The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> LIU YUE: Online and offline casts. Ladies and Gentlemen. Good afternoon. I'm Liu Yue from the China academy of information and communications technology and honoured to be the moderator of this workshop.
I would hike to extend a warm welcome and most sincere thanks to all the guests attending the 2024 IGF Open Forum on deepen the cooperation on governance, bridge the digital divide.
You can listen to channel 3 for our voice.
Currently a new wave of tech lol revolution is rapidly unfielding. With rapid report of digital governance. At international, regional and national layers. And the last year during the IGF in Japan we host an Open Forum on digital governance, hoping that all parties would share responsibility and enforce the opening... the cooperation. Foster cooperation. Together we gather again under the theme of deepen cooperation of governance.
Promoting the digital inclusion and digital technology for good as well as (?). Today the guests attending include Wang gin. Jianchao....
And vice president of antibiotic society of China and director general of China IGF. And also we have representative from the international organisation think tanks associations and enterprises. To make presentation at this forum.
At the same time we have colleagues hosting the forum online.
Now I'd like to invite Mr. Wang Jianchao, to deliver his opening address. Please take the floor.
>> WANG JIANCHAO: Distinguished, Swinehart.... Ladies and Gentlemen. Good afternoon. First on behalf of the bureau of international cooperation cyberspace administration of China. I would like to extend welcome and warm greeting to all the participants.
Currently, the digital economy driven by a technology like AI, cloud computing and big data has become one of the fast growing, most competitive and most innovative sectors in national economy development.
To ensure everyone can board the express train of this economy and benefits, it is urgent to deepen cooperation and governance. Bridge the digital divide and work together towards a bright digital future.
And in this background we look forward to hearing the insights from all of the delegates. It is well known Chinese President Xi Jinping pin has put forward the global initiatives. The three initiatives work together to consensus and strong support within the international community for en Hansing cooperation, tackling and creating shared future.
Carried by President Xi's, the Chinese government top level design made overall arrangement and systematically advanced its effort.
Being committed to the people centred approach featuring open operation, mutual benefits and solutions we have made positive efforts to encourage (?) involvement in industry, academia and research sectors in global digital governance fostering the building of a community with a shared future cyber space.
In the years China committed to promoting activity as a crucial way to breech the digital divide. At the present, achieved 5G network coverage and also brought fibre broadband and networks into deep mountain areas.
Historically enabling convenient internet access in rurals and other areas. China as also carried out telecommunication universal services efforts, supporting the construction of fibre optic networks in 130,000 villages and nationwide and 89 (?) areas.
China persistently view notation application as a crucial driving force for development position in digital technology as a leading force in technological will revolution and industrial transformation.
China has been accelerating the development and application of the next generation digital and information communication technologies. Such as 5G, big data and AI. While optimising computing infrastructure layout and continuously strengthening the foundation for digital development.
Significant strides have been achieved E expanding telecommunication universal services, narrowing the digital divide between urban and rural areas and accelerating communication infrastructure development in rural areas.
China has formulated and (?) compliance driving network equality, improvements and upgrades.
Additionally it has supported additionally China has also supported enterprises in actively participating in innovation and infrastructure development to promote interconnectivity of digital facilities.
China upholds solidarity and cooperation as fundamental principle for advancing digital governance. We are committed to promoting global digital governance with U.N. as the main channel working with all parties to seek solutions for prominent issues in digital development and global digital governance. And building international consensus.
China has constructively participated in the whole process of the Global Digital Compact negotiations. The JBC follows the prevailing trends of promoting digital development and cooperation in the world, reflects the urgent call of all countries, especially global south countries.
For efforts to narrow the digital divide and wipe out government deficits and demonstrate the common of the international community to respond to digital opportunities and challenges and build inclusive open, fair and secure digital future. Efforts and cooperation.
The JDC also provides fresh impetus for global digital governance. Nowadays changes of historical significance across the world are unfolding in ways like never before. Deepening digital governance and bridging the divide requires collaborative participation from all the countries. And all the parties.
On this occasion I would like to put forward a few points. Firstly, we need to pursue common development. We should make joint efforts to advance openness and cooperation. In digit governance. And reach the dimensions of opening up and enhance the level of opening up.
Efforts should be made to foster collaborative innovation in infrastructure development and the digital technology. Cultivate new driving forces through digitisation and propel new development with these driving forces.
Secondly, when we need to meet shared responsibilities. We should be committed to multi lateral and multi party participation. Giving full play to the various entity, including governments, international organisations, internet companies and technical communities. Civil society and individual citizens.
We should work together to improve the international governance mechanism shared and governed by all. And facilitate the beauty of a fairer and more equitable global internet governance system.
We need to share benefits. We should stay committed to a people centred approach. Promoting tech for good and bridging the digital divide. To increase people's sense of gains from internet development. Thereby, accelerating the effective implementation of the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development under the Global Digital Compact.
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends, we'd like to take this forum as an opportunity to strengthen dialogue and communication, deepen understanding of policies, shared practical experiences and seek extensive cooperation. Let's join hands together and promote collective efforts to boost the healthy development of global digital economy and advance the beauty of a community with a shared future in cyber space.
Wish the forum complete success.
Thank you.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you Mr. Wang. Opening address highlight China's key concept and share China's practise and achievements and also he proposed three recommendations to pursue a common development through shared the responsibility and to share the benefits.
And Xi's recommendation give us a very good reference and guidance.
Now, we will move to the presentation segment with the first topic being accelerating digital infrastructure development. And the fostering global digital inclusion. In this session we are honored to have three distinguished speakers. And remind to all speakers, each person will have 8 minutes to speak.
First I'd like to introduce our first speaker, Ms. Theresa Swinehart. SVP of global domains and strategy at ICANN. A leading expert on global internet governance. Theresa collaborates with community contractor parties and stakeholders and policy makers to ensure broad and inclusive participation. And Theresa will present on working towards a more inclusive internet.
Please take the floor. Welcome.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you so much and thank you for having me and inviting me to this session.
You can hear me okay? Yes? Fantastic.
Very good.
So the introductory remarks were excellent. Because they really touched on so many of the areas that we need to be working on. And accelerating the construction of digital infrastructure and promoting digital inclusiveness and development requires cooperation. And it requires that we're all working together on that.
The internet has evolved. And it keeps evolving. And it is truly become the foundation for the digital society that we live in today and that we rely on.
We have people who are participating remotely to these sessions as well and everything.
This foundation allows us to build on the internet to implement initiatives that seek to ensure that the benefits of the digitisation are felt by all of its users.
And we've seen over the years, and we saw during, you know, all the years. Education online, health online. All these different initiatives. And communicated with family members. So opportunities on multiple levels, of course plus the business opportunities.
So ICANN's role is limited in this area. In the inclusive nature of the internet, in accelerating the construction. But we play an important role. And that is around the global unique identifier system. Or how the addressing system works. How we communicate with each other: How your e mail is coming across.
We coordinate as we said the global unique identifier system. That includes the DNS, the domain name system. IP addresses and protocol parameters. And those comprise the components of the internet infrastructure and how we communicate with each other. We're a non profit public interest driven organisation and we're committed to building a global unique, secure, interoperable and inclusive internet.
And there are some things that we've been doing recently and over time. And also through the contribution of many of the stakeholders also in China and in many different parts of the world who have technical expertise, governance expertise, business expertise. That have contributed to all of this work.
The few areas I'd like to highlight is the active involvement by the community in what is being referred to as "the next round of new top level domains." That is the introduction of new top level domains, either to the right of the dot or for other scripts to the left of the dot. In that case.
The new TLD programme aims to expand the domain name space by introducing more generic top level domains or TPLDs and affording that opportunity.
The important aspect of this next round is as the evolution of internationalized domain names, there is exceeding opportunity to introduce domain names in their own script, which is an important element to inclusivity.
The new top level domains are going to serve a diverse culture, geographic language, and professional communities and provide various communities and organisations the opportunity to create their own space online. Which means then the ability for platforms to connect to that. And have that.
The other area I want to highlight is the area that is referred to as "internationalized domain names." That is new top level domains, not only in ASCII or Roman character sets but supporting various language and various scripts. And that is very important to an inclusive internet and the ability for people to use the language of their choice, with a full experience of using that language on the internet.
I also want the highlight that the programme is paying very strong attention to the underserved and underrepresented regions and communities. So they can obtain the necessary support if they want to run a desired TLD.
So we've recently launched the applicant support programme. We're tracking the applications coming in for that. That will provide support for the whole experience.
Another area of work is around universal acceptance. And what that means is when one has a top level domain which exceeds more than two or three letters to the right or to the left of the dot O or in a script that is not an ASCII script. The ability for that communication to be seamless across the system. So the platform providers can provide that. Again, an important aspect of inclusivity.
Next year ICANN and UNESCO, United Nations education science and cultural organisation, are going to collaborate on the annual universal acceptance day to create awareness around this. And it is an opportunity to mobilise local, national, regionel and global communities and organisations to become more aware of what needs to be done to undertake this.
This collaboration is intended to support and encourage internet inclusivity and aims to continue the momentum surrounding awareness of what needs to undertake to have universal acceptance.
We need to remember that the inclusive internet involves all of us. And you pointed that out very kindly. And it should continue to be one that considers and hears the voices of all stakeholders who are involved and maintain and operate and use the internet. It is the only way we can make it work. Everybody has different expertise, different ideas. We need do to that.
When all the relevant experts are at the table. Having a say? Decisions that are effecting the internet. The solutions that are identified have a much, much higher chance of succeeding. Without either inadvertently interfragmenting the internet or question e. None of us have all the expertise we need a shared experience.
So I encourage you to follow participate and spread word about these project this is your regions and community and would like to work together with all interested parties to build a more diversified multilingual and inclusive internet for all of us to benefit from.
And I will apologise in advance. I do need to leave before the session ends. So I am very grateful. Thank you for accommodating us. Thank you.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you very much Theresa. And we hope to work with you and with your team and also the technical community to construct a more inclusive internet. Thank you again.
And next let me introduce our second speaker. Mr. Echo Li. Vice president cloud marketing and solution sales at Huawei cloud Saudi Arabia. Playing a crucial role in planning and executing the public cloud region in Saudi Arabia. And he will present lead to the intelligence with a better cloud. Please take the floor.
>> ECHO LI: Can you hear me?
Thank you.
So first of all, thank you very much for host this forum and thank you very much for invite me to come to this event. And today I would like to share some of Huawei's for how we can bridge gaps between digital services and different countries digital capabilities.
So first of all I would like to give a short introduction about Huawei. Current market progress for Huawei. And since it is born at 2017, Huawei cloud has been expanding the territory in different industry, including the governments, FSI, and internet industry. And it is growing faster based on the support by our customers and partners and global individuals.
I believe that this is one of the foundation for Huawei to (?) in the current state it is by the support by the different parties support.
And if you look at Huawei's global (?) for accelerate the digital foundations. The first, I think it is to building the regions globally. That is foundation how the Huawei cloud can serving different clients in different countries. So in current stage Huawei cloud has been building our regions in global regions. And (?). And just in Saudi last year we launched Huawei cloud regions. By leveraging this region we can provide most advance cutting technology by the cloud AI and serving different industry needs. Later I will share some of the cases where we are utilising the data and AI technology to bridging the gaps between the countries. As well as to bring the benefit to individual to different industry.
One of case we want that share here is it is one in one country in Africa. In that country there are many fishermen, they need to go to the sea. And you know the climate is changing a lot. And there is a lot of danger if they go to the sea without knowing what is the climate.
What we do is is by providing the notice T large models. We call it weather model. And we use the model to train and predict and to focus on the climate change. Or the weather changes.
So that for the fishermen, they will know one week advance ahead what the weather looks like and they will plan their fishing activities. And the beautiful thing it is, this kind of technology doesn't like in the old day you need to set very high HPC. Hyperclass computing, which is huge investment. Requires human investment from the government. From the companies. It just require like few GP server and then this large model and RAM and to serving the fishing industry.
And another case I want to share here is about education. So we have been working together like just now, the lady, Ms. Theresa mentioned about, we partner with different partners globally to bring in education technologies and by leveraging online technology to serve the students in Egypt and serving the students in Africa. So that even though they are studying in their rural areas. But they still can enjoy the latest technologies and enjoy the latest education resources.
Another case here would like to introduce is in the UAE. We work together with one entity together to build a education cloud. So by this cloud, it consolidate all the necessary resources. And the platform and application and also the online courses. So serving the students. The university students, as well as the basic education students.
So there is another case maybe some problem for the controller.
Another case I I'd like share here. It is one case for the fin tax. The financial inclusion is a very big topic nowadays. And we have been working together with the local partner in the Myanmar which is considered one of the most undeveloped country in the world.
We work together to build up the payment platform. Which from the 2018 to serve this platform which is called (?). And I'm personal to leading that system development. We work with a local partner to develop this platform. So the users and citizens in Myanmar can take an average smart phone to do cash in and cash out and transfer money.
Just in the pandemic period of time that everything was shut down. So the people leveraging that application would transfer (audio... ) 17 million users. And... )audio technical difficult ).
and another case thank you.
Another case to share here. One case around agricultures. As you know China is also one of the with large agriculture countries. So we have kind of some of the advanced technology. So we bring this application and devices (?) to implement by hosting on the cloud and provide this application to (?). By weekly. By hour. And we leverage in AI technology to keep monitoring the growth stats.
So in case there is any disease happen at the crops, the farmer can take action to clean the disease. By leverage induced technology.
The beautiful thing, this technology will be hosting with cost effective cost to let the farmer have easily to enjoy the technologies.
Final case I'd like to share here is is we know with vision of 2013, the Saudi is trying to develop different kind of new industry, new economy. So one of the cases in Saudi that Saudi one company in Saudi called Abox, trying to build platform for e commerce. But not have the capability to build the platform. And we together with the partners to help them to build the whole e commerce platform by leveraging the latest e commerce technology of China and setting up the platform successfully in Saudi.
By leveraging the cloud you can achieve very low latency. So people of Saudi can enjoy the best internet experience, similar in other countries. And can enjoy the latest way how to do the online shopping. Shopping by online streaming.
Yeah, that is all for my presentation. At the end I would like to emphasise the mission of the Huawei. That is through building, to provide the digital to every person, every home and every organisation by building intelligent world and international connection.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you Mr. Echo Li. And for your wonderful sharing several cases on the cloud infrastructure and this application for the digital era.
And also we are sure that a good cloud for good. Yeah.
So I will introduce our third speaker. Mr.... in this role he provided (?) digital and cloud strategy. And oversees Alibaba cloud programme in the region.
And he will present accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure, promote global digital inclusiveness and development. Please take the floor Mr....
>> Hello everyone and thank you for hosting me here. So I'd like to start with making a bold, if you like statement. I really think that cloud is the way to build a foundation for the digital infrastructure.
And that is the cloud is the only way actually to do that.
And why am I saying this? Because as we go through what I'm going to present, you will see that cloud services and cloud platform become like electricity in a country. Electricity in a economy.
Where the fundamental needs for enterprises and for businesses.
So if we look at the spend on the cloud, I've been going through different studies and different research. And one of the most conservative figures I found that cloud spend big 2030 is expected to reach $1.35 trillion. I've seen studies that take it to $3 trillion and more.
40% of these will be from emerging markets. 40% of this spending will be from emerging markets. And when it comes to emerging technologies, 80% of emerging technology of AI will be actually run on the cloud. Just looking at a figure now that you are not seeing my slides. And...
What if a country or economy does not invest in cloud? I see three risks. First opportunity lost risk. From whatever seeing on research and again conservative numbers in research, that for every one dollar invested in cloud infrastructure,the return on GDP is five times. Five dollars.
So imagine no investment. No investment will lead to a significant opportunity loss.
The other part is the international impact. International investment impact. As you know countries today, cities today, are like companies. They compete. We compete for international investment everywhere. And countries who do not have the right investment in the digital infrastructure will have investment run aWei.
And we've seen examples of this. We've seen positive examples. To Singapore, Malaysia, recent announcements just because of the availability of cloud infrastructure and digital infrastructure.
The other part of the investment and potential investment loss is the investment loss that is led or resulted by not having the cloud infrastructure. The disadvantage for the enterprise enterprises on the country. Where there is no investment, they will not have access for the B to B, B to BC enstructure that will allow them to compete in a cross border commerce.
The third one is the digital divide.
So imagine a country or a economy that does not invest on a digital infrastructure and having the disadvantage of not having the access to some of the cases my colleague mentioned on the digital health, digital education, digital (?) and others.
So if I (audio difficulty )
methods. By the time you go live the infrastructure will be out of date.
So cloud allows agility and quick time to value. The other thing Cloud allows is ease of investment.
So when we talk about AI and Cloud today, normally I would say to customers enterprise is all public sectors entities that for any AI use case you need three months to implement..
Imagine with the legacy stuff. With the legacy you need at least 18 months I would say to build a data centre. Let alone to acquire infrastructure that sits on the data centre.
Then the other aspect is data sovereignty. 75% of today's population are governed by some kind of regulation around data and personalized data. So this is something else that we need to take into account. Because when we state there is an enterprise advantage or economy advantage for the Cloud, with also we need to take into account the regulations that come with it.
With we go to the next slide. So what did we do in Saudi taking into account all of this?
So SC CC, is Saudi Cloud Computing Company came about. Two slides ahead please.
So Saudi cloud computing company came without with an investment it is a joint venture. A Saudi/Chinese joint venture that made us bring hyperscale Cloud capabilities to the kingdomem. And towards oached last year we were able to capture 70 80% of the workload by having the cloud in country. Adhering to data sovereignty but allowing the time to value.
So how did this digital adventure we're? Reason I'm presenting this because this is I think a significant experience that could be taken elsewhere as well. So there were three pillars to this.
So the first pillar is the effective partners of the joint venture. STC being the leader. The ICT leader in Saudi Arabia. With a huge enterprise and public sector reach.
And the second part is any cloud with a significant know how we took into the market and second is being able to conform to all the Saudi regulations. Whether it is the national cybersecurity or the CST regulation. And the third one which is very important in there is the by having the right solutions tailored for the Saudi market. The right innovation to bring the Saudi market.
The other approach to add to this, to what we've done in this, that we looked at this with a holistic view. So we're not bringing an infrastructure alone. We're bringing with it the know how.
The ideation part. The implementation part. The tailoring. And the customisation part. So customers can realise the value of the investment they make. And add to this now AI. And we believe with AI we are able to deliver more timely value by having the solution empowered by, or powered by AI.
Let's go to the next one.
So when we look at Saudi market, in Saudi we looked at key priorities. So as an emerging player in tourism and sports. In the financial services. As a leader in egovernment we focussed around these industries, providing the solutions to these industries.
And then several ways we looked at use cases. There are so many use cases that we tailor to the Saudi market across all of these. Covering quality of life, covering government and public sector and financial services, manufacturing and others.
So my call to action, three points.
Clouds provide agility. And it provides the right time to value.
Secondly, investment with the right partnerships and collaboration to leave the right results.
And this is a timely investment that required so we leave no country behind and no economy behind.
Thank you very much, and we're happy to share. We're happy to discuss. And we're happy to talk about the experience and also share insight and also welcome any partnership that will help us enrich our offerings in Saudi Arabia.
Thank you.
SCCC.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you for sharing. And Atlantic city all those three speakers in their brilliant presentation in the first topics.
Now we will move to second topic, strengthen the innovation and application of emerging technology, bridge the global digital divide.
In this part, we also have three distinguished speakers. Please allow me to introduce our first speaker Mr. Dai Wei. Deputy secretary general of the Internet Society of China and he has extensive professional experience in internet governance and the internet based public welfare initiatives.
And he also serves as deputy director of China IGF. And he will present on joint efforts for an aging friendly and inclusive digital society. Please take the floor.
>> DAI WEI: Thank you for inviting me to this session. It is my honour. I'm Dai Wei from international society of China. Todayly share what the Internet Society of China has done for inclusive and aging friendly digital society. The U.N. 2030 for sustainable development places goal of inclusion at the heart of all efforts, in order to achieve the promise to leave no one behind.
China is a major internet country with wide coverage of internet infrastructures and user, forming exclusive digital society. And additionally China also has substantial elderly people. 297 million people age 60 and over by end of 2023.
Among this big number, there are about 170 million aging people using the internet. So the digital technologies brought the convenience to our daily life and changed our life and worlds so we can enjoy services like online entertainment, online shopping and online education and so on.
However, please bear in mind that some digital divides still exist in the reality. For example, the elderly people cannot use the internet as smoothly as the young people do. Because there are so many websites or apps. The interface looks very complex or the font is too small to read.
To solve the issue of digital divide, it is not only about access to the internet. But also how to make it easy to use.
Therefore achieving the goal of building the digital society and narrowing the divide is not just a simple slogan but presents both formidable challenges and far reaching significance.
In recent years, the Chinese government has implemented a package of policies to tackle issues related to aging population. Especially the law on the construction of barrier free environment last year. It is the first legislation to address the importance to promote information accessibility.
In line with the policy instruction, stakeholders for the community launched a series of approaches to improve the digital literacy of the aging group or facilitate the technical innovation of the related products. As the internet industry association, the Internet Society of China started to research and did lot of works and things for the information accessibility.
From the year 2004. We are one of the organisations who firstly introduced the concept of information accessibility to the Chinese community. And by follow up conducted work such as standard formlation and public education and training and policy making.
In '23 '23, we launched China services action plan to promote online voice reading assistance for keyboard operation and (?) assistance technology to be used and deployed on public services websites.
The service platform one the champion of 2017 WSIS prize, presented by ITU. From 2021 the Internet Society of China undertook technical guidance for the public service websites in nationwide to update the interface or functions more easily to use for the elderly.
Further more we stress cooperation with professional organisations such as China association of persons with disables. And the China association of volunteer helping the persons with disabilities. And the China silver industry association.
Because we take a lot of efforts and make some cooperations to take joint efforts to facilitate the programme. Till now we have promoted more than 30,000 public service websites to finish the information accessibility functions updated.
Ladies and Gentlemen, with the deepening of the global digital society and development of aging society, it is commitment to leave no one behind in the digital world.
So in the future we would like to work together and make more efforts and make more cooperation in the future to promote inclusive digital society for all.
Thank you.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you Mr. Dai Wei. Sharing idea on how to build friendly and inclusive digital society. And the experience from China and the Internet Society of China.
Next, our next speaker from university. Saad Haj Bakry. Professor, college of computer and information sciences at King Saud university. Will present on promoting digital transformation toward development.
Welcome.
>> SAAD HAJ BAKRY: I am glad to be here with you. This beautiful collection that we are thinking together about the future of the digital world.
The question I want actually to address is that: Are we doing enough? Are we utilising enough? The beautiful technology. The beautiful digital technology. For our benefits.
I don't want to ask you all this question. I'll ask myself and say, no, we are not. Why?
Let's go into the problem here. And gradually, from having a view on the digital world, digital benefits, digital transformation.
If we start with the digital world, the digital world has a certain issue that we have to recognise. It is accelerating. The growth is not linear. The growth is accelerating. And we are now reaching to what we call the 5th industrial revolution.
The cyber space, of course, is serving us with all the information that we need worldwide. No borders. So we need actually to utilise this for our benefits so that we can build what we call digital economy.
Of course the digital world, the digital technology provides us with storage, provide us with transfer of information. But the most important, it is not only processing now. It is also intelligence.
So we have to use all of this because they provide us all the services, all the information services with smaller devices, faster, cheaper, more intelligent, more secure. With new opportunities.
If we look at the governance of the digital world we have various levels. Starting from the personal level. From how I use the digital technology. Is there a standard for that. Is there a rules for that.
Organisation level.
Of course organisation level we have the ISO20 (?) for security. We don't have enough for the actual governance, the detailed governance. There is a small of course standard but not widely known as the cybersecurity one. the national level global cybersecurity index. The international level. The competition. And to that we have all of these levels for the governance of the internet.
Now we move to the benefits. If we look at the benefits of the digital technology, we can see tangible and intangible benefit. Intangible benefits may save us some health problems. Like avoiding tension. Avoiding something.
And we have also e within these tangible and intangible recursive benefits and non recursive benefits.
If we look at an example of a tangible benefit. Of course these benefits are for all. For individuals, for government, for business, for the whole society. But if we try to compute, for example. This with regards, for example, the remote work. Remote work, we can estimate the saving for 1 million employees working for 230 days per year. We can calculate the transportation cost from and to the work. And we can also calculate the saving of time. Especially with the crowded areas of all cities of the world.
If we do that, we can save approximately 38 billion Saudi real per year. Only for 1 million employee.
Are we doing that? We are not doing enough.
Maybe we should do something about that in the future.
If we look at the technology transfer. Technology transfer is not a matter of technology. It is not a matter of having beautiful Cloud computing. It is a not a matter of providing new artificial intelligence that provide us with many answers. It is important to look at a broad view. A broad view at the technology. The people using the technology. The organisations using the technology. The environment, the culture of all of this. The culture of the society, in other words.
In addition to having a strategy for doing so, together with a time domain to do the improvement. How are we going to do the improvement? We can have all of these dimensions. The technology, organisation, people, environment. Into a strategy.
And try to develop over time using, for example, something like six sigma stages for continuous improvement.
Finally, I would like to recommend that we need to do more about technology transfer. We need to do more about utilizing the technology for our benefits. Our benefits is going to be great. So please think technology, organisation, people, environment. And have a strategy for development for the future.
Thank you very much.
>> LIU YUE: Thank you professor Saad for your insight on the digital world and digital benefits and digital transformation. And I think we will work together to promote digital transformation toward development.
And our final speaker is Ms. Dai Lina. Deputy director of journalism institute of Shanghai academy of social sciences closing remarks. Primary research interests including international governance of cyber space, digital policies and political economy.
And she will present on how to help seniors cross all the digital divide and adapt to the smarter society. Especially in Shanghai.
Welcome Ms. Dai Lina.
.
>> DAI LINA: Thank you. Good afternoon. It is my great honour to be here with you at Riyadh IGF. First of all please allow me to express my sincere gratitude to the organisers for inviting me to share a few thought on digital divide. Today I would like to talk about the digital divide facing the senior citizens and our experience empowering the elderly with AI in Shanghai.
As digitisation accelerates, our life relies more and more on the (?). But these seemingly convenient tools can also bring digital barriers to the elderly, such as mobile apps. Online appointments and hailing taxi with a mobile phone.
These have sincerely eroded the rights of the elderly people to enjoy the benefits of digitisation as much as other age groups.
Shanghai is one of the cities with the highest degree of digitisation. And the smart application in China. At the same time it is also the country's first group of cities to enter an aging society. And it is the city with the highest rate of elderly in China.
In recent years the ratio of elders in the population has continued to increase year by year. As the end of 2023, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above has accounted for for 37.4% of the total population. Chinese government has released three important plans to bridgely the elderly digital divide. To enforce these plans and help elders overcome the digital divide.
(Scheduled captioning ends in three minutes)
Shanghai has accelerated the pace to help elderly with digital technology and AI tools.
AI era has widened the digital divide for the elderly. This include the issue of access, use and knowledge gap. In 2021 under the guidance of Shanghai municipal office digital transformation.
The Shanghai approach digital partnership programme was jointly initiated by local government departments, enterprises, citizens and social organisations to address the problem of digital divide.
The details are as follows:
In order to address the issue of access, the plan requires softer deployers to meet the needs special groups and make application more user friendly. Shanghai issued the design specification for adapting internet application for the elderly and improving barrier free facilitates in Shanghai.
Specific programmes were initiated to develop senior citizen friendly applications that cater to their needs. Such as large screens, big font, voice guidance, simplified versions. Access and so on.
The application example is Shanghai residence elderly friendly version.
In order to make application more senior friendly, the play equipment manufacturers to develop more programmes and devices are easier to use for the elderly. For example, services as one click service for the elderly.
Which provide one stop service for medical care, (?) and government policy information. The elderly can contact call centre in various districts through one click phone calls. Smart phones, television and portable terminals. Among other ways.
By pressing one button, they can contact call centres and access corresponding service resources.
Closing the knowledge gap, the government has mobilised social forces through the mutual aid partner initiative.