 to confirm. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending where you're joining us from today. Welcome to Engineering for Change or E4C for short. Today, we're quite pleased to bring you this virtual salon with our colleagues from the IEEE Africa Council. Virtual salons allow us to deep dive into critical topics and technology for good in conversations with key actors. So, as we're all keenly aware, COVID-19 has highlighted the universal need for equitable connectivity, particularly the challenges faced on the African continent. In today's salon, we will explore the demands and broadband connectivity, doing challenges and opportunities in light of the ongoing pandemic. My name is Yana Aranda, and I'm the Director of the Engineering Global Development team at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and also President of Engineering for Change. I will be one of your moderators for today's salon, along with my colleague, Ronald Asumba. And we are joined by an incredible panel and some special guests, including Mr. Alex Wong, Chief of Special Missives at ITU, Josephine Melitza, African Regional Coordinator for Association of Progressive Communications, Elk Connect Project, Juanita Clark, founder and CEO of Digital Council Africa, and Dr. Bellamusa, Director of Innovations and Industry Relations at Huawei Technologies. Our special guests include Vinci Kevunga, who you'll hear from shortly, and Mr. Purava Khachkoya, Kothia, apologies for that, who you will also be hearing from shortly. The salon will be recorded and archived on E4C site and YouTube channels. Both of those URLs are listed on the slide. Information on upcoming webinars and seminars offered by the Department of Engineering for Change are going to be listed on the site. Any E4C members will receive invitations to upcoming events directly. If you have any questions, comments or recommendations for future topics and speakers, please contact our team at webinars at engineeringforchange.org. And if you're following us on Twitter today, please join the conversation with our dedicated hashtag, hashtag E4C webinars. Now, before we move on to our presenters, I want to tell you a bit about Engineering for Change and who we are. E4C is a knowledge organization, digital platform and global community of more than 1 million engineers, designers, development practitioners and social scientists who are leveraging technology to solve quality of life challenges faced by vulnerable populations. Some of those challenges make with access to clean water and sanitation, last mile connectivity, sustainable energy, improved agriculture and more. We invite you to become an E4C member. Membership is free and provides access to news and thought leaders, a prior database of over a thousand essential technologies in our solutions library, professional development resources and current opportunities such as jobs, funding calls, fellowships and more. Members also receive exclusive invitations to online and regional events and access to resources aligned to their interests. We can learn about our impact and learn how to become a member on the link listed on this slide. E4C's research work cuts across geographies and sectors to deliver the ecosystem of technology for good. Original research is conducted by E4C research fellows annually on behalf of our partners to include multilateral organizations, social enterprises, nonprofits and private sector representatives globally. Findings are delivered as digestible reports with implementable insights to advance the sustainability objectives of our partners and of course the sector at large. We invite you to visit our research page. The URL is listed on the slide to explore our research collaborations and review the state of engineering global development, a compilation of academic programs and institutions offering training in the sector. If you have research questions or weren't to work with us on a research project as a fellow, please do look at those URLs that are listed and contact us at researchengineeringforchange.org and we are opening up our applications for the 2022 cohort in the coming months. So I encourage you to stay abreast of all announcements. Now I'd like to draw your attention to a few upcoming events that may be of interest to you. This includes our upcoming E4C webinar on November 23rd at 1pm Eastern, which is going to focus on technologies for social inclusion, particularly on water and energy in Argentina and broadly in Latin America. This is a webinar that's going to be in Spanish and include a really unique also compilation of analysts and you'll be able to learn about impact projects that have been developed during the last year by the National Institute of Industrial Technology of Argentina and from the E4C and ASME community on the subjects of access to water and rational use of the energy of energy in Latin America. So really are welcome all to join us for that. And also don't forget our upcoming annual event, Impact Engineered. You're invited to join us for limiting speeches, interactive experiences, a special launch and a celebration of innovation on December 2nd of this year. That event will be from 10am through 1pm Eastern standard. It will be entirely free and you can learn more details at impact-engineered.org. Now, with all of that background, we'd like to take a moment to meet some of our audience members. So please use the chat window that is located on your screen to tell us where you are located. I'll get us started. So there we go. If the chat is not open on your screen, try clicking the chat icon at the bottom of the screen in the middle of the slides. So we have folks joining us from Nairobi and in Brooklyn. So do enter your locations. We have New York, of course, represented. Just remember to use the chat window to type any comments, concerns or issues for our presenters and then use the Q&A box to type in your questions that we can aggregate for the presenters during the Q&A portion of this event. So welcome from Malawi to Florida to Princeton, New Jersey. We are very pleased to have you here with us today. All right, with that, I would like to invite Mr. Vincent Cavunga to join us. Apologies, accidental press of the slides here. Tell us a little bit more about our colleagues and the programs available through the IEEE Africa Council who have made this virtual salon possible. Over to you, Vincent. Thank you very much, Ayana. It's a real pleasure to join today's event. We're really excited that we've been able to partner with the E4C to make today's webinar possible. As you may be aware, IEEE is the world's largest professional association advancing technology for humanity. We publish standards, technical journals, closer conferences and develop all kinds of opportunities to serve the professional interests of our members. My name is Vincent Cavunga and I am serving as the chair of the IEEE Africa Council, which is one of the partners for today's event. And we're really excited that you've been able to join us today for this activity. The Africa Council is an entity within the IEEE organization, which was set up to enable our people on the ground in IEEE sections and subsections to collaborate and to collaborate across the region to achieve a lot more than they would on their own in their individual locations. We also represent our members within Africa to our stakeholders and within IEEE itself, enabling us to have people on the ground that help us to do the good work that IEEE would like to see done in our communities. We also provide a mechanism for IEEE to engage with local government officials, administrations, authorities, regulators, and other folks that are working on the ground to work in Africa and support the development of a suitable public policy that will be able to advance the engineering profession on the ground. As I said, today's being a part of today's event is a great part of what we do. And as you can see here, we're doing a lot to support our members in Africa. We are working to make it possible for more of our members to publish. We are providing opportunities for young people to get involved in regional events that enable them to develop solutions that we feel we'll be able to advance the communities in their locations and also bringing technical experts from across the globe closer to the folks on the ground so that we can have that knowledge transfer that would be really key for driving the transformation that we've been talking about for very long. Thank you very much and I hope you'll enjoy today's event. Back to you, Ayanna. Thank you so much, Vincent, for that introduction and thank you for partnering with us on this event. Next up, I would like to introduce today's moderator, Mr. Ronald Isumba. He has over 18 years of experience in the private sector, public service, and entrepreneurship, having held leadership positions in technology and government corporations. He is the founder and chief executive officer at Igov Africa Limited, a boutique innovation house, and also co-founder of Emsafari, a passenger manifest digital payments and data analytics platform that provides the Kenyan government and public transport stakeholders with commuter data insights and helps in contact tracing for COVID-19. He serves as the team leader of Kenya Catholic Jobs Fund and as the head of public sector at Oracle Corporation. Kenya, senior manager for government relations and public sector sales at Safari Common Limited and chairman of Youth Enterprise Development Fund. He's a 2-2 fellow, Aspen Institute graduate, and a Cran's Montana leader of Tomorrow. He served as trustee of Uzuma University and vice chairman of the Uzuma University Foundation. With all of those responsibilities, Ronald, we're so thankful that you have some time to spend with us today. So very warm welcome to you. The next media presenter I would like to highlight, who's going to give us a little bit of an insight into IEEE and the standard work that they are doing, is Dr. Purva Raj Kapia, who's the director of global business strategy and intelligence at the connectivity and telecom practice and the connectivity and telecom practice with IEEE SA. Prior to IEEE, Purva held leadership positions with Qualcomm, Samsung, and Disney in various capacities. He has an incredible bio, but at the risk of running out of time, I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. Purva, to tell us a little bit about IEEE standards and the work that you do. Thank you so much and welcome. So as Mr. Vincent Kabunga mentioned earlier, the goal of IEEE is to provide our technology that serves the humanity. And as part of that work effort, we have IEEE SA, which is focused on the Standards Association, and we are working to develop market-relevant open standards and solutions to promote innovation, to promote public safety, healthy and well-being, and also to contributing to a sustainable future. So one of the things I think that was mentioned earlier also, that in the, what COVID-19 has actually shown out to the world or what the pandemic has done to the world is the importance of connectivity, or it has brought the connectivity to the forefront to show like how important it plays a role in everyone's life. So broadband access is going to continue to play an important role in progressing towards the sustainable development goals and connecting the unconnected. But the reality though is that we still have half of the world population that is not connected. But if you look at the chart, I mean it's a small chart, but you'll see that many countries in Africa and in Asia, like more than 50% of the population is still not connected with internet. Now there are positive and also we need to be cognizant of the fact that connectivity is really good, but connectivity if misused can also present the challenge. Now we did actually a survey with many countries and we found that the connectivity did show a positive impact when it came to education, when it came to economy, when it came to the local culture, but at the same time the connectivity or the social media platform that ran on the connectivity platform did have a negative impact when it came to the morality, when it came to the physical health, when it came to the children in the society. The other thing and I think the last few weeks if people have been following what's happening in the US is with the things that came out regarding Facebook in terms of the way the platform was used. I mean we have it's getting very obvious that connectivity though it's very crucial, though it's played a very important role in the sustainable development goals, but connectivity is like a demand. If it's not controlled properly, if we do not have the right tools to curtail the connectivity it could also lead to issues like addiction, it could also lead to issues like misinformation, the privacy and the security of the individual is going to be at risk. It also increases the pressure on the day to day individuals and we have also seen evidences where for the teenagers because of the social media platform that's been run on the connectivity platform could also lead to, could also lead to death. Now, from IEEE police so what we want to do here is that we want to create a meaningful connectivity program, a connectivity which is based on the technological component wherein we provide the connectivity either through various mediums like wired medium, wireless medium, satellite communications. All those things should be provided to the team in terms of providing connectivity and we do actually have programs regarding the same but at the same time for a meaningful connectivity what we need is the, is the, is the, is the respect for the, for, for, for, for the user's privacy is the, is the digital inclusion. It's the, it's the way to provide the better or sustainable solution because what we are basically seeing is that as long as we build the connectivity which is based on meaningful connectivity that it takes into consideration the well-being of individuals or the human resilience or the digital dignity and inclusion of the individuals and you build standards around the game you actually do create a meaningful connectivity platform and that's what IEEE police goal is here. So you'll find that the programs that we have right now listed like rural communications like the user-centric approach for connectivity the open source platform digital resilience literacy inclusive participation context appropriate technical solutions context appropriate content all those things are going to play a very important role in providing a meaningful and digital connectivity and a sustainable solution. Next slide. And so again, again to make a solution that's more sustainable we need to create the generation of engineers who are going to work to make sure that we provide them with these skills to run a network. So IEEE actually has a building wireless community network it's a technical level a technician level course that's developed by IEEE SA along with the Internet Society that teaches the engineers the key aspects of wireless networking standards networking and troubleshooting to provide a solid foundation for the wireless networks we actually have a program running with the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information and they have trained around like 2,000 VLEs or the village level entrepreneurs to learn on that program because that's the only way we see the program to be sustainable because for every small issues like we cannot call an engineer but if the skills are home grown or if the skills are local grown then if there are any challenges that could very well be addressed and that's what this the IEEE building wireless community network says again the goal here is that the post COVID-19 the post COVID-19 world is going to have a connectivity is a crucial platform what can IEEE do or I just want to highlight the programs that IEEE is doing to provide a meaningful connectivity and a sustainable solution that could be useful for IEEE Thank you so much Porva for sharing these insights with us it's exciting to see this work happening and we're eager to continue working closely with you to advance these efforts given the critical nature of these programs Thank you All right thank you as it says on the slide all right back to Ronald and I'm going to we're now going to transition into our panel and our first panelist I'm very proud to introduce is Mr. Alex Wong who serves as the chief of special missions in the office of the director of the telecommunications development bureau at ITU which is a united nation specialized agency for ICTs in this role he's leading Giga which you will hear about today and which is aiming to connect every school to the internet every young person to information opportunity and choice prior to joining ITU Alex has worked in both the private and non-profit sectors he served as president of CGLA infrastructure was a member of the executive committee at the world's economic forum and headed the center for global industries in Geneva he has worked in a variety of professional roles at Accenture as a strategy consultant general motors as a quality control engineer and the U.S. National Park Service as well he's a licensed professional engineer with a degree in mechanical engineering from my alma mater University of Toronto and I'm master's in public administration for Harvard welcome Alex I'm going to stop sharing my screen now and I believe our colleague but Elin is going to put up a video on screen for you welcome How many schools are there in the world? Where are they located? And how many are connected to the internet? Well the truth is we don't know it yet GIGA the innovative partnership between ITU and UNICEF is set to answer these questions launched in 2019 GIGA has so far mapped close to a million schools in 40 countries and is actively working to ensure that every child is equipped with the connectivity they need and empowered to shape the future they want GIGA helps countries map schools and their connectivity create investment opportunities identify the most appropriate technologies and high quality vetted and safe content GIGA is bringing innovation to education and has been highlighted in the UN Secretary-General's roadmap for digital cooperation and our common agenda Connecting all schools of the world to the internet is an ambitious but necessary undertaking The time to act is now Partner with GIGA and help us provide every young person with access to information opportunity and choice All right excellent thank you everyone So I know we have a small group today so we can make this much more interactive I hope at the end of the session but I'm really pleased to be here and thank you for allowing me to the opportunity to share what we're doing with GIGA and I think for the audience here or the group here I want to take it from an approach of how we're the process of how we're doing it and how you know I truly as a partner could could work with us and perhaps some of you that are listening in so let me put on to the screen a very brief presentation if I can be allowed to share I have I have a okay so we'll second all right so the video already already really summarizes I think the program overall and Dr. Perva summarized some of the key statistics on why this is such a critical issue but I'll add in a few additional COVID-specific statistics UNICEF has estimated that about 1.6 billion children have been affected because of COVID in over 190 countries and out of that 463 million children and young people don't have internet access at their house so they do not they have not been able to benefit from the hybrid learning that probably most of our kids and the younger generation have benefited in from countries like the US or Switzerland and furthermore in low income countries only 6 percent of children and young people have internet access at home so the need for connectivity has been really enhanced and as a global priority now because of things like COVID and the impact on things like education so it's a real opportunity and a call to action we started Giga actually before COVID and over the last two years we're already have had several accomplishments here are some of the milestones and I would actually say that this week we actually expect to surpass the mapping of a million schools so why is that important mapping so turning to the engineering element of those on the call it's a structured approach we believe we can get to every school being connected we can map where every school is located and the connectivity create then the necessary finance models to spur investment and then provide the connectivity solutions to allow private sector public private partnerships to build the connectivity and then leverage the platforms of the UN and other organizations to have the right contact we empower pillar as we call it so that's the approach we take it we break this down further into this 11 step chart which I don't have time to go through but how we systematically work with each of our country partners to advance them on the journey towards achieving school connectivity and universal connectivity when we work with the country I want to highlight this slide really briefly because you know in the end this is a partnership with the country and we're not going to be able to succeed if we don't have a political leadership and support and the corresponding supporting strategies and regulatory environment but forth four ways down into the bullet point about access to data I've talked before with IEEE colleagues about what a complementary partnership to figure out how IEEE on the ground can help us understand what is the current connectivity where the current school is located and we're having some various conversations there and of course in the end we want to make sure that we create the right environment for connectivity and all the girls and all the citizens regardless of their age and gender that have the right and equitable access last slide here is just to show you what we've been doing in Africa specifically out of the 19 active giga countries and to be clear I'd highlight Kenya Niger Rwanda Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe that's where we're actively working with the governments and we've had some early successes both tied to connectivity but also some of the policy regulatory changes that need to happen and we have many other countries that are expressed interest and who we're beginning some conversations with and as I said the mapping is one of the first steps we do is to identify where every school is located and what's the current connectivity so I'll stop there in the interest of time and I hope that's a perhaps a really quick overview of what we've been doing in giga and in particular in Africa back to you and thank you very much thank you so much Alex all right next up we are going to have Josephine Medica and Marilene if I can trouble you to share the screen please unless you prefer that I do it there we go all right all right so Josephine is a network engineer who is passionate about closing the connectivity divide and helping communities leverage technology for social economic empowerment she is the lead network engineer at Tuna Panda Nets project where she focuses on building a digital ecosystem in education and health for rural and informal settlements in Kenya particularly providing connectivity and digital literacy training for schools youth centers and healthcare facilities in Kibera which is located in Nairobi Josephine has excellent work knowledge of the network in technologies with specialization being community wireless networks she's a recognized leader dependable team member and progressive thinker and impact oriented person with a drive to make the world a better place and we are so thankful to have her here Josephine over to you thank you and thank you for this invitation today I just like to highlight some of the work that community networks are doing with regards to connectivity in the COVID-19 era so as previously shared the pandemic exposed and amplified digital inequalities that existed that exist between the connected and unconnected communities and in Africa for example the responses being largely online it meant that the unconnected were excluded not just from just the access to the internet access to the internet but also much needed information and services that affect lively hoods education and health over the last decade we've seen growth in terms of the first mile so in Africa we've seen an increase in undersea cables connecting the continent we've also seen growth in middle mile many countries have deployed national cyber optic infrastructure however we're still experiencing a great especially with regards to broadband great divides in terms of the last mile and one of the reasons that rural and remote areas remain unconnected it's because they do not business case for many commercial operators and last year APC which is association for progressive communications together with Kiqanet collaborated with communications authority of Kenya to develop a framework for licensing and shared spectrum framework for community networks in this exercise we engage with some operators in Kenya and some of the reasons or challenges that they mentioned with regards to providing affordable access included high spectrum fees licensing back wall cost as well as the lack of supporting infrastructure such as bad roads and bad roads and electricity and that is why it is important to explore other complementary access models such as community networks that you can see in this slide so what are community networks these are complementary access models that are built with by and for the communities they are crowdsourced networks where communities come together and then build infrastructure best on their local needs and priorities they also take a holistic approach to digital inclusion in that they do not just tackle the connectivity gap but they also look at other aspects such as localization of content and also provision of digital platforms that meet local needs how are this network started and operated majority of them are start with a champion so it can be someone from the community or outside the community collaborating with community members for instance one of the community networks for Mojanget which is located in an island called Eju in DRC one is initiated by an organization called La Difference with a request from the community king or they call them Moamis who wanted an opportunity to create or a platform to create more opportunities for you as in Zeleni is another example of a community network in eastern Cape South Africa which was started through a collaboration between university researchers and the local communities and then lastly Bosco Uganda has its roads in the Catholic Church which was started quite a number of years but I believe it's over 10 years ago during a time when Northern Uganda was experiencing the insurgency so the models vary from community to community we have cooperative models such as Tanzania in South Africa we have also NGO or CBO models in countries such as Uganda Nigeria DRC and Zimbabwe and while others are sprout from the growth of community radio such as matcha works in Zambia however in all intents it's important to note that local authorities are involved and especially like traditional local authorities so Zeleni for example we have the headmen from both villages where the community network is in Manco, Cienzi to Lele in DRC as mentioned before we also have support from the local King or Muami technologies used mostly Wi-Fi because of affordability of equipment and also because this is an unlicensed spectrum and service provision follows different models so we see where they have hotspots community hotspots they also have private hotspots and some connect to community centers in all these instances sorry communities built the infrastructure themselves as seen in the picture the youth are the ones actually who build the mass and also support in terms of of the deployment so in other yeah so it's youth it's women just coming together to support in building the infrastructure so this helps in terms of lowering the cost of deployment and also supports in building local capacities all the three mentioned are the ones that you can see on the screen community networks are powered by solar as we know in most African in most African countries especially rural areas this is quite a challenge and a good example is actually Bosco Uganda which has built solar plants so one for six kilowatt and two for 30 kilowatt and the grids not only power the community networks but also schools and local businesses and local businesses during the pandemic community networks are similar to you know like in the telecommunication sector where we saw a growth or an increase in terms of demand so there was quite increase in terms of demand for connectivity from the community I think in a way it's up there's a silver lining in terms of adapt it's accelerated adoption or adoption of of the internet we also saw community networks provide support to their communities as the Lenny for example translated translated health information into local languages and also provided zero-rated websites and also another example is Malawi Bosco and Tunapanda net who now took on the role of building capacities for teachers and also providing e-learning e-learning content next slide please so in summary I think there is value in ensuring that we support bottom-up strategies in last-mile connectivity and some of the recommendations that I have I will not go through all the ones all the ones mentioned on the screen on this slide but just a few in the decade support through funding and financing from funds such as the universal service access fund there's also establishment of interconnection points access to back home is still a major challenge and so given that governments have deployed national open access networks it will be great if coming to networks can be able to tap into this and then lastly in relation to open telecom data we would recommend that operators can make publicly available data on issues such as networking infrastructure this can be where the different point of presence for the fiber optic networks tower locations information around spectrum and licensing and this will enable this will enable a more public discussion around what are the gaps and what we can do to be able to address them thank you thank you Josephine for that insight to the realities on the ground and next up we have Juanita Clark who is the co-founder and CEO of the Digital Council Africa a not-for-profit industry association which is headquartered in South Africa where she is during us from today this is an independent association that acts as a bridge and connector between the government technology industry and interested parties across Africa and seeks to establish an efficient telecommunications environment through the development of best practices standards policies and guidelines Juanita co-founded the organization 2010 after realizing the need for grassroots awareness and education so regards to the role of broadband networks and the telecommunications industry so I'm going to turn it over to Juanita to tell us a bit more about her extraordinary work in the sector thank you very much Iana and thank you for the invitation to join you today you know discussing this really important topic just by way of introduction the Digital Council Africa is an industry association as mentioned and we work with government and private sector to create awareness for the digital divide and to find sustainable solutions for bridging the digital divide it's a trend twister this afternoon so I think that we can all agree that the pandemic has really accelerated the pace at which globally the world has adopted digitalization unfortunately I think what we're seeing in Africa is that the places that were originally marginalized have become further marginalized and this is something that really should be a grave concern to all of us so just by way of introduction I just want to draw a small comparison between where Africa is currently standing and then of course where we are from a global perspective so if we look at globally we can see a mobile connectivity unique subscriber penetration is currently standing at approximately 68% we've got about 4,854 co-location data centers in 129 countries outside of Africa so some really phenomenal numbers is 4.94 million towers have been built across the world by either mobile network operators or tower codes if we look at the IoT and devices market we can see that there's approximately 12 billion IoT connections globally we have about 72% smartphone penetration there's from an international connectivity point of view if we look at the penetration we can see the adoption of penetration with how that has grown globally we look at the adoption of 5G technologies 8% growth in 5G 14% of the global market's still on 2G there's 21% on 3G and approximately 57% on 4G from a fixed connectivity point of view last mile household penetration has grown substantially in 2020 and sitting at 58.6% fixed wireless access at 5% FTTH and FTDB penetration at 35% unlike Africa they still have 8% penetration on cable DSL sitting at 20% and then other connectivity methodologies sitting at approximately 0.6% now these are not impressive numbers if we take into consideration you know that globally we are trying to achieve ubiquitous access the concern comes in if we go to the next slide if we look at mobile connectivity and unique subscriber numbers remember that we said that the global number was 68% so almost 70% there versus an almost 50% connectivity in Africa so remember we said that globally there were 4854 data centers in 129 countries if you compare that with Africa we've only got 79 co-location data centers in approximately 14 countries now South Africa has taken the lead in the data center market and we know that there's continuously new announcements being made the latest announcement by Vantage announcing a 1 billion US dollar data center to be built in Johannesburg we know that Africa data center has invested 300 million US dollars in their new data center there's a Tereco have just massively expanded their data centers and we know that Oracle has also made an announcement that they will be finally breaking ground in a new data center in Johannesburg and then of course NTT have also made similar you know noises that they'll be building and investing in Africa and of course there's the ongoing expansion of other data centers but if you consider 79 percent data centers in 14 countries in Africa compared to 4854 data centers there's an immense opportunity for investment now just below that if we look at tower infrastructure 169,000 towers and to just remind you that the number for the global tower penetration is 4.94 million towers so again a lot of opportunity and I just want to pick up with what just Josephine was saying you know for us what we find some of the greatest barriers to the deployment of tower infrastructure is cumbersome processes with municipalities and local authorities and counties that simply haven't got the capacity or are actively you know still rent seeking in this regard we need to streamline our processes and procedures to deploy telecommunications infrastructure there's also I mean a lot of negative aspects and it's phenomenal how Josephine was playing was saying about how they include the communities in the deployment of infrastructure so there's initial buying from the communities in the deployment of the infrastructure a very nasty thing in Africa unfortunately is the sabotage of telecommunications infrastructure deployment which because which remains a concern so all of these things really slows down the pace at which we deploy infrastructure also site acquisition you know where we can deploy infrastructure still a lot of fake news surrounding the deployment of 5G and other you know tower infrastructure you know associated with the pandemic so a lot of work that needs to be done if you look at the IoT devices you know in South Africa we've got a pro in Africa apologies we've got approximately 24 million IoT connections globally there's 12 billion IoT connections so a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done one of the areas that's quite exciting if we look at global infrastructure market is like I said the growth in the data center market in the data center adoption another area that I want to highlight is just OTT you know globally we see that there's 218 billion apps that was downloaded in 2020 and in Africa only 25 billion apps you know in South Saharan Africa this is very specific to South Saharan Africa so we need to really focus on on how we can extend this connectivity our fixed broadband penetration is only sitting at 2.2 percent our fiber adoption fiber to the home fiber to the business adoption only at 1.1 percent DSL at 0.6 percent fixed wireless access only at 0.3 percent cable at 0.1 percent and other methodologies for connectivity only at 0.1 percent our social media penetration you know in active social media users in the rest of the world 4.5 billion users with a 53 percent penetration rate and in Southern Africa Western Africa Middle Eastern Africa you know we can still see that those numbers dwindle really far behind the rest of the world if we're going to overcome and you know capitalize on and you know we can we can very easily just see this in a negative light but we can also see it as an immense opportunity you know while we see some form of maturity and saturation in the rest of the world Africa provides this immense opportunity for investment for growing this for building additional data centers the deployment of fiber optic infrastructure we've had massive expansion in our international bandwidth with new cables consistently landing on our shores and opportunities to now take this band with in line in land and to connect everybody but if we're really going to focus on overcoming our connectivity issues and making sure that we connect every single person on the continent we've got to look at all three areas it's it's not a it's not just about connectivity connectivity is one of the most important parts but but we focus at tri lemma it's a connectivity of course is very important the other aspect that that sometimes is overlooked is the access to devices you know it's not so smartphones remains unaffordable for a lot of people so finding affordable devices that can be made available to low-income households is is really important and we saw you know similarly to what Mr. right Kotiya was saying is that you know in the pandemic you know there was this further marginalization of young people that couldn't continue to access educational platforms because you know connectivity is not affordable so we know that it's still way too expensive in Africa secondly they didn't have access to devices and thirdly before there was mass zero rating of educational content the content you know simply wasn't accessible to people so we have to focus on all three access to devices access to connectivity and access to content if we're going to make sure that Africa becomes as connected as the rest of the world but I think for now that's it from my side I think it's a conversation that we can all talk about for a really long time and if we don't stop ourselves then we're going to keep going so I'm going to hand it back to you thanks Iana thank you so much Juanica and we do want to note in a kind of classic twist Dr. Bela Musa who is today in transit to Tanzania from Dubai has unfortunately found that it's his connectivity is not sufficient for him to be able to join us so we are going to go ahead and start with some questions for our incredible panelists right now I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Ronald Osumba to take us through thanks a lot Iana and and you know wow just fantastic presentations and all of you are doing fantastic work you know across the continent and in other parts of the world so thanks a lot for that maybe just to start by introducing myself my name is Ronald Osumba I'm based in Nairobi Kenya and I'm the founder and CEO of a company called IGAV IGAV Africa basically is an innovation house that focuses on working with different players in the ecosystem to support technology for good we have a particular focus for GAVTech so how do we support governments in Africa to leverage technology to improve service delivery whether that's in education healthcare agriculture and the typical day-to-day services provided to citizens we also work you know pretty well with problem solvers so identifying people who are solving problems building things of course we all know now Africa is a silicon savannah so in a manner of speaking and a hotbed for innovation and we are trying to find all these startups developers who are building things to just build their capacity connect them to market but also connect them to financing we've worked quite a bit with development partners you know whether that's DFID we've worked with government we've worked with partners like Engineering for Change to conduct research and surveys and pretty much what we then do is come at the tail end of the work that you're doing which is once there is connectivity how do we leverage connectivity to build services on it and so that you know the citizens on the continent can be able to access those services but also just to transform their lives from an economic perspective a social perspective ETC you know and I just want to now just dive into the question and answer and I will just kick off with maybe a question to Alex and Josephine because I see an intersect between the work you're doing which is empowering communities Alex obviously looking at empowering our future techies when they're still young ensuring they have connectivity and devices in their hands and Josephine working with communities to ensure that there are locally enabled infrastructure that is providing access to the internet but the big question then is how do we sustain this kind of interventions if they're not commercially viable and I think Josephine you alluded to that and I probably will start with you Josephine in terms of how do we keep this community networks running in the long term I know you alluded to reduction of of the cost of setting up the networks using local skills to build base stations and stuff like that but how do we what's the commercial model behind it and while you're at it for all the other panelists please remember there is a Q&A section at the bottom of the screen and you can continue to answer the questions that are popping up there they are ready to and not coming up over to you Josephine thank you the first is just to say that just because the networks or community networks are not for profit does not mean they have to offer maybe for example free access to the internet because we understand that infrastructure it costs to get the equipment it costs to maintain the infrastructure as well and so the main I think aspect where support is required is at the carpets level where you're getting into a community for example in some communities they are able maybe to crowd source for resources but in majority it's really quite challenging to get the initial for example funds to buy equipment funds for bandwidth because you are working with communities that may not even have been exposed to what like internet access or other forms of ICT so you're sort of getting in to build the market or to build adoption and inclusion from ground up so majority of the networks have been privileged to get access grants from organizations such as the Internet Society Association of Progressive Communications we are also seeing some being funded maybe through USF as in the case of Argentina but in the long run in terms of sustaining operations we see great business model for a given example of as in the Lenny community networks where I think in the past three years they have been able to sustain their effects just from revenue that is generated from the community so they build this two-layer two-layer business model where you have community hotspots and then you have businesses so the community package is more affordable to community members so for 20 random months someone is able to get access to the internet but then you have other businesses within the community so for example backpackers held hospitals who are able to pay or other NGOs that are in the area and will be able to pay a substantial amount to maintain the cost so I think because especially in rural areas there is no other means for people to access it's just the initial capital that is important and then afterwards the community networks now transition to more sustainable business models and thanks for that I mean yes obviously you have the supply side I guess sorted from an operating perspective and you know this small op-course if we can call them that can find you know a competitive edge from your commercial entities and therefore they you know they can charge lower but have more users if you like but that then still leaves the demands the supply side on infrastructure financing and I guess that's where you come in Alex in terms of you know what are the options available for not just you know the community networks but even for large-scale commercial players who are saying you know I'm not going to build a network in a place that is rural sparsely populated you know with no content that will drive usage so how do I make my business sustainable from an infrastructure perspective right thank you so actually on Giga we actually take the approach that if we can help move the financing and move the activity to connect every school with sufficient connectivity and we define that as ideally at least 10 megabyte per second but optimally 20 megabyte per second so that connectivity gives a video experience with a child interactive experience but if we can actually connect that to the school which then can then serve as a hub to connect the net the community so really the connectivity to the school is the backhaul then it's the corn it's a big enough pipe that it can connect the school but also connect the community so that's what Giga's trying to do because we're trying to address one of the fundamental issues with last mile connectivity solutions and Josephine maybe alluded to this is a lot of these community networks you need backhaul to be able to work a lot of last mile connectivity projects fail in fact Chris for you who is a good friend and he runs One World Connected and they did all this research on last mile connectivity models is at University of Pennsylvania one of the reasons why projects fail is they don't have enough backhaul and that cost is too significant to maintain the overall business model so we sort of see Giga as I don't want to say it's a public good but if it's a duty of government to play a key role to get every school connected and then you can use last mile variety of last mile connectivity technologies to connect the network of which community network is certainly one very viable option in fact one of the pieces of work we draw on from for Giga is ITU published the whole guide on last mile connectivity solutions so when is the right appropriate technology to use in which situation and again community networks is that the second thing that we're drawing to do on Giga and I skipped through the 11 steps really quickly but there's a whole chunk of steps about the policy of our regulatory framework because we know that there are some countries where it's technically illegal to run a community network because you're basically using unlicensed you're using unlicensed spectrum or using spectrum that's maybe not supposed to be and you as some of you know I mean many of you probably know you know technically to be according to the law you need to be an operator a licensed operator which is ridiculous for a small community network so we want to in Giga work with the regulators and governments to put in the right policy regulatory framework to enable these kinds of opportunities as well that's the second key point that I would make and finally and Ronald you didn't know this but you teed it up perfectly I think it'll be today we are launching a report that we just completed with Boston Consulting Group that was actually about trying to figure out how you create sustainable community operating models for connectivity and we looked at we looked at in Africa Kenya Rwanda Sierra Leone there's in Nigeria we did case studies to assess based on how much it will cost to connect the community a typical community in Rwanda for example 700 people will cost about $4,000 a year in OFFX we did we did all this analysis microeconomic analysis so how do you finance connectivity and the conclusion is you can't do it from public financing alone which is why it's not been done you have to come up with public private models and one model is using energy so if you introduce the energy which of course is equally a challenge and the energy industry and the industry players you introduce another revenue stream in addition to the community providing a revenue stream which I'm sure Josephine has lots of examples because Zenzolini is a great example we did a whole case study on Zenzolini of how you then create some of the financing but I guess going back to Giga that's definitely a piece but we want to create also the backhaul through the connecting every school and we want to help use the ITU you know our role as as as technical agency is working with governments on the policy regulatory framework that enables connectivity such as things like community networks thanks thanks great answer and and and I mean you know obviously still a lot of modeling to be done particularly around the private public partnerships on how we can have this infrastructure financing and I just want to bring I mean I had another question around how we get into the talent investment but I think let's bring in the other speakers I see you know I had a question for for Juanita and I see you know an anonymous attendee also asking pretty much around the same thing how you know I mean bringing in connectivity to the community is one thing but how then do we close the gap using devices and then we will take it one step further and say how do we ensure that there's relevant local content in a language that people can understand but sticking on the device access and I want to combine this with a previous question I had for you how do we leapfrog infra is there is there a thinking on how to bring in you know new age technology like IoT which you alluded to that can then help us to leapfrog and once we're able to then you know close this gap how do we ensure that there's locally manufactured locally available smart enough devices that people can afford or share within those communities so if you like shared shared devices platform Thanks thank you for that Ronald so let's just start with the devices so so devices is also closely linked to digital readiness so we have to train our communities on how to use the devices so but just to talk around the devices and you know I'm looking at my colleagues including you and hands up if somebody's got a device or three lying in a drawer somewhere you know so we've got so many devices that we haven't used and that we are not using but there's nothing wrong with them they need to be sanitized we need to just clean them up and they've still got a bit of life in them so that's one of the ways that you know we can really empower our communities is to put a massive push into place where we start redistributing these devices so not only is it good and you know great for communities to provide young people with connectivity to make sure that we've got at least a device per household you know to help people you know to get connected it's just phenomenal for the environment you know from an e-waste point of view a lot of second hand devices just ends up in landfills you know something lies in a drawer for five or seven years and then people look at it and you know they throw it away but I think that there's an opportunity for operators to get involved and to start a global movement where we start collecting these devices when people upgrade their devices they should have the option to donate an old one we should have collection points so just let's just think about this let's use an example imagine the amount of devices that come out of our national governments annually because they upgrade devices you know there's the three-year lifespan and span something reaches end of life and there are storerooms and storerooms and storerooms full of devices that literally sit in governments corporates just corporate America corporate South Africa corporate Asia you know corporate Africa you know the amount of devices that are upgraded while there's really nothing wrong with the old device and it needs a bit of refurbishment to be cleaned up and you know sanitize the data make sure that you know there's not a nice selfie of you know the girlfriend and everybody else on there and like you know and they've got a you know they've got a great life but but we've got to put these mechanisms in place and we've got to think beyond it and one of the things that you just raised now is local manufacturing you know there's an immense opportunity as Africans we always look outside the continent you know it's and there's the mentality from us that you know everything from America is better and everything from everywhere else is better when I mean we have shown that we've got the capability right here on our continent that we can you know be manufacturers that we can create I mean we but often we struggle with the price point you know it's very expensive for us to to manufacture here and it's so much cheaper to bring it in from overseas and you know products are brought in at at half the price of what we can manufacture and then again it's this fight with the corporates to to convince them to still buy local so there's a lot of work that needs to be done but I really think that there are opportunities for us to collaborate and to do things and to move the needle and to you know and to scale some of our projects and it's not just of our devices I mean we need to manufacture our own fiber optic infrastructure we need to manufacture a lot of our Talco equipment you know needs to be you know we need to stimulate innovation in Africa we need to create platforms where people are free to think and free to create and to provide them with hubs where they can you know participate in and it's not just it's just not readily available for most Africans unfortunately so you know access to devices is just the first step and and I think you know that we can we can really do something if we start some initiatives to you know to distribute those devices the biggest problem with the distribution of devices is that once you've put somebody in that digital economy you've got to find ways of keeping them in that economy you know you've dropped a phone I've dropped a phone that happens so what we need to do is when that happens we need to be in a position where we can replace that device or create local jobs by empowering young people to fix devices so that those you know so that we don't put somebody in in the economic the digital economy and then something goes wrong with the device and then they removed from that we've got to just find sustainable ways um but we're all smart people I'm sure we can all come up with them some good solutions if we we talk and put our heads together thanks thanks a lot for that answer I'll be coming back to you Alex shortly there's a question in the Q&A section we're just going to it I think the first question was for you I'll come back to you shortly but let me just bring in Pulva because you have you know made a strong case in terms of how we build standards we you came with the numbers and we can be able to see but you know putting more people into access of infrastructure will have positive impact but we've seen a bit of negative impact but on the whole more positive impact I think the question then for for me is how do we communicate this return on investments and standards to to governments across Africa how do we get them to act and to a specific question from Gordon Day who I'm told is a former president of IEEE what national policies and international agreements are needed to accelerate this access in Africa thank you thank you so I think there are there are two aspects to this question there is one aspect that we can talk about in terms of what are the governmental policies that would be required to provide connectivity and then there is the other aspect as to what kind of governmental regulations and agreements that we need to have to provide meaningful connectivity now when I say connectivity over here I basically mean in terms of infrastructure because one of the things that we have seen is that there is a stark digital divide in this world we have people that and even we within U.S. compared to say Korea or Japan when we look at fiber Japan and Korea they have the fiber deployment which is around like 75 percent plus more but if you look at U.S. it's around 15 percent UK it's even less it's around 2 percent and I saw the the chart that one one is actually shared wherein we see that even in Africa it's less than 1 percent so that digital difference that that has been highlighted needs to be bridged over we need to build a bridge to overcome that that gulf that that separates that separates the countries that separates the people and for that government has got a very important role to play because they have to invest a lot in infrastructure development the second thing that we need to talk about is what Josephine mentioned for connectivity Wi-Fi is going to play a very important role I mean we there are different connectivity solutions but Wi-Fi is definitely going to play an important role and if you look at Wi-Fi connection connectivity it's basically been run on an unlicensed spectrum and that is where again governmental policies will have to be set up to release the additional spectrum the unlicensed spectrum on which the Wi-Fi connectivity needs to be provided if we look at some of the countries say in US and in in Latin America they have released a spectrum around six gigahertz but we need to you need to do the same thing in Africa we need to release the six gigahertz spectrum so that Wi-Fi connectivity could be provided so that we can bring in this connectivity more to the users so again this I like couple of and again the third thing that we have found and I think this is what even Alex mentioned is on the backhaul the backhaul is going to have a very important role a significant role in terms of providing connectivity because unless and until you have a backhaul that that that's been that's that's ready to take your front-haul traffic back it's it becomes really meaningless because you could have you could provide the 5G connectivity on your front on your on your on your radio towers and antennas but you don't have the supporting backhaul all the data gets gets wasted so again the backhaul deployment the the the provisioning that the government will have to do in terms of setting up the the intercontinental fiber optics between that runs from Africa to say North America or Europe or to Asia all those things is where the government will have to play an important role in setting up the infrastructure releasing the spectrum setting up the backhaul setting up the policies that is going to be meaningful now let's come to the meaningful connectivity or that is a portion that will highlight more on what can government do in terms of making sure that the connectivity that's been been provided to the people is not being exploited now we actually have two different models if you have the more model that that that's promoted in us wherein it's free for everyone like people can do on anything that they want in terms of social media platform. And then we have a model that I think China is proposing where in basically they are going to limit the amount of hours that a kid can spend on social media platforms. So these are like two different actually two extreme models that we are seeing in terms of what the what could be done in terms of providing connectivity. Now I'm not proponent of either either one of them but I think this is where the governmental regulations or policies will have to come into play in terms of making sure that the misinformation that has been promoted on social media platform that there are there is some kind of policing that's been done over there. There is also some we need to be sure that the content that's been provided or the user identity that we have a security or the cyber security that's been provided for the content that's been sent on this on this on this kind of connectivity platforms because the cases of fraud of cyber threats all these things are very obvious or all these things are something that is that is being seen by the users and by the consumers. So this is where we see like government is paying an important role in terms of providing the right kind of tools when it comes to cyber security right kind of tools to provide digital inclusion right kind of tools to provide the dignity and the trust associated with the content the right kind of tools or provisioning that is going to make sure that the users are secure enough on to the on to the on to the cyber world and that's where I see like the infrastructure and the lights and the spectrum side of technology provisioning and then you have this the tools that the government will have to play to make sure that the content that's been provided is properly curated for the for for the user and that's where I see the government play an important role. Thanks thanks thanks for that answer a quick one for you as we begin to start thinking about wrapping up how do you replicate the I think you call it a CSC that is that is running in India how do you replicate that in in Africa? So I think the CSC model is actually a very interesting model what we can do is that in the in the the program actually started with when we started this whole pilot program about providing connectivity in the small village what was eventually found is that that to run those even basic Wi-Fi access points it could be very simple thing is like the connectivity the connector came out but if the people are not aware of it then they have to wait a few days till the technician actually came and he just came and plugged the plug the internet cable to so to avoid all these things IEEE actually provides a program the the community build the program that that I mentioned earlier what we can do is that if you want to do if you if you want to build build that kind of program we can actually provide a training to all the learners about the basics about what needs to be done like when when a particular access point is been is been deployed or the common services center program is is is has been deployed we we will go and train the village level entrepreneurs to see like what needs to be done in terms of building the community networks we IEEE offers blended learning program so if people are interested what we will basically do is we'll provide the blended learning program and again one of the things I want to also highlight that this program can also be offered in the local languages it is not just limited to English because we one of the things that we have seen through our through our efforts is that people are more comfortable in the local languages when we are when we are talking about rural communities or when we are talking about community build up so this program is something that could be that could be taught in the local languages wherein we go and we provide the village level entrepreneurs with this training program we spend time with them we make them efficient and that's where we start the building building the the the the the the program and the sole community the common services center the CSE program is built surrounding it so it's it's a joint collaboration with IEEE with the local village level entrepreneurs and IEEE basically provides the training to them on the tools and that's how we actually build this whole CSE program. Fantastic possible collaboration areas there with with Justin I suppose. Yeah yeah I'll come I'll come back to you Alex I know you have responded to the question but I just want to read it out loud so then you can you can maybe quickly respond to it and the question was what do you find is the most effective way to increase digital literacy of the teachers so that they're able to effectively teach the students in schools where Giga has been set up also have you found much issue around lack of access to devices capable of utilizing the internet access Giga is providing or is providing device access a part of your program. Yeah so I basically said that we wanted to keep the laser focus of Giga on the connectivity fully recognizing that the skills and the content and the awareness you know the demand side are equally important I mean if you don't have that then you don't have the outcome so that's why I mean UNICEF as a core partner of Giga means also accessing the full resources of UNICEF in each country so it's quite how how we actually work as Giga which is I2 and UNICEF focusing on the connectivity and then the broader UNICEF and other UN agencies as well as frankly civil society private sector has a role to play in play to play to to focus on these other areas and we're very happy that that is how it works and I put into the chat that's why you do need the government leadership to also coordinate that so you're not you know and that's of course where we also want to try to provide some on in the country support for that but that's how the pieces have to fit together I mean devices in fact I2 is also part of the broadband commission and we are actually launching a working group in this next month on affordable devices so I note that this is a topic that there's been a lot of work on but we're going to be working on this particular focus and as part of the broadband commission to come out with a report on where are we with this and what's the situation smart africa is a very good partner of ours Juanita I know you're doing a lot of working devices that we need to focus up on so I think that's a great question and it's a great topic it means more thought thank you thanks thanks Alex and Juanita your hands up so please take it on I just wanted to add to what Alex was saying you know and you know they've got a core focus on connectivity I think in in this case you know if we can get the connectivity in place you don't you know the teachers can can learn with the class so if we can get the connectivity in place you can have a remote person teaching everybody how to use tech and you know and they they use it and learn while you know they're connected remotely so they get first-hand experience of how it works and the teacher in the classroom also learns with the children there's this this this mass like sort of focus for me on people saying how do we train teachers and how do we train teachers we've got to get to every individual teacher there's no reason for me why the teachers can't learn with the classroom and everybody come up together and we lift as we rise but we have to get the connectivity there first but yeah Alex all the best I hope that we can still work together on this device issue fantastic I love to hear collaborations coming up there's another question I think this had been addressed but I'll just read it out anyway can the speakers discuss their thoughts around device access more broadly particularly in places and for those where incomes may only allow one or two individuals in a community to have access to any kind of phone let alone a smartphone the last question was from Gordon Day what national policies and international agreements are needed to accelerate digital access in Africa I think that has also been addressed now I'll just do a round robin you know from all the speakers and and you know Vincent you can come in last but you know what are your thoughts what are your thoughts towards what the future looks like post-COVID some people say we are already in post-COVID but but what is your thought where do you think we are good we are headed towards probably start with Alex hmm okay I was hoping you weren't going to go to me first I think I mean I always and I defer to my colleagues in Africa because I have the luxury of living in Switzerland and you know I grew up in Canada so I I'm going to presume on a very sort of you know narrow focus that I mean we're entering this new world where connectivity has to be you know it's part of how we will conduct our work how we will learn how we will access health services and I I hope what is going to come out of this is that the recognition that this is also where we need this in every country around the world and that this is no longer an option and that there is really a call to action that we really get this done I mean we use the number 428 billion because the ICU did some work with the lines for affordable internet where this number came up I know other reports say that the cost of universal connectivity will range up to two and a half trillion that the McKinley and BCG have done work on that area the World Bank it's somewhere in there it's actually not that much money whether it's 400 billion or 200 two and a half trillion so I I really want and hope that the public sector the international community can come together not just say the private sector has got to figure it out that we really figure out how to do this because in the end it's not a huge number and hopefully the world comes out of this realizing that every single person needs the connectivity thank you thanks Alex over to you Josephine thank you and I think for me is as to realize that I think individuals and communities are ready for connectivity and I just speak this out of my experience I remember around 2018 working with the schools in Kibera through a questionnaire the community network and it was quite a hassle to get by in just from teachers because they were like we already have a lot of work to do learning digital platforms is not what and digitizing this content is not what you would like to add to our plate but now COVID happened and it's actually now the schools are protein the network to request for these classes for teachers and also looking into platforms that will enable deliver platforms and as well as devices that will be able to that will enable them to deliver remote learning so I think for me the key thing is in the post COVID world which you are living in I think people are ready to be connected and to come in and not just as consumers but also creators and so it's important for us to reduce barriers to entry for people to build individual and communities understanding that they are also able to shape not just the interaction to the technology but also the technology itself and so apart from just policies and devices there's also the aspect around mindset mindsets for different individuals and communities that we need to focus on so trying our best to build their confidence and a baseline understanding of technology and how to use it so that as they get to the digital spaces as well they come in as empowered users and creators. Thanks Josephine really appreciate Juanita please. Thanks Ronald I think for me you know sort of closing words would be that I think the train is leaving the station and we've got to get on it so you know we have to move the needle we have to make sure that we do everything in our power to connect our communities we have to strictly start focusing on the digital divide you know so that we don't further marginalise communities by leaving them out of this. The COVID pandemic has just thrown all of us into you know this fourth industrial revolution that you know everybody's starting and I think that we have to as government I still feel like there's not enough focus you know it's almost like it remains the quiet engine of the economy there's not enough focus on having executionable broadband strategies across African governments and you know I think a lot needs to be done the pandemic has come to really wake all of us up it gave us a big shook and I think you know that now is the time that we have to adopt policies create enabling environments remove barriers to entries make it easier for companies to deploy infrastructure find workable PPPs and you know work on just how we can facilitate this. Today we didn't even have a chance to touch on you know the future of work and what that looks like and work from home and demand and I mean this is such a mammoth conversation a digital economy touches on every sector out there it's going to disrupt every sector and you know as the as sort of the the people behind the the digital economy you know the the people that are bringing the the digital economy to Africa we've also got a responsibility to talk to all the sectors that are going to be impacted one of the big conversations that we still have to have is you know the there's probably going to be mass job losses before there's going to be mass adoption of new jobs how do we reskill how do we get our people ready to capitalize on this this digital economy you know while automation comes in and takes away from us so still a lot of conversations ahead and I really hope that you know there's similar future conversations that we can have to keep talking about these important aspects. Thanks a lot for that perspective. Purva and then Vincent will take us home. Thank you Rana. So I would echo all the sentiments that were expressed by the previous speakers but I would just leave on a positive note that I'm optimistic that the things are going to get better and again I'll say this from the perspective from a person living in US we have seen that the connectivity has changed the people's lives in a in a very profound way like talking about working remotely talking about telehealth talking about telemedicine talking about virtual schools talking about offline education all those things are possible only through connectivity and we are seeing that that push is now being made from the consumer side to the to the governmental and the private partnerships and they are very much seeing it that this is what the consumers are seeing so maybe it will take some time but I'll I see I see that maybe in the next few years that the world is going to move towards a trend where in where even connectivity will be considered like a true fourth utility just like people talk about electric city water water the connectivity is going to be a very important requirement for for for every person on this planet thanks for over to you vintage thank you so much Ronald and and and just like pulva I like to echo the sentiments of all of all our panelists today and really perhaps speaking from Kampala Uganda where I've been family grounded for the last 18 months I think in a in a very strange way the COVID-19 pandemic has been the single best thing that has happened to the movement that has been fighting and and shouting about this digital divide it has created a situation and elevated it to a level that we have been struggling to attain for such a long time we have the attention of so many people that we have been trying to get to the table to address this and the last six months I've been part of some conversations that have probably taken me about five years to try and get to I've been according to discussions with the government that you're going to talk about the the the possibility of perhaps assembling low-cost devices in the country the the the the the possibility of setting up some kind of connectivity facility to link up all the schools in the country we now have the attention of the people that we need to actually get the policies in place so now it is upon us all that have been should I say driving this beating the drums to articulate it to the folks that we need to really get this moving we have the attention we have their goodwill and I think we'll be able to achieve quite a lot I can't say post-COVID because I really don't know when that's going to happen but starting now I think we are in a really good place to get some really good work done thank you so much and back to you Ronald thanks thanks a lot Vincent thank you all your speakers it's been fantastic and I'll hand back over to Iyana to wrap it up for us thank you thank you so much Ronald thank you to our incredible panel this conversation has been so rich and so meaningful I I've been nodding vigorously and just really excited about the alignment I'm hearing throughout it's it's also been incredible to get some really timely announcements thank you Alex for sharing the report that's hot off the press and of course some of the insights regarding the working group on affordable devices and more I do hope this sparks some really great collaborations moving forward I know that we had folks joining us from the Africa Council community with a number of folks connected under under one profile so it's it's great that this conversation is going to be reaching those who are doing the work on the ground we are recording this there will be a distribution of this recording broadly again if we didn't get to your questions apologies please feel free to email us to the email address you see on the screen I also do want to invite everyone here warmly to join us for our event found December the second and with that I know we are a bit over time and I thank you for staying with us but I want to wish all of you a good morning good evening and good afternoon thank you again and I hope to see you on our next event take care everyone thank you so much thank you so much guys bye bye thank you bye