 Welcome to JSATV Europe, together with the Greener Data Movement for this quarter's JSALive event focused on closing the digital divide with digital infrastructure deployment. I'm Jean-Marie Lim and joining me today is Stella Carangua, co-founder of Jumbo Tech and a member of the Infrastructure, Masons Education Committee and Upper Secondary Skills Subcommittee. Stella, it's a pleasure speaking to you. It's been a long time, especially with COVID in the middle, so it's good to catch up finally. Yes, indeed. Thank you to have me as a guest and really happy to be here. No, I appreciate you being here. I think the work that you do, I think it's quite fascinating because you work with quite a wide range of very critical topics, one of them being of course the digital divides that we're going to be discussing, especially within the French-speaking countries, which is quite a nice twist as well to the conversations that we have in this sector because it's usually focused on a country or a region per se. So with that said, let's just jump right in. So how would you characterize or describe the digital divide within the French-speaking world? I would say the digital divide within the French-speaking world is very high. I think the history of French-speaking countries, it depends on regions. Mainly it's maybe some part of Canada, France, Switzerland and Belgium, but then most of it is in Africa where, let's say, privilege is quite low and access to education is quite very difficult. So the digital divide is very big on the economical side but also on the gender side because less women tend to have less access and a lot of people. And I guess adding to that as well, the economic barriers that some of the countries face, they don't help to closing this gap. Exactly. It doesn't help for sure, but I think what's different in those regions for me I come from a region that is quite multilingual, I'm Rondis, but coming in France, I grew up in Belgium, I discovered more Western Africa and I can see it's a bit like France, it's a small world, less on the, not everyone, but it's more like in the French-speaking world, French-speaking Africa or French-speaking international French-speaking. So it can be hard to get out from it and maybe get new ideas, but at the same time you have people who are very motivated to change the status quo and then you have really interesting ideas, I think, because many want to be more external and international and for that you need to speak also other languages. That was actually going to be my next point before we jump into this infrastructure side of the topic is the language barriers. I mean coming for example from the Portuguese-speaking world, we do know there's a big constraint around speaking for example English and pretty much everything is done in English. So is that a barrier to the digital divide as well within the French-speaking countries? To me yes, maybe some would say the contrary to me completely because when I see how I got to get in the digital infrastructure industry it wasn't very easy, but the fact that I was speaking English to get access to information and get more people interested in it so I could get information, it was more easy. When you speak French you stay a bit in your world and then if you don't have someone around who speaks digital infrastructure then you stay in your own world. And yeah, it's for me a big barrier and also to get a job. For example, I am quite keen of the center industry and I get people to be interested in but when they get to the fact that you have to speak English most of the time from technician to accountant to anyone that works lots, you need to speak English and it's a barrier for them and I think it's very sad and we need to do something around there in the industry to really bridge that gap because it's economical and it adds an economical restraint to plus time, plus investment, etc. It's an important point. Any hinders business as well, but I remember the old days, I mean eight years ago going to places like France or Luxembourg, Belgium and you will visit the data center and no one will speak English but they had a good business but the sector became so international that I think nowadays people don't speak English, it's very hard to be part of it and I don't know if that's good, if that's bad but again like you said probably we need new avenues to allow other people to come in as well and not exclude them just based on language skills. So speaking up on data centers and digital infrastructure assets in a wider scale how can that kind of help leverage the digital divides and going back into the French speaking world into the country that need most infrastructure at the moment? I think what it can do first of all for me it's maybe a bit straightforward as much as simple action for me. Action for me is more go also simple so people get in without having it too complicated you know explain it easily with simple word in the language that's why for example I use English because I still think that we need to be international but I use French also because I want to make sure French speaking it's not their fault if they don't speak English or any other language but if we don't action it and if we don't put it out there they won't start themselves to do something if they are a bit interested and I don't know who but there are people out there and I'm sure the way I got to enjoy this industry and the way I can see possibilities for myself or I mean you too I mean how can this be close to anyone whether you speak French, English, Portuguese or any other language and to be honest we cannot afford it to be closed because we don't have enough people to even work in it so if you close it and you make it hard then I mean it's gonna be hard to get out of that loop as well so I think language definitely needs a bit more attention I mean we're all guilty of it because we're speaking in English in this interview in English for example and we're both in Paris and all our websites, everything runs in English as well so we're all guilty of it and maybe it's something that we need to address more closely as a collective as well and sooner rather than later but then I was just gonna ask as well so what would you say are some of the strategies for measuring defectiveness of digital infrastructure initiatives in terms of reducing the digital divide and addressing the economic barriers that we've spoken so all beyond the language barriers I'd say the measures I do take account I would say I basically we did a lot of research I'll respond it this way we did a lot of research we've checked the measurables and the gender fact let's say sorry for all the Franklish here the gender and I don't know there's so many actually there is 27 discrimination and I went in to dig it up and try and understand all those differences the mechanism to get it out how states put it out and to be honest I even did a burnout from it it was so much information but at the end of the day it's a bit the storytelling I heard about around me because through that all my life or the people around me I have so many people who are different whether it's economical or where they are born or their gender or their orientation whether it's political I don't know I don't care to be honest but it's the fact that what brought the problems all the problems back together was access to information access to education not especially big schools or anything just simple education about digital infrastructure what is it, what is it how do we get the internet all this for me was more the catalyzer of how can we meet everyone because most of the people around the larger public has no idea about all those measurables it's not that they don't care they don't maybe have time they don't know so what can bring us together education, information because it's lacking if it's you and me get in I come from a family who is educated when I go to work the people who are not educated they don't go to my studies because they think it's not for them how can you break this because we can do research but when it comes to go to the large public will you talk about research measurables no so let's go to the public let's go ask them let's go see why those measurables happen actually why does it happen and let those people explain us why and then we'll be able to go to them and for me Jambotec the way it function we try to listen and also because we represent them I don't know if it's a good response but it is because I think sometimes we get so embroiled in these discussions and we very quickly go into the technical side of things and the digital inclusion of technical and engineering and we forget that it does need to come back to the basic sometimes which is how do you work a computer how do you keep your computer safe how do you keep your data safe so those basic digital education needs and I think what you said I mean education information is power anyone that has information and factual information is a very important side of also educating in the digital world is being able to understand what's real what's not I think it's two very good points and I mean you already kind of mentioned also Jambotec I was going to ask first for you to tell us a little bit more about what does Jambotec do I know you also launching a podcast soon so or you already launched it it's fine soon coming it gives a bit of an idea of what you guys do as an organization and then also how does it translate then into helping these digital device and educating more people towards the digital world actually it started with the podcast Jambotec center podcast and launching it it's fine because I mean it's not not yet and it's totally fine and I think anyway our aim for so people know our aim even if we don't get like very known if it's just one person if it gets to one person for me we won already but it started with that sentence basically and what I said before how can we get to the people to know that they can actually have a better job have a better pay and this is not complicated everyone can get to it see what is the digital infrastructure is basically you can go to zero one electricity anyway but simple stuff to explain what it is because if if you see for example Africa or getting in France I saw that access to education like school is way harder than in Belgium and I'm like so for sure you can be privileged and I'm privileged how can we find a solution where everyone can get in whether you studied whether you didn't study whether you're a woman whether you're big whether anything but as long as you're interested in something or you want to dare something you didn't do before because you're lost somewhere you want to succeed in something you don't know and it's also not only about digital infrastructure you want to understand so science technology engineering but also arts mathematics we want to make sure like everyone gets an idea of everything because the the digital infrastructure is big and we need all the sectors that get that get in and to also prove that anyone has is place in it whether you like languages whether you like numbers whether you like cleaning organizing it's fine but don't think like you're gonna go do mathematics big mathematics come and learn about project management for example financial management gain something and you'll see what you'll do with that and when you learn this you can teach it to someone else that's what we got because I was Belgian already I don't know because they study a lot to be honest that's true so maybe it's like also having different kind of people doing it because we only see mainly people who look like you Joao I mean not exactly I think you're already part of diversity not because it's bad I don't think you chose it but the society is like this so it's also bringing people who usually don't think they have their position there and put them out there and have some kind of friendship and collaboration with public partners private partners members but turned around members and who can also be role models for all those disciplines it's quite clear but we try to be 2023 it's about social media it's about doing music or going in a concert instead of doing going in a place where there's only business about data centers or you know because that doesn't appeal a guy who's 23 and looking for something he want to do because it samples all that combine and go out there and members going explain themselves their passion you know and I think that's can be more appealing than the usual talks we have which is interesting to me but not to my sister who's Jambotec to be honest sometimes it's just coming down out of our own pedestal and try to explain things in a slightly different way you're talking about skills the amount of people that have skills that can be so easily transferable into things that the industry needs or even people in the industry can go to I've got a lot of friends that are now in the phase where they're trying to change industries they're just realizing how transferable their skills are there's of course an education process to go through to learn about a whole new industry when you land into it but the core skills a lot of people already have them and it's not that scary I was going to ask is we will have to cut short soon as well I was going to ask are you positive on how things are going industry wise in terms of bringing more people in closing the digital divide are you positive on how things are going or you think we are talking a lot and not doing much I think no I'm positive I'm just positive because people are doing much and I don't like the word negative so I would say we could improve on how we approach people I'm not saying our way is the better but we need to diversify because anyway the new generation I'm only 35 I feel outdated already because it's going fast we have people who are 10 years younger who were born in the internet I was not they go faster and they understand way faster than me they think differently they just see the world differently also I mean it's not a cliché and I don't want to to put people in a box it's just this is what we have now so let's continue but let's diverse a bit and collaborate also what are we saying we want diversity so let's collaborate differently also so we can also bring different stuff I think collaboration is very very key especially when we want to bring other languages into it a lot of collaboration is going to have to happen but Stella, merci pour parler avec moi I hope that was okay it was perfect as for you I hope you enjoyed the video don't forget to check our social channels until next time happy networking thank you