IGF 2024- Day 0- Plenary- An Ambitious Vision The Role of Digital Innovation in Enhancing Experience RAW

>> ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin in a few minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes, we will proceed.

>> HOST: Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear participants, we would like to welcome you again for the IGF, we're pleased to communicate with you throughout the break, to talk more about the Forum, and more details coming in the next hours.

Now, with grace and more achievements and provided a successful and exciting events in the achievements.  And join me in welcoming His Excellency, Governor of the Digital Government Authority, Ahmed Alsuwaiyan.

>> AHMED ALSUWAIYAN: Your highnesses, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, you are mostly welcome here in Riyadh, at the IGF2024. In the first day, we are hosting the Saudi digital Forum. Allow me to speak in Arabic, and use the translation headset next to you.

Excellencies,y, ladies and gentlemen, we are here with you, and you are most welcome. And the Digital Government Authority which is organized this year to coincide with the IGF. This is our aspirations continue and we're moving in the skies of innovation and innovation and solutions and new tools, which is innovating and gives the best impact and value that can be achieved. And continues and our objectives will continue to be towards increasing the productivity and efficiency and improve the experience. This is what is happening with all efficiency and capacity by you, the heroes of digital transformation and Governmental entities.

Let us take a quick glance at some examples. And in the health Sector today, 43% of the points for consultations as provided remotely through the clinics, and hospitals and efficient to that, we have achieved a 1.3 billion serves with the platform. And conducted this year the first surgery transplant, organ heart transplant which has contributed greatly by minimizing the recovery time and leaving of the hospital by 90%. Let us salute the workers at the health Sector.

And municipality and health Sector and by using the AI, today we have the capacity to detect the certain formation compared which was 90% in the past. In addition to that, we have a savings of 6 million Riyadh by unifying the services in all municipalities and throughout the country. In addition to that, today, all the municipalities and their branches of the Minister of Municipalities and housing, we have less partial visits. The average is three hundred thousand visits today. Thanks God. The average of the Ministry, thanks be to the municipality and housing Sector.

At the work Sector and social development Sector, today, we have less cases by 42% through accelerating the issuing the settlement at 6% less. And you mention for the Minister of Municipalities and housing, the visits for the branches of the Minister of Human resources and social development exceeds 60,000 visits, today, 3,000 visits for the branches of the Ministry. Also by using the AI. And through the modern technologies we manage to save more than 154 million by exposing the fraud cases of social service. And thank the heroes for this wonderful job. Thank you so much.

And international relationships, and the tourism Sector today, we have less time, 60% less time to issue the certificates and scale for the work Visa. In addition to that you achieved annual savings exceed 283 million through cancellation of the stickers, and approving the electronic Visas. Today, the tourist Visa does not take more than three minutes compared to the administration which took seven days, all thanks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and tourism for their efforts. In the financial Sector, today, 70% of the payments is conducted electronically. This is high rate compared to other countries in the world. In addition to that, we have achieved savings that exceed three billion three minimizing the commercial factor system Authority.

Today, also only to deliver the commodities through the electronic market to compare 220 days in the past.

So also we have more than 40,000 products in the Government entities could select the service and deliver it to the Governmental entities and the facts that the Minister of Finance of the Central Bank and all of the financial centre entities.

And the work going on with the comprehensive Government in the target 2030, in the population. And we have launched the platforms is unified and more than 90 elements, 25 platforms, interface and the activities of the beneficiaries.

And also, we have expanded in the comprehensive national application more than 350 services in the platform. In the token apps and target 26 to have more than 1,000 services in token apps. In addition to that, the job is continuing with providing comprehensive experience, many on the Generative AI, we have launched 12 live journeys to tell about the services and in that case, others mainly. 216 were taken from the Government authorities according to the public cooperation, to promote the participation. In addition to that, the commitment to the comprehensive inclusiveness criterions for every category, the edge Group for disabilities and launch more than 20 services for them. Also to provide service to them and increase Government acceptance in general, through moving the certificates for Government entities and the material structure and train more than 3,000 employees more than 180 Programmes and to provide consultations more than 60 consultations to support the Government bodies and entities.

And for our deep concern about the efficiencies, on the Private Sector, the total number of service through revising the projects and the participant is more than 8 billion Riyal and the share of the procurement of the innovators and entrepreneurs, is 38% of the total Government procurement through the end of third quarter of this year, 2024.

And for the first time, the rate of the Cloud service, is reached 38% and exceeded this by 500 million on the Cloud services for the participation of the Private Sector and to receive distinguished services.

The improvement continued in the digital side by measuring Digital Transformation for the Government and increase the maturity and experience of digital experience for the digital platform supporters and also to care for the future as well through adopting AI models and also many technologies because the quality of the digital content receive it in three or four years and we receive the digital measure indicators all contributed greatly in achieving achievement in the fourth Global level. The fourth level, internationally.

On the services to have the different categories. It is open data. And Riyadh city is the third around the world among the capitals around the world. All of the successes and achievements could not have been achieved without the general suspect without the wise leadership of the King and his Royal Highness. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

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>> ANNOUNCER: Next ...

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>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: I would like to thank Governor Ahmed Alsuwaiyan Digital Government Authority for this high quality services to enhance and promote quality of life and create a more prosperous digital future and to achieve and realize Vision 2030. Right now, we have come to the high level Ministerial session, which will host safe listening Excellencies will explore digital innovations impact on experience and Ms. Salah Alghaydan Saudi Channel will moderate this session. This is titled An Ambitious Vision: The Role of Digital Innovation in Enhancing Experience.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: Good afternoon to you all. I invite their Excellencies to join us on the stage to start this panel of discussion. His Excellency Dr. Tawfig Al Rabiah Ministry of Hajj and Umrah Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And Mr. Ahmed AlRajhi, human resources and social development Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And Saleh Al Jasser, Minister of Transport and Logistics services, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You are most welcome, Excellencies.

The most merciful the most compassionate Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, every day, there is a news story and all have a new chapter, and source of right that the mega story was that in iteration of His Excellency, the Governor of the Digital Government Authority and this session will delve deep. Their Excellencies, which show the time, effort and money, it has taken us to a wider concept, which is the quality of life that we experience on daily basis.

Now, we have become a benchmark in this regard. These are the outcomes of the diligence and serious work and dedicated efforts of his Royal Highness, the Crown Prince and his team. We keep saying that.

His name, the Crown Prince is mentioned, vision and hard work to achieve this kind of remarkable accomplishment. This is the main source of pride for us. So I would like to welcome you to the high level Ministerial session. And this Digital Government, we will talk about the innovation and enhancing the experience.

Before I start, I would like to welcome the friends of peace that you can see in the front part. They watch us and follow us in different parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They are with us virtually, and follow us, and the friends of peace, we extend you the peace from the land of peace. So the land that will host the World Cup.

So you have the peace, security, and this land.

Today, you are closer to us so welcome on daily basis. So we highlight the rule of Government agents, and Digital Government and welcome His Excellency Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Tawfig Al Rabiah. I would like to welcome his Minister, Minister of Human resources and social development Dr. Ahmed AlRajhi. And I would like to welcome the Minister of Transport and Logistics services, Saleh Al Jasser.

I want to start with Tawfig Al Rabiah. We talk about innovation. We have three questions just to manage the expectations. We have a session for about 20 minutes. I will manage it at the session form.

So we will talk about the innovation and how innovation can contribute to enhancing the experience.

Your Excellency.

>> TAWFIG AL RABIAH: I'm delighted to be part of the panel discussion and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has undergone Digital Transformation. I still remember an essay published in the newspaper. Our young people who are in their 20s, they cannot remember the history or how we were and how we have become.

So in the Government agencies, you should take such kind of Documents, a picture or photo of your identity and the family documentation just to finish any transaction. I said, remember the time we have so much bureaucratic, and number of shops for services, and you can find people, just to finish and finalize their transactions. This is you can remember back these IDA SSI, we have huge number of offices and shops at some people come as early as possible. But they don't have enough time or they were not able to finish their transactions. People became attuned.

And right now, you can write and type in your mobile, about the people influence and the crowd to finish and finalize their process.

So we can compare between the past and present, we have a paradigm shift in the process, in a very short span of time. Yes, a very short span of time, if we look at the seven series.

Now we have this kind of achievements by leaps and bounds. So we have mentioned the Indexes, we have frankly the fourth digital services, right now, we are ranked top globally. This is source that is bright that we have this paradigm shift in such e services that save a lot of work and efforts and reduce a lot of burden our shoulders.

So Your Excellency, Mr.   

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: So Mr. Ahmed AlRajhi, I want to thank you for the work at you have done in this digital world. As the custodian for   

>> AHMED ALRAJHI: I want to thank the Governor Ahmed Alsuwaiyan for the Governor of the Digital Government Authority. I am excited to see the house is full. This is a good indicator for the attention and keen interest for those working this Sector.

I will touch upon so I would like to salute them for the hard work.

I will touch upon and follow up what His Excellency, Dr. Tawfig Al Rabiah said four years ago as the Minister of Human resources and social development. I remember, we had this kind of crowdness in the branches. The crowdness in the full sense of meaning, to us very disturbing. And we met four years ago, the team, and varied, the 100 root causes, the beneficiaries come to our Ministry, 100 reasons for the people approaching us.

We started this journey of Digital Transformation of how to make such visits electronically through platform and via platform. And we started the notion of the digital services. And the mindset from welcoming our beneficiaries.

So today, and after    this is the zero project. So no customer or client will come to us to any branches. This is our ultimate goal, despite the time it was high ambition. Today, we have only two branches across the Kingdom, and the North borders. They have zero visits. No one approaches the physical branches on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So we lock into the next step.

As my colleagues and Dr. Ahmed Alsuwaiyan, the number from 60,000 per month, to 3,000 per month, Riyadh, the major city, so we    this is when    at what gains?  Because the support of the almighty God and limited support of the Crown Prince. Because he follows up the beneficiary journey through this kind of monitoring to follow the smooth journey and is the drive of our customers.

And now we have the competition, which Agency will achieve and attain the satisfaction of the beneficiaries regardless of their nationalities, so I would like to conclude that by the Minister of Human resources, we have 35 million beneficiaries. In Saudi centres. And service workers and all beneficiaries. This is a testament for the history I present this.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: I present this and we have this kind of    we interview the people in the street and they have good feedback on the labor goods and the labor goods have come to the best level of maturity and professionalism, this is my testament.

Your Excellency, Ministry of Transport and Logistics services, before asking the question, I would like to give you a piece of information. This is good evidence, what the Government is doing. Now, we are talking about the network and fuels and highways. You are asking about the length, I have the information three years ago. His Excellency might have the updates. You are revolving around the earth twice.

40,000 kilomitre, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has paved more than 84,000 kilomitres. This information is valid. This is the connected roots.

This is three fourths, the number of the truth. So six rounds, around the earth.

>> SALEH AL JASSER: If we look into the most prominent one of the manifestation of this Region is the empowerment, the human resources of this country. We have to empower the young people the enablement of entrepreneurship and innovation and leveraging of modern technologies. The system of Transport and Logistics services have benefitted from the unlocked potential of such human resources and deploying the innovation and without any further ado.

We have only seven minutes for this session, but I will give you a shining example of what we have already achieved.

With leveraging modern technologies and the concept of the shared economy today, the service of directing vehicles or provide the passenger services for 140 citizens and town before leveraging this kind of concept and technology. The conventional transport was only in 12 cities across the Kingdom, so such service due to the innovation and modern technology save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Permanent or part time jobs. But jobs over time and freelance around flexible hours. For our citizens of this great nation.

I give you another striking example. For the modern technologies, for the delivery. For delivery. It is a newly established delivery service.

Sorted by the Minister of Communication His Excellency, the Minister of Telecommunication. During the pandemic, remember, from that time, one thousand million delivery services have been completed. And since that time, five hundred million directing vehicles.

So this is a small feature of leveraging modern technologies by providing job creations and enhancing the beneficiary experience.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: Thank you, Your Excellency. Such figures. We have a story behind such figures. The final question will be integrated with the new updates, in each Ministry.

What is the role of innovation in efficiency, if you would give us in the answer the new launches and updates.

>> TAWFIG AL RABIAH: We have the paradigm shift and huge transformation for digital services. This is part of the vision of the Crown Prince and with the genuine partnership of the Excellency, the Minister of Telecommunications, for this paradigm shift we have the interconnection between the Government agencies and services. This is a paradigm shift in the Government services and engaging the Private Sector and to provide services for the Private Sector for the Minister of Hajj and Umrah and for Hajj and Umrah, this is fully integrated. And from end to end, smooth journey.

So we have a number of services in one stop shop.

This is what we do for the different stakeholders.  For your question for raising the efficiency and competency we have a number of factors. At play, come to play in this regard.

We face a lot of crowdness at the Holy site now, with the e services and digital services. We have eased this crowdness, and at the holy site it has become smooth and it is for efficiency and optimal use of our resources.

We have updates, the road, we have a new system to evaluate the contracting between the travel agencies from 84 countries, participating in this system. And we have contracts in thousand. So how to preserve the rights of both parties.

So this is a full integrated rights guaranteeing system. This is a paradigm shift to ensure the satisfaction of our customers. This was very clear in the last season.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: His Excellency, Ahmed AlRajhi.

>> AHMED ALRAJHI: After we establish the services, we have thousands of services, after making the services, the goal is how to provide the AI, the service of our initiates, strategies and services. For instance, we have Ahmed Sheik, the Minister is interested in the labour market issues.

It took six months to issue the authorization for a specific profession such as pharmacy or accounting.

So by using AI today, in just only two weeks, we can do simulations with the entire workforce for the Saudis and with more targeting and accuracy. And such guarding the competency platform. It was launched four months ago.

Today, every job seeker in the Private Sector or the Private Sector can apply or the competency platform.

In the past, it was a platform that require CV. It was to not empower our human resources. Right now, we have provided more than 1,000,000 jobs, by matching the skills and the job market requirements. We have the scan and matching alignment.

We have launched a number of Programmes and initiatives targeting to maximize the value and benefit and the high accessibility for this authorization and enhance workplace in general.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: Thank you Your Excellency, Your Excellency, Saleh Al Jasser, the efficiency and if you have updates.

>> SALEH AL JASSER: I'm going to talk about the platform, His Excellency talked about the unification, Mr. Ahmed Alsuwaiyan. And to enhance the beneficiary experience and increase beneficiary and transport services we have launched the service to be the single window for the transport and logistic services, a single window or shop can better service the end user and service providers and the organizers in the Sector and a fully integrated manner in a state of 10s of platforms. We have one stop shop that accelerate the innovative services.

Today, we have 350 services related to this platform. And we'll finalize. We're up to 1,000 services to ease and streamline the services for the end users and the efficiency and Governance in the services.

I will tell a story. I will tell a story.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: The Excellency know we have achieved the targets ahead of time for moving the headquarters. The commercial yesterday, the only reasons they feel that they will continue for this audit is we have hosted the Director and platform can operate in 90 countries.

They can get the services approved or outside of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Anytime, for business or leisure trip.

The Government has invested in the justice system and now we have e litigation 100%. This is a pioneering effort.

And now we have this kind of    before I thank their Excellencies, I would like to thank their Excellencies.

We have this kind of passion to ask their Excellencies questions. We would like to thank His Excellency, Dr. Tawfig Al Rabiah, Minister of Hajj and Umrah. And His Excellency, Ahmed AlRajhi, for human resources and social development, and His Excellency, Saleh Al Jasser for Transport and Logistics services. Thank you for joining us for this discussion.

>> SALAH ALGHAYDAN: I would like to thank my co emcee. Fatma. On this occasion, we have a short video launched by the Ministry of Saudi women. We encourage watching it to see how the Saudi women can play a pivotal role in providing security in this country. My co emcee, Fatma, the floor is yours.

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>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: I would like to thank the Moderator and the panelists for their time. The.

The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would like to launch products that benefit the experience and enhance the quality of life and the target of the Digital Government to highlight such services and platforms to provide quality services which raise the quality of life.

So I would like to welcome His Excellency, the head of the    Dr. Mohammed Sheik to launch the platform of the beneficiaries. On the custodianship of minors.

>> Peace and blessing be on Mohammed and your Royal Highnesses, good afternoon to you all. It is my pleasure to share the general Authority on the minors and their like. And this interactive platform that sheds light on Digital Transformation in Saudi Arabia, which is considered one of the most important key enablers to achieve and realize Vision 2030.

So I would like from the outset to express my deep appreciation to the King and Royal Highness Prince Mohammed for the unlimited support to provide the enablers which deem necessary to achieve this kind of success and Digital Transformation for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Digital Transformation today has become a key enabler of the economic growth and development of services and achieve excellence in different domains and Sectors and the new era and raise quality of services provided to the citizen and elevate the digital services and enhance the beneficiary experience and achieve the sustainability and innovation.

So the general Authority has started and implemented Digital Transformation strategy, which has launched for the beneficiaries and enable the Authority through the integration and the digital connection and linkage to raise and elevate the services and the Authority, work continuously to develop infrastructure and technologies such as AI to develop and to enhance the operations and activities to preserve and manage the assets of minors. And the Authority will work as well to contribute to Digital Transformation nationwide through building partnerships, digital partnership with a number of Government agencies and the Private Sector, in alignment of our efforts with vision 2030. The contribution to enhancing the Government performance and raising the quality of life.

Distinguished guests, the Digital Transformation is not just the adoption of new technologies, but it is the mindset and methodology including different aspects of work. In this regard, I would like to underscore the importance of empowering the young human resources and supporting them with knowledge and tools to lead and spearhead this transformation.

I would like to place an investment in human minds to achieve a brighter sustainable future.

I would like to thank those who make this Forum success certain from His Excellency, engineer and another engineer and his team, wishing for them this discussion and debate will be the launching pad for achieving Digital Transformation.

Thank you.

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>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Thank you to His Excellency, and we would like to congratulate the Authority for this launch that will transform the digital landscape across KSA.

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>> ANNOUNCER: This will show us a display about the customs Authority. So let us welcome the Governor of the Authority engineer who will tell us about the uses of vehicles for individuals. So this is a new platform related to the use of vehicles for individuals.

>> In the name of God oh, merciful, your Highness, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as salamu alaykum.

It is my pleasure to be here at the Forum that is organised by the Authority. And it is to exchange experiences, which allows us opportunities for all Government entities to showcase their achievements.

In Digital Government.

It is my pleasure to announce the launch of a development project for our Authority. And in customs, which is related to the importation of individual vehicles, which allows the Authority. It is a new project which is a very big transition in the production of our services.

It allows people to import individual vehicles through the platform within a few minutes. And this service will also allow to bring down the cost for individuals. So this transition would not have been possible if it weren't for the available digital services that allow us to simplify and streamline the services.

And the shortening of the process and the lowering of the cost will allow us also to upgrade our services as an Authority.

This is a step that is an extension of the aim of our Authority to develop and enhance its services and also to support competitiveness.

Of course, because we have to save time because time is of essence in our Sector. This is why we are trying to leverage as much as possible all of the digital services that are available. And we want to thank of course our wise leadership for providing us with all of the services and that are offering every support for the Digital Transformation, and offering us the international standards of digital services.

Dear all, also allow me to thank everyone that contributed to the development of this service, all of the stack holders and partners    stakeholders and the levels of the department, and it allow us to upgrade the services. I would like to thank the organizers of the Forum for all of the services and all of the efforts in allowing us to showcase the creativity in Digital Government.

I would ask God all merciful to bid you all luck in all of your future endeavours.

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Thank you, Mr. Engineer, we would wish you luck also in this new platform.

Now, let us welcome the Dr. Soud that will launch their platform.

>> It is an initiative we have started with the launch of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 and the Programme aiming at implementing activities and the services for the various measurement devices, Kingdomwide, the platform is a digital platform aim think at supporting Digital Transformation in the field of measurement enhancing efficiency and simplification of efficiencies to provide better services in the field of examination and verification of all the various measurement of us, launch four themes, the fuel pumps, the first one.

The second ones are gold scales and various commercial scales. The third is the electricity metres and the fourth is the water meters.

We aim to improve the efficiency of the sources whether it is water, electricity or energy through verification of the measurements being done accurately and compliance through the environmental standards and the Kingdom's commitment in that regard and making sure that the measurements support the environmental sustainability and improve the competitive capabilities between the various service providers in order to enrich, the transactions between the service providers and the consumers.

Through this initiative, we're able to achieve more than the measurement of calibration of more than 86,000 fuel pumps as well as calibration of 6,600,000 electricity metres, forming 62% of metres Kingdomwide. We have completed calibration of more than 22,000 commercial scales in the various domains, representing 51% of the scales targeted. And we also started with the water Sector and we were completed with the calibrating and measuring 170,000 water metres representing 14% of the targeted metres.

I take pride in the inauguration of this platform. In conclusion, I would like to thank His Excellency, the Minister of Communication and Excellency Mr. Ahmed Alsuwaiyan CEO of the Authority for the pioneership in the organisation of this important Forum. Thank you and a heartfelt congratulations. Thank you to all the dear guests, peace and blessings be upon you.

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>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: We thank you for the launch on the platform that will enrich and lead to facilitate the digital experience to the consumers. This comes in alignment with the 2030 ambition vision of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As achievement do not stop as we aim to accelerate the Digital Transformation in order to realize the 2030 vision. The Digital Government Authority has launched the measurement of the Digital Transformation for the 2024 contributing to the consumer satisfaction and increasing life quality.

Let's watch together this clip or this presentation.

>>VIDEO: More than instruments, various platforms, paperless processes, this was not only an objective, only a means to empower those to live seamlessly. The Digital Transformation is the key to development and our gateway to improvement.

Through it, we save time, create opportunities, and we have made the distance closer as the objective is to improve the efficiency and improve the performance. We're innovating, creating, developing and since what we can't measure we cannot achieve. There is a base which was Riyals. The Digital Transformation to accelerate the transformation through which we can measure our performance and our steps in order to achieve better.

The 2024 class has achieved 87.4% through the measurement or 235 Governmental entities this year. And 20 of which have reached the creativity level of 76 and have reached integrative level in a manner that has reached creation and integration in 2024.

The future is now.

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Now after a long time of wait, now is the time to announce the outcomes of the measurement of the Digital Transformation Index for 2024 and to be introduced to 20 Governmental entities, have reached innovation and creation, Your Excellencies, to honour the entities that have reached this level, it is my pleasure to invite to the stage His Excellency, Minister of Communication and Information Technology Mr. Asur, and CEO of the Digital Government Authority, join us on the stage.

A warm welcome to all you Excellencies on the stage.

>> Warm welcome to you, juror Excellencies. And thank you for accepting the invitation to join us today.

20 Governmental entities that have excelled and who have no losers amongst us today, we will start with the 20th position ... that goes to national Commission of Cybersecurity.

Your excellence, engineer, the Director General of IT, kindly join us on the stage to be honoured.

Congratulations. Congratulations to the national Commission of Cybersecurity for the 20th position on the measurement of Digital Transformation for the 2024.

A warm welcome and heartfelt congratulations.

The 19th position goes to the general organisation, and congratulations on the 19th position.

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>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: The 18th position goes to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Your Excellency engineer ... the Deputy Minister for communication and Information Technology and your esteemed colleagues, join us on the stage. The 18th position from the indicator for Digital Transformation goes to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

Can the team join us from the Ministry of Information Technology, congratulations.

The 17th position goes to the social Development Bank, kindly join us the CEO and the team kindly join us on the stage. Heartfelt congratulations.

The 17th position of the measurement of the Digital Transformation goes to the social Development Bank. A heartfelt congratulations for all of your exerted efforts.

And your excellent work.

The 16th position goes to the Ministry of Defense. Kindly join us Your Excellency engineer, Minister of Your team, kindly join us on the stage. Congratulations.

The 16th position for the Digital Transformation year 2024.

The 15th position goes to the University. Join us the University Director and the team. Heartfelt congratulations.

Heartfelt congratulations.

Heartfelt congratulations to the University.

The 14th position goes to the Saudi Authority for measurement and specifications and quality, kindly join us Your Excellency, and the team.

14th position for the Digital Transformation measurement for year 2024.

Warm welcome to the team.

The 13th position. The 13th position goes to the medical Affairs at National Guard Ministry, the general Director of the medical Affairs and your team, join us on the stage. A heartfelt congratulations.

13th position of the measurement of the Digital Transformation for the year 2024 go to the medical Affairs at the National Guard Ministry.

And for the 12th position ... goes to the Ministry of Municipalities and housing, Your Excellency, the Deputy Minister, kindly join us on the stage along with the team.

Heartfelt congratulations to the Ministry of Municipalities and housing for the 12th position.

A Group photo.

The 11th position goes to the Ministry of Energy. Kindly join us Your Excellency, the supporting services and the team. Kindly join us on the stage. Ministry of Energy. The 11th position goes to the Ministry of Energy and the measurement of the Digital Transformation for the year 2024

Heartfelt congratulations to the Ministry of Energy and the team.

A Group photo.

The 10th position goes to the Ministry of Pilgrimage. Congratulations to the Minister for the planning and Digital Transformation along with the team. Kindly join us on the stage.

A heartfelt congratulations to the Ministry of Pilgrimage for attaining the position of 12th position for the hard work. Congratulations to the team.

If you could kindly have a Group photo.

A heartfelt congratulations to the Ministry of Pilgrimage.

The ninth position goes to King Herod University. Kindly join us the Dean of  The deanship and the team. A heartfelt congratulations for obtaining the ninth position for the Digital Transformation measurement.

A heartfelt congratulations for the excellence work at the University. And obtaining the ninth position in the Digital Transformation measurement.

Great efforts exerted behind each and every creative team. Long hours of work.

The eighth position goes to the Secretariat of the Riyadh Region. Kindly join us engineer, the Deputy Minister for the Digital Transformation and Smart Cities along with the team.

Eighth position for the Secretariat of Riyadh Region.

And the Digital Transformation measurement congratulations on the fruitful efforts we see today.

Happy to see a team of the youth of this beloved country the receive this award. The seventh position goes to the Ministry of Transport and logistic services. Your Excellency, the Deputy Minister and team, kindly join us on the stage. Seventh position from the Digital Transformation measurement goes to the Ministry of Transport and Logistics services.

Ministry of Transport and Logistics services.

The sixth position goes to the communication space and technology Commission. Kindly join us Your Excellency. The Commission Governor and the team. Heartfelt congratulations for being awarded the sixth position and the Digital Transformation measurement.

Communication space and technology commission, heartfelt congratulations.

The fifth position goes to the Ministry of Justice, Your Excellency, the Deputy Ministry for Digital Transformation along with the team, join us on the stage.

A warm welcome to the Ministry of Justice that has been awarded the fifth position in the Digital Transformation measurement.

Ministry of Justice seeks relentlessly to facilitate the services provides to the beneficiaries.

If you could kindly have a Group photo.

The fourth position goes to the Saudi Commission for Data and AI, Your Excellency the Deputy of the Director General of the national Commission along with the team.

Saudi Commission for Data and AI is awarded the fourth position for the Digital Transformation measurement this year.

Congratulations for being awarded the fourth position.

If you could kindly have a Group photo.

And the third position goes to, as you all know the distinguished guests that the results are announced according to the standards document of Digital Transformation and are always constant updates. And experts and auditors and experts from the University as well as employees for the various Sectors for the assessment of the outcomes of the various entities. The third position goes to ... the customs Authority. Your Excellency engineer the Authority Governor and the team to be kindly join us on the stage to be honoured.

Congratulations on being awarded the third position for the Digital Transformation measurement.

A heartfelt congratulations.

The second position goes to    severe competition this year. And every year, it is more severe from the year before.

This year, everyone has worked relentlessly to be awarded these positions. We have no losers amongst us, but the second position goes to the Minister of HR and social development.

Your Excellency, the Deputy Minister and the team, kindly join us on the stage.

Ministry of Human resources and social development.

And for the first position ... last year, the first position was awarded to the Authority of tax and customs, however, this year the competition is severe.

The first position ... goes to ... an entity that we all benefit from, and we all aspire and await their outcomes and their work. This entity is ... the social institution for social insurance. The social insurance institution. The social insurance institution. Kindly join us Your Excellency, the Governor, along with the team. Join us on the stage for obtaining the first position and the Digital Transformation measurement for the year of 2024. Go team! 

A well deserved award.

You have earned it.

And we have no losers amongst today. All of the entities have excelled and have competed to best serve the beneficiaries in the Kingdom.

If you will kindly have a Group photo.

On this special day, congratulations for being awarded the first position in the Digital Transformation measurement.

Thank you Your Excellencies, thank you dear guests and for all the entities that have taken the time to be with us today, and that have participated, thank you for your precious time.

We would like to congratulate all of the various entities and we look forward and await more achievements that would improve and better the services provided in the Kingdom to contribute to the advancement and throughout the various indicators. We will have a short break and resume in a few minutes to continue. 30 minutes and we will be back. Thank you.

(Break)

>> ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The Programme is about to proceed. 

(Music)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, we will continue with the Internet Governance Forum 2024. Now the next one, the next speaker is going to talk about a very important topic. Please use the interpretation headsets. Please welcome on stage, Eugene Kaspersky, Founder and CEO Kaspersky to deliver a speech about Immunity, The Future of the Digital World.  Please join me in welcoming him on stage.

(Music)

>> EUGENE KASPERSKY: Thank you for the opportunity to speak from the stage. I am Eugene Kaspersky from the business from the Private Sector, working in Cybersecurity for more than 30 years. And in being in Cybersecurity, there are several things to do to protect from different kind of cyber threats. The technologist, second education. And then Global enforcement, international cooperation and cyber bullies. I'm from the business community and I will speak about technologies.

What we do we protect from the different attacks on the digital systems. And being the Cybersecurity for many years, recognize that Cybersecurity is good but sometimes it is not enough. It is time to think about cyber community, security by design. I will speak about that in my presentation. So which problems we are facing in cyberspace when we speak about cyber threats. First of all the cybercrime is Global problem, it is massive. Second, we see more and more highly professional targeted attacks, which is real problem for enterprises, Governments, and industrial Sector. And the third, we see highly professional attacks on infrastructure, on the physical systems, on the networks, including the critical infrastructure. And I am going to explain the problems and solutions one by one.

First of all, the Global cybercrime, how big the problem is and the numbers, their scale.

Every day, we find in the Internet more than four hundred thousand new unique attacks. We find more than four hundred thousand different types of attacks that we never saw before. I'm here in Saudi Arabia three days, we'll collect on the Internet more than one million types of attacks.

So the numbers are huge.

How many criminals are behind that?  How many hackers create it? 

There are many. From many countries, speak many languages, there are many.

There is a QR code, if you want to learn more check the technical information. You are welcome to click on the links. So here, we have the Cybersecurity industry, it is fine with this Global problem, it is a huge number.

We have to release updates to the Cybersecurity products. There is artificial intelligence, that is complicated. I will not talk about the technical details. Once again, there is a QR code and link if you want to learn more information. So speaking about the Global cybercrime, we can protect you from all kind of attacks and we can do it with almost 100% of the currency, so the Cybersecurity in this case is almost 100%. And we do 99.3% of this ways with the artificial intelligence systems. That is why for example, in my company we have more than 30 mathematicians, 30 Ph.D.s to work this artificial intelligence system. Technically, we can solve the problem. But unfortunately, the criminals are getting more experience, they learn. They exchange information and join highly professional criminal gangs and these gangs are able to protect even very well protected enterprise, Governments, industrial Sectors. The numbers are scaling. So in the past, 10 years ago, there was a dozen of such hackers, criminal gangs.

In 2016, there were about 100. Now we are observing about a thousand of the professional gangs, both the cyber crimes and the espionage. It is a number that is growing. It is more and more complicated to protect the big businesses, with large enterprise, their Government Sector, from the professional hacker attacks.

Okay, we're working on the technologies to do that as well. And unfortunately, it is getting more complicated and more expensive, because to protect from the highly complicated hacker attacks, we need to create the multilayered security solutions, which also based on the artificial intelligence. In this case, we detect that something is going wrong in the network. Our artificial intelligence system, they detect anomalies. That is something. A different sound, a different smell, this kind. Little smoke is coming from the network. It means something is wrong there.

So in this case, we can ring the bell, that you have unwanted guests in your network. And this way we protect.

We can do it. What about the industrial Sector. More and more criminal and highly professional attacks. They're expanding from the office networks, to attack also the sky and Internet of Things. Can we protect it?  Of course. Unfortunately, when you speak about Internet of Things, they're critical infrastructure, Cybersecurity is not enough.

Simply because the Cybersecurity is a kind of risk management. We can estimate how much we lose in case of successful hackers attack. How much we lose from our pocket, how much we lose in our business and we can balance that with investment in Cybersecurity.

When we speak about critical infrastructure, their possible damage from the hackers' attack, it is unpredictable and endless.

It could be the numbers like a national economy, attacks for example, on energy, on transportation and critical systems.

So the damage is unpredictable, and the Cybersecurity doesn't concede the risk.

Was there an answer?  The answer is security by design or cyber immunity.

Can we build cyber immunity, build it on top of the existing systems, like Microsoft Windows and Linux?  Unfortunately, I don't know if that is how we have to do it. That is why not just my company but others, they're working on cyber immunity. It is a different architecture of operating systems. Which guarantee that is unhackable. It is based on the isolation.

So it is the related system and communicate only through the security layer which checks the behavior. It means that if any component of the system has a wrong behavior, nontrusted behavior, it is insulated.

Technically, it is not possible to hack this system, not possible to hack their device or network which is waste on the architecture. Comparing with usual operating system. If you hack a component, you can get access to the rest of the system, it is barely hacked. So we have a Cybersecurity for individuals, small business, which have a solution for enterprises and to protect from hacker attacks which are highly professional. And we believe for the future, infrastructure and critical systems, the Internet of Things, there is only one solution, cyber immunity, the new architecture of operating systems. It is not a dream. We have already some devices based on that, industrial gateways, IT gateways, thinking along the lines of immune system.

I have a prototype    I don't want to call it smartphone, because it is just a prototype. Not too much functional, but it is better than Nokia. And it is immune, it is unhackable. It is based on this architecture.

Yes, it works.

It looks like Android, but it is not Android. So I believe that the future of the cyberspace of the digital systems especially critical infrastructure and Internet of Things, it is a new architecture that is a new design of the system based on cyber immunity. We're moving to the cyber age fastly, and I believe it is not possible to happen or be there without cyber immunity.

Only with cyber immunity, we can build a safe, secure, digital world. And I hope that I will find there people that agree with that. Friends which will help me to follow this way. Thank you, thank you very much.

(Music)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Thank you very much to Mr. Eugene Kaspersky for this kind keynote. We're very pleased to have him with us today. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now move into a panel discussion on the topic of digital funding with the participation of the Governor of the National Development Fund Mr. Stephen Groff and it will be moderated by Mr. Mohammed Sear, who worked at Ernst & Young, join me in welcoming them on stage.

(Music)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Mr. Mohammed Sear, the floor is yours.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: Do you feel we want to rearrange? 

>> STEPHEN GROFF: Closer.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: So first of all, thank you very much IGF, DGA, giving us the opportunity to have a discussion about the topic, I think at the core of creating digital Nations.

And I'm Mohammed Sear. I have the pleasure of having this discussion with Dr. Stephen Groff. And really to explore how funding, financing can play a significant role in bringing to life a nation from a traditional form to the vibrant Digital Nation. Let's start with you giving an introduction of yourself, please, if you don't mind. And also sharing one thing that you are passionate about, other than your day job which I know you are passionate about.

>> STEPHEN GROFF: Thank you, Mohammed and thank you to IGF and DGA and organizers for having me here today. I'm Stephen Groff Governor of National Development Fund of Saudi Arabia. We're a holding company that sits on top of 12 sectorally developed focus funds, and we're the financing arm, if you will behind those funds.

So we're tasked with organizing the funds in such a way that they can contribute to the achievement of vision 2030. And help the establishment, the growth of businesses of enterprises in the Kingdom and full range of different Sectors and segments of the economy.

As well as contributing to the diversification of the Saudi economy across the board. All, again, in support of achievement of the vision.

As far as my own self, personally and my background. My background is in development finance largely in developing and emerging markets.

That whole part of my career was started as a volunteer working in a small fishing village in the Philippines after I graduated from college, where I found that, you know, that people really inspire me. And people's stories really inspire me. And the passion that people bring to their own, you know, self betterment and achievement is critical. But giving them the vehicle, giving them the opportunity to realize those visions is critically important. That is really what I have focused my whole career on over the almost coming up on 40 years now.

And it is really an honour for me to have the opportunity to bring that to the Kingdom.

I have been here now for six years, supporting the building of the National Development Fund. I have a large Group of very motivated and passionate colleagues that are helping us realize the long term vision.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: It is great to hear. As we were talking as well, it is great to hear similar passion that I hold coming working from the UK Government many years and moving to this Region, the one thing that has been very at heart for me is how can I make a difference in the lives of people?  And it is really incredible to see what Saudi Arabia particularly is doing and this Region, really investing in its people and its nation, transforming towards a nation that can create more opportunities for its people.

And if we would look at the world we're living in today, some would argue it is becoming more and more digital. A lot of what we do today is moving online.

It has been for some time. Data is becoming the core of many things we do. So one could argue we're becoming digital Nations as such.

For that, obviously, the core is how do you enable for this nation to transition and build it into this new world that we're living in order to    you know, that we're living in today. And NDF obviously has been established with a vision. As we were talking earlier as well, it has been done in a slightly different way to how Conventionally maybe things would have happened.

We would love to hear more about, you know, why it was created and it's mandate and core role in enabling Saudi to really transition into this Digital Nation that it is looking to become.

>> STEPHEN GROFF: Sure. So the Kingdom has a long history of development finance. When NDF was established back in 2017, originally, there were six sectorally focused development funds, the investment fund, the agricultural fund, Saudi fund for development and social Development Bank, all of which had largely sectorally focused Missions. And with the advent of Vision 2030, there was a need to make sure the sectorally focused funds were redirecting toward the achievement of objectives. NDF was established as an oversight body on top of the funds to ensure they were aligned behind the vision to minimize overlaps between the funds.

And lastly, to ensure that we're making best use and most sufficient use of the resources that were aligned with the individual funds. In the early establishment days we realized that there was about $130 billion equivalent of capital in that ecosystem, and less of an issue with overlap between the mandates of the funds and more of a need for additional mandates to help build and diversify the Saudi economy and achieve the vision objectives. That led to using the same capital to establish six new funds, focused on infrastructure. Focused on there is an XM bank, tourism established, funds established, SME bank established. So a whole range of new funds that are going to help, again, the Kingdom realize the vision and fully diversified and more modern economy.

The other piece of that is that development finance is using capital, using resources efficiently, effectively and strengthen capital markets. There is no exposure of the six legacy funds to the capital markets. No leverage in that balance sheet. So this is also part of the process that we have initiated is to ultimately leverage that $130 billion equivalent into development financial institutions, clients, Germany, Japanese and Korean institutions that are levered five, six 30 times, take that and make it a trillion dollars.

You need to do it judiciously make sure you have the right Governance, processes, procedures in place, but make more use of the capital over time to help deepen and strengthen the capital markets in Saudi and make sure that we're doing the best that we possibly can to support the ultimate diversification and growth of the Private Sector in the Kingdom.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: So one of the things that often we see is that when it comes to big infrastructure projects, there is a lot of funding available for that.

But when it comes to digital infrastructure, we see challenges around there. Both in terms of talking maybe earlier on about public good, we will build the roads and bridges we won't think about so much the ROI, which maybe later on we'll think about how we can monetize some of the assets. But when it comes to digital infrastructure, from day one we're thinking about it from a perspective of there needs to be an ROI, less government intervention and less funding, especially for developing nations.

I know you have a perspective on that as well. How can we shift the needle on that?  Because for public good we need the infrastructure in place.

>> STEPHEN GROFF: The key there is how do we define the assets at the end of the day. Like you said, infrastructure traditional infrastructure is largely a public good. You can't restrict access. It is available to all citizens or residents of any area or country.

Government has the responsibility to invest in the assets to make transportation smoother, to reduce friction and costs to the economy. So there is a return overall economy, but less a focus on what the ROI or ROE in that specific investment. Whereas digital infrastructure, the history of the evolution of digital has been largely focused on the Private Sector. And a lot of the benefits of that in one way or another, while shared by the public, are captured by the Private Sector. Now, that is not inherently good or bad, it is just a reality of how we have evolved our focus on digital.

So I think part of that is the policy discussion that happens and how do we define a public good?  How do we define?  I think the focus you see particularly in developing and emerging markets around the Digital Divide is the essence of the conversation.

It is that there is a huge cost to Digital Divide. There is a huge cost to society and economies by this increasingly large chasm between the people that have access or don't have access. And those that can afford or can't afford it.

There is a responsibility of a public good element to this, about narrowing that divide. Providing investments that will help narrow that divide and improve access.

And along the way, reducing the costs of the access over times.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: Yes, this is the challenge we see especially in developing Nations, the argument about accessibility to digital infrastructure. Generally, in the rural areas, it is the biggest challenge. Urban areas, you will find a lot more investment coming from the different Private Sector organisations. But the rural areas suffer. It remains to be a challenge. We will talk about this, like earlier as the universal service fund kind of construct. It is trying to bridge that gap a bit to try to push forward investment from the Private Sector that can go into some kind of universal service fund. That is invested into creating connectivity.

Do you feel this is the way forward?  Do you feel there is more intervention needed from a policy perspective to really drive that to create connectivity and give access to everyone so no one is left behind? 

>> STEPHEN GROFF: It is important. It is not only important at the individual national level, it is at a Global level. You will find that oftentimes the divide is rural, urban in an individual country.

Increasingly you look at disconnected Regions of the world or far less connected Regions of the world which create and exacerbate preexisting economic conditions or poor economic conditions and exacerbate other security issues over time. So there is a global interest in making sure we reduce the divide. The other part of it is investments that are future proofing us on the huge amounts of change that we're going to be seeing, you know, occurring in the next decade or two decades or three decades.

So I think that you think about the way that Saudi Arabia is approaching this, the investments that Saudi Arabia is making in digital, in infrastructure, around digital. Supporting digital are critical to future proofing this economy, this society and I think that we're, through our infrastructure fund, we have the capability of investing in the infrastructure side of all of that.

I think that is a recognition of how important that future proofing is and making investment now, not that are going to service demand today, but that are going to service demand in the coming decade.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: Absolutely. It is one of the things incumbent on policymakers to think about what does the future look like?  Rather than building for today, how do we create a future and invest in that, that can create a long term benefit for the nation and for it to be progressing? 

>> STEPHEN GROFF: And to focus on that more. It is also looking at, you know, thinking creatively about existing approaches to development.

We touched on this too. Even infrastructure, when you are laying down    one thing, when I was working at the Asian Development Bank before coming here. One technology is think built, laying out a road and two years later you dig up the same road to lay a fiber optic cable, even if the cable isn't needed at the time when the road is being constructed, it is necessary. It is a little extra cost associated with doing that, you know, four or five, 10 years before it is needed, it is not as expensive as having to dig it up, you know, in five year's time and lay the cable then. Thinking about how do we use or develop our, you know, our technology such that we're again, future proofing and reducing the cost of investments in the long run. 

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: We need to stop thinking in silos how do we re imagine and recreate infrastructure to enable us to work, live, play in this digital world. The physical form will always remain there as well.

What about innovative models of financing of funding?  In your experience, previously or now, what are you seeing in terms of that direction?  Are they new models evolving or stay with the conventional style of funding and financing.

>> STEPHEN GROFF: There are new models, if you look at particularly international development finance and blended finance and taking concessional and grant resources blending in what are historically traditionally thought of Private Sector investment. Just to bring down cost of access and increase of availability, these are sort of    it sounds basic, but it is still something that is being developed.

But a lot of it is actually using, you know, existing financial tools in areas where we just haven't used them previously. So if I mention earlier our objective at the National Development Fund of exposing our balance sheet to the capital markets and leveraging the balance sheet, judiciously, carefully with a great deal of prudence.

You know, again, you just can use the financial markets to expand the size of the pie. And to expand the amount of investment that you are making in a single economy or a Sector of an economy, and that is just sort of thinking about how do I do that over and over and over again across many, many different Sectors of the economy.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: What about especially in developing Nations where they have a huge untapped opportunity? 

Big population sizes, maybe they're very low in maturity when it comes to certain Sectors from a digital perspective, not leveraging it to the point of where they could be today. Especially in agriculture, for example, do you see more PPP models evolving or something, you know, more from the Government intervention side? 

>> STEPHEN GROFF: For sure. Using agriculture as an example. You see even in the poorest countries, you see agriculture technology moving pretty quickly.

Whether that be just going, you know, over the last, you know, several decades, the adoption of new farming techniques, new varieties of new fertilizers that are increasing yield markedly in the economies. Also increasingly, even in poor countries, seeing the mechanization of it broadly growing.

There is the impact when it comes to labour and jobs, if you make sure    this is the way most economies are structured. They go from agrarian to industrial economy to services economy.

With each step you have to have education, investment, training, things to allow individuals to climb that to where you get to the point either in the industrial economy or in the services economy, where people have much higher wages and much better, you know, easier lives if they did back in the agrarian economy. It is happening and at a quickening pace.

It is again enabled by new technologies, enabled by digitalization, enabled by all of the new technologies.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: At the core is the new financial models or funding models that can drive that.

Conscious that we are at the end of our time, it went very fast. I wish we had more time, what would be your kind of final one, two, three points or remarks you want our audience to takeaway in this space?  Any advice? 

>> STEPHEN GROFF: I think that, you know, largely, you know, I think we have sometimes focus too much on what's the next new best thing or the next new best way of doing things, rather than examining history and figuring out what lessons can we draw from history?  What tools can we draw from history and apply them to modern challenges or problems we have? 

A lot of the financial tools that we're using now are the same financial tools that we have been using for the last 50 years, it is just increasing access to the tools, increasing the availability of the tools and applying those tools more broadly.

>> MOHAMMED SEAR: I think that is a nice way to end our conversation. Saying okay, look to the event and look at innovative ways of doing things and also leverage the best one we have today and see how to expand the Region's spread of the technologies or models that we have.

Stephen Groff, thank you for your time. Appreciate you coming here and sharing with us your experience and wonderful insights.

I want to thank everyone for listening. It has been a pleasure for you guys to be here. I want to thank IGF and DGA for organizing this wonderful event and inviting us to come and share the thoughts with you guys.

I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. Thank you very much.

>> STEPHEN GROFF: Thank you, Mohammed. Thank you.

(Music)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Many thanks to the dear speakers for the discussion. A combination of the efforts of the Digital Transformation Authority and seeking development of the service and entities that provide digital services, we now said the Authority will announce today the qualified companies to conduct the digital company business after having met with the qualifications.

I'm honoured to invite to the stage, the President of the DGA to give the certificates to the qualified companies to conduct qualified digital business.

The qualified companies today are our success partners in the Government Sectors. It was necessary to honour them and award them the certificates to qualify them to start conducting business.

We start with the first company advance electronics company, kindly join us on the stage.

Thank you for the qualification. We look forward to see your work and collaboration with the environment.

The next company ... kindly join us on the stage.

You are now qualified to conduct Government business. Congratulations we look forward to your outcomes.

Next company is ... for the business services. Kindly join us on the stage. For business services.

Integration for business services.

They will receive their certificate to allow them to conduct qualified business services.

Next is the empowerment for technology. Kindly join us on the stage to receive your certificate.

Qualification certificate.

Congratulations.

Next ... development for education technologies. Congratulations.

Development for education technologies, now awarded their certificate.

Next is ... confidence or trust for business services. Trust for business services, kindly join us on the stage.

Now qualified to conduct Digital Government business.

Next is ... science. Kindly join us on the stage to be awarded your certificate.

Such a certificate opens a great deal of doors for businesses for these companies qualified today.

By the Digital Transformation authorization Commission. Next is Arabian company for Internet and communication services SDC. SDC.

The certificate is being awarded to conduct Digital Government businesses. A well deserved certificate.

Next is ... data solutions.

Well deserved.

And a well earned trust. We would like to congratulate all of the companies qualified. I look forward to their contributions in the future. And the development of the digital landscape in the ding com. Heartfelt congratulations. Your Excellency, the Governor kindly remain with us on the stage. Thank you. To move to the next section. There are ever increasing electronic risks, and fraud and we need to design. Pardon Excellency. We appreciate your time. We will come back. And now move to the session called Extending Digital Identity Verification to Protect Internet Transactions.

I will call on the Moderator, Ms. Shivanee Thapa. Who will in accordance be calling on her speakers.

 >> SHIVANEE THAPA: The 19th IGF 2024 it is. It is a matter of great privilege, ladies and gentlemen, for me to come in front of you, get on this stage and get the ambience set for this very important panel here at the IGF 2024.

Thanks to Ms. Fatma for the great privilege I have been given. I can see my fellow panelists coming in. I request them to kindly grace us on stage. Yes, as I turn to my esteemed members in the audience, ladies and gentlemen, yes, yes your Highness, if you can kindly be seated here, please join me, ladies and gentlemen, as I introduce my very distinguished panelists his Highness, Prince Bandar bin Abdullah Al Mishari assistant Minister of Interior Technology Affairs Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Warm welcome to you. We have joining us here on the panel Her Excellency Ms. Emma Theofelus Minister of Information Communications and Technology, Namibia, joined in by Mr. Sangbu Kim Vice President for Digital Transformation the World Bank. And we have Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist CEO ICANN and Mr. Siim Sikkut, the managing Partner of Digital Nation, thank you for gracing us at this important occasion.

Ladies and gentlemen, we focus today on a very important topic, a topic of central importance extending digital identity verification to protect Internet transactions.

We all live in an era of online transactions, wherein these online transactions, certainly underpin everything, everything from Global economy, commerce, to public services. Therefore digital identity verification has become the cornerstone of trust in our digital ecosystem.

Now, why is this topic even here amidst us here at the IGF?  Because this is not merely a technical issue. It is a multidimensional issue that intersects with innovation, Governance, human rights, inclusion, and the list is pretty long.

So our session here today is carefully curated for us to reap and overall understanding as to why we need to strengthen the digital identity verification, give us an outline on the Global standards and frameworks for identity protection, of course, talk about some Best Practices that we would certainly be focusing on. And also quickly run through the essential element that is the role of multinational collaboration and that is of certain importance, as I said. We're fortunate to have amidst us an illustrious team of members on the panel. I know you bring in a unique set of ideas from the areas that you come from. What I look forward to is exploring the synergies of the insights and perspective that you bring to this Forum.

Thank you, one more time, for gracing us. So without further ado, let us dive in directly to the conversation for which we are here.

We will begin with deceptively very simple question so to say, yet a very complex one.

How do you define trusted digital identity framework?  And what are the key elements that make it effective?  That this is a blanket question for all of the SD panelists. As I pose this question, I certainly encourage you to reflect on how your unique role and perspective shape your answer. So saying that I will start with Your Excellency, Emma Theofelus Minister of Information Communications and Technology from Namibia. Whose work connects Governance and technology in remarkable ways.

What does it mean, Your Excellency, to have a trusted digital identity framework?  What are the indispensable elements that make such a framework effective? 

>> EMMA THEOFELUS: Thank you.

Thank you very much, I'm very happy to be here at the IGF. And discussing this very important topic around digital identity systems and how they relate to a broader digital economy.

And I think trust could have a broad definition on a system that is dependable, that is trustworthy. And that a system that can carry the systems and processes that require or depend on digital identity.

But I think the biggest one that I can say is that a trusted digital identity system is one that would ensure its clear who does what and when they do it. And what their limitations are.

Because I think it is very important when dealing with frameworks of this nature, that it is very clear who does what, and very clear what the limitations are of the Authority or body.

Especially when you go further and look into the administration and oversight, who performs the operational functions? 

Such as incident management, change and release management, coordination, fraud prevention. It should be very clear on who does what and when and what their limitations are to Nauru there is no issues to trust the system.

This is all underpinned by legislation that puts out clear guidelines and clear regulations around the systems and frameworks. That is very important.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Thank you Your Excellency. May I turn to Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist from ICANN. From ICANN's vantage point, Mr. Kurtis, where ensuring trust in the Internet is so fundamental, how does    I mean, well, how does the notion of a trusted digital identity align with the broader challenges of Governance in a decentralized digital world? 

>> KURTIS LINDQVIST: Thank you for the question. Let me start with observation. Where we talk about trust or especially trust in identities, in just a technical thought of the trust is the human element of trust. The trust in the system, trust in the system that it works, that is safeguarding and delivering the promise, when we want to do to the entities. This is irregardless of the individual trying to use this going about their daily roles or jobs or in a business context.

So when we talk about trust the digital identity framework, we need to encompass all of this and make sure that the system provides this comfort or trust element. At ICANN, we have this conversation very much alive, very much ongoing.

As part of the ICANN ecosystem with domain name and registration data, a lot of the data is no longer available to the general public. We have GDPR requirements.

This is great from a privacy point of view and safeguarding point, it creates an issue with access for enforcement.

The question then becomes when we get this request, how do we validate or safeguard the request that the requester is who they say they are?  This is not just a theoretical question, it is with Interpol, Europol and similar questions.

They have tools for their context and not necessarily systems or models that scale to Global level or Global challenge in identity verification.

So that is one challenge to improve the trust of course. And on top of that, there is operational issues of building the systems, how do you do this at scale?  But retain the confidence in the system or trust in the model without driving up cost or complexity that hinder access or create uneven adaptation or uneven access to an identity system. That would be again eroding trust in the system.

Then we have technical readiness of technologies and authentication and credential systems are emerging but still very immature and early days. So for this to work and it works most of the time, digital systems has to work all the time for everyone or erode trust in the system.

And ICANN's role in this, we don't build identity systems, especially Global ones, the role is for Governments or institutions that they designate.

Our focus and our role is to safeguard the Internet's infrastructure. So the domain names, IP addresses, that underlines the function of the Internet and provides as you said, the trust in the Internet and Internet model.

You can think about this that we provide the smooth road surface for the cars to drive on top of it, to oversimplify perhaps a little bit, but that sour role.

The ICANN community has a unique role to play in this. There is a space where stakeholders from across all of the spectrums of Civil Society, the business, the technical Sector and community, Civil Society and all come together for policies and discuss them and create Global standards.

This is something we work very much on.

ICANN developed the registration data request service which is a way to handle the registration data and how to provide this in a safe and security manner.

This is a role we see our foundational role ensuring the Internet is stable, secure, and without losing trust and building trust in the higher layer systems. That is what we're working on.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Yes. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist, we're talking about relate and user confidence. And when there is a blend of both of these, this becomes very tricky. We understand the problems are not the same everywhere.

There are large communities that are still transitioning into the digital age and we all really need to instill that trust again. That is again, another part of the entire scenario. I'm sure we will venture in this later on in the conversation. Allow me to turn to his Highness, Prince Bandar bin Abdullah Al Mishari.

Your Highness, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of the technological innovation. The world is keeping a watch at the advancement and how you embrace the digital world. What is your take on the trust that we're looking at? 

>> BANDAR BIN ABDULLAH AL MISHARI: (Off mic) first of all, let me thank the Forum in inviting me to participate in this important panel.

Let me start with saying that digital identity is not a service. It is an infrastructure. It is an infrastructure for Digital Transformation and transactions between individuals, entities, business and Governments, therefore, it is as important as any other infrastructure. It has to be secure and has to be regulated and trusted. In Saudi Arabia, a long time ago, in building the ID or identity in the physical world. We show the digital card, the SIM card with the biometrics, numbers, birthday. Long time ago, 45 years ago, we establish what we call the unified national number, where each citizen or resident has a unique number where we tie the information provided with that number.

This meant to expand the level of the digital identity.

Back to your question. Trust is a broad word. It means a lot of different angles. We have to be trusted in terms of the identity itself. Since the creation of the identity has to reflect the identity of the person himself.

With the high trust from the users. Trust means from the user, the identity holder, he has to trust that his identity, his digital identity is going to help him to access more information everywhere, anytime, across the board, et cetera.

So the trust doesn't mean only secure and private. Doesn't mean it is protected from innovation or insulation.

It means more than this. It means more business, it enables the identity holder to use it for digital transactions.

Framework, framework means ecosystem, which covers the legal, Governments, infrastructure, technical options, et cetera, et cetera.

Of course, in different countries, there are different frameworks. In Saudi Arabia, thanks to God, we started long time ago with the identity itself, the physical identity. When we came to the digital identity, we just upgraded the framework. Not creating a new framework. It is an addition to the current identity. As far as identity, we consider the identity of the individual, business, Government, NGO entities. We have to cover all types of objects, persons, identities and nowadays we're talking about Internet of Things, digital identity. So trusting digital identity framework is a combination of four words that means a lot.

It means trusted infrastructure for Digital Transformation.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: That is beautifully put. I believe certainly it is not a service, it is an infrastructure. That adds a lot of value and mean think to how you will catch or carve the way forward.

I'm sure in the variations, there will be lot of lessons from the initiatives underway here in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh for the IGF participants to see and to help guide us, the creations that they would want to embrace in the near future.

Thank you, your Highness. We move to Mr. Siim Sikkut. What is your take on this.

>> SIIM SIKKUT: Back to my own background in Estonia, and now we clearly see one thing, Digital Transformation is just a key. So you talk about thrust in digital identity and    trust in the digital identity and one is the key, does that work? 

And secondly, how is the usage of the key secure and trusted. So from my perspective and we had to build a lot.

We have to build a lot, the whole rest of the components around it, like his Highness said, the framework is wider than that.

For example, elements like personal data management of how users have control and consent start to matter more for that trust in the digital entity, even the key itself.

With that in mind, what I see as an element that we have to think about when we talk about trust in digital identity things, are the users using it?  Ultimately it is trusted if users are using it. There are two elements, one, we have to build the framework to make sure it is reliable, et cetera.

At the same time, we can't forget the usability of things. How to make it work, make sure people are using it, how to build safeguards in a way so that is easy to use them, there is no extra effort, for example, that I have to go through to make sure that now my transaction can be trusted. It has to be easy. It has to be easy, people will use it and the trust is there and the influx is there.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Coming to Mr. Kim, Mr. Kim, the World Bank operating at the digital identity. How do you define the digital identity framework and distance the elements that make them effective? 

>> SANGBU KIM: As other panelists provides, a lot of insight for the digital identity, I would like to add more point that digital identity as many people said, it is fundamental infrastructure. But at the same time, it is just how we encourage our people to use the digital service more frequently and more comfortably in a safe way.

So it is a matter, if we can just keep secure data protection through the digital ID and, you know, save some space so that people can trust the system, maybe we can encourage the people to use more the digital services. So that is one point.

On the other hand, actually, it is very beginning, it is a starting point for every services, if you see another commercial services in many provided by many in the Global company and some tech company, you know, sign up process is a starting point, you know, to register your identity or account or user name and password is the starting point.

Actually digital identity is beyond that. It is much more complicated system. Anyhow, know your customer, know your people from the Government services is the starting point.

That can, you know, provide throughout the identity, we can provide the social protection services and the financial services and so many Government services much more easily through this ID system, I think.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Thank you. Thank you. What a rich start to our discussion already. Thank you all.

Now, while we understand what constitutes trusted framework, let us head on to address the tightrope walk that every nation is having to face, that is balancing enhanced security with the protection of user privacy.

My second question would be in this regard. I would want to begin with Mr. Siim Sikkut. How can we enhance the need to balance protection of identity without providing oversurveillance? 

>> SIIM SIKKUT: For me, I move away from talking about balancing. They both can be advanced at the same time as a lot of experience and recording show. It is not the question of one or the other, but how to advance both.

In the beginning point as with any transformation, to say that, let's define the certain core principles we will always adhere to. I make an argument, if you want trust in the digital entity, one to have assurance and privacy, based on the values, we define the principles, it should always be held, then we have a chance, now how to do security within the confines based on the values and so forth. It is a balancing act, defining what other things we observe and figuring out how to do the rest around it.

For example, privacy and the emphasis.

Things that have worked technologically, that is for example, a really strong argument for distributed systems, data sharing, et cetera. But practically speaking, really going through the exercise, yeah, principle based approach to help solve this and lastly, in why this matters, the devil is in the details. This is why    this is why the administrations have to make the call. Again for them it is easier if this is a clear base for the principles that we will not steer away from clearly set in the start.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Let me come to the Minister, particularly that it is acute in Regions with limited data protection, Emma Theofelus.

>> EMMA THEOFELUS: It is a school of thought around the oversight and independent body or Authority to manage the system to ensure that the data of the users is used particularly first reading what is going beyond and above the Authority of the data processes.

So I think perhaps around having an oversight Authority, would we perhaps, one of the practical ways to ensure the system is efficiently managed and administered and that there would be no need to have competing interest. The balancing act can be carried forward by both keeping the privacy of the user ensuring. If the privacy certainly on two sides of the same coin yet constantly conflict, it can be tricky, it is pretty optimistic from your side. Let's shift from today to in the emerging technologies such as blockchain and biometrics that is the food for the discourse, it is defining the digital identity space at the moment, how can we leverage this advancement without falling to the hype and risk. That this is a burning question or concern at all tiers among all the stakeholders, let's hear from our panelists, you have three minutes each to answer this question. Beginning with his Highness Prince Bandar bin Abdullah Al Mishari with emerging technologies like blockchain and biometrics, what do you see as the future of digital identity verification? 

>> BANDAR BIN ABDULLAH AL MISHARI: It brings challenges and opportunities. Biometrics was available a long time ago. It is more than 15 years ago we start using biometrics to identify persons and individuals. Face, fingerprint, it is all of these biometrics are utilized, we started on the initiatives, or the ID initiative in fact.

For blockchain, it is around since the motion or wave, which started maybe more than eight years ago, it came after wave 2. And the necessity for more trusted Internet brought what we call blockchain. And it started with the Bitcoin and then generalized itself by the blockchain.

Blockchain in a nutshell, it is going to represent    it is an option to replace the database or central database with distributed ledger, or in a simple word, distributed identity that controlled mainly by the identity holder itself.

It cannot be changed or forged.

He can allow any other user to use the credentials of his identity.

In the end, it needs, identity, a sure identity user.

It is going to solve a problem in some societies who are sensitive to the concept of central database for identity.

Of course, it provides more secure, more privacy more control by the identity holder. What is the future or opportunities?  Of course, it will add more options for any country or society or individual who weigh the privacy more than anything else.

Of course, security is part of that. However, it should be evaluated in terms of accessibility, in terms of issues and cost.

All of the aspects have to be assist in order to weigh the value of using blockchain in identity.

Specifically blockchain can be utilized efficiently in identity management.

Not identity issuing for identity    I'm sorry. For identity access management. Not for identity issuing or identity management.

What I mean by identity issuing is to clear the identity itself. You have to create it outside of the blockchain and then open in the blockchain. You have to manage the identity in terms of updating the identity, stopping the identity, reinitiating the identity, et cetera.

These are the services around the identity has to be done within the blockchain or outside of the blockchain.

So biometrics, blockchain, I may have AI. And also AI will add more opportunities to protect the identity or create new models of identity.

As technology progress and business models progress, we will have more options, and hopefully this will give more options to other countries, societies, individuals, to start the digital identity as a basic right for each individual in the world. As you know, in the U.N., this is sustainability goals.

One of them is to provide access to the digital services, which this option, that offer itself as a cure for some concerns, and some society we will not be able to achieve this goal.

So hopefully these technologies, biometric and blockchain, AI, BTI, all of them will add more options to the digital identity infrastructure and we'll see one day more than 90% of the blended people here in the planet are having digital identity are enabled to access healthcare, education, opening bank accounts, et cetera.

And this will add a lot of value to the economy, for each world, each society, each individual.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: May I turn to Mr. Kurtis, feel free to add on to what is said by answering how have we been hailing the technology for digital trust, blockchain, which we have been hailing for its revolutionary power.

Now, is this often made out to be or any blind spots to be addressed? 

>> KURTIS LINDQVIST: First, I want to follow on to what his Highness said about blockchain. It is one thing that there is fantastic characteristics of blockchain. One thing is you can't revoke what is in there. If you lose a key, you might not be able to access this again. Having this recovery of identity is an important part of any identity system.

I think that is    there might be many systems that we can build on a think from the organisation I represent, talking in my own interest, there are existing technologies that will provide similar, maybe even better characteristics, in the system, the DNS, it has a hierarchical system. It is used in identity management, social media platforms like Bluesky use this as a way to verify the users, the engineering Task Force that defines all the standards and technologies on the Internet. Are working to adding new fields and parameters to the structure and use it for the identity verification and management, I think we like to talk about future technology to be something brand new and shiny, sometimes new technologies to be built in what we have, and maybe expanded functions. And as far as keeping in mind, with the future technologies, to enable building, security stable access and security.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Eager to know and trying things out.

>> SIIM SIKKUT: Looking at the emerging technology, especially given our topic here, how do you ensure trust in the framework, from the defense point of view it is a way of doing that. If you talk about the goal of having the digital entity, for everyone globally. Like the disservice, so much proven technology.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: So we explored the what and how to understand the landscape and the experts point of view in how we're looking at the future of the Internet we want, let us address the where request. Where the barriers lie and where the international cooperation can make a big difference. Maybe I turn to Mr. Sangbu Kim with the plethora of experience and the entity you represent, I think you are the right person to begin, what are the key barriers to international cooperation in developing standardized digital identity systems and how can the barriers be addressed? 

>> SANGBU KIM: Two barriers I would like to say today is one is still, we are struggling with lack of connectivity and lack of digital ID solutions. From the Internet connectivity point of view, we are still struggling with 2.6 billion people with no access to the Internet. That is huge. On the other hand, 3.3 billion people in the world are living in a country where there are not any ID solutions in the data sharing mechanisms. And even 850 million people are not recognized by the Government, they have no physical identity at all. It is fundamental issue. So still, we are really struggling with Digital Divide across developing country and the country, that is a huge challenge we need to invest more in the fundamental infrastructure. At the same time it is really complicated ecosystem in the Government and many Private Sector big tech and some identity dedicated in a special technology startups and many companies should follow the trend. And people need to understand the how to use this and get trained and some participation by the Academia and also from the NGO are very crucial for the success of this building the ecosystem. It is very complicated ecosystem, too. So the leadership is the key to bring all of the digital ID solution across many stakeholders, and international collaboration is a key to enhance the Regional, you know, interoperable services across the borders.

So many collaboration and leadership are the key solutions for the big challenge of the complication of the digital ID.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Operation is key and central, but after having realized what the Korean is and what needs to be done, things are very difficult in the ground and in lives.

>> EMMA: I think cooperation goes a long way. There needs to be a better understanding of the various context of the various Regions and solutions to address the barriers and challenges. So if we don't understand the existing barriers of a particular Region or area, the solutions around digital identity might not work for a particular agent. For example, the African Region would have a completely different context to the American Region or Ethiopian Region. Or deploy solutions that work for the Region, you can take it and with the digital identity system of framework, that takes care of the context and ensures that we are able to deploy the solutions needed. What is your perspective on the cooperation barriers at the same time, Saudi Arabia's initiatives have been deeply rooted in collaboration. Could you also share with us lessons that can be drawn to inspire partnerships of the context that we're deliberating now.

>> BANDAR BIN ABDULLAH AL MISHARI: What we have right now is an order for the Global digital identity framework, maybe UN or ITU or combination of all the entities has to come forward in a clear responsibility.

Those that have access to the privacy and the link. It has to focus on the gaps between the Global level. As far as the extend of the current success story, we have right now, success stories in the travel business. In the country with the passport, it is standardized and there is international body which is called international civil aviation organisation. And all passports are used in a standard way. They have standard information, most countries are moving to the digital passport. We're very close from Global digital identity. We have to focus on the digital passport, the international standard for digital passport. And extend it to be an option for Global digital identity. And then we have such a story in the services in the telecommunication and GSM.

and by the same token we can identify our digital identity so when you go from country to country, you can activate certain things and the digital identity that you have in your country, would be extended.

So we have such stories in other fields that we should also focus on. And extend it little bit without interfering with the detailed cultures of each country.

In Saudi Arabia we have mature digital identity, thanks to God, we're approaching by the way, soon 28 million, more than 85% of the population.

And if maybe, from the population are the children and the young people, all those who doesn't have any services.

So going to the success story each concerned and building on each success story to extend to other countries, going to expand or overcome the obstacles, so we have a lot of ingredients.

To me, we're not far from the Global digital identity, we are very close to that achievement.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Now to Mr. Siim Sikkut. We talk about the standards in practice. That is an optimistic view to build up on. The standards that face local resistance due to local nuances. How can Nations strike a balance between alignment and sovereignty for the very concern his Highness has raised? 

>> SIIM SIKKUT: I'm not going to answer you, for a good reason. What we have seen    in European context we try to work and in Estonia, we work on these in a European level, bringing in entities to be mutually usable, exchanging across the border, so forth. All of the other aspects, including those that are voiced can be summed up challenges, alignment of readiness.

Alignment of readiness.

You have different priorities and maturity, different culture context and connectivity, the readiness is different. We have to be pragmatic about it, to the point that still today, I would be targeted that it is still too early to have Global standardization of framework effort. Most countries are not ready for this. Look most of the countries also have teams that are tiny.

To make the people not work in Global stuff, they don't have time to work on domestic things, building up, adopting, scaling, the countries should come first. But, again, coming back to learning from for example, how did we get things going in Europe, we had the same alignment this year. It is okay, if there are different tracks and a two tracked approach.

Those that are still not ready, give them time and support to get ready. Those who are ready and there is more and more countries starting with Saudi Arabia, for example, right? 

Let's really allow them to start experimenting and start trying, laying, figuring out the frameworks, also for the reasons that then Best Practices to look at in terms of what could work on an international Global or whatever level. And I really want to say this, again, very much my own Estonia approach is let's not debate before weave    we try it out.

In standardization, there is so much talk of trying to regulate and standards ahead of the time. Never seen an elephant, talking about the elephant.

Let's start trying with those who are ready. Then scale with those who are ready as well.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Coming to Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist, building on the statement that Mr. Siim Sikkut build on. On the Internet Governance, how do you navigate the different priorities while advancing collaborative solutions? 

>> SIIM SIKKUT: I think what was said by the panelists before, what was just said is the national priorities are what they are. They have to be before in the pace. They can be incentivized, those priorities and I will come back to something that was said that is when we define the frameworks, we define the solutions, it is important that they become actually universally, implementable, so we don't come up with technological solutions or frameworks that become so expensive or burdensome to implement that you start leaving Regions or communities or users, in the system. And the priority has to be that you have to adopt this readiness and it is a phased approach, on the national level or Regional level, user application level.

What it may be, but it has to be a phased approach that is inclusive and allow everyone to follow.

That should be the priority, to have enablement and be phased approach. Not wait for everyone to join at the same time, because then we'll never get there.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: It has been an incredible and enabling discussion from this esteemed panel. Before we conclude, panelists please share a thought on the key takeaways to give on this important topic. I could extend a minute to each panelists, even though we are running out of time. We can give a minute. To begin with Mr. Siim Sikkut.

>> SIIM SIKKUT: I will be short. We will talk about how to build trust and the trusted framework. The whole point, it is more than a key. The whole thing around it, the policies, the fundamentally the technology is the easy part in the Digital Transformation, how we transform ourselves, with the proper change management, that is a key point. What is the biggest challenge is build up the leadership and the capability of the Governance for that.

That is what I really believe we should all be investing more into within countries to donors and internationally.

Secondly, to go into the last point ... even if yes everyone is not ready, experiment more, try more, think about how to really build something like a Global framework at some point even if everyone is not ready, experimentation is the way to start.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist.

>> KURTIS LINDQVIST: Remember, digital identity is as much about people and system and tools and technologies. To make sure they become inclusive on all layers and all intersections.

So it actually becomes usable. I agree with let's experiment and try. To get experience and actually build around the pitfalls.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Mr. Kim.

>> SANGBU KIM: I would like to build on that and many advanced economies like U.S. and EU and Asian countries are giving back to user control and privacy and private data.

It is important to protect the privacy. It is very important.

At the same time, I would like to highlight that we don't need to always every full spectrum of ID in the central server. To secure the authentication or verification process, only small piece of the information will be more than enough.

So we should be very cautious about the privacy factors.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Madam Emma.

>> EMMA: A key takeaway is with digital identity we can accelerate the inclusion of many people marginalized on the peripheries, whether it is Government services or ability to transect especially for a Region I come from like Africa that continues to have some of the gaps.

Secondly, I think there is a lot of room to collaborate and to peer learn from those that have gone before and experimented. Like Mr. Siim Sikkut said and have done a few successes to accelerate the same for other countries that might be left behind.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Your Highness.

>> BANDAR BIN ABDULLAH AL MISHARI: Build on the success story of banking, telecommunication Global cooperation and second consider the digital identity as an infrastructure. Therefore, invest    I can say invest bit more. Finally digital identity is a right for everyone.

Every country, every society. It enable it to flourish. The economy, the standards. The education the healthcare, and the COVID 19 is proof for that.

>> SHIVANEE THAPA: Thank you. Thank you so much. Online transactions are forming the backbone of Global commerce and connectivity already. So this is not something that we, you know, limited to our desires.

But something that has become imperative and paramount importance.

As I read from your esteemed panelists, certainly we might be in a different boat, dealing with a different reality, having a different degree of will.

However, the direction that we're headed and the destination certainly is the same. Then there are so many    we already have achieved, which can be opportunities or doors of opportunities, which have already been worked on, and that can be built on to work for the future that we all mutually desire.

I think that was in essence what this Forum had to give away to the IGF 2024.

I would want to take a moment and thank you on behalf of the IGF and the host of partners that have set out this very important coming together here in Riyadh. Especially to panelists for gracing us and extending your valuable time, thoughts and experience to this panel.

Said that, I also rest the microphone.

That is all from this panel. Thank you.

(Music)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Such a great conversation we had with this panel. Thanks to Shivanee for moderating the panel as well.

Distinguished guests, we give importance to enhancing the Governmental performance, we have established law to enhance the coordination between the Government entities to avoid duplication of efforts and enhance efficiency in the professional services and achieving the Governmental excellence and achieving a comprehensive Digital Government with a unified vision that puts the beneficiary at the heart of its work. Let's watch this short clip.

(Video)

>> The reason for the important institutional infrastructure. (No English translation)

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: And now distinguished guests, it is now my pleasure to announce the launch of the methodology of the national institutional structure in the second edition.

And Director of Governmental excellence will give us an overview, and we invite them to join us on the stage to launch the national methodology for the institutional structure. Nora, too.

(No audio)

>> INTERPRETER: Interpreter cannot hear the speaker.

>> Good afternoon Your Excellencies, your Royal Highness, distinguished guests, good afternoon.

>> INTERPRETER: I've lost the sound once more.

>> In addition to the previously mentioned domains and the business structures, applications, and technology in addition we have updated the principles and reference models based on the strategic trends in adopting Cloud computing and open source softwares and put in effect the vertical enablement among other.

This all reflects the importance of the national methodology, Nora.

>> The national methodology is considered one of the components of the framework of the national methodology that meets the requirements of the Governmental entities through the identification of a number of principles, models, standards, and measurements related to the institutional structure.

It also aims at empowering the Governmental Sector to make most use of the best international practices to facilitate the Digital Transformation journey through linking the objectives of Digital Transformation with the national trends and improving the national services in addition to achieving the expenditure rationalization through supporting initiatives of integrating of Governmental platforms.

And Governance of technological projects and enhancing operational efficiency.

>> This is what has more than 60 Governmental entities have been working on. I would like to encourage all of them to obtain the certificate of the approval of the national methodology that will help realize all the national objectives of the Digital Government.

Better efficiency and improvement of experience. We would like to congratulate you on this launch. And you're our success partners. A heartfelt thank you.

>> DEEMAH ALYAHYA: Thank you both for this presentation. Now the distinguished guests, it is my pleasure to announce to the stage the Governor of Digital Government Authority and the Vice Governor for the Governmental excellence to join us on the stage to submit the national EA certificates to the Government entities.

Before we start the recognition, we would like to thank and express our gratitude to the Ministry of Health for the efforts in enhancing the maturity of the practices of this methodology.

So the representative of the Ministry is kindly asked to join us on the stage to be recognized.

Many thanks to the Ministry of Health for all the efforts exerted in improving the maturity of the practices to the fourth level, according to the adopted standards, NORA2.0.

We will now start recognizing the Government entities granted the national certificate the Saudi Authority for data and AI.

SDAIA.

SDAIA is granted the national EA certificate for the fourth level. The next entity is ... the communication space and technology Commission kindly asking the representative of the Commission to join us on stage. To receive the certificate.

Next ... Saudi electricity company. We ask the representative to join us on stage.

Worth noting that the Saudi electricity company is the first company granted the national EA certificate level 4. Well deserved.

Kindly have a Group photo.

And now we will move to the entities that have received the certificates, level 3. We will start with the Ministry of Sports. The representative kindly asking the Deputy, his licensee, the Deputy Minister to receive the certificate.

Ministry of Sport is granted the EA certificate level 3.

Next, level 3EA national certificate is the royal ceremony kindly asking your Excellency to kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate. Royal ceremony is granted the national EA certificate.

Level 3.

Next is the presidency of the state security kindly asking ... to join us on the stage to receive the certificates, presidency of the state security is receiving the national EA certificate, level 3.

Next is general Authority for competition, kindly asking the CEO to join us on stage to receive the certificate.

General Authority for competition is receiving the national certificate level 3.

Next, the state record company, representative kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate. Real estate record log company.

Next is the real estate development fund, kindly asking the representative, CEO to join us on stage to receive the certificate.

Real estate development fund.

Next, the specialized hospital. Asking that the CEO for ITE Dr. Salam join us on the stage to receive the certificate. The specialized hospital, King Faisal hospital.

Next, Ministry of Defense, kindly asking they present the Deputy Minister for excellent services, ... join us on the stage to receive your certificate. EA certificate level 3 goes to the Ministry of Defense.

Next ... Minister of Energy, kindly asking the representative, assistant Deputy for IT and Digital Transformation to join us on stage to receive the certificate.

Next is Saudi food and drug Authority representative, the President of the supporting services Sector. Kindly join us on stage.

Saudi FDA Authority.

Next, Ministry of Industry and mineral resources, asking the Deputy Ministry for planning and development, ... kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate.

Next is the tax and custom Authority, the representative, Vice President of the technological affairs, kindly join us to receive the certificate. Authority of tax and customs.

This reflects the efforts exerted over the past few months. Next is the irrigation institution, the President please join us on the stage to receive the certificate. General institution for irrigation.

Next the centre for science and technology. The general supervisor for the Digital Transformation sector, kindly join us on the stage. King Aziz centre for science and technology.

Wishing you further successes in the future.

Next.

Ministry of Municipalities and housing. Kindly asking the representative, the Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation ... join us to receive the certificate.

Next, Saudi centre for energy efficiency, the general Director of the centre ... kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate. Saudi centre for energy efficiency.

Great efforts exerted by the entities throughout the various Sectors for the best service of the beneficiary.

Next, general Commission for Military industries.

The Vice Governor ... kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate.

Military industries Authority.

Next, Authority of cities and special economic zones, the representative is the President of the Digital Transformation Sector ... kindly join us on the stage to receive the certificate.

Authority of cities and special economic zones is receiving the national EA certificate level 3.

Next, Secretariat of the Riyadh Region, kindly ask the representative of Digital Transformation join us on the stage to receive the certificate.

Next, the Office of The affairs of assignments and initiatives. The CEO of the IT ... join us on the stage for the certificate. The Office of Affairs and assignments and initiatives.

Thank you, Excellency, Governor of the Digital Government Authority, kindly asking you to remain with us on the stage and would like to thank Your Excellency for your precious time. I would like to thank the entities granted the national EA certificate and wish them more successes during the Digital Transformation journey. I would like to call upon the Vice Governor for the communication and marketing Sector to join His Excellency on stage. And to recognize the partners of the Digital Government. Your Excellency, a warm welcome to you.

No success without partners. And partners our partners are the success partners.

Therefore they need to be recognized. The Digital Government Authority is proud to have them throughout the journey. We would like to start with the first Partner Mobily, I want to thank them for the success.

This is one of the companies that are sponsoring this and one of the success in fact companies.

We very much appreciate their efforts.

Thank you very much. They deserve it.

The next company is the science company. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Please come to the stage Site company. This is one of the partners of success in the Forum of the IGF.

Next company is finding technology. Thank you so much. Please come to the stage. Another one, Partner, it is another Partner and success. Thank you very much for your continuous and continual support.

Another greeting for ...

The next company from the partners in success, the company called Ejada. Please come to the stage to be recognized.

Big applause please for Ejada, one of the partners of success in our journey.

No success story could be written without partners. The sponsors and the partners are actually integrating each other. We are very proud for these partnerships.

Next company, it is the technical solutions company T2, please come to the stage. Thank you for your cooperation and support. It is endless. T2, please.

One of our partners in success. Big applause please or applause for them, please.

Next company is ... please come to the stage. We appreciate your efforts and cooperation, continuous cooperation. Ejad tech.

Come with us here to the stage.

Next company, Alibaba Cloud. Thank you. Please honour us by coming to the stage.

One of our success partners in the digital Internet digital Governance Forum.

You are very welcome to the stage.

Next Partner is master works, please, join us on the stage here, please.

Thank you, Alibaba.

Now we receive master works on the stage.

Please applaud these guys, please. Thank you so much.

The next company is ... thank you very much for your presence, and for your cooperation.

Thank you so much for your excellent job.

Thank you very much, Your Excellency. Thank you Excellency. Thank you very much for recognizing these people with us. Thank you very much in this IGF. The efforts and also the commitment in enhancing this transforming of this Internet Governance Forum. A lot of participation. A lot activities and a lot of rich discussions. And now it is time to end. We are hoping to see you next year. And more, we hope you will win more and more of the success. Thank you very much. Have a good night.