 for your permission and here you go okay all right let's get started okay yeah okay let's get started yeah so let's just to introduce ourselves briefly I'm Bill Emmett I'm an editor emeritus at the economist and author and chair of various things including the International Institute for Strategic Studies the Japan Society and others my car and I live in Dublin but also in Oxford I straddle the two cities perhaps partly to do with Brexit I keep my foot in both both camps let me ask Beryl to introduce himself Bill is writing a book called A Tale of Two Cities okay literally I'm in Ottawa Canada the city that never wakes and I was for many years a conciliary with of with Prime Minister Trudeau Pierre Elliott Trudeau did a variety of things from you know the Quebec Canada relationship how you organize a federation uh board affairs defense economic policy exiting controls etc I a background which I try to forget about in merchant banking uh had a consulting firm my clients were the Rand Corporation the Lawrence Devmore National Laboratory various governments and found I'm one of the found one of the founders I'm a serial founder I'm afraid of the North Star Forum which brings together leaders of from political economic and societal sectors Canada Mexico the US the creature of 9 11 how do we build a continental system that's resilient and can make its way in the brave new world now we face that situation again as a result of the coronavirus so the function of our commission is not to create a vaccine and not to deal with the medical issues though it's part of our mandate it's really to deal with the perfect storm we're in which forces us to have in mind all the variety of things that today are are accented and they have to do with the balance between rights and artificial intelligence monitoring and surveillance they have to do with the with these with the social charter uh who deserves what uh why are some people more vulnerable and less able to cope than others it has to do with the health ecosystem it has to do with the geopolitical stresses and where they might lead so that is why we've put together a we don't want to say a dream team but really a group uh able to work together of people who are thoughtful experienced wise and properly diverse because we need the different perspectives and experiences to be brought to bear so it's a global commission in the different senses of global uh yesterday we were joined in the commission and I hope you too will be a colleague as Steven Chu for example uh the name probably rings a bell uh Nobel laureate in physics uh was secretary of energy and that's interesting because one of the things we'll have to think about is should the public have confidence in science and modeling and they're a true secretary of energy and we'll need to think about the application of this set of issues to climate change so our challenge is to be broad enough and yet focused enough to animate enable a global informed discussion and ideally decision making and to add I mean if I may chip in I mean to add to barrel's excellent description really each through each of us individually could have simply written sat down and written our essays on these issues and you know produced books or whatever to share ideas with an ungrateful world but we felt that actually a more constructive and potentially influential method was as barrel says to put together actually a wide range of interdisciplinary highly talented skill sets from really the range of countries and generations too in the world who are going to be affected by this and put the minds together and then produce synthesis and conclusions and communication out of what they think and what they how they interact with one another we felt that was a more exciting way to do things but also a way that was likely to have weight authority and influence in global discussion and we do very much think it's very important to have high level representatives who a have a great knowledge of the digital world we who are a bit younger than barrel and myself and see to include very much Taiwan because we think that you have been absolutely a pioneer and an important exemplar of reaction to and handling of the pandemic but also I think in political social and economic senses there's a lot to learn as well from your experience and your perspectives hence our thought of talking to you and hoping to attract you to come and join our our group okay where do I sign in a personal capacity okay where do I sign well you sign absolutely digitally now okay okay like air sign or whatever right and street elections for your phd I see I see okay yeah I have a couple questions so what's the output of this commission I mean are we commissioned to do what exactly is this ongoing saying or does it to spawn when we produce our first annual white paper or something may I may I have a quick go of course daily for well over a decade as editor of the economists but we're not editorial writers we're not writing leading articles but we propose to have a variety of products Ted talks for example a report possibly delivered at Davos because we are funded back by Swiss Ray whose motto whose tagline is we work to build a resilient world that's exactly what we want to do help to build a resilient world so there would be a coming out at Davos there will be webinars there will be old-fashioned publications reports and we will pay a lot of attention you'll forgive me for saying this to the web and then we will have essays conversations webinars will need to think through actually together with members of the commission what our product line and the timelines should be so leaving it to bill I think the idea is that we would share with each commissioner with you a set of questions draft questions here are the 18 questions whatever the number is we've drafted are they the right questions are we missing anything and to have a discussion with each commissioner in the way we're talking now but looking at these questions from a socio-economic perspective a socio-political perspective the social contract for example and the and the geo-strategic dimension looking at those questions then we'll have that conversation with each of the commissioners and then have over at least two days because of all the time zones involved a collective discussion with all the commissioners when we will work out what do we think are the appropriate product lines over which time period we see this commission working for at least a year probably more ideally the problems will have been resolved and gone away but if they haven't we'll remain in business and we'll do by doing it's not a very precise answer but as Aristotle observed it's a sign of lack of civilization to demand more precision from a subject that is capable of generating right philosophy is not mathematics so we're a work in progress and and the commissioners will themselves help form what the timeline and product line should be but it will be in many respects digital okay so including the 48 hour discussion marathon saying which I hope we can choose to sleep between those 48 hours sure well maybe I was we were thinking Bill is this not right of one session of three hours or four hours something like that followed the next day given we can't have a full day because of all the time a lot of time zones we have to respect the fact that everybody on the commission is a busy person and they can't be overly burdened so we'll have something staged over several days to take into account people's own private work plan but also the time zones so that will be the first meeting of the group and participate in about a month yeah absolutely and I would agree absolutely with Beryl that this is a this is a flow not a stock we're not aiming to produce a 400 page report to sit on people's shelves to carry dust we think most importantly that we don't know how long the pandemic and its consequences are going to last so we don't know really what we're in the midst of and it'll be an iterative process to produce then a series of outputs which may well be a mixture also of outputs some of which come from the whole of the commission and others of which particular members feel more comfortable in being involved with than others so that it has to it's not meant to be a sort of lowest common denominator where every all 25 people are so have to have to be involved in everything but that is also what we part of the conversation okay yeah okay okay I see that the other question is that so as I I'm just checking my understanding as we contribute into this shared product of the commission so the commission will have its kind of position statements on things or a as you said something like a rough consensus like a committee's take you know the the way forward or backward as it may be and so on but what about kind of the values or the kind of founding values of the commission how do you choose aside from global diversity which I heard about that the kind of people who went into this commission the well thoughtful people wise acknowledged as legitimate appreciated in their own societies they're not so much representatives individuals how do you choose them well you know it's life it's so for example I'm one of my daughters is a molecular biologist she in fact chaired a meeting in Taiwan biologists a few years ago I'm still looking forward to my first visit to Taiwan and one of the world's great museums as she told me about it but she was the one who said and there's this strange guy who is a professor of physics and also a professor of molecular and cellular physiology she is a molecular biologist his name is Stephen true he's a great guy call him so we did how did that happen it's it's uh the lord works in mysterious ways um she really does okay so one of the people who would be a colleague talking to now is Amal al Qubaisi she was the speaker of the UAE parliament the only woman to have such a role anywhere in the Arab Muslim world so it's it's but you need these perspectives given the range of issues we're going to have to deal with so uh we have got a playbook that's set out of values which each member of the commission needs to tick off but by the process of selecting and inviting people and they're accepting it emerges as non-problematic we want to build a resilient world we're focused on questions more than answers at this stage okay so what I hear is that for example Amal al Qubaisi would not be billed as representing the Emirati uh or like that or aura Arabs right this is not a kind of multilateral ish sounding it's not ordinary it is exactly not that it's not institutional it's not partisan we are a group of individuals thinking together to build to enable a more resilient world face challenges okay that that's all I need to know I'm I'm getting I mean I think that the sort of you know there's a base assumption that uh that we all have a world view that we have a basic a basic assumption that um issues a global rather than national um or global as well as national and that um forms of global collaboration mm-hmm tell tell so I'm delighted to welcome you aboard right bill yeah to welcome you aboard yeah I just said on the record that I'm game so happy to be part of this um whatever you call it commission of individuals sounds like a arc tomorrow but okay but then uh of course I understand that there's no physical travel uh required in the first year uh and all that's required is uh digital participation on selected hours during a 48 hour period uh and that uh there will be uh no monetary compensation of any kind uh or or with there could be a modest honorarium for there could be a modest honorarium uh for those able to accept it what I say modest we were talking 10 000 euros something like that mm-hmm all right do we have to fix this if we have got to that kind of granular detail not everybody would be comfortable with the honorarium yeah I'm I'm happy uh to to uh say that I'm able to receive honorarium in exchange for my um kind of speaking hours uh as long as we do not make it's like a regular job uh then as a public servant I can accept honorarium but if it's um a kind of permanent like if I have to meet um every week uh or every uh other week or so that it becomes a kind of regular side job uh in which case I cannot accept honorarium and then I will also have to get a premier's approval uh as I did serving on the board of other international NGOs so Audrey Audrey that's why we're calling it an honorario rather than anything else it is not a stipend it's not a fee it's not a it's it's it's an honorarium and we can't put a monetary value on the contribution of uh that's why we call it an honorarium it will be modest and in recognition of uh the the effort people are putting in and the inestimable value they represent all of that if we have found that in our conversations that people haven't asked for anything they are wanting to take part yeah same here I mean I'm happy to take part pro bono I'm just saying that if this is anything that's kind of not a de facto honorarium then I will have to tell you that I cannot take it exactly perfect that's not that's not in question anyway so uh your ministerial responsibilities when you say your title is minister of digital minister sorry my title is digital minister yeah or a default title is digital minister in charge of social innovation open government and youth engagement all right engagement also yeah yeah very good and fine well excellent well we will welcome you as part as a member we're delighted we will share with you the full list of all members once we have formed the commission we're not exactly sure how big we're going to go because we need to get the diversity but at least in between 25 and 30 people and we're 20 now yourself so um so we will be quite we will quite soon complete the group and then we will also circulate the preliminary list of questions that feral mentioned that will be the the ingredient for a first three-way again three-way conversation which we'll have with each commissioner in order to get a sort of first clearing of minds clearing of thoughts um on what the parameters are that we need to think about um and then we'll take it from there and obviously shape the project steadily as we go well Audrey this is I for me this is an excellent way to start the day mm-hmm by gaining burning a new friend and member of the family great mm-hmm thank you and anything after this so this is the greatest way for me to close the business day I'm sure and yeah I wish you a local time that is as good as it can be in nowadays but good local time and really looking forward to continue conversation and if there are any kind of legal documents or any contracts as part of this commission please send it my way and I'll have it checked by our cabinet office okay right yeah we're we're going to be formality light yes we are we don't want to get in get the burdensome to anyone Bill if I may we will be legally organized as a not-for-profit yet based in Zurich Switzerland under swiss law mm-hmm okay you can't be more non-partisan than that I don't know what about mars okay exactly but um so we'll do that and what is the best way Audrey to communicate with you is it through Zach mm-hmm you can email me directly uh and actually I think I I share my email to you but if I am to join as an individual capacity I'm sharing with you both my work email and my personal email they are very very similar to one another easy to remember to and so that's that's my contact and if this is a not-for-profit in Switzerland I believe our um legal status uh with Switzerland allows me to serve as a member of a not-for-profit there but I still have to get a cabinet office uh review so the sooner we can get a legal document the better okay very good fully under Audrey might you have a phone number as well I'm sorry I know this is very old-fashioned but do you have a phone a mobile number okay um yeah I I do not uh have a mobile number that actually rings uh it calls out but it doesn't reach me uh but if you uh need a number of course I have this number but uh it could be used for example on instant messaging or whatever um but FaceTime one yeah or things like that yes but right right but but it's um like if you call this number uh I'll probably not be aware of it yeah okay that we we you know but we can send a message to you uh at all hours but but but I'm on Skype so uh it's actually easier if you find me on Skype right okay so we send you a message through Skype very good that's right that's right okay perfect brilliant well have a great evening mm-hmm a great local time we look forward to uh to uh carrying on this conversation and thank you for the live ball prosper okay okay ciao ciao ciao thank you