 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here a little bit later in the day, after a very busy day here at the World Economic Forum on Latin America in Sao Paulo. I remind you that the topic, the theme of this year's meeting is Latin America at a turning point shaping the new narrative and in this context we're going to talk about a topic which is a very important topic and not only in Brazil, in Latin America, but all over the world and it's a topic where the World Economic Forum is active for quite a while which is corruption. This press conference is talking specifically about building trust and transparency through technology. How can technology help to overcome such problems? We have a distinguished panel with us today who will talk about the topic and explain a little bit what the World Economic Forum is trying to do in that space. We have Olivier Schwab who's managing director and head of business engagement of the World Economic Forum. Then next to him we have Luis Alberto Moreno who's the president of the Inter-American Development Bank. We have also with us Delia Ferreira Rubio who's the chair of Transparency International and last but not least we have Jennifer Smith head of government affairs Latin America at City. So I would like to ask first Olivier as the one representing the World Economic Forum to let us know a little bit what the forum is doing in general and what this specific initiative is about and then I will hand over to the other panelists and at the end we have a little bit of time for some questions. Olivier. Thank you so maybe just provide a little bit of background so Pachi the partnership against corruption initiative is an activity that the forum's been driving now for 14 years and it's the biggest CEO led initiative of this kind right basically CEOs of our partner companies coming together and saying okay you know how can we address some of these issues around corruption and what we've realized over the years is that you know we need a different approach to tackle some of these issues and technology can help us. A couple of years ago we received the mandate from our CEO community to launch the Future of Trust and Integrity project which is basically a platform to tackle corruption around along three dimensions. The first one is behavioral so it's creating a space for dialogue for sharing best practices for sharing information between the private and public sector. The second one is sort of an institutional dimension where it's around the where we work with the again with the public and private sector around you know how do we disseminate policies that can that can help address the issue and then the third one indeed is technological right so what kind of technologies are out there that can actually actually help us and so with this in mind we're very excited to launch the Tech for Integrity platform which is our web presence and developed together with our partners where we're basically taking some of these elements online in a number of different ways. The first one is the platform has an open space we call the synergy lab and that's where companies and governments can go and when they have specific concerns specific issues around transparency around you know open bidding processes they can find solution providers be it's technology providers you know think tanks or others and I think you will you will talk about that in a moment. There's also a knowledge accelerator we call it which is basically a repository of best practices on this platform where our partners can exchange information so it ties to it's basically the digital manifestation of the of the future of trust and integrity project right and the third component ties to what I said before around working with international organization working with the the public sector to look at what kind of policies can be can be disseminated right so the outcome that we expect is you know building cooperation and changing mindsets and we do that through a series of workshops catalyzing technology solutions so this is a sort of a first step in that it's it's a new solution that we're putting out there making available sharing data and then continuing to work through our dialogue series with with the public and private sector to address the issue going forward. Thank you very much Olivier. Mr Moreno. Well thank you very much and it's a pleasure here to be with the with Olivier and of course with the Dalia Jennifer. Let me say at the outset that in today's Latin America and speaking of this new narrative that Olivier was describing there is no more important issue than the regaining of confidence and hand-to-hand with that is the belief in institutions and what that means in terms of transparency and anti-corruption and of course in this country we've seen the whole question of the reality is anywhere you go around Latin America 62% of the population of Latin America believes that the situation of corruption has worsened and as Olivier was mentioning you know we've been a part of being together in the efforts of Pachi but we're very much excited to be part of this platform because I think it builds on you know a lot of the things that actually the private sector and here that there is a critical piece of what you need in terms of the private sector we have as you all know a number of elections happening really this year and last year large turnovers of governments in Latin America this is equally a big issue in the upcoming summit of the Americas it will also be an issue in the G20 so this is a conversation that every day is gaining a traction and on the other hand the bigger question is what do we do and how do we connect to this integrity platform so just let me give a couple of examples of the kinds of things that we believe can fit into this and the way that we think at the IDB that we can help cooperate clearly there's different types and Delia I've learned a lot from her she is part of a group that has been advising us at the IDB and she has a number of very concrete steps that need to be taken but one needs to separate the types of corruption and clearly there is a nexus as we have seen between corruption of high-scale this call it construction or government procurement type projects and political finance of campaigns and this this nexus is one that needs to be broken and as we have seen in just about every country you always find the two together and so there is the type of of let's call it big type corruption where there is a burdens not only on government and government officials but equally on the private sector and then there are things that governments can do to break other types of corruption which are let's call it the smaller types of corruption if you want which are things related to red tape that needs to be cut and you know governments being more efficient a lot of what the form has been doing around the fourth industrial revolution I mean clearly this is the one area that Latin America needs to get on and you know the more that you digitize governments the more that you have open data systems uses of big data integration across different parts of the government where you can begin to integrate better these are all ways through which you begin to to reduce corruption that can happen through a red tape you know for instance in Uruguay we have been helping the government Uruguay which is close to putting a hundred percent of their transactions online or in Panama which is embarking on a program to have 450 services of the government online or in Argentina we are moving to which is moving in a very fast way to have a paperless government these kinds of things go a very long way for instance electronic invoicing the signatures you know we know we love Latin America we love stamps and signatures they can be today digital so that's a big part of it how do we leverage big data something that Olivier was was mentioning you know what we know that if anything the the fourth industrial revolution is producing massive amounts of data so how do we make that data more transparent and accountable for instance in Brazil there is the public expenditure observatory which uses data analytics to be able to establish fraud and procurement in 2015 alone they were able to scrutinize close to hundred and twenty thousand contracts and they found cases about seven thousand which were they were then able to begin to prosecute I'm giving these examples because these are exactly the things that I think a platform like this one can do we have several open data projects we're working in an anti-corruption package in this sense in Mexico local initiatives with local governments in Argentina and training officials on big data analytics in the case of Costa Rica just to give you an example the other area is visualization platforms for instance in Colombia we worked with a geo-referencing system that we call Mapa Regalías and any citizen in the most remote area of Colombia can see how royalties that are related to mineral production or oil production are tracked and you can see how those monies are being invested again we need an empowered citizen because it is not about the governments only it is not about the business community but equally a more empowered citizen that can begin to demand and that is demanding transparency and finally there's a lot of uses to blockchain especially on government procurement contracts and here there's a lot of developments that have been happening there's a lot of startups and ideas that are going there and finally the on customs which is another big area of corruption we have been working with the MIT Media Lab to use blockchain to not only identify but to also track cargo shipments these are just some of the ideas we want to work in this process be very close to this integrity platform launch show some of the good experiences that we have developed at the IDB and sorry for taking a little bit too much time but I have to tell my boss here Delia who's pushing us in this kind of direction the kinds of things that we have been doing thank you very much thank you very much I will invite you to go to the platform really it's a very useful thing congratulations to the team of the World Economic Forum and I think technology of course offers great opportunities in the fight against corruption for instance in access to information e-procurement as you have mentioned our customs the possibility to share information among those agencies that are investigating corruption in many countries that sharing of information is key is crucial not only at the local and national level but in the international level and exchanging of information also this kind of technologies offers the possibility to better design public policies based on data analysis big data analysis and really evidence in order to design the poll the adequate policies and it offers the possibility to track some kind of patterns of corruption and fraud in order to to flag situations that need investigation or some kind of research on the part of politics political servants or public servants nevertheless I think that when talking about technology we have to be careful because as a tool and technology is a tool it has been adopted and adopted according to the objective we are trying to find sometimes in this new discourse of technology in terms of fighting corruption there is the idea that some technologies in particular like blockchain will solve all the problems that has to do with corruption and that's not true really there are some tools that are very useful and there are some others that are not useful in terms of fighting corruption for instance blockchain is wonderful if you are going to to use them for land registers for instance and you if we had had blockchain we could have avoid huge frauds particularly in Argentina in the province of Cordova people were really stolen the property because we have a corrupt register land register so in that sense blockchain is wonderful but do you think blockchain can help in stopping nepotism, clientelism, money laundering probably not and probably some of these technologies will create and have already created some space for opacity secrecy which is necessary for corrupt deals to to be successful let's say so we have to to take into account the possibilities but also the risks and particularly we were talking with iron in the previous moment and we have to be aware of artificial intelligence and algorithms because we are going to face something that I call Algo Crassie which is the government run by algorithms many of our decisions what we read what credit do we access or what kind of jobs do we access are the decided through very neutral and not biased algorithms we should start asking information about who designed the algorithms who deploy the algorithms who use the algorithms because artificial intelligence is supposed to replace the so wrong way of deciding that human has because we human beings are biased but my question is who designed algorithms humans so at the very bottom of this problem it's humans beings and its values and its ethics as professor Schwarz mentioned in his book values are at the basic discussion here so we have to take care about that and if you look at what the Harvard University has decided for this term in order to incorporate ethic issues in the formation in the studies of technicians you are facing the real problem we have to deal with these kind of very useful tools which technologies offers us in terms of fighting corruption thank you very much yeah Jennifer you I know that city was very active in contributing to this platform so can you give us the perspective from the private sector absolutely and thank you so much it's a pleasure and honor to be here and sitting amongst allies and our collective efforts to to promote transparency and integrity I thought I would spend a few minutes talking about where we have come from and where we are now and where we see it going and the role the private sector can play for over 200 years city's guiding strategy has been to finance progress and we recognize that the harsh reality is the corruption inhibits progress for all costing I think 5% of GDP four trillion dollars and as a global bank as we talked to global and political leaders we saw this search for a new paradigm intensifying among leaders and we were brainstorming how to help advance the sustainable development goals and in particular 16.5 and we also saw that there were some technological breakthroughs and building blocks that could be used to to promote transparency and to create solutions that many of our innovative clients would embrace and while I agree it's it's not the only solution is certainly a powerful one and that city we had already built a platform leveraging our technology and our capabilities we had run five open innovation challenges and we had created an ecosystem of over 7000 tech innovators and incubators around the world and so when we combined our desire to advance the SDGs with our core core capabilities within city city ventures city FinTech and our innovation labs tech for integrity was born and so we embarked on and launched a global public-private partnership and an open innovation challenge to identify or crowdsource these solutions that could help advance transparency globally we were joined by our strategic allies with Mastercard Microsoft IBM Facebook Clifford Chance let's talk payments and PwC to launch T for I and we were joined by over 80 other governments NGOs and multilaterals like the Inter American Development Bank who were instrumental in the success of the challenge the initiative sparked the interest of over a thousand individuals startups and established tech companies who submitted solutions to over 70 pain points that we sourced globally in many of the areas that President Moreno mentioned from red tape to efficiencies to government procurement and payments and these payment these these these pain points were published to this innovative community and solutions were developed from the 1000 we selected over 213 innovators to go through a robust six-week virtual accelerator platform where we provided the participants access to mentoring subject matter experts across a variety of disciplines webinars boot camp sessions and access to developer tools and API's that they wouldn't normally have access to and through that we ultimately selected 96 finalists who presented their solutions at six demo days around the world including two cities in Latin America Buenos Aires and Mexico City and ultimately we saw the application of advanced technologies from artificial intelligence and blockchain to big data and analytics and biometrics using those and combining many of those to create very interesting and compelling solutions and I'll give you a couple of examples and Ukraine prosoro created an electronic auction system that sells state property the system was handled transactions over a hundred million dollars boosting transparency and accountability and also helping the country with much-needed revenue raising in Argentina Teneres is helping to ensure integrity in the public tenders and contracts process it's a blockchain based system used by private companies and public institutions and it's being leveraged right now by one of Argentina's largest banks as well as a large commodities exchange and then in Lebanon aid tech is a blockchain based system that is delivering aid swiftly and securely to Syrian refugees and through their platform which is an electronic cards based system instead of a manual sort of paper voucher we're ensuring that the aid is actually getting to the recipient who needs it the most so what's remarkable about tech for integrity is the ecosystem of stakeholders that were created and how they were able to connect in ways that they never had before from governments to large companies startups financial institutions nonprofits and multilaterals we broke down the barriers between those communities and we created a channel for innovation to flourish and we proved that the model is replicable and it's highly effective and it can be used for other other types of challenges and this is what's really lasting about it and that's why we're so proud of where we are today and the fact that we're sitting on the stage and Pachi is taking the initiative forward because when you think about the very nature of corruption it spans sectors it spans industries it crosses borders and a robust coordination among these actors is necessary in order to really be effective because individually we only see one very narrow slice of the pie or one link in the chain and together we have greater access and data can help us help us get there so in terms of what's next as was mentioned by by my panelists here Pachi is going to take forward the platform to keep it alive to keep it updated to bring new companies and partners to the table so that we can share solutions and really figure out how to implement the ones that are are being affected or piloted in different respects Pachi is a perfect partner to take this forward obviously as was mentioned a pioneer since 2004 and anti-corruption efforts really driving policy changes shaping outcomes global and local levels and the fact that it's a permanent initiative of the weft having both resources and funding to scale the initiative is going to be important and they also have the convening power and the membership that's necessary for this ecosystem to thrive and many of the allies in tech for integrity are members of Pachi and I think it's a great synergy as we move forward I'd say that the role of the private sector is as important now as as ever many of the solutions that came out of of the challenge are powerful ideas that can really re-engineer how business is conducted and how governments operate but they have to be tested they have to be adapted they have to be integrated and that will require the help and support of the private sector and and many of the solutions will also have to be on boarded by governments to fully be integrated and governments alone can't design these systems and the private sector and the allies here on the stage are willing to put forward their support to build this capacity at city specifically our innovation lab in Dublin is looking at over 30 of the of the 96 solutions that are related to the financial industry from identity to help with anti-money laundering capabilities and payment streams and we are looking at how we can integrate those into our core platforms and then ultimately offer them to our clients and the work is exciting and it's promising and when we see the progress thank you very much Jennifer I think we have a little bit of time for for questions if there are any questions from the floor can you please introduce yourself hi I'm Guilherme from IT media here in Brazil my questions for Mr. Schwab could you please explain a little bit more about the platform like who can use it is any type of companies is open for government or actually is it an open platform can you please give me more details on this sure so I think actually Jennifer knows more about the the technology than I do but there there's an open part to it where you know governments businesses can go and select and I think we can share the link absolutely the link is out actually and they can select one of the pain points that that Jennifer alluded to and you know be and select the region where they want to operate be it Latin America Asia other regions and then the platform will connect them or will provide them with a number of suppliers of technology that address that specific that specific pain point right so that's one part of the platform then there's a part which is more close to our partners and members where you know we have we we basically use it as the ongoing discussions which we also have in the in the physical space around sharing of best practices around you know dialogue basically the you know the outcomes of of of the discussions around the around the project so that's sort of two components of the platform and for your information we have sent out right now a press release where all this is explained and the link to the platform is there it's the platform is public so you can find all the information and then you can test it out and look how it functions I think we have we went around the topic for tonight I would like to thank all the panelists for sharing the experience and their opinions and and views on this important topic for the region thank you for our audience and you can share and see and watch again this on our webcast thank you very much thank you