first time that the IGF and the opening ceremony had a head of state deliver such a strong speech. I think this is ‑‑ there's something unique in the history of IGF. We do like to say that we live in very special times, where this amazing things happen. And this is a kind of way of mankind of dealing with this insignificant over time.
But that being said, I do like to think that because of the ‑‑ over the Internet, about the digital times we live, because of three dimensions. Changes have never happened in such a wide scale. It means they touch all areas of human activities. Changes have never hit so deep. It's not that everything changes. It's that everything changes a lot!
And changes have never happened that fast. It's not that everything changes. It's that everything changes a lot and very fast. So in this scenario, it's fair to say ‑‑ I think it's fair to say, even recognizing that we usually have that line of living in important times because we do not acknowledge our infinity, but I do think that we are living in very important times.
For this theme, specifically, I have been for the past year and a half, we have been discussing this theme all around the world. When I deliver this as a longer presentation, the pitch, the argument, usually comes from a line that said that praising the facts of automation and calling the attention for the dangers that automation would bring, just this line is from then Senator John Kennedy, 1960. It will be 60 years. So it's not exactly a new concern.
But I do think the latest developments that we have in technology have speeded up that process. Now with the latest trends of it looks like the more semantic activities, so to speak, they are a little bit safer from the automation and from the scenario of job shortage or change that you are about to face in the future.
But now with the new technologies, the new trends from the past, say, 10 to 15 years, this process has accelerated a lot.
The changes are coming. It is true that the changes usually cause a shift in the nature and the kind of job that is to be exercised. I'm going to give you an example. International association for privacy professionals, for example, dealing with a new scenario of a data protection officer for those of you who are not familiar with the reform of the data protection systems in Europe, but also all over the world, this profession alone, this function alone, is estimated by the AIPP to need 80,000 new positions in the coming years. It's 80,000 positions of a job that did not exist ‑‑ this job did not exist. This is probably what will happen to my son, who is two years now.
This freaks me out. Will I drive him and guide him to develop a profession that may not exist as I know it. This is the challenge you have had.
Knowing that challenge and having seen that this theme has a space of discussion in every fora that we have been over the past year and a half, I'm glad to announce for now an initiative. I was coming here and ready to announce a date for this event. Unfortunately, due to the latest political developments in Brazil, we are not assured that we are going to have the amount of support and resources, but the idea is to take this theme out of session, and discussion in the main events which is already a very important space and to promote from the perspective of a labor court in Brazil, a whole forum on the labor of work.
Here's the thing, and I will leave it here. We have been discussing this for a year and a half, and up until the time, that Agustina called us to discuss this in Panama, in Puerto Rico, in Panama, I noticed that we were discussing the future of jobs with people like me! Who roughly have a future and are not interested in the job then. This is not right. So we have to incorporate this. I'm not saying people who have been younger for longer, do not have to be at the table for the discussion. There are things we can do, but at this, the perspective of the youth is absolutely essential in this discussion.
So with that Agustina, I will leave it back to you. I will have to apologize you. I'm leaving to another discussion, that we will discuss some items that will contribute to the jobs in the future. I'm very glad to see the presence of so many young people here to debate this theme.
Let's take it to another level and let's take it to have the importance that it has in the coming years. Thank you very much.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much, Claudio. If you have questions or comments for Claudio, I'm sure you will find him at the cocktail tonight.
Well, as Claudio, mentioned, we had an event in Panama to discuss from a youth perspective this topic. After that, we decided to make a proposal and bring it to IGF too, to have a conversation with youth and stakeholders working on these topics here today.
And now we'll begin with the first segment of this panel, which is about youth employment and I have Maria Prieto here sitting behind me. She's a specialist in the International Labor Organization future work initiative. Maria provides technical support to the global commission on the future of work to the work of the ILO and subgroups and I would like to start by asking her about what is the purpose and the aim of ILO future work initiative and how youth, including youth employment is being addressed within this initiative.
>> MARIA PRIETO: Good morning. So, yes, I'm Maria, and also ‑‑ I also wear a youth hat, although it's not so visible, unfortunately.
It's ‑‑ but I have worked for a very long time on youth employment issues in the ILO and now lately on the future of work.
So what wanted to highlight, Luana and Paul, they have already started to give you the scene of how the world of work is changing. And in the light of what has been mentioned, the international labor office, that is the UN agency that, if you like, regulates work, both at international and national level launched an initiative a few years ago that's called the future of work initiative. Just to look at these issues, like how is work changing? How is work changing in different parts of the world? For different age groups? For different sectors? For different industries? What are the skills required? So a number of issues are addressed.
And for this, like a high‑level panel was created of specialists, but in that panel of specialists, there's also youth representation. So there's the youth envoy that I'm sure you know, that is the envoy to the Secretary General. And she has provided the voice of youth in this discussion that has been extremely helpful to ‑‑ to take into consideration.
What will happen now, for the initiative, is that in a couple of months, there will be recommendations coming out from this panel on how to address the future of work in a regulatory basis, like, how to govern the future of work. This is something that is extremely difficult to know as it was mentioned earlier, we don't know exactly how we will work in the future. We can speculate. We can talk about different ways that things will change, but we don't know.
So there is a high level of flexibility that needs to be included in governance. And as you know, this is not an easy task. So that is, for example, one of the issues that are addressed. So in January, the recommendations will be launched that will have implications for our organization, but also for all the countries that are members, the 187 countries around the world.
And also for obviously the populations of those countries. So should we just move on to the next question so I don't take too much time?
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Well, I have another question for you. How are the Internet and new technology trends changing the way we work and what are the implications for youth? What are the other drivers of change that are influencing the future of work and how do they influence youth in particular?
>> MARIA PRIETO: So I don't know if you have read in the newspapers, you know, X amount of jobs will disappear one article. Then you have another article saying, so many millions of work will be created due to the technological changes. So there are many speculations. Some are positive. Some are negative. But what we have seen is that more than the jobs disappearing and being created, the way we work, like the tasks we have as workers are changing and have been changing for the past years.
And it has implications in our productivity being on our health, on the family relations, et cetera. And these are the issues that are important to tackle and particularly for youth that are entering the labor market, because in previous times when things were less hectic, in technology, because as we were talking earlier, it is the speed of change that is overwhelming at the moment. So it's difficult to tackle the speed of change by the policymakers.
So previously, we had programs for youth in developed countries and we had other programs in or parts of the world, all, you know, to steer young people into the labor market, to formalize the informal, et cetera.
Whereas now things are moving really quickly, and the Internet of Things are also influencing a lot. Although, in many countries, like in the Nordic countries, for example, there was a study on how big the platform economy is, and one would have thought it was really big, because everybody was talking about it. It was a lot of things in the news. But it's only 1.5% of the whole working economy. It's sort of still a limited amount, but the issue is the trend that it is growing so much.
So that has implications on how people enter into the labor market, and that satellite implication for youth and youth employment. How will the programs look like to channel people into the labor market? Not only youth, but, for example, women that take a break in child care, et cetera.
And talking about that, there are sectors that are growing also that are not related to technology. That needs to be said as well. And notably one is the care economy. Child care, the care of elderly people, care of the doctor and also to some extent, care of the environment and care of the community. So that is one sector where youth is often very active in.
So there are many, as you were mentioning, many drivers of change. There's not only technology. The drivers have changed that we are looking at in the commission also include the demographic changes. In many countries, notably in developed economies, there is an aging population. So that brings particular problems for funding social protection, for example; whereas, other parts of the world has an increasing youth bulk. And then you have increased mobility of people on top of that.
So that influences, obviously, the way people enter, how they enter into the labor market. Another driver of change is climate change that you hear often and how that influences the way we work. It's also extremely influential because we organize differently today than we did a few years ago.
Globalization is another one, another driver. We are talking about something called globalization for 4.0, not only in industrialization 4.0, there are also geopolitical shifts that are influencing, as well as cultural development.
Increasing in some areas, women in the labor market, it has also a culture implication that has developed over the years.
So what I wanted to highlight with this is technology and internet is extremely fortunate, but it has to be seen in the context, the wider context of all the changes happening at the moment, the quick changes that are happening.
So ‑‑ and also all this has to be taken into consideration where you are in your country, how developed or non‑developed it is.
We need to finalize the economy. We did a survey ‑‑ we had dialogues in 110 countries where we asked the countries to give feedback on where they thought they were on future of work. Youth was also participating in this. And one of the issues that we saw was that developing countries were talking about how to increase happiness; whereas, developed economies were saying that we can't deal with it, because we are in survival mode.
So this is another issue in this world, that we have, that we need to take into consideration. Thank you.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much, Maria. We will have her for the second segment too.
So now, we will continue with Joy Wathagi Ndungu. Joy is the lead coordinator for the East Africa youth Internet Governance Forum. So I would like to ask her about she sees ‑‑ how do you see the situation in Africa regarding youth employment, and how do you think that access to the Internet can help to ‑‑ to improve the situation or to tackle the challenges you see.
>> JOY WATHAGI NDUNGU: Thank you, Agustina. Well ‑‑ oh, sorry. In Africa, we are a bit skeptical. This thing Internet, why is it taking so many jobs? Why do we need it? But we know it's creating a lot of jobs.
The problem right now is the cultural difference. Starting from, you know, as close as you know, my father, he is always asking me, oh, no. You mean this person has sold land online? How can I do that? Why are they doing that? That is so weird. So they think it's very strange.
So you know, in Africa, it's I cultural thing. They don't understand this thing Internet, why is it doing this? So how is the future of work in Africa is, you know, we do already have it. We are creating very many opportunities, I would say, like in digital grass roots. We create a lot of opportunities. If you visited our booth, you will see that we have a digital rights monopoly book, which is pretty interesting. It was hand painted by someone we have never met, and it was sent to us, you know, here in ‑‑ for the, you know, the IGF. We never met this person. We don't know how this person looks like but we created an opportunity for them.
And we have created a lot of opportunities for people in Sub‑Saharan Africa. In the future ‑‑ I mean, in the field, but we need not to talk about this field.
So in our countries, we always want to say ‑‑ we want to be the best place to work. So we want to talk about, is this the best place to work? Like she said, we are very focused on increasing happiness. So he with want ‑‑ we always say, is this the best place to work? How do we make it the best place to work? I am affiliated with another organization, the initiative, and they are struggling to make their organization be one of the places that people recommend you to work, and every employee is happy, because ‑‑ I mean, we already have too many problems to be thinking about, you know?
I'm not getting a good enough salary, why should I even, you know, be ‑‑ not be happy. We are really concerned about the challenges that really come with, you know, working online. They are very many challenges like, you know, how will pensions work? How will the pension system work when you are online? How will other things such as days off work?
Because I can say, because I ‑‑ 90% of my work is online. So I can say unless I take the day off myself, I don't really have days off. Like, even when I have the day off, I will still get a message on WhatsApp, concerning, you know, a certain job. So those are some of the things that, you know, will concern us with the official work and, you know, taking things offline and putting them online because we are like, are we happy? And is this healthy working environment? Has the interpersonal relationships been lost, you know, to encourage you to, you know, continue with the work?
So in Africa, I would say that, you know, we first of all need to have these conversations and not ‑‑ not have them because we have to also first of all, cross the cultural aspect of it, and get everyone on board and especially the youth. We need to, you know, converse with the youth. Our youth are so curious and we need to get them on the table and tell them, oh, yeah, these are the opportunities available to you, and this is how, you know, you ‑‑ you know, you get on board. And I'm not even talking about only in the policy arena, the tech policy arena. I'm talking about in other industries as well.
We need to gather to have these conversations and get them to be able to see as much as, you know ‑‑ you know, there's no way to predict how much you ‑‑ how many jobs have been lost, and how many are gained, but I can say I can see the jobs that have been gained as my colleague to the left here said. You know, there are different articles that say different things. So we don't really know.
But the truth is, very many of us work online and it works out. And, you know, sometimes maybe once you will get to meet the people you work with. I just met my colleague this year. So I can understand interpersonal relationships are lost. I have never met I anyone work with until the IGF. I never seen them. But, yeah, I did see them now and, you know, the interpersonal aspects can be solved in various ways and for sure, we do need regulation to care for the challenges such as, you know, what happens about pensions when it's time to, you know, go home be and be like, you know, I'm taking a break. We are obviously taking a break after you have been in the industry for a while. I want to take a break. We need definitely regulations to care for some things, especially for ‑‑ especially ‑‑ I work for an organization that's in a different country. They definitely have different pension systems than the one that I have in my country.
So we need regulations that are harmonized to, you know, this is a predictable pension system for this. This is the amount of leave days you get, and there are also other things such as, you know, countries would have a public holiday in their country and you don't have the public holiday and vice versa.
So those are the kind of ‑‑ and they expect you to work because it's a normal working day for them. Those are some of the issues I would say, we need you to have policy on and regulate in order to, you know, make the future of work the best place of working.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much, Joy. Now we will continue with Lars Steven. Lars is director, international at Echo, association of the Internet industry.
They run a number of Working Groups, including one on new work. Sorry. So I'm ‑‑ I would like to ask you, Lars, which role can Echo play to work on this challenge. Sorry. And what exactly is it going to address new work?
>> LARS STEVEN: My name is Lars Steven, I'm with Eco, the largest industry association based in Germany. So we have an office in Cologne, and one in Berlin and one in Brussels. We have a number of Working Groups being like every other trade association is having, where we bring our members to go and, of course, we are the voice of the industry that is driving the change that we are currently talking about.
But one of the main principles of Echo as a trade association in this field of play is that we always add an ethical dimension to digital dimension. So the industry, from our perspective, always has the social responsibility for society about what are the implications of digitalization and also the digitalization of work?
So we have a Working Group that's having the name New Work, where we discuss this process, and also discuss what are the threats and the implications.
From our perspective, it's already covered by all the statements that have been so far here on this panel, is, yes, there's a lot of change going on which is not new. So economy changes have been there in the history in work so far. But I also agree that the speed is a quite different one that we have been seeing in the past.
But it also creates new opportunities for new jobs and new forms of work, and the question is: How we shape this future. How do we shape this future?
So from our perspective, it creates more opportunities than threats to the general labor market. If this is true, then we will have to see in the future. I think nobody here in the room can predict the future at 100%, but we think there are more opportunities than threats to the labor market. We think that the digitalization of work also offers the opportunity to create more valuable and meaningful work. It's not only about creating jobs but creating jobs where you have enough skills that you can bring into the work that you have Social Security system, that you earn enough money to have a living you can afford. So all of those dimensions have to be brought into this discussion, and this is what we are doing as an association representing the ones who are driving this.
But also the ones who are driving this are the ones who being affected because every company is facing the fact that you have people in your company who are asking for more flexibility. You have the challenge to bring in more women into the IT sector. You also have the challenge that you need very well‑skilled people, especially in Western Europe or being based in Germany.
We have a challenge to be well‑skilled people in the IT sector. So we are really looking for people abroad, that we try to attract coming to Germany or to Europe, because we can cover the demand ourselves.
So there's the dimensions of discussing how we can the development of digitalization in a positive way for everybody.
Yes, when you read the news and read the papers, yes, you always have voices that try to say, we have to avoid this and we have to be careful, but when you also learn from the past, it's not the way how to handle this and to have a successful way into the future.
So the only question is: How you can participate in this discussion and how we can frame this development in at right direction for everybody.
And so this is why we are supporting several initiatives about education so that children at school, but also laborer on in university universities and other educational opportunities programs, getting the right skills to be prepared for this digital future, the no only in Europe, but I think also all over the world, we have to establish those standards. But also when it comes to more flexibility at work, that, yes, it might be nice to be able to work from wherever you would like to work from.
But this also implies the question especially for those who would like to work from home, that you still separate the time that you are spending on your work, but also the time you are spending with your family. Because those dimensions are coming closer together and it's a challenge to separate those two spheres that you are having at your own home.
So also from my own experience, when you are able to work from wherever you want, you just have to keep in mind that there are two dimensions, the work and the private one and this is something that we also have to learn, that's also the 'em ‑‑ the employers have to learn when they offer those opportunities to their employees that this is something that we have to be careful about and that we have to work about and also mention that we have to have the standard rules and regulations that meet those change opportunities and that also frame the future of the digital work.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much, Lars. Perfect time.
You introduced a topic that we are going to discuss it next, that is digital skills, how we create the skills for you. But before that, I would like to introduce Sevinc Aliyeva. She's part of the youth@IGF program. So she degreed to participate here today on this panel.
I would like to hear her perspective that youth, faith in your region, how do you think that the Internet can help youth to develop their digital skills.
>> SEVINC ALIYEVA: Thanks, Agustina. I'm have Sevinc from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan hosted the IGF in 2012. Some of you may have participated there.
Azerbaijan is Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. So according to the World Bank survey, one out of four young people is unemployed in our region, which is, you know, not a good number.
So what are the ‑‑ the question is: Why people are young people, are unemployed?
Actually most of the challenges and reasons behind this unemployment are the same with the main unemployment, like, lack of locations, lack of job creation, and we talked about the improvements in technology, and like, competitiveness in the labor market. But there's some youth specific ones and I want folks on that.
The first one, it's called cyclical unemployment. It's basically companies are hiring young people. In times of crisis, the very same young people are the ones who are kicked out of first, because they do not have much experience. They are vulnerable to be removed from the labor market. And I think the other biggest challenge is the mismatch in the ‑‑ between the supply and the demand in the labor market. Because today, often it's assumed that when you graduate from a good university with a good degree. But it's not the case in many countries and not the case in my region too.
Companies are looking for people with ‑‑ would are well equipped who have hard and soft skills and who have competence and digital skills. But often a fresh, poor graduate, has a lot of theoretical knowledge. So our education systems focus on the intellectual development of young people but they do not have enough conformity with the needs of the business world.
So we have a gap here. And this gap can only be breached with a network approach, I think what the cooperation of all stakeholders from government, from private sector and from civil society. And I think here we as young people has ‑‑ we have to do something about that and here is where the Internet comes. So nowadays we have an Internet where there are a lot of open sources, open libraries, educational platforms. So we can just go to some educational platforms and type whatever skills we want to improve and we can attend courses, like someone is paying $400,000 for a class in the US, but they can attend the same class for free.
Firstly in our region, we have some primary issues like accessibility and affordability. But the countries in this region are doing a great job on improving the accessibility rates and affordability of the Internet. Each of the countries has national strategy. And I think if we look at the statistics, within the last ten years, we have seen a great improvement.
But the other problem is awareness. Basically most of the young people are not aware of the opportunities out there in the Internet. So especially people in the countryside areas of the countries, they think ‑‑ they look at the Internet like some fancy place to play games and to chat with friends. They are not aware of the opportunities.
And here we need initiatives from the government and the private sector, like government has to deal with the education system. Throughout history, education system always falls behind with, like, catching up with the needs of the business world, but government needs to come up with some tangible programs for young people no to prepare them for the future of jobs.
And private sector here, companies can come up with fellowships and mentoring programs and, like, trainings for young people.
And I think as youngsters, we have a lot of things to do as well. The initiative, with me and my ‑‑ one of my friends, we started a project, it's called in English, it's called Video Knowledge. What we are doing is basically we are creating white board videos. We post them on YouTube and this is about the self‑learning opportunities on the Internet.
And in the offline part of our project, we go to schools in the countryside and the villages and we try to inform peoples what they can do in the Internet, and how they can prepare themselves for their future before it's too late.
These are the simple steps but these are, I think, very effective. And what government and private sector can do, their, as can address the challenge in the long term because this education system are like training programs, it doesn't return on ‑‑ it doesn't give return on investment very early like we need a long time.
But as young people, you can go to your relative. Go to someone in the proximate community who don't know about the Internet, who don't know how to find opportunities, and how to improve their skills and just try to encourage them and inspire them. It's very basic, simple step, but it's very effective, I think.
So I think we should all cooperate on that and we should prepare ourselves for the future of jobs.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much. When we discuss digital skills in the next segment, but we will open now the floor for comments and questions if you have any.
Then we have, one, two, three, here. Perfect. We will take the three and then we will continue with the next segment, because we are, as usual, a little behind on time. Please go ahead.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello? I'm from AT. We realize many websites give jobs online require, first, that money be given to village. How can we know that it is not a hoax?
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: I think maybe we didn't understand you. Can you repeat the question? Sorry.
>> There are hoax. Normally on international recruitments, there are certain rules and regulations. But why ‑‑ what I don't understand is like, if this is a national online job application, why would somebody do that?
I mean, it makes no sense, really.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. I'm Carson from Tanzania. I sort of have similar remarks. I would like to thank my sister from East Africa, from the cultural point of view, this is Gen X and Y. With the trend of globalization, we are going to a common culture mostly as young people, using the Internet. So we are setting a common base where we speak a common international language, when we interact with technology.
We have some sort of skills and we have people with degrees but we are not employable because we don't have the employability skills. It's a collection of people and the machines that there because the machine can do a lot of work that we can do. How do you top that?
When we go to university, it it's first time you interact with a computer. The problem is relevancy. The technology is available, but it's not relevant to our cases. Mobile money is really wide spread? East Africa.
It's relevant to both generations, the young and the older people. Nobody understands how the system works or how it is but they know they can go to a spot and with real money by pressing numbers and has worked. In the future of innovation, it took a really long ‑‑ it took a really slow time to match up and now it's a big industry.
As well as we can see it has created a lot of employment for young people. So I think still relevancy is the way. How do we make this technology relevant to our current situations in regard to our local ‑‑ to our local structure.
Another thing is we have a really big isolation, when it comes to older generation and the younger generation.
They want us to mimic what we do. If you want to be employed, you have to do as how they do it. When you come with a new perspective of fresh minds that you can do it like this, it's difficult for them to understand. How do we move that isolation polarity? And the other thing is we have a really big polarity when it comes to innovation, innovation from the west side and us.
We are in the age of quantum computing and IOS or whatever, but we see this is really wide spread but what about us. How do we get connected and how can it be relevant to us and use these opportunities?
Thank you.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: We will take one more question. There are many. We will take one more here. Then ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. Thank you Lily from Ghana and Internet Society of IGF. The Internet is not viewed as just a space anymore, but a tool.
I just left a session on bridging the accessibility divide for persons living with disability. And I want to know how are the current trends of work going to affect such persons? And does the ILO have regulations or policies for disability and work? Thank you.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: We will take one question here and then we will have more time for Q&A after the second segment. So please be patient. I don't know who is next. I think there, right? Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, I'm from India. And first, let me congratulate you for taking a very important topic, I think the IGF's main thing that we are looking at is definitely jobs and Internet.
I come from India. So we are not talking about 5 million or 10 million. We are talking about 1.35 billion. And if we look at the World Bank's chief statement in October of 2016, he said, 69% of jobs in India are at threat due to automation. And the number for China was 70 plus percent.
Now is the Internet going to create equal number of jobs that displaces because of automation? Because we are saying 69%. You see, I'm not trying to look at an answer from you at this forum right now, but this is something that all of us, not just on the panel, in the room, we got to look at finding solutions.
Because this is a serious challenge. If it was one or two percent, or 10%, it's fine to manage. 69, 70% of displacement of jobs is enough. If you have answers, I would happy.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Please keep your question for next round of questions. Don't forget it. I so he many questions and comments.
If there are any other comments electric this side of the table, I will give all the speakers here an applause, if you go with me.
(Applause)
And you will pass the floor to Bruna who will be moderating the second segment.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Hello, everyone. Thank you to everyone who has joined this first segment and I would like to invite the other panelists to join us at the stage.
So I would like to invite Veronica Arroyo. Sorry.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Sorry, there were some comments after the questions.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Sorry. I was waiting.
>> MARIA PRIETO: So you mentioned ILO directly. Yes, there is a program for people with disabilities and how ‑‑ how to address those issues in the ILO. That is quite ‑‑ that is growing a lot, and taking technology and digitalization into consideration for supporting people with less ability, but in addition to that, new technologies also ‑‑ there is an issue of enhancing the capacity of the worker. And that can be dangerous also to talk about the enhanced worker. It's like a bit science fiction, but at the same time, technology can put two persons, one with disability and one without at the same level and this is something that's being worked on.
That's Ghana.
You were mentioning about the destruction and the creation of jobs and everybody is guessing percentages, left, right, and center, and we are never really right because we don't know.
Well, we do know that there is a disruption that we need to address and address it through the policymakers but not only in a multi‑stakeholder environment with workers, employers, civil society, and to involve the private sector in saying how things are changing.
And, yes, I believe the Internet is changing the jobs but it has been clanging them for I along time. To the past ‑‑ you know this better maybe. So it's anybody's guess. So everybody has different prognosis.
So preparing, shaping the future of work, that is what everybody is talking about. What is the future of work we want and work backwards from that and not letting things get behind you, like losing so many percentages but sort of prepare for the shocks that is my 5‑cents. August thank you. And now sorry for the misunderstanding. Now yes, we can continue, right?
>> BRUNA SANTOS: So I would like to thank the next panelists. My name is Bruna and I'm a member of the youth Observatory. We are glad to share this session with the ISOC team and I would like to invite to the stage Veronica Arroyo from Access Now. And David. And Sebastien. I might not know how no pronounce your name. And also I will invite Maria to continue with us on the stage. Thank you very much. Sorry, I forgot to invite you to the stage, Pablo. You can join us as well.
So following up on our previous discussions, we had this first segment, it was very, very interesting in which we had short mentions to important stuff, without the actual frameworks of labor. Also we discussed the importance of the ethical dimension advances of digitalization and how could organization and companies participate in this innovation and help drive individuals to the digital future.
So the second is capacity building and best practices.
It's mostly how do we build skills within this around born within the digital generations. So as we ‑‑ as some of the persons would ask a question right now, we are important inside the Internet. We communicate through the Internet. We are all inside of this, like, all the time, but sometimes we feel like we missed some of the cues that employers, they tend to require.
So I will give the floor to Veronica, as I introduced Veronica is a policy associate for Latin America access now and the question for you, Veronica, what are the challenges that you young people face gaining these skills and what gaps do they need to overcome to find jobs?
>> VERONICA ARROYO: Thank you all for being here and I feel very glad and nervous at the same time to represent the young people from my region, Latin America. I will talk about two points, basically challenges and gaps.
For challenges, what I find is like the big challenge that we have is access to education. Because what we have in Latin America and people from my legion will not say that I'm lying is that we have traditional education. So what we need now, one of the challenges that we have is to go further and try to build the skills and the capacity building on new type of education that can give us the opportunity to be part of this new ‑‑ this new era of technology.
But that comes also with access to acknowledge. Now we have another problem because not all the places in Latin America have access to Internet and they would have access to all the technology, second of all. And that as the other challenge we have. And the problem is gender issues and cultural issues.
I think people are used to see, normal, traditional work style. So you go to the office and then you work in something and then you ‑‑ when you finish work ‑‑ your working hours, you return to your home and then it's fine.
In the case, for example, I work at home, and when I started doing this, my family was very, very worried because they say, how can you divide your personal life and your work life, this work/life balance? They were so scared.
Now I have been doing this for like two years and it's fine. I'm not dying. So that's great. But that's a problem. But we need to break that cultural thing. And how we can ‑‑ how we see ‑‑ how we see how work is.
And the other thing is gender. Because we have already a gender gap there and we need to overcome that. We need to fix this first, because access to technology, access to education, yes, we can improve that. If we are not doing anything on side of gender issues and giving more access to women and having ‑‑ giving them the opportunity to be there also, we are doing nothing.
So that's challenges. I think I need to hurry up.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: You have two minutes.
>> VERONICA ARROYO: I have two minutes to talk about the gap. This is something that we all share, all the developing countries share is studying is important for us. It's very important for our society. If you come from a village where there is people that they have not studied anything, then if you get any ‑‑ thank you. If you get any degree, then you will be someone that people will recognize. If you study someone, then you are important for your family, for your community.
So that's why people study. But what happens when you finish your studies? We are talking that here you do this traditional studies, okay? But what happens when you finish that and you face this work opportunities?
You go there and they say, okay, we are looking for a young professional with 20 years of experience. Okay. Who has 20 years of experience? I have 20 years of experience maybe reading, but just that.
And that's something that is happening and why that happens, I think, as young people, people don't trust on our capacities. And this happens and I have seen this happening.
What I see is that we can ‑‑ I think in our region, we can take technology as an opportunity to be a person that they can trust too, because it's easier for us to see and to manage technology. So sometimes they rely on us to use technology and how to create an email or apps or things like that. They rely on us. So that is a new way to see and overcome this gap between ‑‑ between we as not ‑‑ as people that they don't trust, and now to go to the people that they really trust too.
So that's one gap. And another gap that I was already talking about was this traditional work system versus the new work system. The problem in Latin America, there's a lot of informal jobs and they are not well paid. This is mainly labor exploitation and if you want to work, then you get a job and then you will not be paid well. Then you will work for hours. And I'm talking about the great majority, not the ones that got privilege ‑‑ are privileged and they got a great education. I'm talking about the huge massive people that are there. And I think that's something that we need to ‑‑ we need to work, and live. How we can solve this.
And I ‑‑ I think that we ‑‑ we can have something positive here. It's about ‑‑ and this is about a new way. So how we can improve this situation and this is about entrepreneurship. So I saw a lot of store apps. They are using technology. There is a tool to promote their work and be more active and be more proactive and I think that this is a great way to build more things. I think that's one thing to take technology and go further. So that's it. I can take questions later. Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much, and apologies for speeding you. Up next is Ndeye. She's at the ministry of post and telecommunications of MPT, right? Thank you very much.
>> NDEYE FATAU COUNDOUL: Thank you very much, and thank you, IGF, to invite us. I'm from Senegal, ICT ministry and I'm sorry for the absence of my director, Souleymane Diallo, who had a last‑minute change.
It's important to show how the government is working and give them work. If they can't have work, they can be entrepreneur and they can be employed. The reason we are working hard to have a good environment and they can be useful for themselves and for the country.
For Senegal, we have ‑‑ as in Africa, we have young people. You can see the African participants, they are more young and also they are not employed, they are under employed and we think that the real solution is to be ‑‑ to use digital economy, and it's what we are working about in Senegal as we have a strategy for developing the country. We focus on the digital strategy. We have a strategy we called Digital Senegal 2020‑2025 and this strategy, this policy, we are focused on human issues. We know we have to do a good training for the kids and also to give them professional information.
Also in this policy, we promote a digital industry that creates a value in work. Even if we have to develop jobs, we have to develop industry, and we know that in Africa, even in Senegal, there is no more industry. And as the government is focusing on this to help the population have good work.
Also, to give opportunities in ICT, we have to have an open and affordable access to digital network and services and we will establish enabling environment of work to the young.
In this strategy, we said digital Senegal, 2025, we have our website, and I can share with you this presentation. Like this, you can use the link to know exactly what is in the official strategy or the official policy to develop numeric in Senegal.
The vision of the strategy is digital for all, digital for all users in a good environment. And to develop all of this, we focus on gender. We help all the young girls to use ICT, but to use it in a good way as we know ‑‑ as there is a lot of problem in using not properly internet for girls but now what we do is advise them to really use the Internet. They can be employer. They can be also ‑‑ they can have good job because we know that it read like my colleague said before, if financial is working in Senegal, but also ethread is working.
So youngsters use elogistics to have a job. They can use ICT, the phone to get from somewhere to somewhere and they have a job like this. The government plan now to more accelerate the training even on the project to train 3,000 people.
Also we have to give scholarships to 3000 per year to learn more ICT. But also we could do good digital entrepreneurship for the young. Like this, they can do ‑‑ create themselves, more skills jobs, and also we have incubation who helps the SMA to ‑‑ to be upgraded and to be improved.
The government also plans to do a final self for the promotion of the digital and entrepreneurship, but also to help to improve the innovation because we know there is a lot of innovation.
In Senegal when you bring a phone and it's the first young who hasn't had more information about ICT, can repair it. And now the government is focusing on them to give them ‑‑ we have project to help them, using this space to improve what is there in mine and to help them give all of this information. I think I can wet for the ‑‑ as a question to complete. Thank you very much.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much for your intervention.
Next up is Sebastien. Can you please help me pronounce your surname? And then you are a social studies ‑‑ and serve as the national leader at the youth council. What are the lessons learned from your experience at Singapore with regard to digital literacy. You have four minutes. Thank you very much.
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Testing. Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning, everyone, from ‑‑ I'm Sebastien from the island of Singapore. Paris is so cold for me because it's a warm country in Singapore.
But the people here are so warm. That's the thing about the Internet Society, and collaborating. I was sharing the question that was asked. So in Singapore, our experience, one of the projects that we do ‑‑ one of the projects that we champion is digital inclusion. Regardless of age, and regardless of ability.
What do I mean by that? So I give you an example. The national youth council, we work together with youth volunteers who are passionate to serve their society, prepare for the volunteers who are digital native, together with elderly, and the public who are not aware of how to use the Internet or the telephone safely and securely and we use the elderly. So this is a project that we do in Singapore.
And the idea is the not to promote bonding. It's also a dual way of learning and a dual way of action between the youth and the elderly. So the elderly also have stories to share with the youth and this will create some bonding between both of them.
Sorry, can you repeat the question again.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Yes, of course. The question is, what are the lessons learned from your experience in Singapore with regard to digital literacy and skills development?
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: So we want to create community networks, because the idea ‑‑ I'm not from the technical field. So we really appreciate technical people here in this room right now. It's important that we work together, and believe in multi‑stakeholderism. That's why I'm here. That's why I want to listen to you. And I'm also going to keep my speech short because want to hear your questions that you have for any one of us.
We partner not just with the youth but the elderly homes to invite the elderlies in.
So this is how we let the youth from a platform to enhance their digital literacy skills to sharing with the elderly and the public and so this is how we improve the digital literacy and also creating community that is, I think ‑‑ I mean, we believe tangible aspect of the Internet but we want to create this community bond, this intangible bond. That's why you and I are here right now and you do not just want to hear me speak and you want to ask some questions. So that's all for now. And please, ask any questions. Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much, Sebastien.
(Applause)
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Up next, we are also having another intervention from Maria Prieto. Maria, our question for you now is: In two to three minutes tops, what are your recommendations ‑‑ what are the recommendations you would make for policymakers and skills and capacity building?
>> MARIA PRIETO: Okay. So there would be two level response to this, because as the climate and the environment, there are no borders for the connectivity of Internet. So this is something that is to be considered in this response.
But at national level, the debate is ‑‑ for skills development, is going around the issue of responding quickly to quick changes. And one of the recommendations or the one that is the flagship of recommendations that comes out is the implementation wherever possible of a lifelong learning approach. And that would be to have an inclusive approach and I know, for example, you were ‑‑ you were from Singapore?
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Yes.
>> MARIA PRIETO: You have it in Singapore. There's development on that. There are other countries such as Sweden that have been dabbing in this. The recommendation to the policymakers is to wherever possible, develop lifelong learning approaches that will equip people of all ages with capacities to learn how to learn. In order to adapt quickly to the changes.
And obviously, the issue of STEM, the science, technology, engineering and math is another topic that comes up often in that regard.
Lifelong learning is very expensive. You have to put into context, that not all countries will have to be able to do this, but it's certainly one way of tackling the issue. At the international level, and this is maybe a way of responding to one of the questions, I think the gentleman from Senegal that was raising the issue of the digital divide between countries and how innovation can maybe narrow that gap, well, policymakers at international level, meaning international organizations, the European Union, there needs to be certain regulations to protect, not only the worker, but also that it does not become like the survival of the fittest.
But that the technologies put to use and to improve the life of people in general everywhere. Because we all want to achieve social justice and I think technology has a great potential to be used that way. And that is the debates that are going on as the SDG levels, et cetera, that should be considered as well.
So thank you very much.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much, Maria. Should we take the questions now? Yeah? Perfect. So we're taking questions. I will ‑‑ well, we will do five minute segment of questions. So I have one here. How do we start this out?
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: You need to do short questions.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: You will take two from each side, just so I'm not unfair. You had your hand raise and you had your hand raised. So you go ahead.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. I'm from India. Youth Asia fellow. My question is, that it was discussed about how exploitation is happening in the workplace in terms of the wages that are being given and I think that's happening with young people a lot. I come from India, I'm a law student and I'm expected to intern every summer and winter, and do two internships and they are unpaid. I'm supposed to bear the burden of travel and I have to sit and I'm expected to sit there my colleagues until 3 a.m. working. I believe it's a form of exploitation that young people are not expressing. Coming from a labor intensive culture is not fault.
I wish to know how to navigate through this or start a movement in which young people are paid for what they deserve because we are to the doing less than the associates and possibly even more.
Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much. We will take all the questions in a row. So the gentleman in glasses here.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. Youth IGF fellow. So we have talked about the digital skill acquisition or lack of it in context of countries in Africa and we seem to ‑‑ where I come from in Nigeria, I'm a student of the top university, so we are quite updated in some of these skills, but the problem with this is in my couldn't try, especially where I come from, there is a mistrust for opportunities that actually learn the skills here. For example, I work for some of the top brands. That's recognizable around the world.
I'm install barometric scanners within buildings for the staff as they move around, but then when you try to get jobs here. When you try to get contracts, when you try to be involved in installation of all of this, there seems to be a greater trust for expatriates for the homegrown people who come from them.
Even outside given them the digital skills, how do we solve the issue of trust because they want to be sure that, you know, are not going to mess anything up.
So they would rather get somebody from abroad other than to ask us. So I just wanted to point that out, how can we actually help in these affairs? Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much.
>> Steve from Labor Net in San Francisco. I think that the brother here addressed this issue of automation technology marginalizing people. And I don't see any real plan on how to deal with it, which is the future of young people, because in the Bay Area or in California where you have a lot of young people, they are being marginalized with these platforms Uber and other technologies. They have to ‑‑ they can't survive. And they are temporary works, the gig economy. There's no stability and this is the center of technology in the world. And that's a real threat that has to be addressed if we are going to have a future. And that's what I'm concerned about, a future for young people so that they can survive and have stability and have families and take there are lives forward.
The other issue is privatization of education. Young people can't afford to go to college because of the cost of college. They can't get the training, in the United States!
So this is another major issue that young people face, that needs to be addressed. You can't even get an education. How do you gets to take you forward in your work? Those are some of the issues that have to be confronted in the future of work and technology in the new economy.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much. One last question. I see you Julian with your hand raised. Please be brief.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. My friend from Haiti would like to have his question asked in French.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Speaking in French and awaiting English translation).
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: So does anyone at the table speak France, I can translate it. So what he asked is regarding platforms that offer freelance jobs, and temporary jobs, most of those platforms, they require prepaid ‑‑ they require that the users pay for using the platform, and some of the workers in his country, Haiti, cannot afford to be part of this community, of this prepaid, the freelance platforms an online community for job offers.
So they would like to know what can be a solution for this kind of problem? Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much. Would any of the panelists like to answer any of the questions? Would you like to answer any of the questions? Go ahead.
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Can you hear me? Okay. Much better.
I mean, okay, maybe I will answer the lady question, on the ‑‑ from India, right? Regarding exploitation. So I think ‑‑ okay. It's not exactly like fake news, but you have to be aware of where is the source of the information of your job advertisement. And perhaps most organizations because of costs, they would ‑‑ they might purposefully unintentionally or intentionally try to mislead, especially young people like ourselves which is much more ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: They are actually pretty big, like, I'm talking about the biggest law firms in the country, yeah. So it's not a question of credibility.
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Okay.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: But more of the fact that why are we not getting paid.
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Can you repeat again.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's not a question credibility but like, why are we not getting paid to do twice the work of employees.
>> SEBASTIAN WEE KIAT HOE: Well, I definitely agree with you and I think that is a great question. But I'm not an employer, but I can share with you, based on my ‑‑
(Laughter)
‑‑ no, no, I can share with you based on many youth perspective, and so based on my experience, searching for a job, I'm sure there are some employers here, in the panel or sitting down here with us, who say that young people are lazy. We are the strawberry generation. We are not working hard enough. This is a way to train and prove ourselves.
But to solve your question, how can we do it? You have to search for a job that ‑‑ that satisfies you with that criteria, or you find a way to negotiate it and I think different culture, different country and different culture have different way of doing things. I'm not really sure about India. I'm sorry. In Singapore, at least that I think ‑‑ I think in the US, social advocacy is one of the things that they can champion it.
In Singapore, I think the government control is much more top down approach. So I'm not sure about India. So we need to understand how can you advocate your issues to the relevant organization. Perhaps their labor union or organization that sort of get addressed and perhaps can even work together with like‑minded youth like yourself that have such issues so that you are not alone and you can work together.
I hope I answer your question.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much. I want to answer to the French question and I can speak in French and after, I can translate in English.
(Speaking in French)
He wanted to tell him, that it depends on some countries where you can find some platform who are not ‑‑ some platforms are free. In Senegal, we have two platforms for the youngs, done by the ministry of ‑‑ the young ministry, where they can go to put their information and they can find some jobs but also I wanted to tell him that it is not ‑‑ it is not necessary to be employed. You have to be the one would give jobs. You have to use your innovation and your experiences and use ICT, and use efinance, E*TRADing and eLearning. And you can be not ‑‑ you can give jobs also.
Thank you.
>> BRUNA SANTOS: Thank you very much.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: We are supposed to finish the session right now, or, in fact, a minute ago. We will take four minutes move the next session if 11:50 and it's about the future of jobs too. So I encourage you all to say.
We will do this, Maria will tackle some of the questions in two minutes, and Pablo Hinojosa who is another honorary youth fellow will do the closing. So two minutes here, two minutes here, and I encourage you to stay to the next session, where I think we will continue addressing these questions. Thank you very much and sorry about the time.
>> MARIA PRIETO: Concerning the issue of internships, there is an ongoing negotiation for the development of guidelines for interns.
That is a very difficult discussion for many reasons. The ILO recommends paid internships which is what we implement in our organization. I would recommend that you have a look at those guidelines and you have sort of slip them through to your employer as ‑‑ as maybe some guidelines to follow if possible. Yeah?
There are no established, international guidelines that I know of on the issue.
The issue of ‑‑ the gentlemen here in front of me, that education in the US, it's mainly the US, which is ‑‑ yeah. Europe, not so much because it's another system. But it is true, that it is becoming more expensive. There are, like ‑‑ the elite have access to schools and this is something that might not be the best way to ‑‑ to develop in that ‑‑ in that area.
And that, actually, does marginalize certain people on the way they develop skills, et cetera. But the issue of how technologies are doing ‑‑ you mentioned Uber, you mentioned temporary workers and that trend of non‑standard forms of employment, we recently came out with a publication in the ILO on that issue that gives you the trends and the data and some of the recommendations that the organization gives for those non‑standard. Service is something that UNESCO should be addressing.
(Speaking French).
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much. Pablo, I give you the closing words.
>> PABLO HINAJOSA: Thank you! What an honor, actually. I was just thinking who is doing the report because that is going to be a very difficult task. There has been a lot that has been said here today, including the video. Don't forget to put something in the report because that's a very nice place where he leaves. And many different conversations around platforms and future of jobs and all things we know today and things we don't know. I heard a lot about challenges and difficulties, together with initiatives, but I didn't get a lot of a sense of opportunity and I would like to bring that to the closing moment.
I was thinking about the speeches yesterday. You need to follow them at the YouTube. The Secretary General of the UN and the president of the France gave very, very important speeches. If we think deeply about them in the context of future jobs, I can just think about a few thousand. A few tens of thousands maybe of full‑time jobs that will be required worldwide if their vision expressed yesterday will ever be translated and put into action and how big these jobs will be, in figuring out mechanisms to before a multidisciplinary approach to a multi‑stakeholder setting.
And it's not about job vacancies at the UN, oh, no, please no.
It's about all different sorts of ways of thinking and ‑‑ and just to think, for example, architects to design proper rooms for these discussions to occur in a conducive manner. This room is obsolete and uncomfortable and it is no longer suitable for these kinds of discussions. Where are the architects designing the rooms for these discussions to happen, right?
These are unresolved questions and you think only youth is suitable and capable to provide those answers. I will leave it there.
>> AUGUSTINA CALLEGARI: Thank you very much, everyone. We close here. And we continue the discussion in the next session on future of jobs too. Thank you very much.